task.
“Are you free Sunday?” Lizzie asked. “You could join us at the ranch.”
Daniel’s eyebrows shot up. Nothing like trial by fire. “What is that, like ten against one?”
All three females turned to him in surprise. Well, he was surprised, too. He hadn’t meant to voice his thoughts.
“Nobody’s ‘against’ Nicole,” Lizzie said, a hint of indignation in her voice. “She’s right, though. We do have some questions for her.” The Baron sisters exchanged glances, then Lizzie added, “But there’s no reason we have to ask them in front of Dad. After everyone’s done eating, he can take the older kids to feed the goats or something.”
“Just text me what time and let me know what I can bring,” Nicole said. “Dessert? A loaf of French bread?”
“Just answers,” Lizzie said, her expression forlorn.
Instead of looking cornered or dreading the inevitable interrogation, Nicole stepped forward and squeezed her hand. “I’ll answer anything I can, I promise. Guess I’ll see all of you this weekend?” She shot Daniel a questioning glance.
Nodding, Daniel had the fleeting thought that maybe his presence would give Nicole a measure of moral support. Ridiculous. She barely knew him. Besides, if she confirmed that Adele Black was in some way attempting to damage Baron Energies, there wasn’t much Daniel could do to stop the outrage headed her way. Watching her leave, he silently wished her good luck.
When he turned back, he found both his stepsisters regarding him with speculative expressions. For the first time since he’d arrived, Lizzie didn’t look upset. In fact, her lips twitched in the beginning of a smile. She and Carly exchanged knowing glances.
And Daniel experienced a stab of foreboding.
* * *
NICOLE MADE A beeline to the small meeting room Adele was using as an office, sparing a moment from her anxiety attack to appreciate that her friend even felt well enough to come into work. There had been times during the past two years when that had been the exception rather than the rule.
Adele glanced up from the spreadsheet printouts she was going over with one of the local employees, her smile faltering when she saw Nicole’s expression. “Everything okay?”
“Absolutely. I just need to run something by you when you have a minute.”
“We were finishing up here.” She smiled at the bearded man who sat next to her. “Nice job. If there’s nothing else...?”
“Nope, we covered everything.” He straightened his Christmas tie and reached for the suit jacket hanging on the back of his chair. It was very warm in here. Adele, who got cold easily these days, had an electric heater plugged in a few feet away. The man nodded politely to Nicole, then headed down the hall.
Closing the door for privacy, Nicole took a deep breath. We have a problem. But she swallowed back the words, wanting to put a positive spin on the situation. Would it really be so terrible if Lizzie had figured out that Delia Baron and Adele Black were the same woman? Whatever mistakes she’d made in the past, Adele was a wonderful person. The Baron siblings deserved to know their mother and vice versa.
The biggest drawback she could see to Lizzie and the others knowing Adele’s identity was that Adele had been robbed of the opportunity to tell them herself. They might question whether she would have come forward of her own volition.
Nicole dropped into a chair, amazed she could be this tired so early in the day. There had been points in her career when she’d worked until ten o’clock at night without even realizing it. Now she felt as if she needed a nap by two in the afternoon. The half dozen pregnancy books loaded onto her e-reader said exhaustion was normal in the first trimester and often passed. Still, she’d feel better if she could get that confirmed from someone who’d been through it recently. She desperately wanted to confide in Lizzie, but it would be wrong to tell her before Adele, who’d known Nicole for so much longer and given her so many opportunities.
“Did you see Chris and Lizzie?” Adele sat forward in her chair, showing her eagerness for any scrap of information about her daughter.
“I did. They invited me to their house, but we cut lunch short. Your granddaughter is even more beautiful in person than in the pictures Chris emailed me.” There’d been a moment when Nicole first arrived, before the crying started, when Natalie had looked so angelic that tears had pricked Nicole’s eyes. “She also has a healthy set of lungs on her. Her resistance to falling asleep made conversation difficult, so we rescheduled for Sunday. But, Adele, I’m afraid Sunday could get a little tricky.”
“How do you mean?”
“Lizzie said she had questions for me, but she didn’t know how to ask because she knows I’m loyal to my employer. To you. She looked...shaken up. And she’s not someone who rattles easily. I think she and Carly and the others may have figured out that you’re their mother.”
So many emotions flashed across Adele’s face that it was almost dizzying to watch. Joy and terror and disbelief and hope. “I don’t know what to say.” She hugged her arms around herself. “I suppose I always knew it was a possibility, but as the years passed, it seemed less and less likely. I wasn’t sure that, after what I did, they’d care enough to look.”
Had they gone searching for their mom, or had it been more of an accidental discovery? Considering Adele’s name change, the latter seemed unlikely.
“You know you’re one of the most important people in my life,” Nicole said, “professionally and personally. But I care about Chris and Lizzie, too. I don’t want to lie to them.” Last spring, she’d respected Adele’s wishes, surreptitiously gathering information to assure Adele her kids were thriving, because she hadn’t seen the point in upsetting a pregnant Lizzie with news of a mother who was wasting away from cancer. But circumstances were different now.
“You want to tell them who I am on Sunday. Or, if you’re right about them knowing, confirm it?”
“That’s one option. The other is that perhaps you could get in touch with them yourself before then,” Nicole said gently.
“Oh, I don’t know. I...” It took her a few seconds to compose herself enough to continue speaking. “You described Lizzie as ‘shaken up.’ Not hopeful or wistful. She may not want to hear from me. And could you blame her? Walking away from those kids was a terrible, terrible thing.”
“You had extreme postpartum depression,” Nicole said. “You weren’t entirely in your right mind.”
“Which is why I met with their father later and asked for visitation rights.”
Which he’d ruthlessly denied. Brock was a powerful, unyielding man with enough money to fund a team of lawyers. Instead of drawing her children into an ugly legal battle, Adele had left them in peace to bond with their new stepmother.
“I didn’t fight hard enough for them,” Adele said, her voice low and full of shame. “I could have reached out to them once they were no longer minors, but...how could I face them after all that time? How can I face them now?”
“For what it’s worth,” Nicole said, “if my own mom tracked me down, I’d want to see her. I’d like to think
