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  "You have no idea what you’re talking about," I protested, suddenly irritated by his interference, well-meaning or not. What did he know about my situation with Sheila, anyway?

  A cold chill swept over me. What did he know, indeed?

  He had lied to me about how he made his living, I was sure of that. Had he lied when he said he had never met Sheila? Had he lied when he claimed he didn’t understand her reference to his mother?

  I turned to face him, but he was downhill of me again. I was no slouch when it came to moving on a slope, but this man was like a mountain goat.

  "I’m perfectly capable of protecting myself," I insisted, catching up with him once more. "The question is: who are you protecting?" It was a fitting question, but one that would have carried more punch had I not slipped on some leaves and crashed into him while delivering it.

  He steadied me with a strong arm, and as I leaned briefly against him I had a flash of thought I knew I should quash immediately. I prided myself on being able to ignore any male packaging when the product enclosed was suspect, and right now, Fletcher Black was suspect. The fact that my heart was beating at twice its normal rate had nothing to do with my willpower.

  He didn’t answer the question I had posed, and I straightened myself and clarified. "I asked you point-blank the day we met if you had any idea what Sheila meant in her last words to me, and you said no—that you’d never even met her. You’ve done your best since then not to talk to me at all. Yet the minute you find out I intend to search for my birth father, you fall all over yourself to stop me. Am I not supposed to find that odd?"

  His eyes filled with confusion. A few times he opened his mouth as if to speak, then shut it. Eventually the same distant, guarded look took command again.

  "I don’t know any more about your birth mother than you do," he asserted. "But from what I can tell, despite the fact that every warning sign in the book is screaming at you to leave this birth father issue alone, you’re running into it headlong with both arms flailing, just like Tia did." He paused a moment, then his voice turned harder. "But you’re right—you’re not my sister, and you’re not my problem. So go ahead, break your own heart. Damned if it matters to me. I’ll see you in court."

  He pivoted sharply and headed uphill, but not before I caught sight of that same, accursed pain—festering behind his eyes more strongly than ever.

  I closed my own eyes a moment, then swore. It was no use. Physical attraction I could fight, but that look, I could not. It drew me in like a beacon. The man had his secrets, but he was a soul in need. And even if I didn’t think he was hiding something from me, even if I didn’t need to reach an agreement with him over the inheritance, I would still have turned around and said what I said. Because a charge was a charge.

  The fact that the man was gorgeous was immaterial.

  "Fletcher," I called after him, idly reconfirming my preference for tight-fitting male jeans. The baggy carpenter look favored by the younger set was insanity. "Would you mind terribly if I stayed at the inn for a few days? The mold abatement contractors have temporarily barred me from my house, and I’d like to do some research in this area anyway. I promise not to break anything."

  He stopped and turned, studying me. For a moment I was certain he would say no—that his defensive instincts would get the better of him. But surprisingly, something else did.

  "Stay as long as you like," he said flatly. "Just stay away from me."

  Chapter 11

  I settled myself in front of the computer, my heart thumping violently against my breastbone. The Somerset County Courthouse was still for a Monday morning—so still that as I had strolled through its marble entryway, I could swear that my ragged breathing was creating an echo. I had come in as soon as the doors had opened; I had already been waiting for five minutes before the licensing clerk appeared behind her desk with a bemused expression.

  I had explained quickly that I was not here to obtain a marriage license. Rather, I was hoping to find one. I neglected to tell her that there was a good chance no such license even existed. I didn’t want to think that way.

  Realizing that nothing Sheila had told me six years ago was likely to be true had opened so many doors simultaneously, I was uncertain where to begin. All I really knew was that my biological mother’s name was Sheila Tresswell, that she was born in Uniontown, and that she had given birth to me when she was twenty-two years old. But David Falcon’s research had filled in more of the puzzle. At the inn last night I had stayed up until the wee hours, poring over the papers he had given me and trolling the internet with Mitchell’s computer. I felt guilty about the latter, but the temptation of having information about my past sitting out there somewhere, waiting to be uncovered, was too powerful to resist.

  What the lawyer had discovered, working forward from Sheila’s birth certificate, was that she had grown up the only child of a broken home. Her parents had divorced when she was five; her father died a few years later in a mining accident. The public records shed little light on the subsequent actions of the mother and daughter, other than establishing that Margaret Orr never remarried—at least not in Fayette County. But in the spring of 1972, when Sheila would have been 19, Margaret passed away. Her death certificate indicated that she had died of lung cancer, and that her last known address was a public housing unit in Uniontown. She had received an indigent burial.

  Sheila’s own paper trail ended there as well. In his notes, David Falcon surmised that she had probably either left the area or married and changed her name. He had found no marriage record for her, but he had checked only in Fayette County. She could have gotten married anywhere.

  Like Somerset County, for instance.

  The clerk reached down beside me and booted up the computer, then clicked a few times with the mouse. "Here’s where you start," she advised. "You searching by name?"

  I nodded.

  "You shouldn’t have any trouble then," she said with a smile. "Printer’s to your left. Let me know if you need any help."

  She left me, and I took a much-needed deep breath. Don’t be so tense, I chided. I had no proof that Sheila had ever married at all, much less in this county. But it was a reasonable enough place to search, given that I had been born here.

  That fact had been the only valuable information my own birth certificate had offered me. The "amended" version to which I was entitled as an adoptee had my birth parents’ names and information blocked out, replaced with those of my adoptive parents. I knew from my internet search that I could request my original birth certificate from the state, but that it would be released to me only if my birth father consented. If not, all that would be available would be non-identifying information such as my birth parents’ medical histories—possibly their occupations or hobbies. Either way, I might not hear anything for weeks.

  I wanted to know something today.

  I positioned my shaking fingers over the keyboard and typed in the name Sheila Tresswell, backing up three times to correct my errors. I had spent the latter half of last night tossing and turning, and much of my sleeplessness had come from guilt. I knew now that my birth mother had had a tumultuous childhood. She had been left all alone in the world at the age of nineteen, and within a year and a half, found herself pregnant. She had no money, no family, and most likely, little education. How could she have raised me all on her own? No matter what sort of lifestyle she had lived later on, no matter how she had ended up in prison, I had no business judging her for giving me up. Especially not when my life had turned out so well.

  I punched the enter key, and the hourglass appeared. Calm down, I ordered myself, knowing that even if, miracle of miracles, Sheila had ever married in this county, there was no guarantee that the information on that record would lead to my birth father. For any ex-husband of hers to be both easy to locate and willing to talk to me was an incredible long shot. And even if I succeeded on those two counts, Sheila might or might not have confided in a husband about a previous pr
egnancy. I could only hope that she had.

  My eyes were fixed on the hourglass; each second seemed like ten. Images spun in my head—Sheila, young and vibrant, wearing a lacy white dress; Sheila, broken and sobbing, living in a boyfriend’s dumpy apartment, staring at a picture of me.

  The screen flickered. Your search matches 1 record.

  My heart pounded in double time. I moved the mouse and scrolled down.

  Sheila Marie Tresswell.

  My gaze leapt immediately to the man’s name below hers.

  Jacob Martin Kozen. Date of Birth: February 25th, 1945. Occupation: Police officer.

  Hot tears sprang up behind my eyes, and my breath shuddered. You did get married, I thought to myself with a smile, an unaccountable sense of joy spreading through me. You married a policeman…you weren’t always alone.

  I drank in the remainder of the screen in a rush. Sheila’s occupation was listed as "waitress." Her birth information matched what I already knew. Jacob’s parents were probably also divorced; at least, they had different last names.

  The couple had married right here in Somerset, in the middle of winter. The ground would have been snow-covered then, I mused, seeing once again the image of the white dress. But then my eyes rested on something else, and an icy ball slammed straight into my stomach.

  Date of Marriage: January 16, 1973.

  The year before I was born.

  I sat frozen for a moment, my breaths coming quick and shallow. Then after a flurry of furious thought, I rose with a jerk. "Excuse me," I called out to the clerk, "But could I check divorce records on this same computer?"

  The clerk stepped over, seemingly oblivious to the distress buffeting my insides. "You just click on this," she explained, pointing. "But print that record out first if you want it. Do you want it?"

  I nodded. She tapped the mouse, and the printer at my left whirred. Then she clicked into the second database. I thanked her and dropped back into the chair as she departed. S-H-E-I…

  My fingers trembled so violently I could barely type. I finished with my right index finger, using my left hand to steady my wrist. K-O-Z-E-N. This time, the hourglass didn’t last long. Not nearly long enough.

  Record of Divorce. Jacob Martin Kozen. Sheila Tresswell Kozen. Date of Decree: August 14, 1979.

  The numbers spun in my head, and I grew suddenly queasy. Six years. Sheila and Jacob had been married for six years. They had not divorced before I was born. They had not even been in the middle of a divorce when I was born. They had been married for seventeen months already. They had stayed married for five years after.

  I hit the mouse button with a snap, then rose and waited by the printer. As the second sheet ejected I collected both, shoved them into my notebook, and walked out of the limestone courthouse and onto the sidewalks of Somerset. I was dimly aware that I had not thanked the clerk.

  I walked for forty-five minutes before driving my car.

  ***

  Seeing a twenty-some-odd-foot moving van in the meadow behind the inn probably should have come as a shock to me. But this morning, I had no shock left to offer. I had noted Fletcher’s mud-encrusted pickup in the lot as soon as I pulled up, and I had parked my own car and walked through the inn, wondering what he was doing there. When I caught sight of the van through the windows of the common room, I walked on outside to investigate.

  The vehicle was pulled up to the door of the old white frame house, and several men in light blue work clothes were carrying an assortment of boxes and shabby-looking pieces of furniture down its front steps and onto the truck. The men took little notice of me as I approached, and I stood silently for a while by the van, staring at its California plates and trying to grasp the situation with what was left of my brain.

  No explanation presented itself. I peeked in the back of the trailer and saw a variety of beat-up furnishings, broken appliances, and dusty, loosely packed belongings that would seem more at home in a flea market than a moving van. The exception was a series of strong, new boxes that lay along the side wall nearest me. Leaning in to look at them, I came face to face with an upright garment box, the type that contains an integral hanging bar. The box was clearly labeled "suits," but its top had gotten knocked askew, and with another good shove would be on the floor. I tried to reach the lid from where I was standing, but couldn’t, and since the movers were not around, I mindlessly walked up the ramp to replace the lid myself.

  I was in the process of settling it over the top of the box when the sight of the clothes inside stopped me cold. Suits. The box contained six of them. Fine wool suits, all summer weight, all with designer labels. Expensive bespoke suits, like the one Fletcher had worn to Sheila’s funeral. But that particular example wasn’t among them, bringing his grand total to seven.

  "Better get out of the way, ma’am," a voice barked. Two of the movers had returned and were struggling up the narrow ramp with a dingy, immense sectional couch. I moved to the side as they steered it into the center of the van and dropped it with a bang. I apologized and slipped out around them, embarrassed at my nosiness, but not embarrassed enough to resist eavesdropping outside for a moment.

  "I’d take this one home if it weren’t for all the mouse turds," the older of the two muttered.

  The other man merely snorted.

  They started back out, and I hastened up the house’s steps, anxious to appear as if I was supposed to be there. What was going on? Where was Fletcher? The house’s door was standing open, and I didn’t bother fighting the urge to walk through it.

  Coming from the bright sunshine outdoors, my eyes took a few seconds to adjust to the relative darkness within. At first all I could make out was a hall, connected to an empty living room that smelled strongly of dust and mothballs. I took a tentative step forward, but was quickly pushed to the side by a man carrying a metal headboard down the staircase. I backed down the hall into the next nearest doorway, then turned around.

  I was in the kitchen—a kitchen that looked as though it had not been updated since the sixties. The cabinets were white-painted metal, liberally chipped and scratched, and the counters were a glaring shade of red. The built-in stove seemed ancient, as did the ceramic sink. But the refrigerator—an elaborate model complete with ice and water dispensers on the door—looked almost brand new.

  The smell of pies. Wonderful, scrumptious pies.

  My eyes narrowed at the misplaced thought. I was an excellent baker, and pies were my specialty. But this would hardly be an ideal kitchen in which to make them. Why would I think about pies now?

  "Meara?"

  I turned with a start. Fletcher stood behind me in the hallway, holding a large picture frame under one arm.

  "Did you need something?" he asked, his voice deadpan.

  I looked at him without responding, my mind still in a fog. When it occurred to me how ditzy my speechlessness must seem, I managed to force myself into gear.

  "I just wondered what was going on," I explained. "Are you taking this stuff back to California with you?"

  He stared at me, and since it took him just as long to answer, I stopped feeling self-conscious. "No," he answered finally. "Everything in the van is going to Goodwill. So if you have anything of Sheila’s that you were going to take, just have these guys throw it on. If you want."

  "Thank you," I agreed, thinking of the bags that were still in my car. I had carried them all the way to Somerset and back, forgetting them entirely.

  "Why don’t you come back outside?" he suggested, tilting his head toward the door. The note of tension in his voice was slight, but I caught it. He didn’t like my being here. Was there something I wasn’t supposed to see? I mulled over the thought. I must have mulled it over for quite a while.

  "Come outside," he said again, and this time it was a command rather than a suggestion.

  I complied. He led me out of the house and then started across the meadow, looking back occasionally to see if I was following. I fell into step a few paces behind him and
stayed there, my mind miles away.

  They were a married couple, a voice in my head taunted, just as it had all morning, every second I hadn’t succeeded in thinking about something else. And they gave their child away.

  When we reached the inn, Fletcher opened the French doors to the common room and held one open for me.

  They had a little girl, the voice continued to jeer as I walked inside. But they didn’t want her. Neither of them.

  "I suppose you noticed the boxes already," he said, walking down the hallway and turning into the bedroom across from mine.

  I continued to follow, having no idea what he was talking about.

  "I told the men not to mess with anything in your room. They didn’t, did they?" he asked, looking in that direction.

  I shook my head, not that I knew. I was too busy staring at the collection of boxes and assorted pieces of furniture than had been haphazardly stacked from floor to ceiling over every square inch of the other bedroom’s floor space.

  My mind continued to reel. "Would you please tell me what’s going on?" I asked, reasonably politely. "Whose stuff is this?"

  "Mine," he answered. "You have a problem with its being here?"

  "No, of course not," I said quickly, trying to regroup. Evidently, he was clearing out the white house and giving most of its contents to charity. What he put here must be what he wanted to keep—stacked and ready for export to California.

  A sound met my ears, and my beleaguered brain snapped to attention. It was the cuckoo. The cuckoo from the Ferris Mountain clock on the landing. In all the time I had spent at the inn thus far, I had not once managed to catch the little creature in the act. Inconsequential as the desire would seem, it was a tiny thrill I was determined to allow myself.

  "Excuse me," I blurted, turning around and flying up the steps. I reached the landing on cuckoo number nine, with plenty of time to catch the last two. "I knew it!" I exclaimed, watching the tiny, featherless baby bird emerge from its splintered shell, beak open wide. My heart warmed at the simple sight. "It’s perfect."