Mia reached for Josiah’s arm, squeezing until she couldn’t feel her fingers any longer. “Did you sayBradley?”
“Yes, ma’am. Our father was Dr. Xavier Bradley,” the younger man said and held out a small metal frame.
Mia hesitated, then with a quick glance at her husband, took the frame. It was a picture of a woman—a woman who looked almost identical to Mia. She looked at the two men in confusion. “Who is this and why are you here?”
With a gentle push, Josiah scooted her back and opened the door wider. “Please, it’s cold outside and you both must be frozen. Come in and drink some cider. Our daughter Summer made it, and it is quite delicious.”
Without being asked, Summer served the two men the cider and everyone moved back into the living room and sat around the fire. Elias added another large log to the flames, the snapping and popping soothing Mia’s ragged nerves. It couldn’t be a coincidence that they had the same last name as she had.
She took a deep breath and handed them back the frame and leaned against Josiah who wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I believe you have a story to tell?”
Gerald smiled and nodded. “We were so young— Xavier was ten, and I was eight.” He rubbed his hands over his face then dropped them around his hot cup of cider, staring at the dark, steaming liquid. “Our father was a drunk. He never recovered from our mother’s death after our sister was born.”
Xavier traced the woman’s face in the photograph with a smile. “He broke our sister’s tiny arm when he stepped on her in a drunken stupor one night. Never knew he’d done it. I set the bone in a cast. It was my first one. The next accident was when he kicked her when she was crawling and broke her leg. He thought she was a dog. We never owned a dog.” His voice faded.
Gerald met his brother’s stricken gaze and nodded. “We came home from school one day to find that he’d broken her arm again and flayed her back open with a whip…again thinking she was the dog. We knew we had to do something—that he was going to kill her if we didn’t get her out of the house,” Gerard said. “So, we wrapped her in a blanket and put her in a basket and pinned a note to her telling the foundling home owner that her name was Mia Bradley, which is our mother’s maiden name. Xavier and I stopped using our father’s name that night as well. To us, he is dead.”
Mia stared at them both, her gaze moving back and forth between the two men whose dark coloring resembled hers. “And you believe I am this child? Why?” She didn’t really need their answer. She knew. From the way her husband’s hand caressed the exact spots where she had long, faded scars on her back, he also knew she was that child, but she wanted to hear what these two men had to say.
Both Xavier and Gerald smiled and pointed at her arm where she was absently rubbing it. “That’s where our father broke your arm not once, but twice.”
“How did you find me?” she asked, emotion clogging her throat and Josiah holding her upright.
“When I found out I was being transferred to Indian Territory, I wrote a letter to the foundling home to find out if you had ever been adopted.” Xavier glanced at his brother and cleared his throat before looking back at Mia. “I couldn’t leave before finding out if you were all right.”
“He’s turned into a softie in his old age,” Gerald teased, deftly side-stepping his brother’s elbow. “When he received a letter from Madam Wigg telling him you had moved to Eufaula to be married, I put in for a transfer and…well, here we are.” Gerald rubbed the back of his neck, his face turning a darker shade of red. “I know it’s a bit presumptive on our part, but we’ve spent our entire lives wondering how you were, and we both want our little sister in our lives again. We pray you want the same.”
Eyes filled with tears and nodding furiously, Mia reached out and hugged the two men to her. Her brothers.
Two hours later, exhausted and drained, Mia stood in front of the window, staring out at the snow-covered woods. The moon’s glow lit up the pristine white ground. Everything sparkled. Josiah’s arms snaked around her waist, and he kissed her neck, his cheek resting against hers.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m better than all right.” She turned in his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him to her. She had spent the last two hours getting to know her brothers, and with the late hour, they had decided to stay the night.
Josiah and the children had become her family in every possible way, but here were two men, who were her flesh and blood. She’d never let them go, not when they’d just found each other again. As soon as their transfers were final and they returned, she’d be impatient to know them better and add them to her heart. She could wait until then.
All of her dreams had come true—she’d found her family, both old and new, and Josiah was her everything. Mia smiled up at Josiah’s handsome face. She had never been so happy.