Well, bully for them.It was a sad story, but what did it have to do with her?Maxie waited as they looked at her expectantly.“So?”
“So, we’d forgotten too,” Lexie explained.
Maxie’s anger tweaked.“I haven’t forgotten anything.”
She did not have sisters.She’d had a mother, a father and grandparents, but there had been no sisters in the mix.Her fingers closed into fists so tightly they turned white.She didn’t know what they were trying to do, but it was hurtful.
“We have proof,” Roxie said.“I hired a private investigator to see if we could learn anything else about our parents or what happened, only he turned up something we didn’t expect.”Reaching out, she caught her by the ankle.“You.”
Maxie jumped.The woman’s nails were polished dark red, and a silver ring circled her pinky.The hold wasn’t painful, but a strange tingle ran up her leg, nonetheless.A strange… No, she wasn’t going to call it familiarity.She pulled her leg away and tucked it underneath her.
Roxie shrugged.“I know it’s wild, but it’s the truth.”
Maxie shook her head.It was wild, all right, because it was a bunch of hooey.There was no possible way.These two women appeared to believe it, but their PI had made a mistake.A huge one.“It can’t be.You’ve got the wrong person.”
“Wrong person?”Roxie scoffed.“Then why do I feel like I’m looking in a mirror?”
“I don’t know,” Maxie snapped, surprising even herself.She never snapped at anyone.
“All right.Everyone be calm.”Lexie pushed her hands down on the air as if trying to lower the tension.“It takes time for everything to sink in.Why don’t we just talk?If we compare notes, maybe you’ll understand why we believe the things we do.”
Notes?How about lies?There wasn’t anything they could do or say to prove something she knew was false.Maxie wanted these people gone.They were confusing her, scattering her normally sane thoughts.Where had they come from?Why were they doing this to her?Hadshe hit her head?
“Is your birthday April 12?”Lexie asked, not waiting for an answer.“Are you twenty-eight years old?”
Maxie’s spine stiffened, but both facts were on public record.She refused to let them shake her.“Yes.”
“Do you love mint chocolate chip ice cream?”Roxie pressed.“Do you sleep on the left side of the bed?Is your blood type A negative?”
Maxie pulled back further.Had they been watching her?“I prefer regular chocolate chip ice cream.”
“It’s close,” Lexie insisted.“But back to the basics.Did you ever live in Cobalt City?”
Maxie started to say no but found she couldn’t.She vaguely remembered her parents talking about having moved.“I…I don’t know.All I remember is living here.”
“I know what will convince you.Do you have a birthmark?”Roxie pushed aside her tank top and pointed at her shoulder.“Right here?”
Maxie’s stomach gave a weird twist.She stared hard at that little discoloration, trying to find a way to explain it away.Lexie gathered her sleeveless dress so that a similar mark was exposed, and Maxie’s breath went short.Zac brushed her hair back and touched her shoulder.She’d never paid that tiny birthmark any mind.
What was her birthmark doing on these strangers’ shoulders?
“Here.”The sheriff pushed a glass of water into her hand.“Drink.”
Obediently, she took a sip.Suddenly, she felt parched.The second drink was a gulp.
“We know we didn’t do this right, and it’s a lot to take in, but you’re our third.”Roxie refused to break contact, by eye or by touch.She caught Maxie’s other ankle, and the touch was hot.Pulsing.“We’re identical triplets.”
“But I wasn’t adopted,” Maxie said, enunciating every word.
“You weren’t—” Lexie’s face turned pale as a sheet.
Confusion bounced between the other two women.The emotion was quickly joined by shock, hurt and eventually anger.
“They kept one.”Roxie’s voice choked off.
Maxie watched, incredulous, as the two tracked each other, emotion by emotion and thought by thought.Their connection formed a weird energy in the room as they communicated without words, and it was at that point that she knew she was right.She’d been close to panic, especially with that birthmark coincidence, but if she was their third, she should be able to track with them.Right?Twin talk… Triplet talk… Yet she didn’t have a clue what was going on between them.
And that kind of hurt.
