Looking back out the window, she wanted to yell back that she had always wanted her dad to date. To get married. To not focus all his attention on her. “He took off his wedding ring when I was fifteen. Just one day, it was gone. Mom had died just under ten years before. I wondered why he didn’t keep it on until the tenth anniversary.” She looked down at her own hands as she spoke. “But we never talked about it. I never even asked. I should have asked.”
“Maybe he was ready then.” He sat down on the bed against the pillow beside her. “Do you remember your mom?”
“Yes. I was six when she died. Breast cancer. She had it before I was born too, but it came back. That last year she spent mostly in bed. I would sit beside her and read to her. I was an early reader, so I could read pretty good by then.” She was still looking at the trees outside the window. “Then she was gone, and I didn’t understand what had happened. Dad cried a lot, so I cried a lot. That fall, I went to school for the first time and met Hanna and Hazel, and they didn’t have a mom either. We bonded over that. Sad, really.”
“Did she look like you?” Sam took her hand in his.
“No.” She laughed. “If you met her, you would think that she was Hazel’s mom. All light blonde and gray eyes, I think. Little, too, like Hazel. Maybe another reason I bonded with those two.”
He was silent as he held her hand. Not asking, not prodding.
“I’m adopted. I don’t tell people that.” She answered the question he didn’t ask.
“I’ve never heard your dad even hint that you were anything but his,” Sam confessed.
“If you listen, he does. I am a gift, I was chosen, he doesn’t deserve to have me … If you’re not listening for it, you don’t notice it.” She turned away from the window and looked at where their hands were linked. “After the cancer, Mom couldn’t have kids, but they both wanted kids. It took a few years before they got the call. Dad said Mom wouldn’t have said no to any baby, but they loved me at first sight. I had a great life with them. I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Her free hand was caressing his that was holding hers.
“Have you ever looked for her?” Sam asked.
“Not until this last week. I started to think about not getting to see my daughter get married. Maybe she deserved to be there. I blame it on Dad. He’s always making those videos. They’re for my real mom, if I ever meet her, so she can see how thankful he was to have been able to raise me.”
“Perfect Patrick,” Sam said with a sad laugh.
“See, he is. And now he has been hiding his girlfriend from me.” She wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Talk to him.” He let go of her hand and got up. “I’m going to get my computer, and you can show me what you’ve found.”
Pulling the covers over her legs, Natalie was surprised how nice it felt to be able to talk to someone about her real mom. She hadn’t even told Jason about it. She hadn’t felt as comfortable with him as she did with Sam. And after only a few hours.
Now she was going to see what Sam thought of the woman she had found.
CHAPTER4
Sam grabbedhis computer from the living room end table and headed back to the bedroom, taking calming breaths. Natalie’s story had made him want to pull her into his arms to comfort her again, but her hand caressing his made him want to pull her into his arms for a completely different reason. A hotter reason. He cursed himself because she was supposed to be on her honeymoon right now with another guy.
She was your former student, he told himself. Why was it so hard for him to remember that with Natalie? It had never been an issue before, not since his first year in Landstad. But, of course, it was her who had been the issue then also.
Stopping in the doorway, he looked at the woman who had blown his mind with her revelation. Adopted. He had always assumed her mother had been a dark-haired, olive-skinned beauty. And oddly tall. But, in reality, being adopted made way more sense. Adoption had made Patrick lenient with her. She could do no wrong, and she was never any trouble. The man loved her like he could lose her, and adoption meant it was a possibility.
Since he had left to get the computer, she had pulled her long legs under the covers, disappointing him a little. But she was still sitting up in bed waiting for him. When she saw him, she smiled at him so innocently. All he wanted to do was crawl into bed with her and throw the computer against the wall as he pulled her underneath him, kissing her the entire time—and not innocently.
Inwardly cursing at his body’s reaction, he climbed onto the bed next to her, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Handing her the computer, he let her do the searching since she knew what she was looking for. He didn’t watch what she typed, just watched her slender fingers moving gracefully across the keys.
“When I search her name, I get all these pages, but really they are all about the same person. Judge Delphinea Connor Hart. That’s her name. Not Judge, of course. But she looks nothing like me. I had always thought she would.” Natalie pointed to the screen.
Sam looked up from her agile fingers and saw a redhead in a black robe pictured on the screen. Natalie looked nothing like this picture, pre- or post-accident. Then he saw something, and it all became clear. Pulling the computer to him, he said, “You have her eyes. See the green with the sparkles? She’s happy in this picture.”
“What sparkles?” She looked at him with the same sparkles of amusement.
“Nothing. She also has your nose.” He quickly tried to turn the conversation away from his slip-up.
“I don’t see it.” Natalie looked back at the screen.
“This is your expression, Natalie. I would tell you to study for a test, and this was the face you’d make. Smiling but actually saying ‘fuck you.’ Face turned up a little in defiance, covering it with a smile. This is your face.” He turned the screen back to her.
He had seen that face almost every day from September first until the accident. Whenever he asked her to do something she really didn’t want to do. He didn’t think he would miss that face as much as he did the rest of the year.
“Nope, I don’t see it.” Natalie looked closer at the picture of the woman.