The air suddenly felt thick in her lungs. “Do you think—”
“I think we need to find out what the hell is going on.”
Addie looked at the back of the photo. At her birth date. At a name that perhaps had been meant for her.
“Addie.” The softness of Noah’s voice combined with the warmth of his hand on her cheek had her looking back at him. “Are you okay?”
“I never looked into my birth mother because I never felt the need. I love my parents. I had a great childhood. If this is true, why wouldn’t Jules tell me?”
“We don’t know anything yet. I’m going to call Jesse and get him to organize a meeting with her. We’ll all be there. Okay?”
She nodded quickly, but a numbness had settled deep into her bones. Was Jules her birth mother? If she was, why come here, form a relationship with her, and not tell her? And was she involved in what was going on? None of it made sense.
“Addie—”
“Go. Call Jesse. I’ll wait here.” She needed a second alone to process everything.
Maybe he saw that on her face, because he nodded before kissing her forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
The second he was gone, Addie lifted the photo again. There was a shake in her fingers now, and it took her a moment toturn the picture back over. And the second she saw it again, unexpected tears blurred her vision.
The photo looked different now.Juleslooked different.
Addie had always felt so grateful to her birth mother for choosing her parents to adopt her. And because of that, her reasons for giving her up had never really mattered before. But now? Looking into Jules’s eyes? She suddenly wanted to know everything.
If itwastrue, it explained the instant connection. The motherly feel, like they were old friends.
A text came through on her phone, and she had to blink tears away to unblur the words.
Cass: Hey. Just coming to the door now. I’ll be holding brownies otherwise I’d knock.
Quickly, she scrubbed at the tears that fell from her eyes. Her head was a mess, and she barely processed what she was doing as she left the photo on the counter and moved to the door to find Cass approaching the other side.
“Hi.” She stopped at the door, a glass dish of brownies in her hands. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. You’ve just caught me at a crappy time.”
“Oh. Is Noah here?”
“Yeah, he’s in the bedroom on the phone. Is it okay if we rain check?” Jules took up every inch of brain power she had. Addie needed to call her. Talk to her. Find out what the hell was going on. And until she did, she couldn’t focus on anything else.
“Oh. Okay. Um, is it all right if I use your bathroom though? I left Toby’s office so quickly I didn’t think to make a bathroom stop.”
“Sure. Of course.” She turned…
And that’s when she thought about the brownies.
If Cass had only decided to come hereafterher therapy appointment, how did she already have something baked?
She started to turn back, but something hard suddenly slammed into her head. Arms wrapped around her waist, catching her before she hit the floor, as her world turned black.
“She was adopted.”
There was a pause over the line before Jesse spoke. “Who?”
“Addie. She was adopted. And on the back of that photo, we found a date and a name… Jesse, the date is the day Addie was born, and the name was Alison, something that Jules has called Addie before.”
Jesse cursed. “That matches.”
