True to Me - Kay Bratt Page 0,81

found you!—and I tried to end the battle with the Rocha family, only to become part of something that could get me thrown in prison forever. Helen thought her family had done enough damage to ours without adding more to it. She was also convinced that the curse was the reason we couldn’t get to you, and it was stronger than our will to find you.”

“You were afraid of involving the authorities,” Maggie said. “Of going to prison.”

“I was more afraid I’d never see you alive again,” Carmen said, taking her eyes off the road to look at Quinn.

“Please don’t. That girl isn’t me. She was Nama,” Quinn said. She felt as though she were awake in a dream—or some sort of nightmare. She wondered about Jules, the woman who was her first mother, and felt a small rush of guilt that she didn’t feel any sort of longing to see her or know her.

“Maybe they should take a DNA test,” Maggie said. “What if Quinn isn’t even Nama?”

Carmen was shaking her head even before she answered. “What are the chances I would find a girl the same age and identical to the daughter Jules and Noah lost at sea? You don’t need a test. If you take one look at Jules and her other daughters, you’ll know. And she has the birthmark.”

Other daughters. Quinn had sisters. And a brother. The one on the boat with her. Jonah. “What about their son? Surely they were glad at least one child was recovered,” she asked.

Carmen nodded. “Of course they were. But that’s a whole other story. Jonah never forgave himself because he was supposed to be looking out for you. He was already a sensitive boy, and his childhood was ruined. He enlisted and came back from Iraq a broken man. Got tangled up in drinking and drugs too. He lives on the streets most of the time.”

Quinn was taken aback. “He comes from a family with the resources to put him in any kind of program, and he’s on the streets? I don’t understand.”

“The human mind deals with tragedy in different ways,” Carmen said. “Jonah decided to walk away from those who can help him. He chose to fight his demons alone. But he comes around his family occasionally. Just like any Hawaiian, the tie to family is a hard one to cut permanently.”

Was that the reason Quinn had always felt a pull to go to Maui?

“Quinn, their home is only a few miles away. You could see your mother and father tonight.”

Father. Quinn couldn’t believe she’d started this crazy journey simply to find her real father and possibly some of her mother’s family. If she’d known her mother’s deathbed confession would lead to all this . . .

“No, I want to go back to Maria’s right now,” Quinn said. She couldn’t even think about meeting anyone else right now. It didn’t feel right yet. It felt . . . disloyal, she supposed. Not that Elizabeth was really her mother, but then, she was. And despite the complete wrongness of what she’d done, she’d given Quinn a good life and had loved her with every fiber of her being. Whatever her reasons for doing what she did, Quinn knew that love was at the root of it.

“This is enough for one day,” Maggie said. “Please just get us back so that Quinn can rest.”

Quinn was glad that Maggie was there and that she wouldn’t have to face the empty cottage alone with her thoughts.

Both Helen and Carmen had promised not to say anything until Quinn was ready. It might not be soon, either, because she needed to take some time to process everything. If they were expecting a big, joyful family reunion, they were going to be sorely disappointed.

Helen warned her that she might not be there if she waited too long. Her health was bad, and she admitted that she always hoped she’d be long dead before Nama was found. She dreaded facing her daughter when she learned what she had done, and Quinn couldn’t blame her. If Helen wasn’t already dead, she might be after Jules and her husband learned the truth.

Jules’s husband. Quinn’s father. She still couldn’t believe it. A real, live father, her own flesh and blood—something she’d longed for her entire life. They’d barely said anything about him other than the fact that he’d grown into a decent person who had built his own legacy for his children, a legacy that wasn’t dependent on the