Birthright

by Nora Roberts

  want that kind of trouble again.”

  “Hey, you’re the one who broke that guy’s jaw and dislocated his retina. In Oklahoma.”

  “I didn’t think a cowboy’d go down so easy. Live and learn.” Jake nudged his plate away. “You guys all right with doing this outside? I hate having to shell out for damages every time we bust ass in a bar.”

  They shifted their feet, bunched and released fists. Then the big one sneered. “We’re telling you the way it is. We don’t fight with pussies and girls.”

  “Suit yourself.” Jake waved a hand at the waitress. “Can we get another round here?” He lifted his burger, bit in with every appearance of enjoyment as the men, muttering insults, stalked to the door. “Told you it was like that place in Spain.”

  “They don’t mean anything.” The waitress set fresh beers on the table, scooped up the empties. “Austin and Jimmy, they’re just stupid is all, but they don’t mean anything.”

  “No problem,” Jake told her.

  “Mostly, people are real excited about the doings out there by Simon’s Hole. But there’s some’s got a problem with it. Dolan hired extra crew, and they got laid off when the work stopped. It can make you mean when it pinches your pocketbook. Those burgers all right for you?”

  “They’re great. Thanks,” Callie said.

  “Y’all just let me know if you need anything. And don’t you worry about Austin and Jimmy. It was mostly the beer talking.”

  “Beer talks loud enough,” Jake said when the waitress left them alone, “it can be a problem. Digger’s camped out on the site, but we may want to think about adding a little more security.”

  “We need more hands as it is. I’ll talk to Leo. I was going to swing by the site after . . . I was going to swing by and see what you did today.”

  “We’ve got the field plotted, and the segments are logged into the computer. We started removing the overburden.”

  She winced at that. She’d wanted to be there when the team removed the topsoil. “You got the college kids doing the sieving?”

  “Yeah. I sent today’s report to your computer. We can go over it all now, but you’re just going to read it anyway. Callie, tell me what’s wrong. Tell me why instead of being in the field you were in a library reading about a kidnapping that happened in 1974. The same year you were born.”

  “I didn’t come here to talk about it. I came to have a beer.”

  “Fine, I’ll talk about it. I come by your room last night and there are photographs on your bed. You’re upset. You say they’re not family photos, but there’s a strong resemblance. Today, you’re gone, and I find you searching through the archives of the local paper covering the kidnapping of a baby girl same age as you. What makes you think you might have been that baby?”

  She didn’t speak, merely put her elbows on the table and lowered her head to her hands. She’d known he would put it together. Give the man a hatful of jumbled details and he’d make them into a cohesive picture in less time than most people could solve the daily crossword puzzle.

  And she’d known she’d tell him. The minute he’d found her in the library she’d known he was the one person she would tell.

  She just wasn’t ready to analyze why.

  “Suzanne Cullen came to my room,” Callie began. And told him everything.

  He didn’t interrupt, nor did he take his eyes off her face.

  He knew the moods of it so well. He couldn’t always decipher the cause of them, but he knew the moods. She was still dealing with shock, and along with the shock was guilt.

  “So . . . there will have to be tests,” she finished. “To verify identity. But, well, science is full of suppositions. Especially our field. And given the current data and events, it’s reasonable to make the supposition that Suzanne Cullen is correct.”

  “You’ll need to track down the lawyer, the doctor, anyone else involved in the adoption and placement.”

  She looked at him then. This, she realized, was one solid reason she could tell him. He’d never burden her with the weight of sympathy or outrage on her behalf. He’d understand that to get through it, she’d need to pursue the practical.

  “I’ve started that. My father’s tracking down the OB. I ran into a block on the lawyer, so I hired one of my own to dig there. Lana Campbell, she’s the one representing the preservation people. I met her the other day. She strikes me as smart and thorough, and like someone who doesn’t give up easily. I guess you could say I need to start removing the overburden so I can find out what’s underneath all this.”

  “The lawyer had to know.”

  “Yeah.” Callie’s lips tightened. “He had to know.”

  “So he’s your datum point. Everything spreads out from him. I want to help you.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re both good at puzzles, babe. But together, we’re the best out there.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question.”

  “It was always tough to slide something by you.” He pushed his plate aside, reached over and took her hand. His fingers tightened when she tried to jerk it free. “Don’t be so damn prickly. Christ, Dunbrook, I’ve had my hands on every inch of your body and you get jumpy because I’ve got your fingers.”

  “I’m not jumpy, and they’re my fingers.”

  “You think you stopped mattering to me because you cut me loose?”

  “I didn’t cut you loose,” she said furiously. “You—”

  “Let’s just save that for another day.”

  “You know one of the things about you that pissed me off?”

  “I’ve got a list of them on a data bank.”

  “The way you interrupt me whenever you know I’m right.”

  “I’ll add that one. It occurs to me that we got to be a lot of things to each other, but we never got to be friends. I’d like to take a shot at it, that’s all.”

  If he’d told her he’d decided to ditch science and sell Avon products door-to-door, she’d have been no more surprised. “You want us to be friends?”

  “I’m offering to be your friend, you blockhead. I want to help you find out what happened.”

  “Calling me a blockhead isn’t very friendly.”

  “It’s friendlier than the alternate word that came to mind.”

  “Okay, points for you. There’s a lot of garbage between us, Jake.”

  “Maybe we’ll sift through it one of these days. But for now we’ve got two priorities.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. He couldn’t help himself. “The dig, and your puzzle. We’ve got no choice but to work with each other on the first. Why not do the same on the second?”

  “We’ll fight.”

  “We’ll fight anyway.”

  “True, very true.” That didn’t bother her nearly as much as the urge she was resisting to curl her fingers into his. “I appreciate it, Jake. I really do. Now let go of my hand. I’m starting to feel goofy.”

  He released her, dug out his wallet. “We can go back to your room. I’ll give you a foot rub.”

  “Those days are over, Jake.”

  “Too bad. I always liked your feet.”

  He paid the check, and kept his hands in his pockets as they walked outside.

  She blinked, in some surprise, against the strength of the sun. It seemed they’d been inside that bar for hours. But there was plenty of daylight left, she calculated. Enough to drive to the site and take a look, if she could drum up the energy.

  She pulled out her sunglasses, then pursed her lips when Jake yanked a sheet of paper from under his windshield.

  “ ‘Go back to Baltimore or you’ll pay,’ ” Jake read. He balled up the note, tossed it into the car. “I think I’ll run out and check on Digger.”

  “We’ll go out and check on Digger.”

  “Fine.” He climbed in, waited for her to slide into the seat beside him. “Heard you playing for a while last night,” he commented. “I’m right next door. Walls are thin.”

  “Then I�
��ll try to keep it down when I have Austin and Jimmy over for a party.”

  “See how considerate you are now that we’re friends?”

  Even as she laughed, he leaned over, pressed his lips to hers.

  She had an instant of pure shock. How could all that heat still be there? How could it? And cutting through the shock was a quick primal urge to move in, wrap around him and burn alive.

  Before she could, he was easing back, turning the key in the ignition. “Seat belt,” he said casually.

  She set her teeth, more furious with herself than with him. She yanked the seat belt in place as he backed up. “Keep your hands and your mouth to yourself, Graystone, or this friendship isn’t going to last very long.”

  “I still like the taste of you.” He made the turn out of the lot. “Hard to figure why after . . . Wait, wait, wait.” He tapped a hand on the wheel. “Speaking of taste. Suzanne Cullen. Suzanne’s Kitchen?”

  “Huh?”

  “I knew it was familiar. Christ, Cal. Suzanne’s Kitchen.”

  “Cookies? Those amazing chocolate chip cookies?”

  “Macadamia nut brownies.” He made a low sound of pleasure. “Quiet—I’m having a moment.”

  “Suzanne Cullen is Suzanne’s Kitchen.”

  “Great story. You know, baking in her little house in the country. Entering her pies and cakes in county fairs. Starting a little business, then boom, a national treasure.”

  “Suzanne’s Kitchen,” Callie repeated. “Son of a bitch.”

  “Could explain your genetic obsession with sugar.”

  “Very funny.” But the tickle at the back of her throat wasn’t humor. “I have to go see her, Jake. I have to go tell her we have to take tests. I don’t know how to handle her.”

  He touched a hand to hers, but kept the contact brief. “You’ll figure it out.”

  “She has a son. I guess I have to figure out how to handle him, too.”

  Doug was trying to figure out how to handle himself where Lana Campbell was concerned.

  She was already at the table when he got to the restaurant, and was sipping a glass of white wine. She was in a summer dress—soft, sheer, simple—instead of the slick business suits he’d seen so far.

  She smiled when he sat across from her, then angled her head the way he’d seen her do when she was considering something. Or someone.

  “I wasn’t sure you’d show up.”

  “If I hadn’t, my grandfather would have disowned me.”

  “We’re so mean, ganging up on you this way. Would you like a drink?”

  “What have you got there?”

  “This?” She lifted it to the light of the candle between them. “A very palatable California chardonnay, buttery, but not overbearing, with a delicate bouquet matched with a good backbone.”

  Her eyes laughed as she sipped. “Pompous enough for you?”

  “Just about. I’ll try it.” He let her order it, along with a bottle of sparkling water. “Okay, why are you ganging up on me?”

  “Roger because he loves you, he’s proud of you and he worries about you. He had such a good life with your grandmother, and he can’t see how you can have a good life unless you find the woman you’re meant to share that life with.”

  “Which would be you.”

  “Which would be me, at the moment,” she agreed. “Because he loves me, too. And he worries about me being alone, raising a child without a father. He’s an old-fashioned man, in the best possible definition of the term.”

  “That explains him. What about you?”

  She took her time. She’d always enjoyed the art of flirtation and let her gaze skim over his face. “I thought I’d enjoy having dinner out, with an attractive man. You were elected.”

  “When did I get on the ballot?” he asked, and made her laugh.

  “I’ll be frank with you, Doug. I haven’t dated very much since my husband died. But I enjoy people, company, conversation. I seriously doubt Roger needs to worry about either of us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make him happy by having a meal together and enjoying the company and conversation.”

  She opened her menu. “And the food here is wonderful.”

  The waiter brought his drink and performed a spirited monologue of the evening’s specials before sliding away to give them time to decide.

  “How did he die?”

  She paused only a moment, but it was just long enough for Doug to see the grief come and go.

  “He was killed. Shot in a convenience-store robbery. He’d gone out late because Ty was fussy, and nobody was getting any sleep.”

  It still hurt; she knew it always would. But she no longer feared remembering would break her. “I wanted some ice cream. Steve ran down to the 7-Eleven to buy some for me. They came in just as he was walking to the counter to pay.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. It was senseless. There was no money to speak of, and neither Steve nor the clerk did anything to resist or incite. And it was very horrible. One moment my life was one thing, and in the next instant it was another.”

  “Yeah, I know how that goes.”

  “Do you?” Before he could respond, she reached across the table, touched his hand. “I’m sorry. I forgot. Your sister. I suppose that gives us something traumatic in common. Let’s hope we have some other, more cheerful mutual connections. I like books. I’m afraid I treat them carelessly, in a way that would make bibliophiles like you and Roger weep.”

  Tougher than she looked, he realized. Tough enough to put the pieces back together after being shattered. Respecting that, he put a little more effort into holding up his end of the evening.

  “You dog-ear pages?”

  “Please, even I wouldn’t go that far. But I break spines. I spill coffee on pages. And once I dropped an Elizabeth Berg novel in the bathtub. I think it was a first edition.”

  “Obviously, this relationship is doomed. So why don’t we order?”

  “So,” she began after they had, “do you actually read, or do you just buy and sell?”

  “They’re not stocks, they’re books. It’d be pointless to be in the business of books if I didn’t value them for what they are.”

  “I imagine there are a number of dealers who don’t. I know Roger loves to read. But I happened to be in the shop when he opened a shipment from you and found the first-edition copy of Moby-Dick. He tenderly stroked that book like it was a lover. He wouldn’t have curled up in his easy chair to read it if you’d held a gun to his head.”

  “That’s what a nice paperback reprint is for.”

  She cocked her head, and he caught the wink of small, colored stones at her ears. “Is it the discovery? The treasure hunt?”

  “Partly.”

  She waited a beat. “Well, you certainly are a blabbermouth. That’s enough about you. Aren’t you going to ask me why I became a lawyer?”

  “You know what the problem is when you ask most people a question?”

  She smiled over the rim of her wineglass. “They answer it.”

  “There you go. But since we’re here, I’ll ask. Why’d you become a lawyer?”

  “I like to argue.” She picked up her fork as their first course was served.

  “That’s it? You like to argue. You’re not going to expand on that?”

  “Mmm. Not at the moment. And the next time you ask me a question, I’ll figure it’s because you really want to know. What do you like to do, besides read and hunt books?”

  “That takes up most of my time.”

  If talking with him was going to be like pulling teeth, she thought, she’d just get out the pliers. “You must enjoy the travel.”

  “It has its moments.”

  “Such as?”