Chapter Fourteen #2
“You think I like that swill?”
“Well, I thought that maybe your time in a Chicago precinct had hardened your stomach.” She giggled. “It is pretty atrocious.”
Roxie let out an offended squeak. She pointed at them with the piece of funnel cake in her grip, and powdered sugar puffed in the air. “You both knew it was that bad? Why didn’t you stop me? You let me walk up there and buy it.”
By now, Zac couldn’t help but laugh. He slid his hand under Maxie’s hair and rubbed his thumb behind her ear. “You don’t like it either?”
She tried to act indignant, but she was laughing too. “I thought my taste buds hadn’t adjusted to pricey high-end coffee.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your taste buds, Beauty.”
“He should know.” Roxie stole another sip of tea. It must have gone down better because she didn’t go into another set of convulsions. “After all, he’s examined them all up close and personal-like.”
“Rox,” Cam sighed with exasperation.
“What? It’s the truth.”
“Becky’s too friendly,” Zac tried to explain. “Nobody wants to tell her that her coffee could melt pennies.”
Maxie grinned. “Sounds like a job for the town sheriff to me.”
“What’s so funny?” Lexie asked as she returned from the ladies’ room. Cam stood and pulled out her chair for her. She sat next to Roxie, smiling as she looked from one of them to the next.
“Roxie thought that—”
Before Maxie could finish, Roxie grabbed the coffee and passed it to their sister. “Here, try this, Lex.”
“Mmm, coffee. I’ve usually had two cups by now.”
“Babe,” Cam said, reaching for her.
“Lex—” Maxie began.
“Eee—” Zac finished.
Roxie had beat them all to the draw. Well-mannered Lexie took an appreciative gulp of the hot liquid, but jerked the moment it hit her tongue.
She looked as if she’d bit into a lemon, but she was too classy to spit it out.
With a tear sneaking from the corner of her eye, she forced it down.
“Ohh, that’s just…” She shuddered and stomped a foot against the floor.
Maxie passed along her tea. “Here, this is good, I swear.”
Blinking fast, Lexie sipped carefully. As graceful and elegant as she was, she threw an elbow into Roxie’s side. “You could have killed me.”
Cam rubbed his lover’s back. “I told you she was the evil one.”
Zac grabbed all the coffees before anyone else dared a sip. “No use risking assault charges.” He tossed the lot into a nearby garbage can.
“The pastries aren’t bad, though.” Cam stole a bite of Roxie’s funnel cake and backed out of reach before she could pinch him. “I’ll go get everyone some tea.”
“Orange juice for me,” Roxie called. “And see if you can do something to restructure her business plan before she kills someone.”
“That’s not such a bad idea,” Maxie mused.
Zac pushed at the crumbles that were left on his plate. “Her muffins are the only thing that got me through all that bad java.”
“Really, Sheriff.” Lexie clicked her tongue in disapproval. “You shouldn’t be talking about other women’s muffins when you’re dating my sister.”
Maxie laughed. It was so nice to be sitting here with people she felt affection for. The upheaval in her life had caused stress, but now that things were righted again, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had so much fun.
“I’m going to miss you guys,” she said.
“Stupid work,” Roxie muttered. She stuffed another bite of powdered-sugar deliciousness into her mouth.
“You’re going to come down for our grand opening, aren’t you?” Lexie asked.
“I wouldn’t miss it.” Maxie caught Zac’s hand underneath the table. “We want to see this company you and Cam are building.”
Roxie’s face lit up. “Charlie and Skeeter down at the bar would get a kick out of meeting you. They nearly flipped the first time Lexie walked into the Ruckus. The place would overflow if word got out that there are three of us.”
Maxie toyed with her tea. That brought up something she wanted to discuss with them but hadn’t quite known how to bring up. “Know who I’d really like to meet?” She took a deep breath. “Our mom and dad.”
Roxie looked at Lexie sharply. Surprise was clear on both their faces.
“Are you sure?” Lexie folded her napkin and settled it in her lap. “I thought you didn’t have any interest in that.”
Under the table, Maxie squeezed Zac’s hand.
“I do,” she admitted. “I’ll always love the parents who adopted me and the grandmother who raised me, but…”
“But blood is blood,” Lexie surmised.
“And… Well, I found something.” Maxie’s heart began beating faster when she picked up her purse. “It was in my grandmother’s treasure box, the one where I found the adoption papers.”
She pulled out a heavy-duty paper picture folder. That hadn’t been in the box, but she’d wanted to protect what she’d found. She opened the folder with care, and her heart squeezed just like it had the first time she’d seen the delicate paper inside.
“What is it?” Roxie asked.
Maxie turned the frame around and slid it across the table. Her fingers shook as she did so.
Lexie inhaled sharply. “It’s a sketch.”
Roxie leaned in for a closer look. “Of you when you were little!”
The drawing had been a surprise. When Maxie had first found the old keepsake, she hadn’t been able to process what she was seeing. The paper itself wasn’t that large, only notebook sized. The medium was simple, paper and pencil, but its impact was huge.
She was laughing in the sketch, delight showing in her sparkling eyes.
She was still a baby, but even then, she’d had a good head of hair.
The dark strands swooped down from a bow atop her head, and her grin made her cheeks look even chubbier.
The sketch had been done by someone with talent, but it was more than that.
The work had been personal. Feelings and emotions radiated from every line.
Roxie clapped her hand over her mouth when she saw the writing down in the bottom right-hand corner. “Maxie,” she read aloud. “Love, Mom.”
Lexie ran her fingertip across the plastic covering the signature. “Mom.”
“This made her real to me,” Maxie said huskily.
Her mother, Mary, hadn’t been able to draw a box. The tightness in Maxie’s throat dropped into her chest, and she leaned into Zac. He settled his arm over the back of her chair.
It was only a few days ago that she’d learned she was adopted, and she hadn’t spent much time thinking about her birth parents.
They’d just been shadowy figures in a story that was only starting to unfold.
One look at that sketch, though, and they’d come to life.
Another mom and another dad. Real people with emotions, pressures and dreams.
Roxie’s chair rocked on its front legs when she leaned over the table, trying to get a better look. “Do you think she drew that? Was she an artist?”
Cam returned to the table and set down the drinks. His head tilted when he saw the sketch that had everyone’s attention. “It doesn’t look commissioned.”
“Our mom did it,” Lexie said throatily. She caught his hand, and the emotion that passed between them was thick and heavy.
“She loved you,” Lexie said, eyes blinking fast.
“She loved us.” Maxie snuggled more tightly against Zac. That was the question she’d held deepest within her heart, but with that sketch she had her answer. “I want to learn the truth. I want to know why we didn’t grow up together as a family.”
“They kept us until we were two,” Roxie defended. “They went through all the sleepless nights, the diapers, teething and learning to walk. Something must have happened.”
Maxie stared at the sketch, even though it was upside down. They’d been kept together long enough that she’d formed bonds that had carried with her even after they’d been separated.
“Maybe it was just her.” Lexie pulled her hand away from the picture frame, but curled her fingers as if she didn’t really want to. “Maybe the three of us were too much for a single mother.”
Zac nodded at Cam. “Have you checked into this?”
Cam sat down again and wrapped his arm around Lexie’s shoulders. “I’ve got a PI poking around, but he’s not making much headway. The records are sealed.”
“Is this the guy you used to find Maxie?”
“Same one.”
“He’s good.”
“But he’s been too slow,” Roxie said with disappointment. “I want to know where we get our hair color, our eyes and our smiles.”
“Are they even still out there?” Lexie sent a regretful look across the table. “Or did our parents have an accident too?”
Maxie caught Zac’s leg under the table. Oh God, she hadn’t even thought about that. She couldn’t take a loss like that again.
“Are they still together? Do they think about us at all?” Roxie muttered. “Does our mom still smell like lilacs?”
“I can add my resources to the mix,” Zac offered.
“Between all of us, we should be able to shake something loose,” Cam agreed.
Roxie’s expression became determined. “So, are we all in? Are we all agreed that this is our next step?”
“It has to be.” Lexie stopped fighting herself and reached for the sketch.
Maxie didn’t even hesitate. She laid her hand over her sister’s, and Roxie piled hers on top.
Cam and Zac joined in. This was her family now.
There might be more to add or there might not.
The truth may not be something any of them wanted to hear, but they had to have closure.
They had bit and pieces. The Underhills, Mrs. Shimwell, and the adoption papers had provided different sides of the story, but they needed to end the mystery.
“Let’s go find our parents.”