"Uh-huh."

Charlie sat down with them, and popped open a beer.

They bantered back and forth a bit longer and Alyssa enjoyed the show, but she knew there was something bigger here than men having fun. She knew they wanted to talk to her and she waited for their cue.

After more small talk, Charlie set his beer down. "Alyssa, we got the test results this afternoon." He sighed.

She could tell it wasn't good news by the way he said it. "So soon? I thought it would be a day."

"Ian's doctor rushed it," Charlie said.

"I'm not a match, am I?"

Charlie looked down and Darren said, "No."

Charlie leaned across the table. "I know you've already done a lot here, Alyssa, and I can't thank you enough."

She looked back and forth from Darren to Charlie. "What is it?"

"The doc still says that the best matches come from blood relatives, like your parents, any blood siblings, or, since you weren't a match, then maybe the father. The doctors say that a sibling is usually the best bet."

Alyssa sat back and didn't say anything for a minute. She nodded. "My parents don't know about Ian. They were in Tuscany when I had him, but I can call them. And siblings..." She knew that Ian had at least six siblings out there. "This is hard."

"We know," Darren said. "You don't have any other children?"

"No. I don't."

"What about the biological father? Do you know where he is, or if he has other children?"

Alyssa set her half finished beer down and mustered a smile, and then glanced away before looking back at the men. "Look, I don't want to sound cold or selfish here, but can I have some time alone? I need to think for a bit. I really have some stuff here to process."

"Of course," Charlie replied. "I know how hard this must be. Here we've come at you out of the blue and stirred up a lot in your life in a very short amount of time. Take some time."

"Thank you. I think I'm going to take a drive. I'll come back in the morning, though. We can talk some more about this then. I know time is of the essence."

Both Charlie and Darren stood. "Thank you again." They each gave her a hug.

She took the photo Ian had scanned and left. She spotted Ian with his brothers and their pals playing their game across the street. She decided not to bother them. He looked to be having a good time, smiling, laughing, and living. Watching him, Alyssa knew what she had to do.

After leaving Ian's home, Alyssa took a long walk by the beach, the sand between her toes cool, soaking in everything that had happened to her over the past weeks and the myriad of feelings she was now coping with.

After watching a Southern California sunset that filled the sky with shades of purple and red, she headed back to her hotel room at the Marriott, where she'd had enough hotel points to stay in a little suite. It was nice with a kitchen, couch in one room, and then the bedroom in the other. She paced back and forth in the room for several minutes and picked up the phone twice, once actually sitting down to dial. She still remembered the phone number, if it were the same number that it used to be.

But she couldn't do it. Not yet. How would she explain this? She'd run far and fast from Terrell, breaking off their engagement without a very good explanation-she'd told him she wasn't ready and he'd told her he didn't understand. How could he? He suggested they live together and he'd wait. But she'd told him that she didn't know if she would ever be ready. She'd left him behind with a broken heart and she'd boarded a plane to the West Coast and kept her secrets buried deep inside her. How many nights had she laid awake wondering if she should've told Terrell the truth?

She wanted to be able to tell Charlie and Darren that she'd called the father and that he would be tested to see if he was a match. She knew that for her to get what she needed from Terrell that she would have to tell him the truth, or at least a part of it. How strange life is. How ironic. There is so much truth to the six degrees of separation theory. The last thing in the world Alyssa ever expected was for that night to come full circle and force her to face her past head on.

Alyssa decided to go down to the hotel bar and have a drink. Beer or wine wasn't going to be strong enough to relax her at all, so she ordered a whiskey and nursed it. While sitting there, watching people, couples go in and out of the bar, holding hands, cuddling up with one another anger overcame her. She could have been a half of one of those couples. She shot back the drink.

"Easy there."

Alyssa looked up to see Darren standing next to her.

"Hey. What are you doing here?"

He sat down opposite her at the small table. "I was worried about you. Charlie and I got to talking about how difficult this all has to be for you. I remembered you said that this was where you were staying and since it's on my way home, I thought I'd stop by, see if you needed anything, see if you were doing okay. I was planning on giving you a call to see if you'd come down and have a drink with me, but you beat me to it."

"I guess I did." She tried to smile at him. The waitress came by and Alyssa ordered another drink.

"I'll join her," Darren said. "Must have all hit you pretty hard."

She nodded. "It's not Ian or Charlie and the family. It's something," she sighed, "I have hidden something from people I love, from myself really, for so long and now it's come back to haunt me and I don't know how to deal with it. But I know that I have to."

"This have to do with Ian?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to talk about it with me? I can keep a secret." He smiled his big, beautiful smile that lit up his entire face and, for a second, Alyssa forgot the pain that she was in.

The waitress came back with their drinks and Alyssa took a long sip. Setting the glass down, she studied Darren for a minute and then she did something she hadn't done in years: she trusted a man.

"Four years ago, I was engaged to a man, and a few weeks before we were to be married we had an engagement party. I actually planned to tell him the following day about Ian. What I wasn't prepared for was that my fiance's best friend, whom I'd never met, would be someone that I really had met. Someone that I once knew." She took a long drink from the whiskey. "I thought I would never see this man again. But I did. And I met his lovely wife, and found out they had five children with another on the way."

Darren listened and encouraged her to go on.

"This man-James-who was my fiance Terrell's best friend, is also Ian's father."

Darren's eyes widened and he studied her for a second before responding. "Are you serious? What did you do? Did this guy know you'd had his child?"

She pursed her lips together and shook her head. "No," she finally replied.

"Why?" he asked, his eyes narrowing. "Why didn't you tell him?"

She closed her eyes tightly for a second, images racing through her mind. When she opened them, she blurted out her painful secret. "Because he raped me."

Darren's jaw dropped. "Alyssa, my God, What did you do?"

"I broke off the engagement and I didn't tell Terrell the truth. This man had been his best friend since childhood. At the time I felt that if I could get away from the past and not let anyone know about it that would be the best way to handle it. Now it's caught up with me."

"I hate to ask this, but how did this happen?"

"The rape?"

He nodded.

"It was one of those situations you hear about on the news, and maybe that was partly why I never told anyone. I wasn't sure anyone would believe me in the first place. I was eighteen, a freshman at Columbia. My parents were abroad, and for the first time in my life, I felt like an adult, you know? I wanted to major in art and I had a closet of an apartment that I shared with another girl. Things looked good. I was out grocery shopping one night and that's where I met Jimmy at the grocery store off campus. He bumped into my grocery cart. He was good looking, funny and charming, and a few years older than me and I thought that was sort of cool. He joked with me in front of the fruit tables for fifteen minutes, chatting before he asked me out. I said yes, of course." She remembered everything like it was yesterday.

Darren shook his head.

"He took me to an expensive restaurant and we talked all evening and I liked him. But then he started coming on to me and I wasn't ready for that. I hadn't had a lot of experience with guys. I was a virgin and never dated much in high school.

After dinner, he drove over the Brooklyn Bridge. I asked him where we were going and he kept saying that it was a surprise. I knew I was in trouble when he parked in an alley. I told him again that I wanted to go home, but he told me that we were there to get to know each other better and I would get home when he got me there.

"That's when he lunged for me, ignored my cries and pleading for him to stop. He tore my clothes, not caring what I said. Finally I gave in because I had no choice. Six weeks later I found out that I was pregnant and I made the decision to have the baby and give him up for adoption. The best part is that when I spotted him at our engagement party, he acted like he didn't recognize me." Alyssa was surprised that she didn't feel like crying or choking on emotion. She didn't feel as though she were suffocating-something she'd felt time and again when she thought about that night. Telling the story to Darren was almost like talking about a book she'd read or a movie she'd seen. The distance of it all and time had seemed to make it easier, and she let out a relieved sigh.

"You've been carrying that, all that for this long?" he finally said.

"Yes," she whispered.

"Alyssa, you don't need to carry it alone any longer. You are so brave, woman. Unbelievably courageous."

"You can't tell Charlie or Ian. Please."

"No. I know. I won't. But what I can help you through this. You should not do this alone. That bastard needs to be called out on it and, whether or not he is a match for Ian, he needs to pay some restitution."

She shook her head. "Darren, I don't need a hero here. I am grateful you want to help me, but I don't need you going to battle with this man. All I want is for him to be tested and if he is a match, for him to donate the bone marrow. I don't need anything else."

He sat back. "If that's what you want."

"There's one thing, maybe," she said.

"Anything."

"Maybe you could make the initial phone call to get his number and then call him."

"It's done. I'll do whatever you need."

"Thank you." She smiled and in so many ways felt relieved. After finishing their drinks, Darren walked with her to her room. They planned to meet in the morning. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and started back to the elevator.

"Darren?"

He turned around.

"Will you stay the night with me?"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.

Kat Kat was dreaming-something about a waterfall in Hawaii and eating pineapple. Nice, but then a monkey was at her side tugging on her arm and saying her name in a small voice. Maybe it wasn't Hawaii after all. Were there even monkeys in Hawaii?

"Kat, Kat, Kat. My bed."

"Your bed?"

"Uh-huh. I wet it. I'm sorry."

Slowly Kat realized this was no longer a dream and the tugging on the T-shirt she slept in wasn't coming from a monkey. It was Amber. Kat sat up. "What is it, honey?"

"I wet my bed," Amber said in a quiet voice.

Kat slid out of her bed. Christian softly snored. Not much woke him, especially after a long night at the restaurant. She took Amber's hand and led her into the bathroom. They both blinked their eyes several times as Kat flipped the switch and assessed the situation.

"I'm sorry," Amber said again, tears pooling in her big eyes.

"You don't need to be sorry. Accidents happen. Let's get you out of the wet jammies and clean you up." Kat helped her out, ran some warm water in the tub and wiped her off, and then dried her. "Go get in bed with your daddy and I'll change your sheets."

"Thank you." Amber hugged her hard. "I don't wet my bed too much, but sometimes I do. Mommy says it's when I'm tired."

"I am sure you were very tired. Now go and get in bed."

Kat stripped the sheets off the twin bed in Amber's room. The urine had soaked through and there had been no protective sheet on the bed. Amber had stayed with them plenty of times and never wet the bed, so Kat hadn't prepared for this. It took her a good fifteen minutes to get it all cleaned up and she knew she couldn't put new sheets on until the following day. So she went back to her bed where a little girl and her daddy slept. When Kat lay down, Amber immediately scooted up next to her and began twirling Kat's shoulder length hair in her fingers. Kat realized that she was becoming this child's mother and, oddly enough, she welcomed it. Amber felt as much her own as the boys did to her, and then she remembered that tomorrow Emily would be coming to pick Amber up for the weekend and she sighed.

In the morning, she woke tangled up in the soft white sheets and brightly striped duvet cover, with Amber's arm across her shoulders. Divine smells wafted from the kitchen. Coffee, for sure, and was that vanilla and butter in the air? Christian was making his famous Grand Marnier French toast. How lovely. Oh, and bacon. Kat loved bacon. Who didn't love bacon? What was he trying to do? She'd be signing up for Weight Watchers after this morning.

Kat eased Amber's arm off of her and rolled over. What a sweet face to wake up to. Tangles of blonde hair whisked across her little heart shaped face, her long dark eyelashes covering the pretty hazel eyes that now looked at Kat with trust and love. She had no idea that she would fall so deeply in love with this child and so quickly. Yes, she'd known her for years, but their relationship had always been strained and because of Emily's brainwashing. Usually Amber only wanted to be with Christian when she'd come to stay, but it was different now. Amber was smart and Kat sensed that the girl felt abandoned by her mom. Kat silently agreed that Amber was right: Emily had dumped her and moved onto a new life, a new family. That felt familiar.

She thought of Venus, who was probably off on her morning hike and then headed to yoga and meditation. So much for the oodles of time that she'd promised to spend with them. Since she'd landed, her mother had been on the hunt for yoga studios, spas, organic food markets, psychics, and New Age bookstores. Today, though, after Emily picked up Amber, Kat had agreed to join her mother in a yoga class, and then supposedly Venus had some big, fun surprise in store for her. Kat didn't have much time for surprises. Saturday night was a big night at the restaurant and Christian would need her there. Since Amber had moved in, they'd decided to hire another sommelier and Kat had cut her work at the restaurant in half.

Amber stretched and yawned, sleepy eyes blinking. "Hi, Mommy."

"No honey, it's me, Kat."

"But you are a mommy."

"I am."

"Can I call you Mommy Kat?"

Kat pulled her close and hugged her. "Of course you can." Mommy Kat-funny, but cute.

"Something smells good," Amber said, and sat up.

"Sure does. Maybe we should head into the kitchen and see what's going on." She took Amber's hand and they walked down the long hall of their ranch style home. The house was done up Southwestern style with jute rugs, lots of leather seating, and bench stools in traditional handwoven kilims in colors of seafoam green, bright orange, and dark brown. While the house had been in escrow, Kat and Christian had taken a long weekend jaunt to New Mexico and fell in love with the southwest style and flair.

The smells from the kitchen grew stronger-garlic and onion were in the mix now. And there was laughter. Who was Christian laughing with? Her mother? Yes. Shit. Her mother was probably filling his head with her stupid New Age crap. Wait a minute, more laughter. Jeremy? He was up before ten o'clock? It was only eight-thirty.

"Hey, guys," Kat said, interrupting what seemed to be an inside joke as Jeremy, Christian, and her mom stifled their laughter. "Looks like I'm interrupting. What's going on in here?"

Amber let go of her hand and ran to Christian, wrapping her arms around him, "Daddy, Daddy, what are you making?"

"French toast. And, no, you are not interrupting. Your mom was telling us about the time when she dressed as a punk rocker on Halloween and showed up at your high school to pick you up."