"Do you need some help?" he asked.
He'd barely gotten the words out when the box came tumbling down on Olivia's head, knocking her off the stool.
He caught her around the waist, managing to prevent her from hitting the floor.
"Dammit," she swore, coughing as a flurry of dust surrounded them.
"A thank you would be nicer."
"Thanks." She slipped out of his arms and knelt on the floor to look at the contents that had fallen out of the box.
"More photographs," she said. "I wonder why she tucked them away."
"Maybe she just had too many to display."
He squatted down next to her and reached into the box, picking up a baby bracelet. He read the words aloud, "Baby Girl Harper, 1988." He thought about that for a moment. "This couldn't belong to Molly's daughter. She would have been closer to my dad's age than mine."
"Right. I was born in 1988, so this person would be the same age as me. Perhaps it belonged to Molly's granddaughter, Peter's daughter."
"That would make sense." He tossed the bracelet back into the box and watched Olivia skim through some pictures. "Anything interesting?"
"This looks like Molly with her kids. Peter appears to be about eight and Francine about three."
"No one looks very happy," Colton said as she handed him the photo to peruse. "I can relate. When I was a kid I hated taking family pictures. It took forever to get eight kids to stop fighting or crying and look good at the same time."
"I can't even imagine. I'm an only child, so photographs just involved me and my parents."
"Sounds a lot more civilized." He handed her back the photo, seeing a hint of pain flit through Olivia's eye. The family picture probably reminded her of the loss of her father. Here he was complaining about having to take family photos when she'd lost one-third of her family. He felt like an idiot. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. This isn't about me. I just need to stay focused."
He wondered if she ever let herself think about her dad or her past. It seemed to him that she'd put all those memories away. Maybe that made it easier, and who was he to judge how to deal with the grief of losing a parent?
Olivia handed him some photos to look through. "You take this stack; I'll take the other."
"Okay," he said, running through the photos, which appeared to be more family shots.
"Do you know what happened to Molly's husband?" Olivia asked after a moment.
"No."
Olivia turned to another photo and then paused. "He was a cop," she said, surprise in her voice. "Look, he's in uniform here."
Colton nodded as she showed him the photo. "My grandfather probably knew him then. Cops and firefighters have always been tight in this town, although the relationship can be adversarial, too."
Olivia stared at him with a question in her eyes.
"What?" he asked.
"If Molly was married to a cop, why didn't she ask him to help the women? Why go around the police force when she had her own personal officer in the house?"
He thought about that for a moment. "Maybe there was nothing he could do. Or maybe he had already passed away? We should check the dates of his death and the running of the railroad."
"Good idea." She gave him an approving smile. "You're actually helping me. I didn't think that was your intention when you volunteered to come with me."
"You know what they say about keeping your enemies close."
Her eyes sparkled. "So now we're enemies?"
"I'm not sure what we are," he said bluntly.
Her tongue darted out and she nervously licked her lips. "It doesn't matter what we are to each other. I'll be gone in a week."
"Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself."
Her gaze clung to his for a long moment, and then she blew out a breath. "We should get back to the photos."
"Do you have a boyfriend, Olivia?"
"Not at the moment. Why?"
"Just curious."
"I've been too busy for dating. What about you? Do you have a girlfriend?"
"No, too busy. We're a lot alike."
"Maybe we're just two people who aren't very good in relationships," she suggested.
"Or maybe we just haven't found anyone worth having a relationship with," he countered.
"So back to work," she said, pointedly changing the subject.
"There's nothing in this stack."
"I don't have anything interesting, either." She dug around in the box to see if there was anything there besides pictures. She pulled out a piece of yellowed paper. "Look at this—a birth certificate."
"For who?"
It says Baby Girl Harper, June 7, 1988." She sucked in a quick breath. "That's weird."
"Why is that weird? It matches the baby bracelet I saw earlier."
She looked up at him. "It's weird, because that's my birthday."
He stared back at her in surprise. "Really? That's an odd coincidence."
"Right—it's a coincidence." Her gaze moved back to the birth certificate. She swallowed hard. "It says the mother's name is Francine Harper. The father's name is blank. So the girl wasn't Peter's daughter. She was Francine's."
He saw her chest heave with her next breath, and her green eyes were suddenly very bright, so bright they reminded him of someone else—of Molly.
His pulse began to race. A crazy thought came into his brain. And judging by the bewildered expression on Olivia's face, she was thinking the same thing. But how could it be possible? Olivia had told him about her parents, about her family. She'd never mentioned…
Olivia suddenly shook her head. "No," she said loudly, forcefully. "No."
"Olivia?" he questioned. "What are you thinking?"
"Something ridiculous and out of this world."
"Why don't you tell me and let me judge how ridiciulous it is?"
She didn't answer for a long moment as emotions ran through her eyes—everything from fear to anger to shock. "Olivia?" he pressed. "Talk to me."
"I was adopted, Colton. I was adopted when I was two days old, and I've never had any idea who my biological parents are." She blew out a breath. "Maybe I just found out."
Chapter Eleven
"Okay, hold on," Colton said. "Just because you were adopted—"
"And I have the same birthday—"
"That still doesn't mean that you're this baby girl." But he had to admit it was a huge coincidence.
He could see the wheels turning in Olivia's head as she pondered the significance of the birth certificate.
"It would make sense," she said. "This could be why Molly chose me to tell her story, why she invited me to come here. I always wondered."
"You're making some big jumps. You've got to slow down and think about this. You're not the only adopted kid born on this day."
"I know you're trying to be logical, Colton, but my gut is telling me that there's a connection between Molly and me."
"Why didn't you tell me you were adopted before this?"
"Because I don't think about it. I was a baby when it happened. I don't know any other life, any other family than the one who raised me."
"When did you find out you were adopted?"
"I don't remember not knowing, so they must have told me when I was really little. My parents tried for twelve years to have a baby, and they said they were so blessed to get me. I had a wonderful childhood filled with love."
"And your mom never told you anything about your biological parents?"
"It was a closed adoption. She had no information."
"And you never thought about tracking down your real mother?"
"Of course I thought about it. Even though I loved my parents, I would wonder now and then about my birth mother. The feeling got stronger as I got older, especially when I was angry with my parents." Raw pain filled her eyes. "Then my dad died, and I thought in some bizarre way that maybe wondering about my real parents was responsible for him dying." She put up a hand as he opened his mouth. "I
know my thoughts didn't kill him. But emotionally I felt like I'd betrayed him in some way. And after that, I certainly couldn't leave my mom to go looking for my real mother. She was devastated. She'd lost her husband; she couldn't lose me."
"I get that," he said, admiring her loyalty to the woman who had raised her.
"What I don't understand, though, is if Molly is my grandmother, why wouldn't she just say so? Why would she try to lure me here with a story?"
"She might not have been sure you'd come, so she wanted to pique your interest without putting all her cards on the table."
"Why wouldn't I come?"
"I don't know. If you are this child, and that's still a big question mark, we don't know the circumstances of your adoption. What happened to your mother? Why did she give you up? Why was the adoption closed? Maybe in the answers to those questions, it will all become clear."
Olivia stared at him with a grim look in her eyes. "Do you think Eleanor knows I'm Molly's granddaughter? Is that why she gave me the key?"
He'd wondered that himself. "We could certainly ask her, but you might be better served going straight to someone in the Harper family. Peter should know the details of his sister's pregnancy."
"When I introduced myself to Peter and said I was the writer his mother had written to, he looked at me like he hated me. What if I am his niece?" She paused. "I feel a little sick."
"It's the shock. You need to breathe."
"I can't breathe in here. It's too stuffy."
"We'll take the box and the letters to your hotel room," he said, standing up.
"Wait, what letters?"
"Oh, right." He leaned over and grabbed the stack of letters he'd dropped by the door when he'd caught Olivia. "These letters. I found them in the other room. They appear to be notes from some of the women who were saved by Molly and the others."
Her eyes lit up. "Really? That's amazing. I didn't think we'd find anything about them."
"I only read one. You can go through the rest later."
She got to her feet. "Good idea."
As she finished speaking, she swayed a little, and he instinctively put his hands on her shoulders to steady her. "Easy. You okay?"
"I feel a little shaky."
"Understandable. But try to remember we don't know anything definitive yet. All we have right now is a birth certificate with no baby name and your birth date. That's it. You're going to talk to Peter later and get more information. One step at a time."
She nodded and let out a breath, then stepped away from him. "You're right. Thanks for talking me off the ledge."
"Anytime. Let's go back to your hotel."
"Okay."
They turned off the lights as they went downstairs and out the front door, carefully locking the door behind them.
Once outside, Colton drew in several deep breaths of air and saw Olivia doing the same thing. While he wasn't as personally affected by what they'd found at Molly's house, he had to admit to feeling a little shaken up himself. He was still trying to come to terms with Eleanor's brush with danger trying to rescue an abused woman. Now this birth certificate had just thrown another curve into the story.
"I feel like I'm dreaming," Olivia said, as they walked down the street and paused at the corner for a red light. "Any minute I'm going to wake up."
A loud truck came through the intersection, leaving a trail of exhaust in its wake.
Olivia grimaced and coughed as the smoke swept over them.
"I think that was fate telling you this is your real life," he said with a grin.
"I wish fate would have found a less smelly way to do that," she said, wrinkling her nose.
After they crossed the street, Colton held out his hand. "Give me the car keys."
"You're not registered to drive my rental car."
"No one will know."
"They will if we get in an accident."
"We're not going to get in an accident. You're not much of a rule-breaker, are you?"
"I'm really not. And your fingers are broken."
"On my left hand. I can still drive."
"I don't know."
"Olivia, I'm not letting you take the wheel. You're upset. You think you're dreaming. Do I really need to keep arguing with you?"
She reluctantly handed him her keys. "Don't get stopped."
"Don't worry. Everything is going to be fine."
"You're obviously not a worrier, or you'd know that that reassurance means nothing to me. People have been telling me not to worry my entire life. It has never helped."
"Well, I prefer to live in the moment, and I think for at least the next hour or two, you should try to do the same."
"I don't know how."
"I'll teach you."
She sent him a doubtful look. "You're going to teach me how to live in the moment?"
"I am. And I think we should start now. We need a break from Molly and my grandmother and the past, don't you think?"
"I could take a little break," she agreed.
"Good. Instead of heading straight back to the hotel, why don't we get a drink?" He glanced down at his watch and realized he knew just where to go. "It's after five. It's time for happy hour."
"I can't believe it's that late. Where did the day go?"
He shrugged. "We spent the day in the past. Now we come back to the present. And I know where we should go. My buddy Adam is having a birthday happy hour today. I did promise I would stop by. Why don't you come with me?"
She hesitated, giving him a doubtful look. "I don’t know. I'm not really in the mood for a party with a bunch of guys."
"There will be women there, too. And it's not a party, just a few drinks at a bar. It will give you a chance to regroup before you have to make your next move."
"Which is probably to speak to Peter again. I'm sure he'll be thrilled."
"You'll do it tomorrow after you have a chance to think about how you want to approach him."
"I should consider the best way to do that," she admitted.
"So it sounds like for now happy hour is a good idea."
"I guess it is," she muttered as he opened the door for her. "Are you sure you want to take me, though? You could just drop me off at my hotel and go meet your friends. I don't want to intrude."
"Trust me. With these guys, the more the merrier, especially when it comes to beautiful women."
She flushed a little at his comment. "You can be very charming when you want to be."
"I wasn't trying to charm you, just stating a fact. Give me the box. I'll put it in the back."
"That's perfect," she said, obviously eager to hand over the information that had just shattered her life. "I don't want to deal with that for a while."
"You don't have to."
* * *
Colton drove a little too fast, Olivia thought, as he took a sharp turn on a corner, but she didn't feel at all nervous with him. He was confident, capable, and completely in control, and right now she felt none of those things. She needed to get a grip, stop the dizzying waves of uncertainty that kept running through her every time the image of the birth certificate flashed through her mind.
Looking for a distraction, she said, "So where is this happy hour at?"
"Brady's Two—as in the number two. The original Brady's Bar and Grill burned down last year. It was owned by a former firefighter, and the department passed a bucket around several times to get enough cash to help Brady rebuild. It's one of our hangouts."
"It's nice that you helped him get back on his feet. Ironic that a firefighters' bar would burn in a fire, though."
He nodded, a grim tightness to his lips. "Yeah, it wasn't so much ironic as deliberate. It's a long story, some of which involved my sister Emma."
"How so?"
"She was the fire investigator on the case. But eventually she learned that that fire, as well as some others around the city, were being set to get her attention."
"Oh, my God, that sounds creepy."
"It
was a bad time, but she's okay now."
"That's good." She paused for a moment, then said, "Is it difficult for your sister to be a woman in a job that's primarily done by men?"
"Yes. I can't lie. It's tough on the women, but Emma has never backed down from a challenge. The more you tell her she can't do something, the more she wants to prove you wrong."
Olivia smiled. "Some people say that about me."
"I'll bet they do."
"You're close to your family, aren't you, Colton?"
"I guess I am. There are so many of us that I don't feel like I spend much time talking to anyone for too long. Probably Shayla and I are the closest, because we're twins, and because we were the youngest, so we spent a lot of time with each other."
"What about your brother, the one who is also a firefighter? Or, wait, is there more than one in firefighting?" She tried to remember all the people in the photograph she'd seen earlier on the Internet.
"Right now it's just Burke who's in the department, aside from my dad, that is. Aiden quit smoke jumping and went into construction after he got married and had a baby."
"That's interesting," she said, thinking that it was nice Aiden had quit a dangerous job for his wife and child.
"He quit for himself," Colton said quietly, reading her thoughts. "Not for his family. Sara didn't ask him to quit. She wanted him to follow his heart."
"Well, it sounds like his heart was for her."
"I guess that's true, but smoke jumping is also very demanding. It involves being gone for weeks at a time during fire season. Aiden didn't want that kind of lifestyle anymore. Plus, he banged himself up pretty good in his last fire jump."
She didn't comment, knowing that she did not have an unbiased opinion when it came to this topic.
"We're here," Colton said, turning into the parking lot of the bar. "I have to warn you, Olivia, there's going to be a lot of fire talk."
"I know. I remember when my dad used to get together with his cop buddies. They never left the job too far behind, but I don't care."
"Really?" he asked with a doubtful expression. "You seem to care quite a bit when it comes to firefighters and cops."
When Shadows Fall (Callaways #7) Page 11
