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CHAPTER ONE
Keegan Hart braced his hands on his kitchen counter and bowed his head, swearing under his breath. "Dead?"
His brother, Brody Hart, nodded. "I'm sorry to tell you. That's why it's been so difficult to track Sascha."
Keegan swore under his breath. Sascha Rose shouldn't matter to him. He had known her for a brief time long ago, but he'd never forgotten her. He looked over at his brother, who had slogged through the sleet and ice to deliver it in person. "How did she die?"
"Car accident. Off a cliff."
He stared at his brother. "Car accident? Off a cliff? That's like a movie. Who drives off a cliff?" It didn't even make sense. She'd been so full of vitality and life. "When?"
"Fifteen years ago."
Keegan ran his hand through his hair and let out his breath. "All this time you've been looking for her, and she's been dead?"
"Yeah." Brody grimaced.
"How did it take that long to find her? Wasn't it in the papers? Certificates of death aren't difficult to find." Fifteen years. Sascha had been dead for fifteen years. His mind was whirling.
"See, that's the thing. Her name wasn't really Sascha Rose."
Keegan stared at his brother. "She lied to me about her name?" That actually made sense. It didn't surprise him, and it somehow made some of the tension ease.
"Yeah." Brody slid a paper across the table. "Her real name was Sofia Pendleton."
Keegan took the paper and looked at it. The moment he saw her face, his gut tightened. "It's her."
"Yeah."
He traced his finger over her jaw. In the photograph, she couldn't have been much older than when he knew her. She was laughing in the photograph, her eyes sparkling with mischief, behind her studious glasses. He smiled. "I remember that smile."
"This is her obituary picture." Brody put another photograph on the counter.
This time, Keegan frowned. Sascha had her hair in a tight bun. She was wearing a navy sweater, and she wasn't smiling. Contact lenses gave a clear view of her eyes, and Keegan saw the pain in them that she'd tried to hide, that he'd seen only once, that last night, before everything fell apart. "She wasn't happy when that picture was taken." Dammit. He'd always imagined she'd gone off to a brilliant, vibrant life.
"One more thing—" Brody stopped.
Alarm settled in Keegan's gut as he looked sharply at his brother. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know how to tell you this…"
"What?"
"She had a kid with her in the car. A daughter. She was fifteen months old at the time she died."
"A baby?" Keegan looked at the date of death, the age of the toddler at that time, then did the math. The timing matched his week with Sascha. Keegan sank down on the bar stool, the Christmas baking forgotten. "You don't think—"
"That the baby was yours? Sofia was married at the time she died. If she met him right after you, the baby could have been his."
"We were intimate one night. What are the odds?"
"Not that high."
He met Brody's gaze. "But not zero."
"Nope."
"Can you find any more info about the baby?"
