The second question was, how could he not be, with the evidence of those photographs of Connall Quinn as a baby and toddler, and the fact that Fawn didn’t remember a single thing about River before she was eight, when River would have already been four.Almostfour, if he really was Connall. Dear God, even River’s birthday might not be on the actual day he had always celebrated it, but rather it had been guesswork on her mother’s part.
The sooner Fawn looked through her parents’ personal papers, the better.
“Are you okay?” Declan prompted some time later as the two of them sat in the back of the SUV while Danny drove them to the apartment she shared with River. Declan held tightly to Fawn’s hand.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” she teased.
He gave a self-derisive grimace. “Did I overstep by talking about the two of us having children, in front of River and Danny, when I haven’t even asked you to marry me yet?”
Fawn laughed. “You can make it up to me later.”
“Can I ask you to marry me later too?”
She sobered. “I can already tell you my answer will be yes.”
Declan’s eyes brightened, the tension easing a little in his shoulders. “Thank you.”
She smiled. “I love you, and I know it will be just as much my pleasure to be your wife,” she assured huskily. “I really hope, for both your sakes, that River is Connall.” She could only imagine the heartache it must have been for Declan to lose his son and never know what had happened to him beyond the age of four.
They had promised River that they wouldn’t look through the box of their parents’ things, but would bring it back to Declan’s apartment for them all to look through together.
Which was exactly what they did for the first hour after they returned to Declan’s penthouse apartment. Most of the papers were actually drawings and other artwork from Fawn and River’s childhood. Good memories, but hardly helpful in their quest.
There were half a dozen of the journals Fawn had mentioned, and so the four of them each took one to look through. Hopefully, they might find something useful in one of them; if not, they would have to look through the last two as well.
Declan sat on the couch to look through his, with Fawn sitting on the carpeted floor between his legs, flicking through a second one. The two of them gave in to their need to touch each other.
River sat in a chair, looking through the third journal, with Danny also sitting on the floor next to him, looking through the fourth. Probably for the same reason: he wanted to be close to River.
Fawn didn’t mind looking through her mother’s writings, because doing so made her feel as if her mother was actually in the room chatting to her. But she doubted the three men were as enamored of her mother’s comments on the social or political situation of the time, which seemed to be the main subject of the writings.
Fawn heaved a silent sigh of relief when her own journal revealed her mother as being pregnant with her and later giving birth to her and naming her Fawn.
It had been a worry at the back of Fawn’s mind thatshemight not be the daughter of Andrew Meadows and Lisa Brooks. She was very relieved to know that she was.
They all tensed when, half an hour into reading the journals, River drew in a sharp and hissing breath.
He looked up, his face pale. “Found it.”
Fawn crossed the room so that she could sit on the arm of his chair in a silent offer of support.
River swallowed. “Here, you read it.” He handed her the journal.
Fawn began to read the passage he had indicated aloud.“Andrew is so angry with me. When he and Fawn returned from picking apples for a local farmer, and he saw the little boy I had rescued, he told me I had to take him back. But how could I do that, so many hours after the accident? How could I explain to the local police that I had seen the car as I waswalking back from the local shop? The car was on its roof, and I could hear a child crying inside the wreckage. I ran to it and pulled open the driver’s door. There was blood and glass from the broken windscreen everywhere. The man behind the wheel was obviously dead, and so was the woman sitting next to him. The little boy was in the back, hanging upside down because he was strapped tightly into a child seat. It was pure instinct for me to unfasten the seat belt and catch him before he could fall and hurt himself. He looks to be about four, not a baby, and I didn’t want him to see all that blood, or that his mother and father were dead. He stopped crying as I carried him away from the car. I talked to him all the time, soothing him, reassuring him he was safe now. I don’t remember what happened next. One minute, I was walking away from the accident, and the next, I was standing on the towpath next to our canal boat, with that gorgeous little boy still in my arms. I think I fell in love with him the moment I held him for the first time. I can’t give him back. I just can’t. His mother and father are dead, which means he'll probably be put in an orphanage or with family that didn’t really want him if I give him back. I want him. Andrew argued against it, but I’m adamant. He’s my little boy now. I’m going to call him River.”
Fawn looked up, thankfully having come to the end of that damning passage, because the tears swimming in her eyes and falling in a constant hot stream down her cheeks prevented her from seeing any more of the written words.
“She did it. She took Connall and renamed him River,” Fawn choked. “I am so sorry, Declan. So very, very sorry for the heartache you’ve suffered all these years, not knowing where your son was or even if he was still alive, because of my mother.”
Declan’s face was ashen, but his eyes burned with a fierce emotion as he stared at River. “Was Connall loved?”
“Very much.”
He nodded. “Was he happy?”
“I believe so.”
He turned to River. “Were you?”
