Sara Donati by The Endless Forest

Author:The Endless Forest [Forest, The Endless]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780440339021
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-23T23:00:00+00:00

37

Ethan and Callie ate breakfast together at nine in the hotel dining room. She studied the food on her plate as though it were a painting, and picked up her fork with reluctance. She had done her best with soap and water, but her scrubbed hands and face only made the traveling dress she had worn yesterday look worse.

He had hoped that she would be rested enough to talk about what was before them, but now Ethan doubted it could be done. He was wondering how best to proceed when she looked up at him.

“About the boy she named for my father,” she said. “He could be anyone, an orphan she picked up off the street.”

“True.”

“I don’t believe he’s my brother. I think it’s one of her tricks.”

“You may be right,” Ethan said.

“That’s her plan,” Callie said firmly. “If she can’t get everything, she’ll get at least half, through the boy.”

“And the good news about that,” Ethan said, “is the nature of the law. They can file a claim on the estate, but that’s the kind of thing that can take years to make its way through the court system.”

Callie snorted softly. “And in the meantime she’ll be sitting there like a spider, just waiting. I don’t know why I agreed to this plan; she will have her way in the end and there’s nothing you can do to stop her.”

Her tone was so bitter and fraught that at first Ethan couldn’t think how to reply. She was prickly and always had been, but her temper was always countered by a sense of humor and love of the absurd. Now she seemed to be on the verge of something much darker.

Maybe, Ethan reminded himself, because she had no illusions about Jemima. Jemima knew no bounds and accepted no limits. And of course the boy might be who she said he was. Callie’s half brother. Her only blood kin in the world.

He said, “If he is your brother, he’s your last tie to your father.”

Her expression softened. He had said aloud the thing she wouldn’t allow herself to hope for.

“If he is,” she said. “If he is my half brother, I don’t want her to have the raising of him.”

Ethan studied the pattern of bluebells on his plate and tried to think of a way to tell her the truth. No court of law would take a son away from a mother to be raised by an underage sister.

She said, “If I were married, it would be easier to make the case, wouldn’t it?”

“It would make many things easier,” Ethan said. “But not everything.”

She went away into her thoughts, her gaze fixed on a point somewhere behind him. Finally she raised her gaze to his.

“When would we go to see Mr. Cady?”

“In the afternoon,” Ethan said. “If that suits you.”

In the long silence that followed he was almost sure she had decided against the whole plan.

“And what do we do in the meantime?”

“Shopping,” Ethan said. “We go shopping.”

She started to object, and then stopped herself.

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