by Nora Roberts
The house itself showed her good taste, financial security and an appreciation for space. It was honey wood, contemporary lines, with two long decks and plenty of glass. Plenty of flora, too, Callie noted, and all of it lush and tended, with what looked to be stepping-stones or stone paths winding around through pristine oak chips or plots of tidy grass.
It was, to Callie’s mind, a fair way to analyze a person—this study of their choice of habitat. She imagined Jake would agree. How and where an individual elected to live spoke to that individual’s personality, background and inner culture.
As she pulled up behind a late-model SUV, Callie tried to remember what Suzanne had been wearing when she’d come to the motel. Choices of apparel, body ornamentation, style were other signals of type and category.
But the visit was blurred in her mind.
Though the lightning had passed on, the rain was still beating the ground. Callie slid out of the car and arrived on the front porch, dripping.
The door opened immediately.
She was wearing very slim black pants with a tailored blouse in aqua. Her makeup looked fresh, and her hair carefully styled. Her feet were bare.
At her side was a big black Lab, and its tail was beating the wall like a joyful metronome.
“Please . . . come in out of the rain. Sadie’s harmless, but I can put her away if you want.”
“No. She’s okay.” Callie held out the back of her hand, let the dog sniff, then lick before she ruffled the fur between Sadie’s ears. “Great dog.”
“She’s three, and a bit rambunctious. Terrific company, though. I like living out here, but I feel more secure having Sadie in the house or around the property. Of course, she’s so friendly, she’d just lick a burglar to death if . . . I’m sorry. I’m babbling.”
“It’s okay.” Callie stood awkwardly, one hand still stroking the dog’s head while Suzanne stared at her. “We need to talk.”
“Yes. Of course. I made coffee.” Suzanne gestured toward the living room. “I’m so glad you called. I didn’t know, exactly, what to do next.” She stopped by the sofa, turned. “I still don’t.”
“My parents.” Callie needed to get that out first, to establish the pattern, and her allegiance. And still she felt miserably disloyal as she sat down in Suzanne’s attractive living room with the big, friendly dog flopping adoringly at her feet.
“You spoke with them.”
“Yes, I did. I was adopted in December of 1974. It was a private adoption. My parents are very decent, law-abiding, loving people, Mrs. Cullen—”
“Please.” She wouldn’t let her hands shake. Determined, she picked up the coffeepot, poured without spilling a drop. “Don’t call me that. Could you, would you call me Suzanne at least?”
For now, she thought. Just for now.
“It was a private adoption,” Callie continued. “They hired a lawyer on the advice of my mother’s obstetrician. He placed a baby girl with them very quickly and for a very substantial fee. He gave them some basic information about the birth mother.”
“You told me you weren’t adopted,” Suzanne interrupted. “You didn’t know you were.”
“They had reasons for not telling me. Reasons that have nothing to do with anyone but themselves. Whatever situation we’re in, you have to understand, up front, that they did nothing wrong.”
But her hands did shake, a little. “You love them very much.”
“I do. You have to understand that, too. If I was the child stolen from you—”
“You know you are.” Jessica. My Jessie. Everything inside her wept.
“I can theorize, but I can’t know. There are tests we can take to determine the biology.”
Suzanne breathed in deep. Her skin felt so hot, as if it might melt off her bones. “You’re willing to take them?”
“We need to know. You deserve to know. I’ll do what I can to find the answers. I don’t know if I can give you more than that. I’m sorry.” Callie’s heart began to trip as tears swam into Suzanne’s eyes. “This is difficult for everyone. But even if I was that child, that’s not who I am now.”
“I’ll take the tests.” Tears were in her voice, too, thickening it. Slurring the words. “And Jay, your . . .my ex-husband. I’ll contact him. He’ll take them. How long before we’ll know? Conclusively.”
“My father’s a doctor. He’ll expedite the tests.”
“How can I know he won’t skew the results?”
The first flicker of temper crossed Callie’s face. “Because he is who he is. You’ll have to trust me on this or there’s no point in going any further. I have the information here.” She took a piece of paper out of her bag, set it on the table beside the tray of coffee and cookies. “This explains what you need to do, where to send the blood samples. If you have any questions on the procedure, your own doctor should be able to give you some answers.”
“I can’t think. I can’t seem to think.” She battled with the tears because they blurred her vision. This was her child. She had to see her child. “My life changed in that moment I turned my back on you, while you slept in your stroller. A minute,” Suzanne said as calmly as she could. “Maybe two. No longer than that. And my life changed. So did yours. I want a chance to get some of that back, to know who you are, to share some part of those lost years with you.”
“All I can give you right now are answers. How, why, hopefully who. None of that can make up for what happened to you. None of that will turn things back and make me your daughter again.”
This was wrong, Suzanne thought. Desperately, bitterly. To find her child only to have that child speak in that cool, distant voice. To have her own daughter study her as if they were strangers.
“If you feel that way, why did you come? You could have ignored me, or insisted there wasn’t an adoption.”
“I wasn’t raised to lie, or to ignore someone’s pain. What happened wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t mine, it wasn’t my parents’. But someone’s to blame. Someone changed the pattern, and most likely changed it for profit. I want the answers, too.”
“You’re blunt, and you’re honest. I’ve often imagined what it would be like to see you again, to talk to you. None of my imaginings were quite like this.”
“You’re looking for, or hoping for a kind of reunion I can’t give you, a kind of bond I don’t feel.”
Every healing scar on her heart opened and bled fresh. “What do you feel?”
“Sorry. Mrs. Cullen—Suzanne,” she corrected, and wished she could reach out. Wished she could cut through her own barriers and reach. “I feel sorry for you, and your family. And for mine. And I feel a little shaky about the whole thing. Part of me wishes you’d never seen me on the news, because the minute you did, you changed my life again. And I don’t know where it’s going now.”
“I’d never do anything to hurt you.”
“I wish I could say the same, but I’m afraid almost anything I do is going to hurt you.”
“Maybe you could tell me something about yourself. Something you’ve done or wanted to do. Just . . .something.”
“I found bones today.” When Suzanne blinked, Callie worked up a smile, picked up a cookie. “The dig,” she continued. “I believe what we have was a settlement. A Neolithic settlement by the creek bed, near the mountains where a tribe built homes, raised children, hunted, began to farm. Today, I found evidence I think is going to begin to verify that theory. If it’s as big a settlement as I hope, we may be digging for several seasons.”
“Oh. Well. Ronald Dolan will have a fit about that.”
“Probably. But it’s not going to do him any good. We’re going to have considerable attention, from the media, from the scientific community. Dolan’s going to have to consider his development a loss.”
“If I came out to the site one day, would you show me what it is you do?”
“Sure. Did you make these?” She held up the half-eaten cookie. “Yourself?”
“Yes. Do you like them? I�
��ll give you a box to take with you. I—”
“They’re great.” It was a kind of reaching out, Callie thought. The best she could do for now. “My . . . associate,” she finished, decided it was the easiest way to describe Jake. “He recognized your name. Suzanne’s Kitchen? I’ve been snarfing down your baked goods for years.”
“Really?” Tears wanted to swim again, but she willed them back. Some of her pleasure shone in her eyes instead. “I like knowing that. You’re very kind.”
“No, I’m not. I’m single-minded, easily irritated, selfish, driven and very rarely kind. I just don’t think about it.”
“You’ve been very kind to me, and part of you must . . . I hadn’t realized until now. Part of you must resent me.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“And you’re careful with your feelings.” At Callie’s frown, Suzanne fussed with the cookie arrangement. “I mean, it seems to me you don’t give your feelings easily. Douglas is like that. Even when he was a little boy, he was careful. He thought so much, if you know what I mean. You could almost see him wondering, ‘Now what exactly do you mean by that?’ ”
She laughed, picked up a cookie, set it down again. “There’s so much I want to tell you. So much I . . . I have something I’d like to give you.”
“Suzanne—”
“It’s not a gift, really.” She rose, walked to a side table and picked up a box. “They’re letters. I wrote you a letter every year on your birthday. It helped me get through.”
“We don’t know yet for certain if you wrote them to me.”
“We both know.” She sat again, set the box in Callie’s lap. “It would mean a lot to me if you’d take them. You don’t have to read them, but I think you will. You’re curious about things or you wouldn’t do what you do. So you’re bound to wonder about, well, about this.”
“Okay. Look, I’ve got work,” Callie began, and rose.
“There’s so much I still want to—” Even as Suzanne sprang to her feet, Sadie let out a happy bark and scrambled toward the door.
The door opened and Doug stepped in. “Cut it out.” With an exasperated laugh, he pushed the seventy pounds of cheerful canine off as Sadie leaped on him. “Didn’t we go over this the last time? How about showing a little pride and . . .”
He trailed off as he glanced toward the living room.
A thousand things raced through his mind, his heart, ran over his face before it went blank.
“Doug.” Suzanne’s hand fumbled to her throat, twisted the top button of her blouse. “I didn’t know you were coming by. This is . . . Oh God.”
“Callie.” Though she wanted nothing now but to escape the sudden electric tension in the room, she shifted the box under her arm. “Callie Dunbrook.”
“Yeah, I know. Sorry.” He shifted his gaze to his mother. “I should’ve called.”
“No. Don’t be silly, Doug.”
“I was just leaving. I’ll . . . be in touch,” Callie said to Suzanne.
“I’ll show you out.”
“That’s okay.” Callie kept her eyes on Doug’s face as she started to the door. And though her heart was drumming she kept herself composed as she brushed by him, opened the door.
She made the sprint to her car, wrenched open the door and slid the box over the seat.
“Why did you come here?”
She shoved the wet hair out of her eyes and turned to see Doug standing beside her in the rain. That same electric tension snapped around him, nearly visible. She expected to see the rain sizzle as it hit his skin.
“It wasn’t to piss you off. I don’t even know you.”
“My mother’s in a difficult frame of mind right now. She doesn’t need you adding to it by dropping by for coffee and cookies.”
“Okay, look. If I want to drop by for coffee and cookies, it’s a free world. As it happens, that’s not why I came. I don’t want to upset your mother. I don’t want to mess up your life. But we all need some answers.”
“What’s the point?”
“The answers are the point.”
“Every couple of years since Suzanne’s Kitchen went national, someone’s come along telling her she’s her long-lost daughter. Your line of work, that runs on grants and endowments, right?”
She lifted her chin, stepped forward until her boots bumped his shoes, and spoke directly into his face. “Fuck you.”
“I won’t let anyone hurt her. Not ever again.”
“And that makes you the good son?”
“It sure as hell doesn’t make me your brother.”
“Well, that’s a relief. Let me remind you, Doug, she came to me. Out of the goddamn blue, and now my life’s turned upside down. I left my parents yesterday in a miserable emotional state. I’ve got to go have blood drawn and tests done and deal with something that was none of my doing. And I’m not too fucking happy about it, so back off.”
“She doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“That’s not my fault either.” But the guilt had weight. “Or hers. If you’re worried about your inheritance, relax. I don’t want her money. Now, I’m in a pretty foul mood from watching her try not to fall apart for the last twenty minutes. If you’d like me to take that out on you, I’d be glad to. Otherwise, I’ve got better things to do than stand in the rain arguing with you.”
She turned on her heel, popped up into the Rover, slammed the door.
If that was what it was like having a brother, she thought as she barely resisted running over his feet, she’d been damn lucky for the first twenty-eight years of her life.
By the time she got back to the motel, her temper had reached its peak. Even as she opened the door both her cell phone and the room phone rang.
She yanked her cell phone out of her bag. “Dunbrook, hold on.” Snatched up the room phone. “Dunbrook, what?”
“Well, don’t bite my head off,” Lana told her. “I just called to give you a quick update. But if you’re going to snarl at me, I’ll just up my hourly rate.”
“Sorry. What have you got?”
“I’d prefer talking to you in person. Can you come in?”
“I just got back to the room. I’m a little ragged out.”
“I’ll come there. Give me a half hour.”
“Can you just—”
“No. Half hour,” she said and disconnected.
“Shit.” Callie slammed down the phone and was about to pick up her cell again when someone knocked at the door. “Great, just great.” She yanked open the door and glared at Jake. “Doesn’t anyone have something better to do than bug me?”
She spun away from him, put the phone to her ear. “Yes, what?”
“Just wondered where you were.” Jake’s voice came in stereo, through her ear and at her back. She turned around to see him leaning on the doorjamb with his own cell phone at his ear, rain drumming at his back. “I was just in the restaurant, thought I’d pass on some news. You didn’t answer the phone in here, so I tried your cell.”
“Why the hell are you still talking to me on the phone when you’re standing right there?”
“Why are you?”
She cast a long-suffering look at the ceiling, tossed her phone on the bed. “What news?”
He stepped in, closed the door. And when he just kept walking toward her, she held up a hand like a traffic cop at an intersection. She knew that gleam in his eyes. “Uh-uh.”
“You’re all wet. You know how crazy it makes me when you’re all wet.”
“You’re going to feel really crazy after I bean you with this lamp. Step back, Graystone. I’m not in the mood for games.”
“You look like you could use a good game.”
“That’s a stupid euphemism, and why do men always figure a woman’s in a bad mood because she needs sex?”
“Hope springs eternal?” he suggested and was pleased to see humor light her eyes, however briefly.
“What do you want, other than sex?”
> “Everything else comes in a poor second, but—” He broke off, flopped down on her bed, crossed his feet at the ankles. “I’ve just dipped into the local gossip pool. Frieda, my waitress, tells me Dolan’s already heard about today’s find. He went ballistic—a word she passed on from her nephew who happens to work for Dolan and was there when he got the news.”
It was interesting to hear about a drama separate from her own, but she shrugged for form. “So what?”
“So he’s ranting about taking us to court. Claiming we’re making it all up—that we’re in league with the preservation people and this whole thing is some ploy to screw his development. You got any beer in here?”
“No, I don’t have any beer in here. He can rant and rave all he wants. The bones are there.”
“Another rumor going around—”
“You’re just full of them, aren’t you?”
“People are saying the site’s cursed. You know, the graves of the ancients disturbed by mad scientists.”
Amused now, she picked up a Bic, touched the flame to the wick of her travel candle. “Not the whole mummy deal again?”
“Just another variation. We’re releasing ancient forces and powers beyond our ken and blah blah.” He tracked her with his eyes as she headed into the bathroom for a towel, rubbed it over her hair as she moved restlessly around the room. “This one, according to Frieda, has some legs. You know how people lap that shit up.”
“So we have a cursed site, a pissed-off developer and need to have the Native American consult supervise our work.”
She pulled a dry shirt out of the dresser and, to his deep disappointment, walked back into the bathroom to strip off the damp one, pull on the fresh. “We’re still short-handed, and the field’s going to be a mud pit tomorrow thanks to this rain.”
He angled his head to see if he could catch a glimpse of her half naked in the mirror. A man was entitled to small pleasures. “That about covers it.”
She came back in, dug out a bottle of water. Paced.
No one, Jake thought, could ever accuse Callie Dunbrook of being a restful woman.
“Pretty good deal, all in all,” she decided and grinned. “I love this job.”
“Where’d you take off to?”