Read A Family Affair: Spring: Truth in Lies, Book 2 Online

Authors: Mary Campisi

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Family Saga, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Sagas

A Family Affair: Spring: Truth in Lies, Book 2 (25 page)

BOOK: A Family Affair: Spring: Truth in Lies, Book 2

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“What’s going on? Who’s that?” A young girl inched around Nathan Desantro and entered the room. She studied Gloria with keen interest. “Hello.”

“Hello.”
This was the girl
. Lily. Charles’s daughter. Gloria’s sipped in air, fought the pain stabbing her chest. It was one thing to suspect, another to know, but to actually see the betrayal in real life, flesh and blood?

“I’m Lily.” She smiled and pointed to the baby in Nathan’s arms. “And I’m an aunt. Her name is Anna Nicolina.”

“What a beautiful name.”
She has the Blacksworth eyes
.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m…” Gloria darted a look at Christine, then Nathan, but they remained silent.

It was Miriam who came to her rescue and offered an answer. “Lily, this is Christine’s mother.”

“Oh!” The child’s eyes grew wide, her face flushed with excitement. “Christine’s mom.” She held out her hand and waited for Gloria to take it. “Come with me.” Lily led her to Nathan and the baby. “Anna Nicolina, this is your other grandma. She’s sparkly, isn’t she?” The girl took in Gloria’s necklace and rings,and bracelets. “Yup, very sparkly.” She looked up at her brother and said, “Nate, aren’t you going to let Grandma hold Anna Nicolina?” Nathan’s eyes narrowed on Gloria and his jaw tensed. He’d just as soon kick her out of the house than let her hold his child. Could she blame him?

“That’s okay, Lily.
Really.” Gloria had said what she’d come to say and now it was time to leave.

“It’s rude, Nate.” Lily frowned and crossed her small arms over her middle. “Not good manners.”

He turned to his little sister and said in a firm voice, “Lily, that’s enough.” Miriam stood and made her way across the room. She touched her son’s arm, looked him in the eyes, and nodded. “Sit in a chair,” he said, “and I’ll hand her to you.”

Gloria did as he asked, and he placed the baby in her arms. Lily rushed over to them and knelt beside the baby. “You make a nice Grandma,” Lily said. “See, we’re one big happy family. That’s us.”

***

“Harry? Harry, wake up. I think it’s time.”

“Huh? What?”

Greta shook his shoulder. “My water broke. It’s time to go to the hospital.”

“Shit!” Harry tossed back the covers and jumped out of bed. “Okay, okay. I’ll get your bag. Do you need help getting in the car?” What the hell had the instructor said in the childbirth classes?
Calm, remain calm.
Right.

“No, but we have to call Belinda.”

“Why?” What did his secretary have to do with getting to the hospital?

Greta waddled toward him, her nightgown stretching over her belly. “She’s going to watch A.J. and Lizzie while we go to the hospital.
Remember?”

Her speech was slow and deliberate, as though she were waiting for his brain to process the words. Yes, now he remembered that Belinda was on call to watch the kids when Greta went into labor. She’d turned out to be a real gem, as important to him in his personal life as she was in his professional one. And with the wicked witch Helene out of the babysitting picture, life was a lot more relaxed in the Blacksworth household.

“Harry?” Greta touched his arm. “We have to move. I’ll call Belinda, you get the bag, and then get changed. Okay?”

Damn, he would have run out of here in his pajamas.
Harry Blacksworth, making a fashion screw-up? Now he knew he was in trouble. He looked at his wife, so beautiful and giving, and knew a moment of sheer panic. What if something happened to her? Or the baby? What if she started bleeding? And there were complications? What if—

“It will be fine.” Her smile calmed him, settled his heart to a normal rhythm, and made him believe everything would indeed be fine.

Harry clasped his wife’s hands between his own, kissed her lips, and said, “Let’s go have a baby.”

Four hours later, Harry sent the following text message to Christine.
Jackson Henry Blacksworth arrived at 6:22
a.m
. 6.2 pounds, 19 ¼ inches. Mother and baby fine. Father resuscitated with a double scotch.

Epilogue

Pop rifled through the mail and pulled out two brochures. They were similar to the ones he’d been receiving for the past two months; glossy, lots of green lawn, bougainvillea running up the walls. And lots and lots of smiling senior citizens.
One caption read
Retire in Ease
, the other,
Living on your own does not mean alone
. Dang-blasted retirement homes. What were the odds that every last brochure was from San Diego, the very same city Anthony lived in? Did his son think he’d been born in a bed of escarole?

“Lucy, that boy of yours is behind this and don’t think I don’t know it.” Pop tossed the flyers in the trashcan and shook his head. “He ain’t getting me out of this town, not while I’m still breathing.” He poured a glass of milk and grabbed two pizzelles. Lily had done a good job making them, and other than a few crispy ones, which he happened to prefer, she’d got the twenty-second timing down just right. Next Saturday, he promised they would make chocolate ones.

“Besides we got bigger problems right now and this town’s gonna need all the help it can get to keep things calm.” He sank into his chair and homed in on her portrait. “Daniel Casherdon is coming back to town. He ain’t walking on his own two legs either. I was talking to Ramona the other day after the meeting and she said he’ll be here next month. I didn’t ask what all happened but I think he might have been shot. Wonder where?” He scratched his jaw, considered the possibilities, and none of them were good. “Ramona teared up and couldn’t talk about it, so I told her if she needed help, I’d sit with the boy. I know you always liked him, and we thought the town gave him a raw deal. Shoo, wonder what Olivia Carrick’s going to say when she finds out. Guess you don’t send a box of cookies when the person’s killed your son unless you intend on sprinkling it with something deadly to return the favor.” He nibbled his second pizzelle, considered all the commotion that would start soon enough.

“You always said Tess and Cash belonged together, but don’t look like they’ll get a second chance like Nate and Christine did. Oh, you’d like this Desantro baby
, Anna Nicolina. Lots of black hair and the bluest eyes you ever seen, Blacksworth eyes, Lucy, that’s what everybody calls them. Like her mama and Lily.” He sighed. “Don’t you worry now, I’ll let you know every little detail about Cash. As a matter of fact, I might pay Olivia Carrick a visit, see if she’s heard from Tess, and maybe I’ll politely inquire if her daughter has plans to visit Magdalena anytime soon.” His lips turned up in a faint smile. “And maybe if she does, I’ll see about arranging a ‘chance’ meeting between Tess and Cash.” His voice faded as the blueness of his wife’s eyes looked back at him from the portrait, pulled him in, held him. In that instant, a wonderful, magical idea burst in his heart. “I won’t disappoint you, Lucy. You’ll see.” The smile spread. “You certainly will see.”

The End

Go to
MaryCampisi.com
and sign up for Mary’s Mailing
List to receive an email for new releases. If you want to read more about the residents of Magdalena, be sure to check out
A Family Affair: Summer
, Book Three in the
Truth in Lies
Series, coming 2014
.

A Glimpse of
A Family Affair: Summer

If she knew her life were about to shatter into a million bits of unrecognizable tragedy, Tess Carrick would have kissed Daniel “Cash” Cashderon with greater urgency that afternoon, savored the taste of his naked flesh, dug her nails into his back. She would have ignored Magdalena’s raised brows and clung to him with the desperateness of one taking a last breath.

Because in the end, that’s exactly what it was—one last pure breath of the most consuming love she’d ever known. After, despite the town’s honest attempt at comfort, there was only pain. Lies. Betrayal. Too much guilt. Fate killed the memories of loving him with one shocking act, so swift, so final there would be no retracing steps to an earlier time, no recapturing innocence or second chances. There would be nothing left but survival.

Watch for
A Family Affair: Summer
—Coming 2014

A Family Affair: Spring
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and situations are all products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to persons, locales, or events, are purely coincidental.

About the Author

Mary Campisi
writes books about second chances. Whether contemporary romances, women’s fiction, or Regency historicals, her books all center on belief in the beauty of that second chance.

Mary
should have known she’d become a writer when at age thirteen she began changing the ending to all the books she read. It took several years and a number of jobs, including registered nurse, receptionist in a swanky hair salon, accounts payable clerk, and practice manager in an OB/GYN office, for her to rediscover writing. Enter a mouse-less computer, a floppy disk, and a dream large enough to fill a zip drive. The rest of the story lives on in every book she writes.

When she’s not working on her craft or following the lives of five young adult children, Mary’s digging in the dirt with her flowers and herbs, cooking, reading, walking her rescue lab mix, Cooper, or
, on the perfect day, riding off into the sunset with her very own hero/husband on his Ultra Limited aka Harley.

Mary has published with Kensington, Carina Press, The Wild Rose Press, and Jocelyn Hollow Romance.

website
:
www.marycampisi.com

e-mail
:
[email protected]

blog
:
http://www.marycampisi.com/blog/

twitter
:
https://twitter.com/#!/MaryCampisi

facebook

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Other Books by Mary Campisi:

At Amazon:

Contemporary Romance

A Family Affair (Truth in Lies Series-Book One
)-
link

A Family Affair: Spring (Truth in Lies Series-Book Two)

Pulling Home (That Second Chance Series-Book One) -
link