Earthbound Angels Part 1 (16 page)

But he still didn’t speak.

THEIR MONEY RAN out eventually, and that’s when Kiara had come to the Moon Bay area and sold her car.

It didn’t take them long to become a part of the homeless population on the street. Kiara had discovered the abandoned building quickly enough and found out where the local soup kitchens were located as well as the times they operated.

They didn’t actually go hungry, but Ronan was a growing boy and seemed to be hungry more and more. That’s why he had tried to take the food from the convenience store.

“Then you walked in and found us,” Kiara said, looking at Graeme. “That sort of brings us to here.”

Dreama and Hollianne both had tears in their eyes along with looks of horror on their faces. Graeme continued to look at Kiara intently as if he were pondering all that she had just told them.

Everything she said rang true, but it seemed so impossible for a 17 year old girl to pull off everything she had on her own. He sort of wished he had Simon here. Simon could have simply shaken hands with Kiara and cleared the whole thing up.

Graeme had a special gift of sorts but his was more about finding people. Simon’s gift could tell him if someone was lying or not. But Simon wasn’t here so he would just have to mull this over on his own.

As he looked at the very beautiful woman sitting across the desk from him, he saw no sign of deception from her. Of course, she had had several years to practice looking sincere, but he just didn’t feel that was happening here.

At last, he spoke.

“They never found out who killed your mother, then?” he asked.

“No,” Kiara answered. “I followed the news closely ever since the day it happened. If they did find someone, I never heard about it.”

Graeme nodded thoughtfully. He would need to check into that more carefully because it changed things. Without knowing who killed Renee, he couldn’t possibly know who to trust, which meant that he couldn’t simply hand Kiara and Ronan over to the Graves’ brothers until he knew more.

Now, he had to decide how much he should tell her about why he was hired to find her. He supposed the truth was the obvious answer but he would make some conditions for now.

As if she was reading his mind, Kiara spoke up once more.

“Now you know my story,” she said. “You said that you had something to tell me.”

“You’re absolutely correct,” he replied. “I’m going to tell you everything, but what you’ve just shared with us about your past changes things a bit.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean that you and Ronan may still be in some sort of danger even now. So I’ll tell you what’s going on, but you’ve got to promise me that you and Ronan will remain here in my home until I’ve sorted it all out.”

“Honestly, I can take care of myself as well as Ronan,” Kiara all but snorted. “You can’t do something like this! This is a free country!”

“Kiara,” Dreama said. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. I know that you’ve been through a lot and that it’s difficult for you to trust someone. But Graeme has only your best interests at heart; yours as well as Ronan’s. You can totally trust him. He’s not telling you that he wants to hold you and your brother prisoners here. He’s saying that he wants to make sure that both of you are safe before he starts telling anyone that he found you.”

Kiara looked a little nervous. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but how do I know we’ll really be safe?”

This time, it was Holli who spoke. “Dreama and I have both been through some kind of serious stuff and, even though we didn’t know it then, Graeme was playing a huge part in helping us. So please, just give him a chance to see what’s going on before taking off out of here, okay?”

Suddenly, the defiant look left Kiara’s face and she actually looked a bit ashamed.

“Damn,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry. All of you have been so kind to Ronan and me, and then I go back into street mode just because you want to protect us. What you must think of me!”

“What we think is that you’ve come through a very difficult time,” Hollianne said. “In fact, ‘difficult’ is probably too tame of a word to describe your experience. You’re actually doing much better than I would be. You can ask my husband, Erick, when you meet him. He’ll tell you what a mess I was when he met me. Actually, he invented a job for me in order to help me.”

“A job. And then he’s now your husband?”

“He started to protect me from the first moment he saw me,” she said. “Oh it’s a long story, but if you want to hear about it someday, I’ll be happy to tell you. Anyway, Kiara, I promise you that you can trust Graeme. Besides, if you just really aren’t comfortable staying here with him, you and Ronan can always come to our home. Dreama was staying with us until she and Simon got together but she’s living with him now since they got engaged. We’ve got plenty of room and tons of security.”

“You know,” Kiara began in her soft, husky voice. “That won’t be necessary. I’m feeling very embarrassed and ashamed of myself for the way I reacted. Graeme, if you really want Ronan and me to stay here and you feel that it’s necessary, then we’ll stay. Besides, we really don’t have anywhere else to go.”

She said that last part with a bit of a short sad laugh. These words and accompanying sound ripped through the room causing Graeme, Hollianne and Dreama to feel little tears ripping in their hearts. It also made Graeme more determined than ever to find out what was exactly going on.

But now, he needed to explain to Kiara just what she was faced with.

“OKAY,” GRAEME SAID. “You said that you never knew who your father was or who Ronan’s father was. Does that mean you never had a single hint?”

“No, none,” she replied. “I got curious once and went digging through my mother’s important papers. I actually found my birth certificate along with Ronan’s, but the father was listed as Unknown. So it didn’t actually help.”

“I see. Well, what you need to know is that you’ve got an extended family. In fact, it was one of your half-brothers who hired me to find you. He didn’t seem to know much about you and didn’t seem to know anything at all about Ronan. The reason he wanted me to find you is because your biological father has recently passed on.”

“My father? Are you sure?” Kiara looked a little lost and stunned. “And he’s died, too?” she asked in a small voice.

“Not only that but there’s a great deal of money involved in the estate and you’ve been left a significant portion of it.”

She was still looking at him. “Do you know how he died?”

Graeme noted that she didn’t even seem to hear about the money. “No, Kiara, sorry I don’t. I can find out, if you want,” he said gently.

She looked still dazed as she looked down at her hands again, then she seemed to gather herself together. Her shoulders squared and she looked back at him again. “What else was it that you’re saying?”

“I am saying that a huge part of your father’s estate has been left to you. Obviously, this would allow your lifestyle to change considerably. However, I found it strange that no one else knew about your existence until the reading of your father’s will.”

“What is my father’s name?” Kiara asked.

“Yes, his name is Richard Graves. His son and your half-brother, Jefferson Graves, is who hired me. I’ve had some time to dig into their background a bit and discovered that there are actually three sons. There’s Jefferson, Elliott, and Bradley. Those would be your half-brothers. I’ve only met with Jefferson so far, but I’ll need to meet with the rest of them before I willingly turn you over to them.”

“Graves…. That name sounds a little familiar to me,” Kiara mused. “But it just may be something I read or saw somewhere.”

“It’s possible,” Graeme agreed. “The Graves name is pretty well-known around here. But you’re sure you never heard it from your mother?”

“Pretty sure, yeah,” Kiara replied.

“Okay, well, either way, I won’t be letting on that I’ve found you. That makes it certain that you’ll remain safe until I’ve had some time to look into this. Are you okay with that?”

“Of course,” Kiara replied without hesitation. “I’ll do as you say.”

By the time this meeting concluded, it was late and starting to get dark outside. Dreama and Hollianne both hugged Kiara before they left and assured her once more that she and Ronan couldn’t be in safer hands than Graeme’s.

Then, with a promise to check in on her the next day, both women hurried off to have dinner with their men.

Graeme showed them out, and Kiara went in search of Ronan. She didn’t ordinarily like to leave him on his own for very long at a time, but he didn’t need to be a part of this horrific story.

The game room wasn’t hard to find as she just followed the sound of a video game’s music. Pausing in the doorway, she watched her little brother deftly playing the video game he had chosen. A small smile touched her lips.

He never got to have any real fun anymore because of the way they had been living. Even if it turned out that Graeme’s intentions weren’t the best, this was still better than the alternative.

Kiara felt rather than heard Graeme come up behind her.

“He’s so happy,” she said without even turning around. “Thank you for this.”

“I should be thanking you,” Graeme replied. “I forget just how big this place is until there are no people in it except me. My housekeeper and her husband are on vacation right now but you’ll meet her soon enough. I’ve got a feeling she’s going to be very pleased about this turn of events.”

“She is?” Kiara asked. “Why?”

Graeme looked a bit uncomfortable, but he replied. “Stella has been trying to find the perfect woman for me for a very long time. She’ll see you being here as a very hopeful challenge.”

The wry tone in Graeme’s voice made her laugh.

“She’s going to love having Ronan here to spoil, too. Don’t even try to talk her out of it, either. Your pleas will fall on deaf ears.”

“You know, it’s been a long time since anyone has spoiled him except for me. It will probably do him a lot of good.”

As Graeme stood near her, watching Roman, too, he reached out and squeezed her shoulder gently.

She knew what the gesture meant, but Kiara was stunned when her body responded to the touch. An electrical current zipped through her body, reaching her lower belly and putting a curious weight there that could only mean one thing.

She wasn’t that ignorant to know what it meant. It has been a long time since she felt attraction to a guy. What’s different now was that it had been a youthful infatuation then. Now, she’s an adult. And her body could feel the difference.

Oh wow,
she thought. She looked back up at Graeme, hoping nothing on her face showed what’s going on inside her. Graeme was staring at her strangely.

Then he smiled.

That weight in her lower belly dropped.

“Why don’t we go in and see if Ronan is hungry? I’m sure his lunch wore off a long time ago.”

Kiara tried to smile, too, but her face has already turned away when she nodded.

And together, they entered the room.