Chapter 3

I perched on the very edge of my chair at the table, like a bird ready to take flight at the slightest chance. An animal instinct to run and hide stirred inside me. I wasn't used to feeling this way. Back in the city, I was always the strong one of my mother and me. I was the one with the job. I was the one that brought food home and made sure we had a place to live. I was the one who kept her cool and remained completely level-headed and vigilant. All of a sudden, thrust into the mysterious depths of my new family, I was reduced to a worrying wreck of nerves. I was like a surfer who had swum too far out to sea, been swept up by the tide and encircled by sharks.

Once I'd announced who I was, Kyle had pointblank refused to go to work and stayed in the house, watching me like a hawk. He sat opposite me, staring with big brown eyes the colour of melted chocolate. My eyes weren't like his, or Heath's. Mine were a stormy green, the same kind of hue as Brax's and according to my mother, a spitting image of my father's. My hair was unlike all of theirs as well. I had my mum's flaxen hair, blonde and sun-kissed, long and unkempt. All of these similarities and differences I picked up in a matter of seconds, just from watching the three brothers around me and spotting little details, insignificant to any other eye but mind-boggling to me.

Heath leant against the sofa, his eyes flitting to me and then to the floor and then to his brothers and back again, as if he was trying to make sense of it all, find some kind of connection. To say that he and the others were speechless was a massive understatement. Everyone in the room was as quiet as if we were attending a funeral.

Just then, Brax came to sit back at the table and placed a mug of steaming tea down in front of me. It was a weak attempt at relaxing me, but I felt somewhat grateful that he was at least trying to make me feel more comfortable. Something told me that welcoming a new sister into the family wasn't something he did every day.

"Thanks." I smiled, accepting the mug of tea and wrapping my hands about it even though I wasn't cold.

"You, uh... want anything else at all? Because if you're hungry I can shout you a feed at Angelo's."

"No, I'm fine." I insisted. "Thanks, Brax."

"Hey? Don't mention it," He said, scowling as he leant forwards on the table and thoughtfully brushed his lips with the tips of his fingers. "So, Alex, let me get this straight; our old man had a fling with your mum. You were the result. He never knew and-"

"Oh, he knew." I averred interrupting my brother. "He knew I was his. He just didn't care. Every so often, when I was a baby or an infant, he'd turn up to the house and demand money from my mum. Eventually she got sick of the fact he up and left as soon as she gave him cash. She told him to sling his hook - said that we wanted nothing more to do with him. He didn't take it very well."

"I bet." Brax murmured, sharing a look with Heath. They were apparently unfazed by our father's conduct.

"He did the same thing with me." Kyle piped up, glancing at me with something close to recognition and empathy. "Turned up out of the blue every so often and requested money. Then he was off again for months at a time."

"Yeah. That's right." I nodded. "So when my mum told him to leave us alone he just lost it. He picked her up and threw her against the wall. Broke her wrist. That was around my third birthday. We never heard or saw from him again. A few years later, mum found out he was in prison. She was glad. My mum... she's never really been happy. I think it's because of him. He made her jumpy and nervous and she used to cry all the time. I reckoned it was some kind of depression or nervous breakdown." I paused and took a sip of my tea. My hands were shaking. I realized I'd never spoken aloud about these things before - not with anybody, ever. I'd never had reason to; there was no one who asked and there was no one to tell. "So, anyway, I tried to go visit him when I was older. I wanted to tell him what a waste of space he was. I'm still so angry about what he did to mum... but I never ended up going. Didn't get the chance. I'd have to be sixteen to go into the prison visiting on my own, but I'm only fifteen. Then I found out he died over a year ago."

"Are you upset about that?" Brax quizzed, observing my response carefully as if he worried it would be bad.

"Nah, not really." I admitted, tracing my mug with my index finger. "I guess it would've been nice just to tell him how little we needed him and what I really thought of him, but I'm not going to cry over the fact he's gone. It's probably for the best anyway. Nothing good would have come from meeting him."

"Fair play." Brax nodded, approving of the view I'd taken on the subject. "Do you know how he died?"

"Not the full story."

His green eyes were intense. "Do you want me to tell you?"

I thought about this for a few seconds before shaking my head. "I think I'd prefer not to know." I confessed. "It's not like can we can change what happened anyway. The past is in the past and I haven't got enough time to waste on a man who was never there for his daughter."

"If it makes you feel any better, he wasn't a very good Dad to any of us." Kyle interjected understandingly.

"Thinking about it, the less attention he gave you, the better." Brax agreed begrudgingly. The way he spoke about our father made it very clear to me he'd never liked him, maybe even as far as hated him.

"So did you always know about us then?" Heath asked, "Did you know that Dad had two other families?"

I shook my head. "No. I never knew. Mum... she never mentioned anything before. I would have come had she told me sooner. It's only a little while back she spoke to me about it."

"Why'd she wait until now?" Brax pressed. "Why not tell you when you were younger that you had half-brothers?"

Glancing down at the floor, I shrugged and busied myself with swallowing another mouthful of tea. Of course, I knew the real answer to that question. The actual reason she'd told me now was because she was fatally ill with cancer. She was so close to death's door that, lying on the hospital bed, clasping my hand, pale and bedridden, it dawned on her that when she died, I would be alone in the world. No, worse than that - I would be in the care of social services, forced into a foster home. She knew me well enough to realize I couldn't deal with that. Foster care was out of the question. I'd survived so far on my independence and the idea of having my own freedom taken away from me filled me with dread. Mum knew. It was that guilty, niggling thought that had provoked her into telling me about the Braxtons. Otherwise, if mum was still in good health and I was still living under the radar of social services, I'd probably still be non-the-wiser of my other family.

"She probably did it to protect me." I mused aloud. "My guess is that she figured I wouldn't deal with it right if she'd told me when I was younger. Maybe she was scared I'd want to get to know you better and end up leaving her out in the cold."

"Is that what you want?" Brax probed interestedly. To get to know us?"

I managed a laugh. "Well, I didn't exactly travel all this way from Melbourne just to drop in and say hi." I grinned. "It'd be nice to know who my brothers are. Even if I am better off not knowing."

"Hey, what do you two reckon?" Brax asked his bemused brothers. "You keen on the idea of having a little sister?"

"Mate, I'm just glad it's not another brother." Heath joked, throwing me a wink to let me know he was just teasing. "I'm still not keen on the first one that was dumped on us, isn't that right, Tall, Dark and Moody?"

Kyle rolled his eyes, smiled tightly and shook his head. "Whatever, Heath." Then his eyes danced back onto me and he offered me a hand to shake. "Welcome to the family, little sis."

I felt the tension in the room begin to lift and the tautness in my muscles evaporate as I took Kyles hand. My new brothers had all replaced their frowns with playful, friendly smiles. Something told me that becoming a Braxton might not be half as challenging as I'd originally thought. Their lives seemed to revolve around the concept of family coming first.

"So, what do you want to do?" Brax asked me. "You want a tour of the Bay or our life stories or do you want to meet the rest of the family first?"

My mouth dropped open. "There's more of you?!"

He laughed heartily at that. "No more brothers, but there's a few family friends and girlfriends you should probably meet. Ash, Andy, Josh, Phoebe, Rick ...Heath's got a wife called Bianca and a daughter a couple years younger than you."

"I've got a niece?" I exclaimed.

Heath beamed proudly. "And a nephew."

"You're kidding! I had no idea - my mum didn't know anything about them. Can you tell me what they're like?"

"Darcy's almost thirteen. She looks kind of like you come to think about it; long blonde hair, blue-green eyes. You'll like her. She's real smart. And then there's Harley. He's just a toddler, but he's a tough little dude. A born surfer."

"That's amazing." I said, genuinely excited at the prospect of meeting my little nephew and niece. I had never really been around kids back at home, apart from my best friend, Flynn's little brothers and sisters. They were a cheerful lot and had always had a fascination with me whenever I went round to his house. Playing with them had taught me to like children, though it was scary to think that my niece and I were pretty much only two and a bit years apart. I wanted to meet them straightaway. "Where are they right now?" I asked.

"Right now?" Heath raised his brows. "Darce is at school in Summer Bay High. Harley's with my wife, Bianca. He's not going to be your only nephew either." Heath glanced pointedly at Brax. "Not for long anyway."

When I looked over accusingly, my eldest brother smiled almost embarrassedly, averted his gaze and sniffed. "I've got a little boy on the way. My partner, Ricky, she's pregnant."

"Wow." I mouthed, trying and failing not to be overcome.

"This is probably a lot to take in, huh?" Kyle asked, having noticed I was more than a little dazed by the expansion of a family I had believed would be a smidge smaller.

"Little bit." I understated. "It's kind of hard finding out you've got this whole new family. Good hard, though. I love the idea of a big family, but it's going to take a while to absorb it all."

The three brothers gave me a second to let everything sink in, then Brax suggested we go for a walk on the beach to clear our heads and talk a little bit more. He could introduce me to the rest of the family later. For now, he just wanted me to feel at ease. If that meant taking it slowly, it was fine by him.

I accepted the stroll along the bay, eager to feel that fresh, ocean breeze. I didn't mind the idea of it just being me and Brax either. It would make it much easier talking to one brother at a time rather than three all at once. Besides, Brax seemed nice enough and his heart was clearly in the right place, even if he did have a somewhat hard exterior. He reminded me a bit of a clam, with an unbreakable shell, difficult to praise open, but worth it to see the pearl hiding inside.

Something told me that if I stuck around, I'd end up liking it here in Summer Bay.