He leaned back on the patio chair like he had all the time in the world. “Why don’t you tell me your story?”
“I’m afraid there’s not much to tell,” she said with a shrug. “Born and raised near Los Angeles. My mom wanted to be an actress but ended up as a housekeeper for a host of rich and famous. She had me later in her life.”
“And your dad?”
“One of the rich and famous.” A man who already had a wife and three children.
“I did a little digging and found out your mom is not actually related to Marcia Sutton.”
“Okay.”
“Marcia was adopted from the Lititz Children’s Home,” he pronounced like he’d somehow trapped her in a lie.
“That’s right, Sherlock, but you don’t have to be a great sleuth to find that info. I suspect half the town knows.”
“So who is your mother’s family?”
The manila envelope with her mom’s papers was stored in the truck, but they contained no information about a family. “Marcia was like a sister to my mom. Sadly, my mother was never adopted.”
“So your mother was—”
“Abandoned. Probably orphaned like your grandfather. We’ll never know for sure.” Harper reached for her purse, ready to be done with this conversation. “A lot of kids lost their parents around the Great Depression.”
One of the many reasons why her mom liked happy endings. Without a family to ground her, she’d craved resolution to feel whole.
It was probably why Harper wanted a happily ever after too.
She stood. “I wasn’t trying to hide that information.”
“I’m sorry.” Finn hopped up beside her to reopen the door for Ingrid. “I said too much.”
After Finn took the tray from his grandmother, Harper shook the woman’s hand. “Thank you for having me.”
“You’re leaving already?” Ingrid asked, seemingly confused, but Harper could hardly think straight, much less come up with a better excuse for running away.
“I’m afraid so. It was lovely to meet you,” she said, attempting a casual stroll around the corner of the house. Then she bolted to the truck.
“Harper!” Finn shouted behind her, but she flung open the door, not daring a glance back as she sped out of the drive.
She felt terrible about disappointing Ingrid, the gracious woman who’d made her stew and shared her home-roasted coffee and a piece of her story. Too bad her grandson was a jerk.
Harper pulled the truck over near the covered bridge and watched snowy petals from a cigar tree riding the wake of the breeze before they salted the stream.
Why did Finn care if her mother and Marcia called each other sisters? The women had spent so much of their childhood together that they were practically related. Even after Marcia was adopted, the two girls had attended school together in Catawba, promising they’d remain forever friends. Not that it mattered to Finn. He seemed much more interested in illusions than actual truth.
Why did she even care what he thought? It wasn’t like she’d been trespassing on Ingrid’s patio. The woman had invited her. No matter what Finn said, she shouldn’t have run. Cowering again when she should have stood her ground.
Thinking about that man would only drive her crazy. Finn Sterling could do what he pleased. Spend the rest of his life protecting the truth about Olivia. It didn’t matter to her.
She needed to reset and refocus on writing the best possible screenplay for Sissie and for herself, but she couldn’t think clearly right now. Before she continued researching Olivia’s story, she had to confront her own ghosts.
Horses pulled an Amish buggy across the covered bridge, and she followed the buggy into town. South of Lititz, she turned onto a winding farm road until she saw the abandoned orphanage with its ivy-clad walls and a columned front porch. The place her mom once called home.
So different from Ingrid’s fairy-tale house.
This place was as desolate now as when she visited with her mom more than a decade ago, right after they searched unsuccessfully for Angeline’s birth record. For many years, her mom had longed for a family, the loneliness carving a black hole inside a woman who’d desperately wanted to be tethered. But when they visited this site, she told Harper that she was grateful for a safe place to live as a child and her sweet friendship with Marcia.
What would she have said to Finn’s unwelcome questions? Since she had no idea who brought her to the orphanage, her mom probably would have laughed and said a stork transported her from some exotic location.
