Let It Be Me by Becky Wade (win 10 ebook reader txt) 📗

saw again exactly how she’d looked at the farmers market, surrounded by flowers. He replayed the moment when her eyes met his—

Stop it.

Weeks had passed since that day, and he wanted her out of his head.

He was no longer a child who took toys from other people and felt nothing when they cried. But that didn’t mean that it was in his nature to sit on the sidelines while other people pursued the things he wanted.

It wasn’t.

It was in his nature to go after the things he wanted single-mindedly. Which is exactly what he would have done had the obstacle between himself and Leah been anything and anyone other than Ben. As it was, he could do nothing, which sent frustration scratching down his limbs.

She’s off limits, he kept telling himself.

She’s off limits.

Three days later, Ben stopped in the open doorway of Leah’s classroom. “Want anything from the break room?” he asked.

She paused the motion of the sponge she was using to clean her whiteboard. Ben’s easygoing, open personality never failed to brighten her day. “Watermelon-flavored sparkling water?”

“You bet.”

He vanished. The space he’d vacated framed a view of the hallway, lockers, and passing students.

Ben occupied the classroom across the hall and four doors down from hers. They shared a free period, so at the same time almost every day, he stopped by to ask if she wanted anything from the teacher break room.

She finished cleaning her board and turned to observe her happy, tidy classroom. Semicircles of chairs radiated away from where she was standing toward the opposing wall, which contained a bank of windows. She’d stocked her bookshelves with textbooks, binders, and notebooks from her years at Clemmons, her large personal collection of books about math, and a few potted succulents and inspirational quotes.

Primary-colored portraits of the world’s most renowned math minds filled every remaining patch of wall space. Thus Hypatia, Euler, Gauss, Cantor, and more looked down on her daily.

“Here’s hoping I’m doing the lot of you proud,” she said. “Please do intervene and speak up if I’m not.”

She scooped a crumpled piece of paper and a pencil stub off the floor, depositing them in the trash before taking a seat at her desk. Outside, a breeze stirred the trees draping the hills.

Since receiving her second round of test results from YourHeritage, she’d been working to metabolize her genetic truth. It had shifted the earth she walked on. It was confusing and painful. But the best course forward was to accept what could not be changed. And so, gradually, she was learning to coexist with the revelations about her DNA the way she might coexist with a mutt who appeared one day and insisted on following her everywhere.

She had no plans to reach out to her mom. Mom had been apprised of the situation and could call her for additional information whenever she chose. Nor did Leah have plans, at this point, anyway, to tell Dylan what she’d discovered. It would upset him, and what purpose would that serve?

So far, she’d settled on just one course of action. She wanted to find answers to the questions her DNA tests had raised.

She’d been born at Magnolia Avenue Hospital in Atlanta. If she could examine Magnolia Avenue’s records on the babies born on the same day that she’d been born, she might be able to work out which biological parents were hers.

But first, she’d need to convince the hospital to show her their records. She knew just enough about the privacy regulations pertaining to hospital data to know that in order to gain access to those records, she’d need an expert on her side.

Ben sailed into her classroom and handed her the can of sparkling water. Today he’d paired a dark purple short-sleeved polo with gray pants and spotless black leather sneakers with thick white soles.

“Thank you,” she said. “Do you realize that if we walk somewhere side-by-side today, we’ll look like a study in color wheel opposites?”

“We will?”

“Yes. Yellow.” She pointed to her blouse, then to him. “And purple.”

“Ah.”

“Sir Isaac Newton would be pleased.”

“Because?”

“Because he was the first to split sunlight into beams of color and invented the color wheel.”

“You know what I said to myself when I woke up this morning?”

“I do not.”

“I said, ‘Dress to please Sir Isaac Newton today, Ben.’”

She smiled. “Mission accomplished.”

As usual, Ben settled into the student chair nearest her desk. A soft pop sounded as he opened his package of baby carrots.

She took a swallow of the chilled sparkling water, savoring it. The first sip was always the best. “The day of the farmers market you introduced me to your friend Sebastian.”

Ben chewed, nodded.

“He’s a doctor in Atlanta, right?” Leah asked.

“Yes. He lives there during the week but stays at his house here in Misty River most weekends.”

“Do you think he’d be willing to speak to me? I have a few medical questions I’d like to ask.”

Lines of concern indented his forehead. “Are you sick?”

“No. My questions have to do with old records.”

“I’d be happy to relay your questions to Sebastian and get back to you with his answers.”

“I appreciate the offer, but the records I’m after are a bit on the . . . personal side. I don’t mind giving him a call.” Leah opened the New Contact screen on her phone and passed it to Ben.

Because he was a doctor, Sebastian would know how to go about obtaining records. Additionally, doctors were good at keeping information confidential. Lastly, he’d be predisposed to help her because she’d helped him when he’d crashed his car.

Ben frowned slightly as he typed in Sebastian’s details.

It had been unsettling in the extreme to watch Sebastian’s car lunge off the road last fall. Terrified of what she might find, she’d parked and hurried down the embankment. The front of his SUV had crumpled, wisps of steam rising from it. Since the driver’s side door was wedged against small trees, she’d jerked open the passenger door. She’d discovered a good-looking, dark-haired man slumped against his seat belt, unconcious.