He gave an abrupt nod before striding across the kitchen. He paused in front of River, taking in each bruised feature, before leaving the kitchen after Danny had moved out of the doorway.
“Sis?” River prompted.
She smiled, but the hot tears swimming in her eyes prevented her from seeing him clearly. “You called him Da.”
He gave a dazed shake of his head. “I did. But I have no idea why I did.”
“Children in Irish families often call their father that.”
“But—” He broke off as Declan came back into the kitchen, a pile of framed photographs held tightly in hands that were visibly shaking.
“Thank you.” Fawn gently released the photographs from the tightness of Declan’s grip.
A single glance at the top photograph, of a dark-haired Declan and a golden-haired little boy lying on the floor together, playing with a train set, was enough to cause all the blood to drain to from Fawn’s head and drop to her toes.
She would have collapsed completely onto the tile floor if Danny hadn’t crossed the kitchen in two strides to reach out to grip her firmly beneath both elbows and stop her from falling.
“Okay?” he prompted gently.
Fawn didn’t know what she was. But at least her hands had tightened around the photographs rather than let go of them.
Because that top photograph was very obviously one of Declan and his four-year-old son Connall.
Except what Fawn was seeing was Declan and an almost four-year-old River, the way she remembered him, with the blond curls he’d had as a child.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I don’t understandany of this.” River was sitting on one of the couches in the sitting room. He had now looked at all of Declan’s photographs.
And, as Fawn already knew, each one was more damning than the last. “You have to admit, Connall looks like you when you were little.”
River grimaced. “You would know that better than me. All little children look the same to me.”
“They really don’t,” Fawn assured dryly.
There was absolutely no doubt in her own mind that the young boy in those photographs was River. Which meant that River had to be Connall. How that could positively be, she had absolutely no idea.
“I’ve never really given this any thought before now, but I was eight when Mum brought you home,” Fawn said, attempting to explain something that should have been evident to her for some time but which she had honestly never given a thoughtto. “You were four. Or, more accurately”—she glanced at Declan—“almost four.”
River frowned. “What does that mean?”
She shook her head. “I had wished for a younger brother or sister, and suddenly there you were. My own little brother. Except, I realize now I never saw Mum pregnant with you. Or remember you as a baby.” She released a shaky breath. “You were already a little boy, old enough for me to play with, the first time I met you.”
River grimaced. “And that didn’t seem odd to you?”
“I was a child myself, and all I saw was the little brother I had so desperately wished for. I didn’t question it then, and I stupidly have never thought about or questioned it since. Especially not during these past few years since you became ill and were then diagnosed as having kidney disease. Then our parents died.” She turned to Declan. “I have no idea how this happened,” she choked. “None at all. But those photographs tell their own story.”
Declan swallowed. “You really think River is Connall?”
Fawn’s heart broke at the hope he was trying so hard to keep under his control. “Don’t you?”
Declan wasafraidto hopethat River was Connall.
He focused on Fawn. “You said your blood group wasn’t a suitable match for you to be Co—River’s kidney donor?”
“River’s blood is group B, and mine is group A.”
“I’m group B too,” Declan revealed softly. “Which means, theoretically, I can give him a kidney.” Did that also mean, despite those doubts he’d had about Connall’s paternity years ago, that he really was Con—River’s father, rather than Bridget’s longtime lover?
