An Accidental Woman (47 page)

“If he is, we have a chance. I get uneasy when I think of the legal teams that wealthy people have at the ready. My father used to represent those kinds of people on the corporate side. He had a roster of defense attorneys set to jump in at a moment's notice.” Darting her a glance in the early morning darkness, Griffin reached for her hand. “I'm glad you're going. If anyone can make a strong case, you're the one.”

He
was
perfect. And Poppy did love him. She could admit to that. She still had moments of doubt, but they weren't about her own feelings. They were about his. It was hard for her to believe that he wouldn't tire of her limitations.

He certainly wasn't tired yet. Once they got to the airport, he set her in her chair, put her carry-on over his own shoulder, and wheeled her inside. When they reached the security point that he couldn't pass, he hunkered down with his hands framing her chair.

“Do you have money?”

“Yes.”

“Credit card? Picture ID? Cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“Change of underwear? Meds?”

“Yes, but only because you hounded me into it. I'm coming back tonight.”

“Just in case.”

“I'm coming back tonight,” she insisted. Thinking that made her feel better. “I land in Miami at eleven forty-two. The meeting at the law firm
is set for one-thirty. If I don't make the four-nineteen flight back, there's another at six-thirty. That gets me here—right here—at eleven fifty-four. Can't I just take a taxi back to Lake Henry?”

“No,” he said in a way that brooked no argument. Then he smiled and stood back, taking all of her in. “You look so pretty.”

She was wearing the most sedate clothing she owned—a pair of tapered wool slacks over leather boots, a silk blouse, a smart black blazer. “Not too conservative?”

“I'd have voted for the leather pants, but you're right to wear these—they're far more appropriate.” His eyes found hers. “Do me a favor? If you have any trouble getting on or off the plane, in or out of the airport, ask for help? I love that you're doing this, but you don't need to do it all alone. Are you nervous about the connecting flights?”

“I'm nervous about the whole thing.” When he leaned toward her, she hung a hand around his neck. “But I'm doing something, Griffin. I'm not watching.” She knew he understood, could see it in his eyes. “Please leave now,” she said. “I have to get in line, and you have to be at the sugarbush.”

“I can wait with you.”

“You can't. You don't have time. I'm okay, Griffin. I really am.”

He rose, kissing her halfway up. “I know you are, dollface. That's the problem. I'm worried you'll find out just how okay you are and forget that I'm waiting for you here.” Smiling, he straightened and put the carry-on in her lap. He backed off, turned and walked away, turned again and walked backward for a bit with his eyes on her, only her, and all the while she watched.

* * *

But there was no emergency. In fact, the flight was smoother than she remembered flying to be. She had planned well—had limited her intake of fluid and used the airport bathroom prior to boarding, so that she didn't have to use the lav on board. Once she was in her seat and strapped in like everyone else, she
felt
like everyone else. When a businessman type, one of the last to board, slid across into the window seat beside her and proceeded to flirt with her all the way to Pittsburgh, she fancied that he had no idea she couldn't walk. By the time they landed, she was tired enough of hearing about his life that, when the flight attendant approached with her chair, she felt a perverse satisfaction.

She didn't look at the man's face again, though, because the flight attendant explained, “Normally, we'd let the others deplane first, but we're cutting it close with your connecting flight,” and suddenly there was a rush.

She made the second flight with minutes to spare, unfortunately without time for the bathroom. Fearful that it would be a serious problem before she reached Miami, she explained the situation as soon as she boarded. Unable to let her back into the terminal, one of the flight attendants helped her in and out of the tiny lavatory. Totally embarrassed, Poppy then found her assigned seat, gave up her wheelchair, and spent the next half hour imagining that everyone around her had watched the show.

Then she heard a tiny meow. The woman beside her pulled up a carrying case, inserted a hand, and cooed softly to the kitten inside. To Poppy, she explained, “I'm a breeder. This one's just ten weeks old. I'm delivering him to his new home. He's scared.”

Poppy thought of a small kitten seeing its mother for the very last time, being tucked into a carrier, and flown off to a totally strange place.
That
was scary, she decided, certainly worse than any embarrassment she felt herself. Another little meow, and she thought of Victoria trying once, then twice to reach the top of the bureau, finally making it on the third try. At that point, Poppy put the embarrassment aside.

It didn't return. Somewhere in the airspace between West Virginia and Florida, she decided that embarrassment was a wasted emotion at a time when there were too many more important ones to confront. She spent the rest of the trip focusing on those.

When the plane taxied up to the jetport in Miami, Cassie's friend, Susan McDermott, was waiting at the gate. She came forward with a smile as soon as Poppy wheeled into the terminal, and, alerting her that the meeting had been moved up an hour, led her out to a waiting car. They were quickly on their way into the city.

Poppy took it all in—warm air, snowless streets, palm trees, a skyline of buildings rather than hills—but what she felt most was the satisfaction of having gotten this far. She let that pleasure buoy her as she wheeled into the elevator in the law firm's building, but it dwindled as she disembarked on the fifth floor, went through the glass double door, and followed Susan down the hall to a mahogany-appointed conference room.

Norman Anderson was older than Poppy had pictured, close to Maida's age, she guessed, but he looked every bit as down-to-earth and decent as she had been led to expect. He also looked vulnerable, which would have surprised her if she hadn't been even more surprised by his companion.

* * *

But the world was full of “didn't-seem-rights,” not the least of which were Rob DiCenza's mistreatment of Heather, her arrest for his murder,
and an ice storm that threatened to ruin Micah's crop. Unable to do anything about the first two that Tuesday, he focused on the sugarbush. Another dozen men from town had shown up, and they spent the morning working different sections of the woods. With the mainline repaired and carrying sap enough to boil, and the lines deeper in the bush being cleared of debris one by one and fixed, he was feeling more optimistic by lunchtime. While Griffin led the teams back up to the sugarbush that afternoon, he stayed behind to boil what was trickling down.

He fired up the arch. He got the sap moving through reverse osmosis and into the evaporator, got it boiling from the back pan, through the front pan, into the finish pan. When it was nearly syrup, he turned on the filter press. That was when he ran into the latest “didn't-seem-right.” The filter press was the only piece of machinery that relied on electricity, and there still was no electricity today. He hadn't been concerned, however, because he had a backup generator. Now, just when he needed it, the generator wouldn't start.

* * *

Poppy put a hand to her heart. She couldn't take her eyes off the child. Child? Thea was fourteen going on twenty-two. She was gently developed, sweetly curved, and dressed in a miniskirt and sweater that were very possibly Italian and surprisingly discreet. Her whole manner was refined. Calling her a teenager seemed wrong. She was very much a young woman.

Disciplining herself, Poppy tried to focus on the other introductions, but there were eight people in the room. Had it not been for a natural division in the seating arrangement around the large conference table, she wouldn't have been able to keep straight whose lawyers were whose. But she nodded in acknowledgment as each name was given, did the same
with Norman Anderson, then with Thea. And there her eyes stayed, and stayed, and
stayed.

“I'm sorry,” she finally said, but in a breathy way, because she was feeling choked up. “You are just so much like your mother. You're very beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Thea whispered, seeming unsure despite a tentative smile.

As Susan gave a bare-bones description of the case Cassie was hoping to make on behalf of Heather with the people in California, Poppy tried to imagine what she would be feeling if she were in Thea's shoes. By virtue of the biological reality, a mother-child relationship was intrinsically intimate. If Poppy had been adopted, she would want to know about her birth mother—not necessarily live with her or love her, but know about her.

The lawyers went back and forth then—about legalities, about confidentiality, about constitutional guarantees and juvenile rights. Poppy listened, but her eyes kept returning to Thea, and Thea's met them every time. She didn't seem as interested in what the lawyers were saying as Poppy thought she would be. Then she realized that Thea had heard it all before. There was no surprise here. What there was, was curiosity. If Poppy were to guess, the girl wanted to know about Heather.

Her father was quiet, leaving it to his lawyer to counter Susan McDermott's plea for immediate cooperation, and it was much as Cassie had said it would be. The Andersons' lawyer talked about the visibility of the case. He talked about the potential sordidness as details emerged, certainly about the tragedy of it. He argued against rushing, when it came to involving a child like Thea.

Involving a child like Thea?
Poppy couldn't let the statement go unchallenged. “I'm surprised she's here now. I would have thought you would want to shield her even from this.”

Norman Anderson answered in a patient but firm way. “My daughter has a mind of her own. She's been following this case in the news. She wanted to be here.”

“Has she always known who her biological parents are?”

“She's always known she was adopted,” her father said. “I hadn't realized she knew the identity of her birth mother until a few days ago.”