Cameron turned.“Anyone who isn’t family,leave.”He didn’t yell and he didn’t threaten, yet people scurried.The back rooms of the house emptied faster than if there’d been a fire alarm.
“Oh, Julian.”Anne Marie was wringing the cloth napkin in her lap like she was making a rope.“This can’t be happening.”
Lexie’s gaze stuck on her mother.Anne Marie’s hair was done up and her makeup was perfect, yet the look of horror in her eyes didn’t match her idyllic surroundings.
Roxie shook her head, confusion clear on her face.She frowned when the older couple wouldn’t look her in the eye.“Did you know about me?”she asked slowly.
Lexie’s breath caught.No, that wasn’t what this was about.It couldn’t be.
Julian raked his fingers through his hair.“Why don’t we go inside?”
“You knew.”Roxie took a shaky step backwards.“Oh my God, you knew.”
They couldn’t have, Lexie thought.
Yet around the table, the rest of the Underhills went still.
Julian’s gaze swept over his children.All eyes were on him.“Let us speak with this woman in private.”
“Oh, hell no,” Tara snapped.She tossed her napkin onto her plate.She looked ready to crawl right over the table and throw down with the denim-clad intruder who’d interrupted her brunch.“I want to hear this.”
“Tara,” Julian chastised.
“Actually, I’d like to hear too,” Lowery said.As reserved as he was, it was something for him to speak up.
Julian ran a finger under his collar, trying to loosen it.He couldn’t very well shoo his own children away.They were Underhills, after all.His pride and joy.
His attention gradually returned to Roxie, like a monster in a movie he didn’t want to face.Her toe was tapping a loud beat against the wooden floor.
“You were there,” he admitted at last.
“Where?”Lexie’s voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it was the most she could manage.Everything inside of her had gone tight and brittle.Cam was suddenly at her side, but all she could do was stare at her father incomprehensibly.“Where was she?”
“At the foster care or group home, whatever that place was where we adopted you.”
Roxie’s hands fisted at her sides.“You don’t know?”
Julian threw a hand up in the air as if it didn’t matter.Moving back to his chair, he lowered himself onto its arm.He seemed older in that moment, almost lost.Anne Marie caught his hand.Her napkin fell to the floor, and the silk scarf draped around her neck threatened to follow.
“We were together?”Roxie’s voice sounded hoarse.Strangled.
“You have to understand.”Julian looked at his wife, and their fingers intertwined.“We’d been trying, but nothing was happening.We wanted children, but we were just starting out.”
He looked across the yard and focused blindly on the pond.As if sensing the tension coming from the house, a mallard duck churned up the water and flew away.
Lexie wanted to run away too, but her feet were rooted in place.
“Breathe,” Cam whispered into her ear.
She couldn’t.She was listening too hard.They’d known about Roxie.They’d known she had a twin.She wanted to hear this explanation.She wanted to know why the parents she’d loved had split her from her other half.
“We didn’t have all this.”Julian gestured at their surroundings.“As new parents, we didn’t think we could handle a passel of kids.”
“You certainly ended up with them.”Roxie’s gaze burned over the younger Underhills, and Landers moved protectively to his parents’ side.
Julian’s chin dipped.“Yes, we were blessed.”
The verbal backhand stung Lexie.They could have been blessed before, but the difference was that they werehispassel of kids.His true offspring.
