Chapter 42

Gabrielle stared at the tall, smiling man and wanted to use some choice words, but she couldn’t take out her bad mood on him.

“I’m sorry; I’m not interested in company.” She said solemnly looking back down at her frothy drink.

“But I’m not really company, Ms. Hall I’m sure K.C. wouldn’t want you sitting alone in here.” He said looking around at the dark bar.

“You never know who might walk up and start talking to you.” he told her with a wry smile and Gabrielle looked up at him sharply.

She had people that did recognize her from all of the publicity surrounding her winning the medal so this wasn’t unusual, but for some reason this stranger knew about her and K.C. She wasn’t anywhere near the limelight and she couldn’t imagine how he would know about the relationship.

“I’m sorry have we met before?” she asked trying to see if she could place his face.

“No we haven’t although I know of you. Do you mind if I sit down for a moment?” he asked indicating the empty chair and she nodded slowly.

There was something about him that seemed a little familiar but she couldn’t place him.

He was very good looking with a medium brown complexion and warm brown eyes and he wore the charcoal grey suit with a gray shirt unbuttoned at his throat well, he gave the appearance of a sophisticated, confident man.

“My name is Frank Leon and I’m K.C.’s uncle.” He told her and Gabrielle’s mouth nearly fell open.

This family really had the good looking genes because the man didn’t appear to be in his mid fifties but she knew from K.C. that he was.

“I decided to tag along when Freddy told me she and Colt were coming to meet you. I spoke to K.C. when he first went down to St. Sebastian and he sounded really happy. I wanted to meet the young woman who could do that for my nephew especially after Tiffanigate.” He said easily as she frowned.

“I’m sorry Mr. Leon I don’t mean to be rude but I don’t have anything to say to you.” She replied regretting that she had told him he could sit.

“That’s okay, I just need you to listen for a little bit and then I’ll get out of your hair. K.C. was really upset when I ran into him upstairs and you don’t look any better.” He said glancing at her sad face.  

“Your nephew keeps secrets better than the CIA. Is that some kind of family trait?”  She asked looking over at him and the serious expression on her face was telling.

Frank looked down at the drink he held in his hands for a moment and then met her turbulent green gaze.

“You have every right to be angry with K.C. Ms. Hall, but he comes from extraordinary circumstances and I’m not sure you appreciate that. The reason you don’t know that is because he doesn’t know himself. My sister is going to have to face the demons from her past before K.C. can ever tell you and it’s been so long that I don’t know if Fredrika can do it." Frank Leon said and for the first time Rielle saw the concern on his face. 

"She is a very strong woman but I thought the - incident would defeat her when she couldn’t talk about it. Somehow Colt got through to her but when they were first married their relationship wasn’t what it should be.” He told her calmly although Rielle could hear the emotion in Frank Leon’s voice.  

It was obvious that Frank loved his sister and she knew he didn’t have to tell her any of this and she listened intently.

“Having K.C. seemed to appease something in her and she stopped holding people at bay but she begged my mother and me not to ever tell Colt what had happened to her and we couldn’t break that vow. Fortunately Colt is a smart man and he realized that she had been traumatized somehow and he talked to different medical professionals about what could have happened to her and with a lot of care and patience she finally broke down and told him.” He related heavily. 

His hand went up to rub his broad forehead as he remembered those dark days when he had seriously thought the marriage would not last.

The children had all been young and there were long periods of time when he knew his sister hadn’t spoken to her husband in weeks.

She had finally been shocked out of her harmful behavior when Rae Whitfield had confronted her and told her she would lose her husband if she didn’t get her act together.

“I know that you care about K.C. Ms. Hall so I’m asking you to have a bit more patience with my nephew. It wasn’t his intention to hurt you.” He said as he gave her a hopeful smile.

~*~

Rielle wanted to continue to hold onto her anger but it was getting harder in the face of what he had revealed to her. She opened her mouth to respond but was cut off when another voice piped up.

~*~

“I don’t think she cares as much she wants us to believe Uncle Frank don’t let her pretty face fool you.” The man said harshly.

Rielle turned, for a moment thinking K.C. was standing behind her. Instead of K.C. however she found herself caught in the intense blue green stare of a dark haired man.   

He stood with his hands shoved in his pockets and he looked angry with her and she knew this was Marcus Whitfield. He was leaner than K.C., with more of a swimmer’s build and his short black hair and light eyes made him look like some kind of moody poet. He was well dressed in a royal blue shirt and a navy jacket with dark washed jeans.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that he was so good looking or even that he wore his clothes with effortless style. It seemed to be a family trait for this good looking family as much as keeping secrets was.

~*~

“Ms. Hall as you can guess this is my nephew Marcus. Marcus you don’t know that. I have every faith that Graham’s daughter will reserve judgment until she has the facts.” Frank said with more confidence in his voice.

It took a minute but Rielle smiled back at the mention of her father.

“You know my Dad?” she asked looking away from Marcus Whitfield to fix her green gaze on Frank Leon.

“Yes, I do we actually went to junior high together before I left St. Sebastian. I was really proud when he got drafted into the NBA after college and I was equally proud when you and your teammates won the team volleyball silver medal.” He offered sitting back.

Marcus finally pulled up a chair as his uncle continued to ask Gabrielle about her experiences much to his annoyance.

The conversation flowed from there and Rielle found herself the focus of two very intelligent men. She knew how K.C. had felt when he had met her family and their questions were the typical ones. Marcus did manage to ask some pointed questions however and she knew he was looking for a reason not to like her.

~*~

Marcus was twenty-eight year old and worked for Aurora Enterprise as an Executive Vice President of Development and Acquisitions after having graduated from The Wharton School of Business with a Degree in Economics.

He had learned about the new woman in his brother’s life after K.C. had made that second trip back to Denver and he had cautioned him on making the same mistake he’d made with Tiffani.

Despite talking to Jarrod and Michael who he was on good terms with and hearing what they had to say on the subject of Gabrielle Hall, Marcus had believed she was too good to be true and still had some doubts about her.

She was beautiful and seemed like a nice person but he was going to reserve judgment a little longer. He had been fooled by Tiffani’s pretty face and refused to be taken in by appearance again.

Marcus had seen how angry K.C. had been after the relationship failed between him and Tiffani and had been happy to know that his brother’s heart had not been involved with that little redheaded witch.

Gabrielle was another story unfortunately. Marcus had heard his parents talking about K.C.’s new girlfriend a few weeks ago and his Mom had not been pleased that the girl was from St. Sebastian. In fact she had been acting strangely since his brother had gone down there.

He had seen the desolate look in his brother’s eyes when he came up to their parents’ suite to speak to both of them with his duffle bag and known that his girlfriend had kicked him out of the hotel room.

Frederika had taken one look at his miserable face and completely fallen apart and Marcus had left the room uncomfortable with the whole scene.

He had never seen his mother lose her composure like that and he wasn’t ready to face whatever had broken her spirit to this extent.

Instead he had chosen to find out as much as he could about Gabrielle Hall and when he had seen his Uncle Frank joining the woman in question at the bar he had joined their little party.

He could see that she wasn’t what his mother thought after spending an hour of talking with her and he could see that she was also hurting over this situation with his older brother.

Marcus knew that whatever had happened to his mother had affected K.C.’s relationship with Gabrielle but he wasn’t sure what the big deal was. 

~*~ 

The pina colada had been good but not very filling and now that it was lunchtime she was starving and it must have shown on her face.

It was so funny that nothing seemed to interrupt her appetite and that included being sick or heartbroken, it was one thing that her girls always teased her about.

“Gabrielle let me take you to lunch I’d like to hear how things are on St. Sebastian now.” Frank told her and she agreed.

“As long as we don’t go to the restaurant in the hotel I accept. I don’t think they’ll allow me back in there after the scene earlier.” She said unhappily.

"Don't worry about that Dad took care of everything and they'll welcome you like royalty if you go back." Marcus said trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.

His uncle sent him a hard look and he shrugged carelessly, his hands shoved into his pocket as they walked to the underground parking lot.

~*~

Frank had rented an Acura MDX and they drove to a Thai place called Moon Orchid that he had heard about from one of his old Navy buddies he had looked up while in the city.

Frank was a construction project manager and he had done a stint in the Navy to help pay for his degree from University of Denver before he had begun working for Aurora Enterprises.

His mother had not had the funds to finance his education but she had done the best she could working as a seamstress, eventually making a good living creating one of a kind outfits for the women of Florida before she had moved with her daughter to Colorado.

Neither Frederika nor Frank had ever been ashamed of their humble beginnings and Ramona Leon had continued to make clothes for her that had attracted the eyes of the fashion mavens of Denver.

She had opened a small shop and had counted not only her daughter and Rae Whitfield as customers but also a lot of other movers and shakers in the city as well.

Rae and David Sr. along with Colt’s older brothers Austin, Boyd and David Jr. had rallied around the couple and not too many could stand up to the united front the Whitfields presented.

The support that the Whitfields had shown to his small family had made him feel better about leaving his mother and sister when he had been deployed to a post in Spain.

He had enjoyed his experience in the country so much because he had met a young woman whom he had fallen in love with and he had come back to the States afterwards with a Spanish wife.

He and his wife Melina an art restoration expert had now been married for twenty-five years and had four children ranging in age from twenty to fifteen.

~*~

Gabrielle enjoyed her vegetable spring rolls, Tom Yum which was a soup with lemon grass, straw mushrooms, green onions, coriander leaves, lime juice, chili paste and large shrimp. She couldn’t resist having the coconut ice cream to see how it compared to her family’s and found it  to be very good.

Frank had the Goy See Me which had steamed egg noodles topped with mushrooms, green onions, bamboo shoots, peapods and gravy with beef and Marcus had the Pad Thai sautéed rice noodles with eggs, bean sprouts and green onions, topped with crushed peanuts with beef.

He had been to Thailand and found the food to be very authentic. His parents had exposed them to different places and cultures as children and he could remember going to England or Egypt for vacation as well as driving Route 66 in a Winnebago.

He could also recall being a teenager and his mother’s reaction after Danni had innocently asked when they could go to where their mother had come from while they were planning their annual family vacation.

His mother had been withdrawn for days until finally she snapped out of it and none of them had mentioned the idea again.

His mother’s secret had affected all of them, was still doing so and he got that Gabrielle was upset but she had to understand that their family needed to resolve this first before someone who was still essentially an outsider could expect to see the dirty laundry.

“K.C. hasn’t made it a secret that he’s in love with you. Is what my brother did really so unforgiveable?” Marcus asked.

He refused to ignore the eight hundred pound gorilla any longer as they finished their meals and walked out of the restaurant to the Acura his uncle was driving.

“I don’t know enough about it to speak to the other situation. What this does have to do with is the fact that K.C. didn’t tell me that your mother is biracial. He had to realize when he first talked about meeting your parents that I didn’t know or we would have discussed it." she explained thinking back to what they had done instead of talking. 

"I knew something was troubling him and I asked more than once if he wanted to talk about it and he refused.” Rielle told them both holding their gazes.

“You didn’t answer  Marcus’s question though. Can you forgive K.C. for not telling you that we are a mixed race family?” Frank asked his handsome face serious.

“Call me naïve but when K.C. told me that he wanted me to meet his parents I expected them both to look like him and I was nervous. I’ve never dated a ‘white’ guy before and I wasn’t sure how either of them would react to me. Knowing that your sister was not white could have relieved a lot of anxiety for me and somehow we never had that conversation.” Rielle said clearly as they stood next to the car.

She looked away from the men for a minute thinking that she really needed to have this discussion with K.C. first.

“I owe K.C. the courtesy of speaking to him and that’s what I’m going to do. I don’t think either one of you can object to that.” She said reasonably and she saw both men exchange a look.

Frank agreed with her but Marcus’s look said differently.

His expression didn’t change on the ride back to the hotel and they were outside of Gabrielle’s suite when he finally broke his silence. His eyes were blazing as she turned to face them after opening her door.

“K.C. might have been a big idiot not to tell you the truth but the way you’re acting you’d think he’d committed some heinous crime. Your rich boyfriend who treats you like a queen didn’t tell you that our mother isn’t white. Big deal, grow up and get over it!” He said sarcastically before stalking off.