Want You Back - River Laurent Page 0,25

I suggested. We padded into the adjoining shower and enjoyed washing each other. Alex told me about his day and the cases he was working on while I entertained him with stories of the day’s happenings.

Charlotte

I’d made pasta with a sauce of hot Italian sausage, pepperoni, and meatballs. Even after a day spent in the kitchen at work, I didn’t mind coming home to cook for Alex. He made me want to cook for him.

He made appreciative noises as we ate at the kitchen table.

“I ticked all the boxes on my list for a potential wife when I met you,” he said.

“You had a list?” I asked.

“Of course. Picking a wife is an important decision,” he said in his courtroom voice making me giggle.

“What was on the list?” I said and forked a meatball into my mouth.

“Gorgeous and sexy,” he said.

“That’s so shallow,” I said laughingly.

Before Alex could respond, my phone vibrated with a call. I picked it up and stared at an unfamiliar number on the screen. I’d saved the numbers of Alex’s parents, sister and even his brother in-law Richard. So, it couldn’t be any of them and besides, they didn’t have my number.

I swiped to answer. “Hello,” I said tentatively.

There was silence and then a clearing of the throat on the other end before a woman’s voice came on. “Hi, my name is Helen Stewart, I’m hoping this is Charlotte Evans’ number.”

The hairs at the back of my neck rose. That voice. It sounded so familiar. So eerie. As if I knew the speaker, which made no sense whatsoever. I didn’t know anyone who bore that name.

“Yes, this is Charlotte,” I said.

Alex raised his eyebrow and I shook my head.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to find you,” she said, her voice rising. “I’ve been looking for you for almost a year.”

“Me?” I said. I wracked my brain and couldn’t figure out why a strange woman would be looking for me.

“Yes,” she continued. “I hope that this is not going to come as a shock to you and that our mother had mentioned me to you.”

My blood turned to ice. “I think you’re confusing me for another person.”

She was silent for a few minutes. “Ah, so she never mentioned me.”

As sorry as I was for her, I was growing impatient. “Look—”

“Was your mother’s name Mary Anne Evans?” she continued in the eerily familiar voice.

And that’s when it hit me who she reminded me of. My mother. The same sweet voice that could coax a rat from a hiding place. “Yes,” I whispered.

“I’m your older sister, Helen,” she said. “Our mother gave me up for adoption when I was three months old.”

I pressed a shocked hand to my chest. My heart thumped against my rib cage. It fought for space in my chest with the air frozen in my lungs.

“Are you okay?” Alex frantically asked me.

“Hold on a bit,” I said to Helen and covered the mouthpiece and turned to Alex. “She says she’s my sister and that my mother gave her up for adoption when she was three months old.”

“Do you believe her?” he asked.

“Her voice. She talks just like my mother,” I said and then put the phone back to my ear. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s okay, I know I’ve just dropped a bomb on you. I would like to meet you,” she said. “I hired an investigator to look for you and coincidentally, I live in Ohio as well. I’m in Cleveland.”

My heart would not stop beating fast. It was beginning to sink in. I actually had a sister. An older sister. The one thing that I’d longed for all my life. It was as though my subconscious knew that I had a sister somewhere.

“Oh,” I said. “I’m free tomorrow.”

“I can drive down tomorrow,” she said, her voice shaky.

“Okay,” I said. “There’s a park near my place. I can send you the address.”

“Thank you for agreeing to see me,” she said, her voice cracking.

How could I not? After my mother died, I’d resigned myself up to the reality that I would never have another human being related to me through blood. And now this? Excitement coursed through my veins.

“Thank you for looking for me,” I said.

We said goodbye after agreeing that she would drive down at noon. When I disconnected the call, I turned to Alex in wonder. “Who would have thought?”

“Did your mother ever mention another child?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. But you couldn’t really have a conversation with her. She