Maxie (Triple X) (19 page)

The older woman’s knees wobbled, and Roxie latched on to her. “Get a chair. We need to find her someplace to sit.”

“Here.” Cam wrapped an arm around Mrs. Shimwell and supported her from the other side. With the bullheadedness of a celebrity bodyguard, he moved them all through the crowd to a park bench away from the chaos. His touch was gentle as he guided the woman onto the seat. “There. How’s that? Better?”

“Yes, thank you.” She patted around for her purse. “Does anyone have a tissue?”

Lexie handed the woman her bag, along with a bottle of water. “It’s so hot out here today,” she said kindly.

“I’m sorry. It got to be a bit much.”

A bit much. Yes, Maxie would have to agree on that. She stared at Mrs. Shimwell, her mind blank yet running a million miles per hour. How did this woman, of all people, know something about her so private she hadn’t known it herself? She felt like she’d been punched in the chest. “You and my grandmother weren’t friends,” she blurted.

Audrey lowered the bottle of water and toyed with the plastic cap. “Not at the end, we weren’t, but Naomi was the closest friend I ever had until…”

She let out a ragged sigh that had Roxie kneeling onto the grass next to her. “Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

“Yes. The beginning.” Audrey looked to the sky. It was filled with puffy white clouds. Maxie knew because she’d been watching them all day long. As a child, her grandmother had loved to encourage her imagination. Together, they’d found flowers and animals and faces in that kind of sky. She’d felt her grandma’s presence here all day long.

She felt it even now, although her stomach was twisting in a way that wasn’t so happy.

Adopted.

With everything that had happened, it had been the obvious conclusion. She’d figured it out, but it was something else to have it confirmed.

“Naomi and I were the best of friends,” Audrey began. “We met playing bridge, and we had so much in common. She loved books, and I loved flowers. She’d started her family young in life, while I waited until I was much older. I’d just had my Martin when she began telling me about the troubles that Peter and Mary were having getting pregnant.”

She took a moment to blot her cheeks with the tissue.

“It got to be such a weight on their shoulders and on hers. They were living in Cobalt City at the time, and she felt so helpless. You can’t imagine how happy and excited we all were when the kids were finally able to adopt. Then when they decided to move back to Indigo Falls? Naomi was pleased as punch. She fell in love with you the moment she saw you.”

Audrey’s gaze was heavy with compassion, but it made Maxie feel even worse. Zac’s arm tightened around her, but she couldn’t allow herself to relax. “It was just me?”

Audrey nodded emphatically then glanced at Lexie and Roxie. “I didn’t know about you two until now.”

“Do you think…?” The words fell off until the trophy jabbed Maxie in the thigh. She’d forgotten she was even carrying it. “Did Grandma know?”

“No, she couldn’t have. She would have told me something like that.” Mrs. Shimwell gestured helplessly. The water sloshed in the bottle, spilling onto the seat beside her. She blotted it up with another tissue. “I don’t know how that could have possibly happened. Peter and Mary were desperate, but I can’t imagine them being part of something so…so… Were you all adopted by different families?”

“Roxie was left behind in foster care.”

A horrified expression settled onto the older woman’s face. She caught Roxie’s hand again, drawing her closer. “Oh,
dear
.”

Roxie shrugged in discomfort. “I guess I was the runt of the litter.”

The hard-nosed librarian sniffled. She cupped the back of Roxie’s head and tilted her forehead close. “It makes no sense,” she said fiercely. “They couldn’t have known. As much as they wanted kids, they would have taken you in.”

“Would they have taken me too?” Lexie was still as a statue, and her voice sounded impersonal. Cam stepped up behind her and wrapped both arms around her waist. He pulled her close until some of the rigidity left her body.

“I…I don’t know,” Audrey admitted. “Maybe three… Naomi and I might have had our falling out, but I vow to you,
she
didn’t know any of this.”

Zac was standing so solid beside her, but Maxie couldn’t lean on him right now. Not now. Every single memory she had of her parents had just been made cloudy. And if her grandmother was so upright, why hadn’t she told her the truth? “Why am I hearing all of this from you? Why didn’t Grandma tell me?”

Mrs. Shimwell’s wobbling chin snapped back into its obstinate position, and her lips fell into a familiar purse. “That was my question as well, and the beginning of the end of our friendship.”

“What happened?” Roxie asked.

“The accident happened.” Audrey’s voice cracked, and the dampness reappeared in her eyes. She looked out over the crowd. “It was such a horrible thing, such a tragic waste.”

Maxie braced herself when the woman’s gray gaze settled on her again. Zac’s fingers dug into her side. She was still dressed as Roxie, with her T-shirt knotted high around her waist, but the skin-to-skin contact grounded her. “We were happy, weren’t we?”

Or had her memories of that been wrong too?

“You were, dear. The happiest little family ever. Your parents loved you, and Naomi adored you. I know, because you and Martin were the cutest playmates.” The woman sucked in a ragged breath. “It all came tumbling down that one autumn night. In the blink of an eye, your grandmother became your father, your mother and your entire family wrapped up in one.”

Maxie flinched. She remembered that night as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. The police lights flashing outside the house. The knock on the door. The horrified expression on her grandma’s face. The confusion she’d felt when she’d been told.

Audrey shrugged. “I helped out where I could. You’d come over to my house to do homework so your grandmother could run errands. I’d pick you up from school when she was out delivering flowers. But when you got a bit older, I thought you should know more. That’s when our friendship began to falter.”

“You thought she should tell Maxie she was adopted,” Zac said.

“I did.” Audrey’s stern librarian voice came back to the forefront. “It was the truth, and you deserved to know.” She tilted her head towards Lexie. “When did your parents tell you?”

Lexie’s lips quivered. “My parents were firm believers in full disclosure.”

When the older woman frowned, Cam stepped in. “She’s always known.”

“Oh, well…” Mrs. Shimwell patted Roxie’s hand once again. She held on to it tightly as she lifted her chin. “Naomi and I had a basic disagreement in beliefs, but I think at the heart of it, she was guided by fear.”

“Fear of what?” Maxie asked.

“Fear of losing you. She’d lost her husband, and then her son and daughter-in-law. I suppose she was afraid you’d go off looking for your birth parents—or should I say family.”

Maxie was having trouble taking it all in. No wonder she’d felt so blindsided when she’d seen her sisters walking down the street. The truth had been intentionally kept from her. Maybe not to hurt her. Her grandmother had been hurting, but Maxie had been hurting too. She’d loved her parents with her whole heart. It had been a good life they’d shared. A quiet one, but good.

She laid her hand over Zac’s at her waist and entwined their fingers. “I never found any paperwork. After she died, I looked through all her dealings. Why wouldn’t I find anything about the adoption?”

“Did you look in her treasure box?”

It was then that Maxie knew that everything Audrey had said was the truth. Her grandmother had an intricately carved wooden treasure box in which she kept her favorite things. It had been a private, secret place. Every once in a while, if she was really good, her grandma would show her things that were kept inside.

Maxie’s chest squeezed. She hadn’t had the heart to open that box. In the year her grandma had been gone, she hadn’t been able to work up the nerve.

Her chin dipped. The if-onlys were ringing in her ears. If only her parents hadn’t left Roxie behind. If only her grandmother had told her earlier. If only her birth parents hadn’t given them up in the first place.

Zac pressed a kiss to her temple, and she had to fight back tears.

Mrs. Shimwell stood and pulled Maxie into a hug. “If I’d known your sisters were out there, I would have told you,” she said into her ear. “I would have helped you find them.”

Later that night, Maxie was sitting in bed going through her grandmother’s treasure box when a soft tap came at her door. She glanced up in surprise. She’d been so immersed she hadn’t heard anyone on the stairs. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Zac poked his head inside. “Hey.”

She sat up straighter. She’d expected it to be either Roxie or Lexie. He’d been called back down to the station not long after Audrey had dropped her bombshell. She hadn’t noticed the sound of his Jeep pulling into the driveway or the sweep of its headlights cross her room, and she’d been waiting for them for most of the evening. “Hi.”

He entered, and she realized he was in uniform. It ratcheted her nerves tighter. He looked like that unobtainable dream she’d had for months. He closed the door behind him, and all those muscles flexed and stretched as he set his gym bag on the floor…those same muscles she’d gotten so up close and personal with just this afternoon.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

“Okay.” She fiddled with the box in her hands. “Better.”

She folded the letter from her grandmother, the one in which she finally told her she was adopted. It had been written near the end when her grandmother had been very sick. Audrey had been right; Naomi had been afraid of losing her.

She slipped the letter into its envelope and set it back inside the box where she’d also discovered her adoption papers. She couldn’t find it in her heart to be angry with her grandma. She’d done the best she could, and that had been enough. Nobody was the villain here. It had been a set of unfortunate decisions and circumstances that hadn’t unraveled until today.

“Roxie let me in,” Zac said. “I told her I’d forgotten my key.”

Maxie set the box on the bedside table. So he was still keeping up the act. Or weren’t they acting anymore? Everything had gotten so jumbled.

“Is everything okay down at the station?” she asked. Whatever had called him away had kept him busy for a long time.

“Fine. We had a lost little boy, but it turned out the parents and grandparents hadn’t communicated over who was taking him home.” He eyed the bed, but then walked over to sit on the chair in the corner. He looked strong and authoritative in that uniform, but tired as he stretched his long legs out in front of him. It made her melt inside. Had he been out in the heat all day?

“I hated leaving you like that,” he said quietly. He seemed lazy but contemplative. One elbow was braced on the cushioned arm while he rubbed his temple. He was watching her, his gaze languid, but she knew he could be out of that chair in an instant.

“It’s okay. I understood.” The events of the day had been overwhelming, but the storm was passing.

He glanced at the box on the bedside table. “Did you find what you’ve been looking for?”

“Some of it.” But she still had questions…about the adoption…about her parents, both birth and adoptive…about the two of them…

She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She wasn’t sure how to behave with him, especially after what she’d done this afternoon. She couldn’t believe how bold and aggressive she’d been, kissing him like that after telling everyone about her sisters, but hours had passed. A lifetime, it seemed. Everything had shifted once again, but one thing held true. The fingers of inhibition were reaching for her.

Here they were, alone in her bedroom, with a long night ahead.

What was he thinking? Was he just here to check on her? Was he still playing the part she’d asked?

Or was he expecting her to make a move? Because right now she couldn’t budge from her spot on the bed. “Are you hungry?”

His eyes sparked. “What do you think?”

She blushed. “I meant, did you eat?”

“I grabbed a sandwich from the vending machine at the station.”

“Zac,” she said with concern.

“Is that the white frilly thing you’re wearing?”

The one he’d found under her pillow last night? Trust him not to miss a detail.

She was under the covers all the way to her armpits, but her shoulders were exposed. They were bare except for the thin silk straps that held the gown up. She tugged one strap towards her neck. She hadn’t been sure what to wear… If he’d been coming at all… If she’d dared… But she’d put on the oversized T-shirt from the night before, and that had been a definite no-go. She didn’t think she could wear that ever again without feeling his hands moving over her, the cotton rubbing against her nipples and sliding up high on her thighs. “Maybe.”

“Does that mean what I think it means?”

Her heart began fluttering like a bird inside her chest. “Maybe.”

There was a big pink elephant standing in the middle of the room. He hadn’t forgotten what had happened behind that talent competition stage, and she hadn’t either. She hugged her knees tighter. She didn’t know what had come over her there.