Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  her, Jake admitted. Like a finger snap, his life had been divided into before and after Callie Dunbrook.

  It had been terrifying and annoying. She had been terrifying and annoying.

  He’d been thirty, unencumbered—unless you counted Digger—and planning to stay that way. He loved his work. He loved women. And whenever a man could combine the two, well, life was as perfect as it was ever going to get.

  He didn’t answer to anyone, and certainly had no intentions of answering to some curvy little archaeologist with a mean streak.

  God, he’d loved that mean streak of hers.

  Sex had been nearly as stormy and fascinating as their bickering. But it hadn’t solved his problem. The more he had her, the more he’d wanted. She’d given him her body, her companionship, the challenge of her contrary mind. But she’d never given him the one thing that might have settled him down.

  Her trust. She’d never trusted him. Not to stick by her, to share loads with her. And most certainly she didn’t trust his fidelity.

  For months after she’d booted him, he’d consoled himself that it was her blatant lack of faith that had ruined everything. Just as for months he’d held on to the conviction that she’d come crawling after him.

  Stupid, he could admit now. Callie never crawled. It was one thing they had firmly in common. And as time passed, he’d begun to see that maybe, perhaps, possibly, he hadn’t handled everything quite as adeptly as he could have. Should have.

  It didn’t really shift the blame away from her, which was exactly where it belonged, but it did open the door to considering another approach.

  That current still ran between them, he acknowledged. There was no question of it. If the Antietam Project offered him a channel for that current, he’d use it.

  He’d use whatever came to hand to get her back.

  And whatever was troubling her now, well, she was going to tell him. She was going to let him help her. If he had to tie her down and pry it out of her with forceps.

  Callie hadn’t expected to sleep, but just after dawn she’d curled up on top of the bed in her old room. She’d hugged a pillow under her arm, the way she had since childhood when ill or unhappy.

  Physical and emotional fatigue had beaten out even the headache and the nausea. She’d woken a full four hours later at the sound of the front door slamming, and the bright call of her name.

  For a moment, she’d been a child again, snuggled into bed on a Saturday morning until her mother’s call stirred her. There’d be Cheerios for breakfast, with fresh strawberries cut up in the bowl and the extra sugar she’d sneak into it when her mother wasn’t looking.

  She rolled over. The aches of her body, the sick headache, the utter weight settled in her chest reminded her she wasn’t a little girl any longer, whose biggest concern was sweetening her cereal.

  She was a grown woman. And she didn’t know whose child she was.

  She swung her legs slowly to the floor, then sat on the side of the bed with her head in her hands.

  “Callie!” Sheer delight lifted Vivian’s voice as she rushed through the doorway. “Baby, we had no idea you were coming home. I was so surprised to see your car in the drive.”

  She gave Callie a quick hug, then ran a hand over her hair. “When did you get here?”

  “Last night.” She didn’t lift her head. She wasn’t ready to look at her mother’s face. “I thought you and Dad were in Maine.”

  “We were. We decided to come home today instead of Sunday. Your father was obsessing about his garden, and he has a full day at the hospital on Monday. Baby . . .” Vivian put a hand under Callie’s chin, lifted it. “What’s wrong? Aren’t you feeling well?”

  “Just a little groggy.” Her mother’s eyes were brown, Callie thought. But not like her own. Her mother’s were darker, deeper, and went so beautifully with the rose and cream skin, the softly curling hair that had the texture and color of blond mink. “Is Dad here?”

  “Yes, of course. He’s taking a look at his tomato plants before he brings in the rest of the luggage. Sweetie, you look awfully pale.”

  “I need to talk to you. To both of you.”

  I’m not ready. I’m not ready, not ready, her mind screamed, but she pushed herself to her feet. “Will you ask Dad to come in? I just want to wash up.”

  “Callie, you’re scaring me.”

  “Please. Just give me a minute to throw some water on my face. I’ll be right down.”

  Without giving Vivian a chance to argue, she hurried out and into the bath across the hall.

  She leaned on the sink, took slow, deep breaths because her stomach was clutching again. She ran the water cold, as cold as she could stand, and splashed it on her face.

  She didn’t look in the mirror. She wasn’t ready for that, either.

  When she came out, started down, Vivian was in the foyer, clutching her husband’s hand.

  Look how tall he is, Callie thought. How tall and trim and handsome. And how perfect they look together. Dr. Elliot Dunbrook and his pretty Vivian.

  They’d lied to her, every day of her life.

  “Callie. You’ve got your mother in a state.” Elliot crossed over, wrapped his arms around Callie and gave her a bear hug. “What’s wrong with my girl?” he questioned, and had tears burning her eyes.

  “I didn’t expect you back today.” She stepped out of his arms. “I thought I’d have more time to figure out what I wanted to say. Now I don’t. We need to go in and sit down.”

  “Callie, are you in trouble?”

  She looked at her father’s face, into his face, saw nothing but love and concern. “I don’t know what I am,” she said simply, and walked across the foyer into the living room.

  The perfect room, she thought, for people of taste and means. Antiques, carefully chosen, carefully maintained. Comfortable chairs in the deep colors they both favored. The charm of folk art for the walls, the elegance of old crystal.

  Family pictures on the mantel that made her heart ache.

  “I need to ask you . . .”

  No, she couldn’t do this with her back to them. Whatever she’d learned, whatever she would learn, they deserved to speak directly to her face. She turned, took one deep breath.

  “I need to ask you why you never told me I was adopted.”

  Vivian made a strangled sound, as if she’d been dealt a hard punch to the throat. Her lips trembled. “Callie, where did you—”

  “Please don’t deny it. Please don’t do that.” She could barely get the words out. “I’m sorry, but I went through the files.” She looked at her father. “I broke into the locked drawer, and the security box inside. I saw the medical records, the adoption papers.”

  “Elliot.”

  “Sit down, Vivian. Sit down.” He pulled her to a chair, lowered her into it. “I couldn’t destroy them.” He stroked a hand over his wife’s cheek as he might a frightened child’s. “It wasn’t right.”

  “But it was right to conceal the facts of my birth from me?” Callie demanded.

  Elliot’s shoulders slumped. “It wasn’t important to us.”

  “Wasn’t—”

  “Don’t blame your father.” Vivian reached up for Elliot’s hand. “He did it for me,” she said to Callie. “I made him promise. I made him swear. I needed . . .”

  She began to weep, slow tears streaming down her face. “Don’t hate me, Callie. Oh God, don’t hate me for this. You were my baby the instant you were put in my arms. Nothing else mattered.”

  “A replacement for the baby you lost?”

  “Callie.” Now Elliot stepped forward. “Don’t be cruel.”

  “Cruel?” Who was this man, staring at her out of sad, angry eyes? Who was her father? “You can speak to me of cruel after what you’ve done?”

  “What have we done?” he tossed back. “We didn’t tell you. How can that matter so much? Your mother—your mother needed the illusion at first. She was devastated, inconsolable. She could never give birth
to a child. When there was a chance to adopt you, to have a daughter, we took it. We loved you, love you, not because you’re like our own, because you are our own.”

  “I couldn’t face the loss of that baby,” Vivian managed. “Not after the two miscarriages, not after doing everything I could to make certain the baby was born healthy. I couldn’t bear the thought of people looking at you and seeing you as a substitute. We moved here, to start fresh. Just the three of us. And I put all of that away. It doesn’t change who you are. It doesn’t change who we are or how much we love you.”

  “You pay for a black-market baby. You take a child stolen from another family, and it doesn’t change anything?”

  “What are you talking about?” Elliot’s face filled with angry color. “That’s a vicious thing to say. Vicious. Whatever we’ve done we don’t deserve that.”

  “You paid a quarter of a million dollars.”

  “That’s right. We arranged for a private adoption and money speeds the wheel. It may not be considered fair to couples less able to pay, but it’s not a crime. We agreed to the fee, agreed that the biological mother should be compensated. To stand there and accuse us of buying you, of stealing you denigrates everything we’ve ever had as a family.”

  “You don’t ask why I came here, why I looked in your files, why I broke into your private papers?”

  Elliot dragged a hand through his hair, then sat. “I can’t keep up. For God’s sake, Callie, do you expect logic and reason when you throw this at us?”

  “Last night, a woman came to my room. She’d seen the news segment I did on my current project. She said I was her daughter.”

  “You’re my daughter,” Vivian said, low and fierce. “You’re my child.”

  “She said,” Callie continued, “that on December 12, 1974, her infant daughter was stolen. From a mall in Hagerstown, Maryland. She showed me pictures of herself at my age, of her mother at my age. There’s a very strong resemblance. Coloring, facial shape. The damn three dimples. I told her I couldn’t be. I told her I wasn’t adopted. But I was.”

  “It can’t have anything to do with us.” Elliot rubbed a hand over his heart. “That’s insane.”

  “She’s mistaken.” Vivian shook her head slowly. Back and forth, back and forth. “She’s horribly mistaken.”

  “Of course she is.” Elliot reached for her hand again. “Of course she is. We went through a lawyer,” he told Callie. “A reputable lawyer who specialized in private adoptions. We had recommendations from your mother’s obstetrician. We expedited the adoption process, yes, but that’s all. We’d never be a party to kidnapping, to baby brokering. You can’t believe that.”

  She looked at him, at her mother, who stared at her out of swimming eyes. “No. No,” she said and felt a little of the weight lift. “No, I don’t believe that. So let’s talk about exactly what you did.”

  First, she stepped to her mother’s chair, crouched down. “Mom.” All she did was touch Vivian’s hand and repeat. “Mom.”

  With one choked sob, Vivian lunged forward and caught Callie in her arms.

  Five

  Callie made coffee as much to give her parents time to compose themselves as for the need. They were her parents. That hadn’t changed.

  The sense of anger and betrayal was fading. How could it stand against her mother’s ravaged face or her father’s sorrow?

  But if she could block out the hurt, she couldn’t block out the need to understand, to have answers she could align until they gave her the whole.

  No matter how much she loved them, she needed to know.

  She carried the coffee back to the living room and saw that her parents sat together on the couch now, hands clasped.

  A unit, she mused. They were, as always, a unit.

  “I don’t know if you can ever forgive me,” Vivian began.

  “I don’t think you understand.” Callie poured the coffee. The simple task gave her something to do with her hands, kept her gaze focused on pot and cup. “I have to know the facts. I can’t see the whole picture until I have the pieces of it to put together. We’re a family. Nothing changes that, but I have to know the facts.”

  “You were always a logical girl,” Elliot replied. “We’ve hurt you.”

  “Let’s not worry about that now.” Rather than move to a chair, Callie lowered herself to sit cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the table. “First I need to understand . . . about adoption. Did you feel it made you, me . . . us less valid?”

  “However a family is made is a miracle,” Elliot responded. “You were our miracle.”

  “But you concealed it.”

  “It’s my fault.” Vivian blinked at tears again. “It was my fault.”

  “There’s no fault,” Callie said. “Just tell me.”

  “We wanted a child.” Vivian’s fingers tightened on Elliot’s. “We so very much wanted a child. When I had the first miscarriage, it was terrible. I can’t explain it to you. The sense of loss and grief and panic. Of . . . failure. My doctor said we could try again, but that I might have . . . might have difficulty carrying a child to term. Any future pregnancy would have to be carefully monitored. And even though it was, I miscarried again. I was . . . I felt . . . broken.”

  Callie lifted a cup, held it up to her mother. “I know. I understand.”

  “They gave me a mood elevator to get me through the depression.” She managed a watery smile. “Elliot weaned me off the pills. He kept me busy instead. Antiquing, going to the theater. Weekends in the country when he could manage it.” She pressed their joined hands to her cheek. “He pulled me out of the pit.”

  “She felt it was her fault, that she’d done something to cause it.”

  “I smoked a lot of pot in college.”

  Callie blinked, then found something rising unexpectedly in her throat. It was laughter. “Oh, Mom, you wild woman.”

  “Well, I did.” Vivian wiped at tears even as a smile trembled on her lips. “And I did LSD once, and had two one-night stands.”

  “Okay then, that explains it. You slut. Got any grass in the house now?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  “Oh well, we’ll get through this without blissing out then.” Callie leaned over the table, patted her mother’s knee. “So you were a pothead floozy. Got it.”

  “You’re trying to make this easier for me.” On an uneven breath, Vivian rested her head on Elliot’s shoulder. “She’s so much like you. Strong, like you. I wanted to try again. Elliot wanted to wait a little longer, but I was determined. I wouldn’t listen to anyone. I was, I suppose, obsessed. We fought about it.”

  “I was worried about your mother’s health. Physical, emotional.”

  “He’d suggested adoption, brought me information on it. But I wouldn’t hear him. I’d see these women, pregnant, with babies. I’d think it’s my right, it’s my function. My friends were having children. Why should they and not us? They felt sorry for me, and that made it worse.”

  “I couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy. So lost. I couldn’t stand it.”

  “I got pregnant again. I was so happy. Sick—just like the other times. I’d get horribly sick, then dehydrated. But I was careful. When they said bed rest, I went to bed. This time I got past the first trimester, and it looked good. I felt the baby move. Remember, Elliot?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “I bought maternity clothes. We started decorating the nursery. I read a mountain of books on pregnancy, on childbirth, on child rearing. There were some problems with my blood pressure, serious enough in the seventh month for them to hospitalize me briefly. But it seemed like everything was all right until . . .”

  “We went in for an exam,” Elliot continued. “There was no fetal heartbeat. Tests showed the fetus had died.”

  “I didn’t believe them. Wouldn’t. Even though I’d stopped feeling the baby kick. I kept reading the books, I kept planning. I wouldn’t let Elliot discuss it—went wild if he tried to. I woul
dn’t let him tell anyone.”

  “We induced labor.”

  “It was a little girl,” Vivian said quietly. “Stillborn. So beautiful, so tiny. I held her, and for a while I told myself she was only sleeping. But I knew she wasn’t, and when they took her away, I fell apart. I took pills to get through it. I . . . Oh God, I stole some of your father’s scripts and got Alivan and Seconal. I