Page 22 of Freedom's Kiss
Chapter 10
This couldn’t be right. For the third time Olivia scanned the papers in her hand, her mind not making sense of what she was seeing. Had Lily gotten her results mixed up with someone else? Lifting her gaze, she read her information. Name. Age. Blood type. Everything was correct, except… these couldn’t be her results.
Then she remembered. The weird texts from Lily. They made sense now.
She felt the car slow, then stop, the gear shift to park, but she couldn’t lift her eyes. They tracked over the words, the pie chart, the bar graph. Empirical data but…it couldn’t be right.
Her hair was lifted away from the side of her face and brushed back over her shoulder. Her brain registered a vague awareness that Adam touched her, but she knew it like she’d known her mother’s voice calling her from sleep to get ready for school—something against her consciousness that pulled and tugged her away from a dream.
Warmth seeped into her cheek, and slight pressure on her chin forced her focus away from the papers, with its words and charts that had begun to blur, and into eyes that peered back into her own unwaveringly. Her throat worked to swallow, and her gaze, which leaped back and forth between his eyes, tried to break free from the hold they had on her. Somehow his steady regard, so immovable, filled her with the strength to manage a full breath.
Adam’s hand moved from her cheek and smoothed down her hair in long, rhythmic strokes. Slowly she felt her fingers uncurl, and the paper within her grasp crinkled as it was released. Heat spread throughout her body, and she shook her head against the embarrassment. Most likely Lily had just mixed up Olivia’s results and she was going all drama-queen crazy for no reason. The girl fromThe Price Is Righthadn’t really lifted the curtain behind door number three and revealed that everything Olivia knew about herself was a lie.
She let her chin fall to her shoulder as she leaned against the headrest. Lifting her lashes, she reencountered Adam’s fixed stare. Whereas her fidgety forefinger had begun running back and forth over the seat belt fastened against her waist, he sat in stillness. Like a dependable rock wall she could lean against without fear of falling.
His head cocked, one brow rising. “You aren’t going to make me guess again, are you?”
Her lids slid shut as nervous laughter bounced around her chest. Looking back up, she felt a genuine smile tilting her lips. “I should, just to see what you come up with.”
His gaze scanned her face—her forehead, eyes, nose, chin, back to her eyes. He’d been pushy to get her to open the letter, but that had been in playfulness. Now he watched her with infinite patience. His eyes coaxed in a soft way, offering her the strength and comfort of his presence and friendship.
With a sigh she handed over the papers. “My mom has been slightly obsessed with genealogies ever since her friend got those Mayflower results.”
“I noticed.”
“Anyway, I usually wait until the last minute to get my parents their Christmas gifts, but when she was so excited about this ancestry thing, I thought it would be a fun surprise to make a family tree and watch her unwrap it on Christmas.”
He lifted his head from inspecting the paper in his hands. “What’s the problem?”
“The problem,” she said, slipping the results from between his fingers, “is that this says I’m eighteen percent West African, sixty-nine percent Native American, and a smattering of percentage of places I’dthoughtI was from. My mom always said she believed her ancestors were Vikings, but Scandinavia isn’t even on the report.”
“Okay, that is a little strange, but maybe the stories passed down on your mom’s side were just family folklore.”
She flipped to the last page and pointed to another graph. “Most DNA ancestry tests say Native American to include any indigenous people groups residing in both North and South America so the person would never know if that meant the Inuits in the Arctic Circle or the Incas of Peru.”
“Your dad is from Guatemala, right? So, Mayan? That would explain the high percentage of Native American in you.”
She pushed her finger harder on the graph. “Except this DNA test isn’t like most of them. I don’t really have the money to send away for one of those popular ones, but I have a friend at the university who works in the genetics department. They’re on the cutting edge of science and have been collecting more samples from different people groups to get more accurate results.”
His eyes lowered from her face to where she pointed. “Southeast region of the United States. Muskogee/Creek, Apalachicola, Pensacola, Seminole…” His voice faded out as he continued to read a list of the indigenous tribes of the southeastern woodlands. He lifted his head. “Do you think it’s a mistake?”
She shrugged, but the slight movement only brought with it a sense of dread as the truth settled around her. “It has to be, right?” She gripped onto that reason even as it slipped through her fingers. “Except…”
His hand covered her shoulder, the pad of his thumb stroking her collarbone. “Except?”
“Lily ran my DNA as a favor. As far as I know, they aren’t doing any tests like these right now. In fact, that’s why she sent it through the post instead of just emailing me the results—no electronic trail. She’s been working on this in her own time, and honestly, she didn’t even get permission to use the lab’s equipment.”
“Must be a good friend.”
She stilled her stroking movement on the seat belt and looked down at her fingertip. The groves of her prints stood out against the red, angry skin. With a light touch, she caressed the line she’d worn into herself, memories of her and Lily as little girls playing Barbies filtering into her thoughts like confectioner’s sugar on lemon bars. “The best. We haven’t gotten to hang out much since she’s working on her doctorate and crazy busy studying and writing her dissertation and everything, but she used to practically live at my house.”
Olivia chuckled as she leaned her head back. “On the weekends we’d beg both of our parents to let her sleep over. Friday night turned to Saturday night turned to Sunday, and then we’d have to ride our bikes to her house and pick up school clothes for the next day. We were in the same class four years in a row, so my mom always assured hers it wasn’t any trouble to drop Lily off since she’d be in the long line of cars anyway. Mom always said Lily was like her other daughter.” Her otheradopteddaughter? Memories played like scenes from a movie in her mind. Had either of her parents ever hinted she was adopted?
Of course she’d remember a sit-down conversation starting withSweetie, we need to tell you something, but other than the time they’d broken the news that her dog had managed to open the hamster ball and Squibbles had gone on to hamster heaven, neither of her parents had even hinted that she wasn’t their biological child.
Too many emotions swarmed her, like a scourge of mosquitos buzzing in her ear, threatening to land and suck her blood. But whose blood flowed through her veins? David and Eileen Arroyo’s? Who was she if she wasn’t their daughter?
The buzzing moved to her chest, intensified until she thought she’d combust if she didn’t move. Unbuckling her seat belt, she threw her door open and nearly fell in her haste to get out of the car. Scrambling upright, she stormed away as if the truth might catch up with her and rip away the comforting blanket of denial.
