by Marta Perry
“Yes, ma’am.” George’s gaze swiveled from Chloe to Seth, and he gestured toward the hallway. “After you, sir.”
It seemed Seth was out of choices. The woman wouldn’t even hear him out. Her mind was closed. When he reached the doorway, he looked back, thoroughly annoyed.
“In the event you decide to step out of your secure little world and face the truth, you can reach me at the number on the card.”
She didn’t speak, and her face might as well have been carved from ice. Seth walked quickly back the way he’d come, hardly aware of the security guard trailing along behind him. Of all the superior, stubborn women he’d met, Chloe Wentworth ranked right up at the top of the list.
But by the time Seth reached the sidewalk outside the imposing museum building, his annoyance with Chloe had ebbed, to be replaced by sorrow and regret. He’d been so sure he could handle this for Lydia. Now he’d blown the only chance he’d get to bring her and her sister together.
* * *
Chloe tried to focus on the grant application that had occupied so many of her working hours lately, but her gaze kept straying to the papers Seth Miller had left on her desk. By the time she’d made her third careless error in the proposal for funds to expand the museum’s educational programs, she shoved away from the keyboard, annoyed with herself.
Get rid of the papers he’d left behind, and she’d get rid of Seth Miller’s intrusive presence. Leaning across the desk, she scooped up the documents and dropped them into the waste can.
There. Now she could concentrate. Her grandmother had been right in her often-repeated mantra. The world is filled with people who will try to take advantage of you because you’re a Wentworth.
Seth Miller wasn’t the first person to feign an interest in Chloe because of who she was. Not that Miller had seemed interested in her as a woman, aside from that one lingering look at her legs, but his story had been ridiculous, hadn’t it? As for his supposed proof . . . anyone could fake something that looked like a photocopy of a marriage license. Given a computer and a few minutes’ time, she could do it herself.
Frustrated, Chloe snatched the papers out of the waste can and then dropped them back in. She shouldn’t let herself be caught up in the man’s story.
“Playing basketball with the trash?” Kendra Phillips stood in the doorway, looking at her with raised brows.
“Something like that,” Chloe admitted, managing a smile for her friend. Kendra, a conservator who spent most of her days in the basement laboratory, wore a lab coat over a multicolored tunic and seemed to have forgotten the tiny paintbrush stuck behind her ear.
Chloe ought to be ignoring her previous visitor, but the urge to confide in Kendra was strong. Kendra, having battled her way from an inner-city school to one of the best grad-school programs in the country, had seen it all. They’d met when they were both pursuing their master’s degrees. Kendra’s fund of sometimes brash common sense could be relied upon to sort out the truth quickly, and she was a good antidote to the more hidebound members of the museum’s staff.
“Well?” Kendra advanced into the office and perched on the edge of Chloe’s desk, her long, beaded earrings brushing cheeks the color of milk chocolate as she leaned toward Chloe. “You going to tell me what’s wrong, or should I start guessing?”
“Someone came into my office this morning.” She gestured toward the business card that lay on her desk, and Kendra picked it up, scrutinizing it. “He said he was here as a favor to a friend, a woman named Lydia Weaver something or other, I don’t remember the last name. Anyway, he said that this woman is my sister.”
“You called security, right?” Kendra’s perfectly arched eyebrows lifted even higher. She’d never hesitate to have an annoyance kicked out. In fact, she’d probably do it herself, not bothering with the intermediary.
“Of course,” Chloe said. “I don’t have a sister, to begin with. But he insisted that my parents actually had two other children, both girls.”
“I assume he provided some sort of proof? Like the papers you’re tossing in and pulling out of the trash with such decisiveness?” Kendra grinned.
Chloe fished out the copy of the marriage certificate. “Look at it. Diane Wentworth and Eli Weaver. The dates and names are right, so that certificate is probably genuine, but the rest of his story was ridiculous. How could I have two sisters and not know about it?”
Taking the document from her, Kendra frowned at it. “Your parents died in an accident when you were still a baby, right?”
Chloe nodded. Maybe that sense of having no parents to rely upon had been what brought about her somewhat unlikely friendship with Kendra. But while Chloe had been taken in by her grandmother after her parents’ deaths, Kendra had been bounced to a succession of foster homes.
“I was only about a year old when the accident occurred. My grandmother told me that she came to the hospital where I’d been taken. My parents died, so as soon as I could be released, she and my grandfather brought me home with them. If I’d had any siblings, she’d have told me, surely.”
Wouldn’t she? A faint flicker of doubt touched Chloe’s certainty. Her grandmother seldom talked about Chloe’s parents. Well, never, in fact, unless Chloe asked a direct question. It was as if their deaths had wiped them not just from this world but from ever having existed. Was that Gran’s natural reserve at work, or something more?
“Did this guy offer any proof of your relationship to these so-called sisters?” Kendra, always practical, latched on to the most critical part of the story.
“No. He said something about not being able to get the birth records yet. Even if he had them, that wouldn’t convince me. They could easily be fakes. My grandmother says—”
She stopped, having had a front-row seat several times to the antipathy between her grandmother and her friend. Kendra wasn’t the sort of person Margaret Wentworth associated with, and Kendra had scant patience with what she saw as snobbery based on outmoded ideas of social class.
“Your grandmother assumes everyone’s a con man after her money,” Kendra said bluntly. “I doubt she’s the best reference point in a situation like this.” She tossed the business card to Chloe. “It would be easy enough to check up on this guy, anyway. You can see if he’s who he says he is.”
Chloe nodded reluctantly, not sure she wanted to pursue the matter even that far. She found herself picturing Seth Miller’s face—the sharp line of his jaw, the determined set to his mouth, the cool way his gray-blue eyes had surveyed her.
“I have to admit he didn’t look like a con man.”
“Honey, no successful con man looks like one. That’s his stock-in-trade.” Kendra slid off the desk. “Get busy and do what you know you should have done from the minute the guy left. Check up on him, and check up on his story. You’re a researcher, so treat it like any research problem.”
“Pretend I’m searching out the provenance of an eighteenth-century dower chest?” Chloe managed a smile for the first time since she’d ordered Seth Miller out of her office.
“Exactly.” Kendra headed for the door. “Do you want something from the cafeteria?”
“Chicken salad sandwich, please.” They normally took turns picking up lunch at the museum lunchroom, sometimes carrying it out to a park bench near Independence Hall, where they could watch the tourists walk by.
“Get started on the research,” Kendra ordered, and disappeared from view.
Kendra was right, of course. This was a research problem, pure and simple. And her grandmother need never know that Chloe had been digging into the story of her parents’ deaths.
The logical place to start was with the man, Seth Miller. She picked up the business card, his final words echoing in her mind. In the event you decide to step out of your secure little world and face the truth, you can reach me at the number on the card.
She didn’t like his snap judgment of her. She wouldn’t be getting in touch with him, but he might be surprised at just how good she was at
ferreting out the truth, starting with one Mr. Seth Miller, if that was really who he was.
Ten minutes later Chloe was staring at the photo of Seth Miller on the company website. There was no denying the identity of the face with the gray-blue eyes staring confidently at the camera. She flipped quickly through the site, searching for more information.
The software company was relatively well-known, so that lent an air of authenticity to the whole business. And apparently they thought highly of Mr. Seth Miller, designer. She ran the cursor down through a list of his achievements and awards.
So it appeared Seth Miller was genuine, in that he was who he had claimed to be. Still, a man could be good at his job and sleazy in his private life. His business reputation didn’t mean he couldn’t have some unsavory motive for contacting her.
Chloe frowned. She was starting to sound like her grandmother, who seemed to become more suspicious with each passing year. Still, granting that Seth Miller was the real thing, even granting that his motives were good, he was still mistaken.
His parting words slipped into Chloe’s thoughts again, making her a bit uncomfortable. She prided herself on being independent. She didn’t hide behind the Wentworth name.
She picked up the other paper, looking at the newspaper article. AMISH KILLED IN VAN ACCIDENT, the headline read. The piece was fairly brief, the dateline a town in Ohio she’d never heard of.
A van load of Amish people headed from Pennsylvania to a wedding in Ohio had crashed into a tractor trailer when the van’s driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel. He had been pronounced dead at the scene; several adults and children had been taken to area hospitals.
Grandmother had told her about the accident when she’d been old enough to ask questions about her parents. Gran’s voice hadn’t wavered, but her skin had seemed to shrink against the bones of her face, frightening Chloe and making her hesitate to bring the subject up again.
She had, of course, as she’d grown older and understood more. Her grandmother had given her as little information as possible. Still, eventually the whole story had come out. Diane, an only child, had been the stereotypical rebellious, troubled daughter, the way her grandmother told it. She had capped a series of problems by running away from the parents who’d loved her.
Gran said they’d learned, eventually, that she’d married an Amishman and joined his faith. Chloe could still see the distaste in her grandmother’s face as she insisted her daughter had been sucked into something that was little more than a cult. According to Gran, Diane had died in an accident that never would have happened if she’d stayed in the world where she belonged.
That led, inevitably, to one of her grandmother’s favorite maxims. Stick with your own kind in life, and you won’t get into trouble.
So Diane’s parents had been left to bring up Diane’s baby daughter. Daughter, singular.
Well, obviously the next step was to find out if there was any truth to Seth’s claim that she had siblings. It shouldn’t be too difficult. Everyone left a paper trail.
Everyone left a paper trail except, it seemed, the Amish. A frustrating half hour later, Chloe had become thoroughly annoyed at what seemed the Amish gift for staying off the grid. It was almost as if they had something to hide.
Finally she found what she was looking for. Not even the Amish could elude the government’s desire to register births. She was staring at the screen when Kendra came back in, carrying a plastic sandwich container.
Kendra put the sandwich container on the desk. “I was going to bring this in earlier, but you looked so absorbed I didn’t want to interrupt. Did you find it?”
Chloe nodded slowly and turned the monitor so that Kendra could see it. “I wouldn’t have believed it possible that my grandmother could lie to me about something so important, but there it is. Eli and Diane Weaver had two other children—Lydia, the person Seth Miller spoke of, who is four years older than me, and Susanna, two years older.”
Chloe drove her fingers into her hair, as if in that way she could shake some order into her chaotic thoughts. How could her grandmother have done this to her? Surely she’d realized that Chloe would find out eventually. What right did she or anyone have to keep information like this from the person it most concerned?
Face grave, Kendra swung the screen back to her. “I’m not sure what I’d feel in your position. What are you going to do about this, now that you know?”
Chloe picked up the business card. “I guess I’ll be getting in touch with Seth Miller again after all. But first . . .” She sucked in a breath, trying to still the quaking that had begun deep inside her. “First I have to find out why my grandmother lied to me.”
CHAPTER SIX
Lydia emerged from the orchard and headed across the yard toward Emma Miller’s farmhouse. With the boys at school for a few more hours and Adam out making the rounds of people who might be able to offer him a job, she’d found she couldn’t wait any longer to find out if Seth had called with a report yet. He’d promised her he’d leave a message on his mother’s answering machine, and surely he would have seen Chloe by now.
Amish didn’t ordinarily have phones in their homes, considering them a distraction from work and family. But with Emma’s slow recovery from her broken hip and Jessie’s bouts of emotional problems, Seth had insisted and the bishop had agreed.
But Emma had done some insisting of her own, which was like her. A strong woman, not to be defeated by a broken hip, she’d determined that the phone shanty would be at the end of the back porch, no closer.
Her lips quirking at the memory, Lydia paused at the phone shanty and peeked inside. The telephone sat silent, and the battery-powered answering machine showed no new messages.
“Lydia, I thought you would be here this afternoon. Looking to hear from my son, ja?” Emma had opened the back door and was smiling at her through the screen.
“Seth hasn’t called yet?” Lydia tried to conceal her disappointment but feared she wasn’t doing a very good job.
“Not yet.” Emma held the screen door open and motioned her in. “Komm. Have some coffee. Seth said he would call this afternoon whether he managed to talk to your little sister or not, and you can count on him.”
Nodding, Lydia stepped inside. “I’m certain-sure he’ll do as he said.” One thing you could say about Seth—he did what he said he’d do. His trouble had been that what he said he’d do wasn’t usually what the Ordnung decreed.
“You are still upset about what you learned about your family, ja?”
Emma’s keen eyes scanned Lydia’s face as she led the way to the table. Emma still limped a bit, and the lines on her face told of the pain she suffered, but she wasn’t one to give in. Even now, the old-fashioned kitchen with its plank floors and simple wooden cabinets smelled of cinnamon and sugar.
“Just a little,” Lydia admitted. “But I don’t want to interrupt your baking—”
“Ach, it’s nothing. Some snickerdoodles for the grandchildren is all. Naomi is bringing them over to visit later.” She seized the coffeepot, ready on the stove, and began to pour.
“That’s so nice. You’ll be wonderful glad to see Joshua and Sadie.” Lydia slid into a seat, knowing it gave Emma pleasure to have a guest to chat with.
“For sure. Naomi brings them every week. She’s a gut mamm to them, that’s certain, and a gut wife to Nathan.” Emma’s eyes held sorrow, and Lydia knew it was for her eldest daughter, Ada, the children’s birth mother, who hadn’t lived to see her offspring grow.
“Is Jessie here?” Lydia couldn’t help a twinge of apprehension. She had been instrumental in the discovery that Emma’s youngest daughter was so unstable she’d needed hospitalization, and Lydia didn’t suppose Jessie had ever forgiven her for that act, although she never mentioned it.
“She had a doctor’s appointment today.” Emma set coffee mugs and a plate with thick slices of fruit-and-nut bread on the table and sat down. “Usually Seth takes her in his car, but this time he made
arrangements with an Englisch driver.”
Lydia accepted a slice of the molasses-rich bread when Emma shoved the plate toward her. “How is Jessie doing?”
“Improving, I think, since the doctor started her on some new medicine. I hope so, anyway. Sometimes it is hard to tell.” Emma leaned toward her, her gaze intent. “But how are you? The truth, now, nothing else.”
“I don’t know.” That was the truth, if anything was. “I can see Mamm and Daad think they did the right thing by not telling me about my sisters, even though they’ve said how sorry they are.”
“All parents struggle with deciding what is best for their kinder.” Emma seemed to look beyond Lydia, maybe into her own life, which had certainly had its share of trouble.
“Everyone agrees I shouldn’t upset Susanna by revealing the truth when her adoptive mother is so ill. And Adam . . . well, he doesn’t like the idea of trying to get in touch with my Englisch sister. We don’t often disagree, but I just don’t understand his attitude.” She couldn’t help the tiny edge that showed in her voice.
“Maybe he’s afraid you’re going to get hurt,” Emma said gently. “He’s protective of you. Your birth daad was that way with your mamm.”
Lydia’s breath caught at the unexpected tidbit of information. “You knew them well, ja?”
“As well as neighbors usually do,” Emma said. She seemed to look back through the years. “I was a bit shy of them at first, I remember, knowing that Diane had been Englisch, but she soon made me feel comfortable. And she learned Pennsylvania Dutch so quick it was hard to believe she hadn’t always spoken it.”
The language was one of the biggest hurdles for someone wanting to become Amish, Lydia felt sure. If you weren’t comfortable in the language people used with each other, it would be near-impossible to feel at home.
“It seems so odd to think that my mamm was raised Englisch,” she admitted. “Did she ever talk about her family?”
Emma shook her head. “Not much. It was like she wanted to forget that part of her life ever existed. And she was so in love with your daad it warmed my heart just to look at them.”