Page 22 of The Hampton Beach Café 4
“Nemeses?” Alex echoed, amusement filling his voice. “Like as in more than one nemesis, aka arch enemy?”
She shot him a look that quieted him right down. Lucinda still didn’t look happy, but she was shifting from one foot to the other.
“Well, he did spend some time in London a few years ago,” she admitted. “But that doesn’t mean anything!”
No, it didn’t.
But it was something to consider.
THIRTEEN
Frances sat in the middle seat of Alex's truck, trying to focus her attention by tapping her foot to the rhythm of the outlandish music he was playing softly through the car’s speaker. Hayley, who was seated next to Frances in the window seat of the cab, leaned forward to look past her and catch Alex's attention.
“Hey, Alex? Thanks again for the ride into town. I know it was way last minute, but I really appreciate it. I promise I won't keep you out and away from the shop for too long. The photo shoot should be over by two, but if you guys want to spend some quality time in Boston, then I can take care of myself for a bit?”
Alex grinned, glancing over at Hayley.
“No worries. I'm always happy to help out. Besides, it's not every day I get to say I’m a chauffeur to a world-class supermodel.”
Frances rolled her eyes but couldn't help but smile at Alex's lightheartedness. He was doing an amazing job at keeping the car ride fun and helping her ignore the fact that the entire reason she was abandoning her café on the busiest day of the week in the peak of summer was that the DNA Testing company had called her and said the results were ready. She had the choice of waiting a week for them to post it or coming in to pick them up.
“The package pick-up place sent me their address this morning. I know the area, and it won't take too long to get out there. It's actually only just past where Hayley's job is. So, I thought maybe we could all go to lunch afterwards?”
“Sounds great,” Hayley said, excitement in her voice. “I've been craving the bread from the little Italian place on the corner of Tremont and Boylston for weeks.”
Frances nodded in agreement, and the trio continued to chat and laugh as they made their way toward Boston. She felt almost like she was having an out-of-body experience—was she really secretly picking up a DNA test result from stolen DNA to decide if she had multiple siblings from her father’s illicit affair? If he’d done this to Kennedy’s mom, what if he’d done it to others? How many siblings might she have? Suddenly she felt ill, her stomach twisting into knots.
A hand appeared on her knee, and she looked down, expecting it to be Alex, even though it came from the passenger side of the car.
It was Hayley’s hand.
Her gaze followed the tanned arm up to Hayley’s face. She was smiling knowingly and comfortingly.
That wasn’t comforting at all—what did she know?
“Chill,” Hayley whispered. “We’re nearly there. Then you can scoot over and let your pulse return to sub-sprinting levels.”
Huh?
Deciding to just go with it, she smiled and nodded. The ten minutes of almost silence weighed on her and felt like at least half an hour.
Once they arrived where the photo shoot was to take place, Hayley jumped out of the car, thanking Alex once again for the ride. Alex and Frances watched as she disappeared into a large lime-green tent that bore two surprisingly large bouncers at the entrance.
“Ready to go pick up that package?”
Frances snorted and rolled her eyes, replying in a flat monotone. “Oh yeah, sure, you bet. Can’t wait to find out if I committed various crimes for a reason or not.”
He did laugh like she had meant for him too, but the way he kept looking at her from the corner of his eye told her that he wasn’t as convinced of her sardonically casual attitude as she would have liked.
As they drove to the address Alex had received on the phone earlier in the day, he rested his elbow on the back of the seat so he could place his hand on her shoulder.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She shrugged. “I don’t really know. Do you remember the diaries I found at my mom’s? Well, I’m nearly finished reading them. Most of the entries were just about her daily routine, work, and friends.”
“That sounds pretty normal,” he replied.
“Yeah, but then I found this one entry where she talked about nearly finding my father in California, who had already left months before she got there,” she explained. “It was this horrible mix of defeat and sadness and…disappointment. The entry was already years after they split, and she was still looking for him.”
