Accidentally on Purpose

by Jill Shalvis

  He looked pained. “I get that a lot but it’s Porter.”

  “How do you know my name?” Quinn asked.

  “Look, can we just . . .” He gestured to a small table off to the side of the line.

  Torn between curiosity and a healthy sense of survival, Quinn hesitated. “I’m late for work.”

  “This will only take a minute.”

  Reluctantly, she stepped out of line and moved to the table. “You’ve got one minute.”

  He took a deep breath. “As I said, I’m an attorney. I’m from Wildstone, a small town about two hundred miles north. I’m here to give you news of an inheritance.”

  Quinn blinked. “Okay first, I’ve never heard of Wildstone. And second, I certainly don’t know anyone from there.”

  “We’re a small ranching town that sits in a bowl between the Pacific Coast and wine country,” he said. “Would you like to sit?” he asked quietly, and also very kindly she had to admit. “Because the rest of this is going to be a surprise.”

  “I don’t like surprises,” she said, “and you have thirty seconds left.”

  It was clear from his expression that he wasn’t happy about having to go into the details in public, but as he was a stranger and maybe also a crackpot, too damn bad.

  He drew a deep breath. “The person who left you some property was your birth mother.”

  She stared at him and then slowly sank into the before-offered chair without looking, grateful it was right behind her. “You’re mistaken,” she finally said, shaking her head. “I wasn’t adopted.”

  He gave her a wan smile. “I’m really sorry to have to be the one to tell you, but you were.”

  “I have parents. Lucinda and James Weller.”

  “They adopted you when you were two days old.”

  The shock of that reverberated through her body. “No,” she whispered. Heart suddenly racing, palms clammy, she shook her head. “They would’ve told me. There’s absolutely no way . . .”

  “I’m very sorry,” Cliff said quietly. “But it’s true. They adopted you from Carolyn Adams.” He pulled a picture from his briefcase and pushed it across the table toward her.

  And Quinn’s heart stopped. Because it was Carolyn, the woman who she’d met here in this very coffee shop.

  Chapter 2

  Quinn blinked, shocked to find herself sitting on the curb outside the coffee shop staring blindly at the Lexus her parents had given her.

  Her parents. Who might not really be her parents.

  “Here,” Cliff said, pushing a cup of cold water into her hands as he sat next to her. “Drink this.”

  She took the cup in two shaking hands and gulped down the water, wishing a little bit that it was vodka. “You’re mistaken,” she said again. “Carolyn was just a woman I met here. We spoke only a few times.”

  “Three.” Cliff gazed at her sympathetically. “She told me about the visits. She drove down here to get a peek at you, borne out of a desperate curiosity.”

  “I don’t understand,” Quinn whispered.

  “She knew she was terminal and had set a trust in place,” Cliff said. “She had every intention of telling you herself, but she had a seizure driving back to Wildstone the last day you saw her. She died in the accident.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Cliff took the cup of water from her before she could drop it. “The funeral was five days ago,” he said.

  Quinn let out a sound that might have been a mirthless laugh or a half sob, she wasn’t sure. She shook her head for what felt like the hundredth time in the past few minutes, but it still didn’t clear.

  It wasn’t true, she told herself. Not any of it. Harry Potter here was just a stalker, a good one. Or maybe a scammer. She hated to think that the nice woman she knew as Carolyn could be a part of something so seedy, but she simply couldn’t accept that her parents wouldn’t have told her such a crucial thing such as being adopted. For God’s sake, she’d seen infant pictures of herself in the hospital with them.

  “Look,” she said, standing up. “I don’t want any part of this.”

  “There’s an inheritance.”

  “Especially that,” she said. “I don’t want it or any part of this game you’re playing. I wasn’t adopted and your minute is up and I’m leaving.”

  “Wait.” He stood up too, and looked at her with nothing but kindness and understanding in his gaze. “Take my wand.”

  She blinked, expecting to see a lightning bolt scar appear on his forehead. “What?”

  “My card,” he said, his gaze turning to concern. “Give yourself some time to think about it. Contact me when you’re ready. Are you going to be alright?”

  There was only one answer to that. “Of course.”

  Always.

  She drove to work on auto-pilot, Cliff Potter, er Porter’s, tale eating at her. She was clumsy in the kitchen, dropping and spilling things, plating the wrong entrees, mistaking shallots for onions, forgetful . . .

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Marcel had lost his temper with her somewhere around the time she’d dropped a platter of stuffed peppers. “Get out of my kitchen, you schlampe.”

  She wasn’t positive of the exact translation on that one, but she was pretty sure it was something along the lines of grungy or dirty woman. She carefully and purposely set down her knife so she didn’t run it through him.

  “You’re clumsy, forgetful, and making more work than food!”

  For once he was right. Because all she could think about was Cliff Porter’s visit.

  They adopted you when you were two days old . . .

  “Are you listening to me?” Marcel yelled up at her. Up, because he was five-foot-two to her five-foot-seven, something that normally gave her great pleasure.

  “Du flittchen,” he muttered in disgust beneath his breath, and the entire staff froze in the kitchen like dear in the headlights.

  Slut. She turned to him. “Schiebe es,” she said, which meant shove it. It was the best she could do, at least in German. Pushing past him, she walked out of the kitchen.

  “Where are you going?” he yelled after her. “You can’t just leave!”

  But leaving was exactly what she was doing. Outside, she pulled out her cell phone to call her boss, Chef Wade.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “I have to leave early,” she said. “I’m sorry for the short notice but Marcel is here. He’s got things under control.” By being a tyrannical asshole, but that was another story.

  After she disconnected, she drove on autopilot to her parents’ house. She needed to straighten out this stupid adoption story and she needed to do so before her life imploded.

  Her mom and dad were in the living room in front of their lit gas fireplace, sharing a drink. It was June in LA and the air conditioner was on full blast, but her mother liked a nightcap with ambience.

  “Darling,” her mom said, smiling as she stood in welcome. “Such a lovely surprise. Where’s Brock?”

  “I’m alone,” Quinn said, not bothering to address the fact that she didn’t spend nearly as much time with Brock as they seemed to believe. “I met someone today.”

  Her mom blinked. “Other than Brock? What will people think?”

  “Mom . . .” Quinn pressed her fingertips into her eye sockets to ward off an eye twitch. “I keep telling you, Brock and I aren’t going to get married.”

  “Right now you mean,” she said. “Right?”

  A conversation she didn’t have the strength for. “I met someone who told me an interesting story. Do either of you want to guess what that was?”

  Her mom shook her head and looked at her dad, who did the same.

  “The story is that I’m adopted.”

  And at the twin looks of shock and guilt on her parents’ faces, she knew it was true. “Oh my God.” She staggered to the couch opposite them and sank to it, staring at them. “Oh my God, it’s not a story at all.”

  There was an awkward beat of u
tter silence and Quinn stood up and headed straight to the kitchen. She needed alcohol or sugar, stat. Thank Toll House, she found some ready-made cookie dough in the fridge.

  She was stuffing spoonfuls into her mouth when her parents appeared in the doorway. “It’s day one of my new raw food diet,” she said around a mouthful.

  “Quinn,” her dad said. “We need to talk.”

  Ya think? “I just have one question,” she said.

  In unison, they came up to the opposite side of the island as she chewed and swallowed cookie dough with enthusiasm. “Honey,” her mom said quietly, earnestly. “Me first, okay?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “If you eat that whole thing, it’s the equivalent of forty-eight cookies.”

  Quinn stared at her. “That’s the something you wanted to say? Really?”

  Her dad sighed and leaned onto the island. “Quinn . . .” He paused to nudge the block of knives out of her reach. “We never expected you to find out.”

  She felt her mouth fall open. She scooped up the last of the dough with her bare fingers and shoved it into her mouth.

  “Quinn,” her mom said but stopped when Quinn held up a finger.

  She chewed. Swallowed. Took a deep breath. “Why?” she asked. “Why didn’t you tell me? What possible reason do you have for keeping it a secret?”

  “Because I wanted you to be mine,” her mom said softly, her eyes soft and dammit, a little damp.

  Her dad slid an arm to her mom’s waist. “It wasn’t important how we got you,” he said. “We wanted a baby, and we couldn’t have our own.”

  Quinn sucked in a breath as something occurred to her. “Beth. Was she adopted too?”

  “No,” her mom said. “We’d tried for years and were told we couldn’t have our own. So we set an adoption in motion. When you came along, we were so grateful, but then the unbelievable happened. I got pregnant when you were two months old.”

  Quinn’s heart squeezed hard.

  “I’m more grateful to Carolyn than you could ever know,” her mom said. “But she signed a confidentiality agreement. We could sue her for talking about the adoption.”

  “Too late,” Quinn said. “She’s dead too. And apparently she left me an inheritance.”

  “What? She had nothing to speak of.”

  “I don’t know. I was so shocked I didn’t ask.” She drew a careful breath. “Why didn’t you tell me? Were you sorry you’d adopted after Beth came along?”

  “No.” Her mom came around the island and took Quinn’s hands in her own. “No,” she said again more firmly. “It was a happy accident. The truth is, we didn’t want to take away from either of you so we just kept it quiet. It didn’t matter to us, and I know this is asking a lot, but I wish it didn’t matter to you.”

  Her dad nodded.

  Quinn let out a breath and took a step away from them. “I need to think.”

  “But why?” her mom asked. “It doesn’t matter, none of this matters. Let’s just look forward to you marrying Brock and getting on with your lovely life.”

  “Mom—” Quinn broke off and closed her eyes. “I’m not getting married. How can I? I don’t even know who I am.”

  “Okay,” her dad said. “That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

  Quinn let out a low laugh. “You know what, Dad? You’re right. It is. And now I’m going to take my dramatic ass home. I need some time.”

  “Time?” her mom asked. “But you’re still coming over next week for dinner, right?”

  Quinn had gotten to the door. She turned around to find them standing in the same position at the island, looking shocked at her little temper tantrum. “Let me get this straight,” she said. “You can’t keep my surprise party a secret, but you were able to keep my adoption one?”

  Her mom bit her lower lip. “There’s no party.”

  With another low, mirthless laugh, Quinn left. She drove home to her cute, quiet, comfortable condo and stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She was in shock, adrift, sad, angry . . . so many, many things.

  It was more emotion than she’d felt in two years.

  She’d meant it when she’d told Cliff that she didn’t want anything to do with any inheritance, especially not from someone who’d apparently thrown her away without so much as looking back.

  Not that she was happy with her parents right now, either. They should have told her the truth a long time ago. Instead they’d hidden it, and even now had tried to underplay it, encouraging her to get on with her nice, comfortable life.

  But it suddenly didn’t feel so nice or comfortable anymore.

  Feeling shockingly . . . alone, she looked at her phone. She wanted to call her sister. God, how she wanted that, but instead she called Brock.

  “Hey,” he said when he picked up, his voice brisk and rushed. “I’m in a meeting. Can I get back to you?”

  Disappointment washed over her. “Yes, but—”

  “Great, thanks.”

  And then he disconnected. She tried to let that short connection be enough, tried to tell herself that just hearing his voice helped. But her heart was racing and it didn’t seem to fit in her ribcage. Everything felt tight and she couldn’t breathe because she had no one else to call.

  Well, except one person.

  Harry Potter, a.k.a. Cliff Porter.