Alaskan Mountain Pursuit Elizabeth Goddard (best short novels .TXT) 📖

had mixed emotions about this whole thing. “I wish we could have met under different circumstances.”

“Whatever the circumstances, at least we’ve met, and at least you are alive.” Heidi pushed from the chair, her five-month pregnancy barely showing. She was pregnant with the niece that Cade had mentioned. “I’m looking forward to spending some time together when this is all over.”

“Yes, when this is all over.” Sylvie knew her own smile was tenuous, at best.

“I have an appointment with my OB soon but I’m going to use the little girl’s room before I leave. Not like I didn’t just go. Just wait until you get pregnant.” Heidi gave a bashful grin then disappeared.

At her words, Sylvie could hardly hold back her tears, and let them fall when Heidi was gone.

The fact that Heidi was pregnant drove home Sylvie’s misgivings about the trouble she was facing—she hadn’t known her search for answers would put others in danger. Nor had she known she would meet her half siblings like this—and had been completely unprepared in that respect. They’d all stopped in the day after Cade’s appearance. He’d given her a day and not one minute more to prepare for meeting the rest of the family. That meeting had all but overwhelmed her on top of another attempt on her life.

They’d all crowded into the room to see her. First, Heidi and her husband, Isaiah, then Cade’s wife, Leah, who had presented her and Cade’s son, little Scottie. Then firefighter David and his wife, Tracy, who had newborn twin boys; and Adam and Cobie, who’d recently gotten married. What a wonderful, beautiful family, and if Sylvie had any regrets, it was that she had missed out on knowing them all this time, and on knowing her real father.

Would that have been so bad? Having time to know him? To know them all? She couldn’t help but think he would have wanted to know her, too. But she’d been informed he hadn’t been aware of her existence. And what about her grandfather? Had Regina even told him about her? Tears burned her eyes, mingling with the anger of it.

Mom, why? Why didn’t you tell him? Why did you keep me a secret until it was too late?

She wiped away the tears. She couldn’t complain about her childhood. She’d had a good one. The man she’d known as her father, the man her mother had married, had been good to her. Had loved her, though he’d never adopted Sylvie. She’d grown up using his last name, regardless, and had taken it as her own.

Maybe her mother had wanted to keep a legal tie back to Scott Warren, Sylvie’s real father. But she had a feeling her mother had prevented Damon from legally adopting Sylvie because even though he’d been a good father, he’d been an awful husband. Yet she’d stayed with him.

Sylvie didn’t know the reasons.

All she knew was that she was torn between trusting the man she’d loved as a child, and nursing her bitterness over the betrayal she’d learned about as a teen. And the fear she’d heard in her mother’s voice. How could he treat her mother one way and Sylvie another?

She was relieved he didn’t know she was in the hospital and wasn’t here. How sad was that?

But she couldn’t trust Damon Masters, the man who’d been a father to her. He manipulated people for his own purposes. She’d trusted her mother, although the woman had kept secrets. Secrets like what she planned to do in Mountain Cove that would “shake things up.” Secrets that Sylvie believed led to her death.

The search for answers had now turned treacherous.

There was only one good thing to come of it and that was meeting her family—the whole bunch of them. Was this the only way she ever would have met them? Forced into it by circumstances?

Didn’t matter anymore. She was in a situation that required her full attention.

Sylvie fiddled with the splash caddy that had protected her driver’s license and bank card, secured against her body while in the water. The troopers said her boat hadn’t been recovered, and she’d reported it stolen to the insurance company. Other than the rotating officers guarding her room, the police hadn’t been back since their initial questioning. She had no idea if they would search the area where she’d found what might have been part of the missing aircraft, but they were definitely searching for the man who’d tried to kill her twice now. Once in the water and then in the hospital. Regardless, Sylvie believed she was on her own in finding out the truth.

Heidi returned from the little girl’s room, as she called it. “Billy should be here soon. Do you want me to wait with you?”

“Billy? You mean Will?”

Heidi angled her head, a curious smile playing on her lips. “I guess so.”

Sylvie shook her head. “No, no. Please, go to your appointment. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay, then, I’ll head out—but there’s something I want to say first. Growing up with three brothers, I always prayed for a sister. Then I got three sisters-in-law, Leah, Tracy and Cobie, and now you, a half sibling. I just wish we could have known each other growing up.” Heidi’s face colored.

Now that would have been awkward. She suspected Heidi thought the same thing. Sylvie was still baffled at how graciously the family had received her—the child their father had created while cheating on their mother. Learning of his betrayal, even as adults, had to leave them confused and bitter. Would they have been able to handle it as children? She wasn’t sure. But she did know that her life would have been richer and fuller for all these years if her siblings had been part of it all along.

“Yeah, me, too.” Sylvie had been on the outside of the family looking in until this week, when she’d entered the hospital fighting for her life.

Will stepped into the room and relief whooshed through Sylvie. She wasn’t exactly sure why.

“Well,” Heidi