“I did say I’d call in few days. I’m fine, by the way,” she assured him. “Thanks for asking.”
“Ready to come home yet?”
“Not anywhere near it, Ethan. How are you managing without me?”
“We’re coping surprisingly well. Aunt Cynthia has really come into her own taking over for you, you’d be impressed.”
Tamsyn felt his words like a physical blow. Sure, she’d walked out on them, but couldn’t they have missed her—even just a little bit? Nobody had missed her, it seemed. She hadn’t even had so much as a text or email from Trent. Not that she wanted to hear from him, but they’d been engaged over a year and had gone out for several months before that. Surely she’d warranted something from him, some explanation, anything. She quashed the thought. She’d walked away from him and his lover, and everything associated with them. That was her choice, as was her mission to find her mother. It was time to stop looking back and to keep her sights firmly fixed on her new future.
Forcing a smile to her lips, she said, “Hey, can you check something for me?”
“Name it.”
“The address Mom’s checks are sent to—can you give that to me again?”
“Sure, just give me a minute to find the email,” her brother replied.
In the background she could hear him using his usual hunt-and-peck keyboard skills to pull up the information. She smiled to herself. Computers were a necessary evil in Ethan’s book—he’d much rather be blending his world-famous wines and watching over their production as if they were his children heading out to a first day at school. While he was busy, Tamsyn scrabbled in her handbag for a pen and notebook.
“Found it,” he said a moment later. He rattled off the address.
“That’s weird,” Tamsyn replied, chewing on the end of her pen. “That’s the address I went to on Saturday, but the man there said he hadn’t heard of Mom.”
“Let me check with Dad’s solicitor and get back to you. Could be someone made a mistake somewhere.”
Or it could be that someone was lying to her. The thought echoed around in her mind. Could Finn be deliberately keeping information about her mother from her? Surely not. What would be the point? It’s not as if he stood to gain anything by it.
“Okay, thanks. Send me a text or email when you know, okay? In the meantime, I’ve decided to take a short-term lease on a cottage here. I want to spend more time poking around, see if I can bump into anyone who might know her and how I can find her.”
“Tam, are you sure you’re doing the right thing? Maybe if she’s hard to find it’s because she doesn’t want to be.”
“It’s not about what she wants anymore,” Tamsyn said with uncharacteristic firmness. “This time it’s about what she owes me. I deserve to know why she left us, Ethan. I need to know.”
She heard her brother sigh in frustration. “By the way,” Ethan said, “I talked to Trent. He told me what happened.”
Tamsyn felt as if a fist had closed around her heart and her lungs burned, reminding her to draw in a breath.
“R-really? Ev-everything?” she stuttered.
“With a little coaxing.” The steel in Ethan’s voice left her in no doubt that her brother had not been his usual urbane self when approaching her ex-fiancé. He continued before she could gather her thoughts together. “I don’t blame you for needing some time out. He duped us all, Tam. Led us all to believe he’d love you the way you deserved to be loved. He was promising something he couldn’t deliver. No matter his orientation, what he did to you was wrong on every level. You deserved better than that and you still do. Isobel’s so mad I had to physically restrain her from heading into town to deal with him. I just wanted you to know, we’re in your corner. Whatever you need from us right now, it’s yours.”