Birthright by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page A

her head, stared at her son with eyes that were red-rimmed and a bit wild. “Just look.”
    Roger started the tape. The hand on Suzanne’s shoulder began to knead.
    â€œFast-forward through—here.” Energy whipped back, had Suzanne snatching the remote, fumbling with the buttons. She slowed the tape to regular speed when Callie’s face came on-screen. “Look at her. God. Oh my God.”
    â€œSweet Jesus,” Roger murmured. Like a prayer.
    â€œYou see it.” Suzanne dug her fingers into his leg, butdidn’t take her attention off the screen. Couldn’t. “You see it. It’s Jessica. It’s my Jessie.”
    â€œMom.” Douglas’s heart ached at the way she said it. My Jessie. “She’s got the coloring, but . . .Jesus, that lawyer, Grandpa. Lana. She looks as much like Jessie might as this woman does. Mom, you can’t know.”
    â€œI can know,” she snapped out. “Look at her. Look!” She stabbed the remote, froze the screen as Callie smiled. “She has her father’s eyes. She has Jay’s eyes—the same color, the same shape. And my dimples. Three dimples, like me. Like Ma had. Daddy . . .”
    â€œThere’s a strong resemblance.” Roger felt weak when he said it, husked out. “The coloring, the shape of the face. Those features.” Something was rising up in his throat that felt like equal parts panic and hope. “The last artist projection—”
    â€œI have it.” Suzanne leaped up, grabbed the folder she’d brought with her and took out a computer-generated image. “Jessica, at twenty-five.”
    Now Douglas rose as well. “I thought you’d stopped having those done. I thought you’d stopped.”
    â€œI never stopped.” Tears wanted to spill but she forced them back with the iron will that had gotten her through every day of the last twenty-nine years. “I stopped talking to you about it because it upset you. But I never stopped looking. I never stopped believing. Look at your sister.” She pushed the picture into his hands. “Look at her,” she demanded and whirled back to the television.
    â€œMom. For Christ’s sake.” He held the photo as the pain he’d shut down, through a will every bit as strong as his mother’s, bit back at him. It made him helpless. It made him sick.
    â€œA resemblance,” he continued. “Brown eyes, blond hair.” Unlike his mother, he couldn’t live on hope. Hope destroyed him. “How many other girls, women, have you looked at and seen Jessica? I can’t stand watching you put yourself through this again. You don’t know anything about her. How old she is, where she comes from.”
    â€œThen I’ll find out.” She took the photo back, put it intothe folder with hands that were steady again. “If you can’t stand it, then stay out of it. Like your father.”
    She knew it was cruel, to slash at one child in the desperate need for the other. She knew it was wrong to strike out at her son while clutching the ghost of her daughter to her breast. But he would either help, or step aside. There was no middle ground in Suzanne’s quest for Jessica.
    â€œI’ll run a computer search.” Douglas’s voice was cold and quiet. “I’ll get you what information I can.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œI’ll use my laptop back at the store. It’s fast. I’ll send you what I find.”
    â€œI’ll come with you.”
    â€œNo.” He could slap just as quick and hard as she. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this. Nobody can. I’ll do better alone.”
    He walked out without another word. Roger let out a long sigh. “Suzanne, his only concern is you.”
    â€œNo one has to be concerned for me. I can use support, but concern doesn’t help me. This is my daughter. I know