Brad had been unable to come up with a plausible excuse for going to New York City. When he asked Jared for time off, he’d said that he couldn’t give him a specific reason but to trust him that it was important. His mother’s concern about his clothes was just another way of worming the information out of him. “It’s okay, Mutter. The guys I’m going to meet don’t dress well.”

Joanna’s eyebrow shot up. “Then one of them must be Alistair Renault.”

His eyes betrayed him. He was never good at evading the truth. “I thought so,” Joanna said, turning away. “As if it wasn’t enough what that man stole from me, he had to take my son from me for two years of my life. Now what does he want? You must tell me.”

Surprised, Brad said, “What…did he steal from you?”

“My heart. He stole my heart, Sohn, and I never got it entirely back. He never knew.”

“What? But I thought that you and Vater…”

Joanna turned to him. “No, your father was my second love…and choice. Again, Alistair never knew, and neither did your father.”

Brad didn’t know that he wanted to hear these revelations this late. Was his mother telling him that… His face must have flamed with his shocking thought, for she patted his cheek. “No, Sohn, it is not what you are thinking. Look at your father’s picture. You two could have been bookends.”

“Then why are you telling me this?” Brad demanded.

“So that you will understand why I do not want him back in my life, my home, my family. My life is…content, and I don’t want him—” she struggled for an American word “—messing it up. He is not to come here anymore while I am here, understood?”

Brad stared into her eyes. He couldn’t believe it. My God, after all these years and two men that she loved and who loved her, the flame still burned in the heart of Joanna Bukowski Hudson Cramer for the man in brown, and Alistair Renault, still carrying the torch for his mother, never knew.

*  *  *