Birthright

slanderous statements about my father. If you’ll give my assistant numbers where you can be reached, I’ll be in touch once I’ve made a determination.”
    Jake got to his feet before Callie could speak. “It’s strange, isn’t it, Carlyle, to have your perception of your family, your sense of self shaken in one blinding moment?”
    He took Callie’s hand, drew her to her feet. “That’s exactly what happened to her. We’ll see if you have half the guts she does. Half the spine. So you look into it, you make your determination. And you remember this: We’ll find him. I’ll make it my goddamn life’s work to find him. Because nobody’s going to get away with making Callie unhappy.”
    He squeezed her hand as she stared at him. “Except me. Let’s go.”
    She didn’t say anything to him until they were outside. “That was some closing speech, Graystone.”
    “You liked it?”
    “Pretty effective. I haven’t thought much about being unhappy. Mad, determined, confused, but not unhappy.”
    “But you are.”
    “Doesn’t seem like the most important thing, in the big scheme.”
    “I made you unhappy. That’s something I’ve thought about quite a bit over the last year.”
    “We made each other unhappy.”
    He put a hand under her chin, turned her face to his. “Maybe we did. But I know one thing for damn sure. I was happier with you than I was without you.”
    Thoughts tumbled together in her head, refused to make sense. “Damnit, Jake,” was all she could say.
    “Figured you should know. Being a smart woman you’ll be able to conclude I prefer being happy to unhappy. So I’m going to get you back.”
    “I’m not a . . . a yo-yo.”
    “A yo-yo comes back, if you’ve got the right hand-eye coordination. You’re no toy, Dunbrook. You’re work. Now, do you want to stand here on the sidewalk in Atlanta discussing my future happiness?”
    “No, I don’t.”
    “We can hang around, try to give this guy another push—or let him simmer. Braves are in town. We might be able to catch a game. Or we can go back north and back to work.”
    “What’s this? You’re not going to tell me what I’m supposed to do?”
    He winced. “I’m trying to cut down on that. How’m I doing?”
    “Actually, not too bad.” She gave in to impulse, touched his face, then immediately turned away to stare back at Richard Carlyle’s office. “He said he hadn’t seen his father in over fifteen years, but his first instinct was to stand up for him.”
    “It is instinct—cultural, societal, familial. Close ranks against the outsider.”
    “I don’t believe he doesn’t know where his father is. Maybe he doesn’t have the exact address stored in his head, but he has to know how to get to him. If we push, his instinct would be to barricade, wouldn’t it?”
    “Probably. Following that, to either confront his father with the information we just put in his hands, or to warn him.”
    “We don’t have to worry about the warning, because Carlyle already knows we’re looking. I’m sure of that. Let’s give him a few days. I say we go back to work, on the site and on the list of names Suzanne gave me.”
    “I guess that shoots any chance of a suite at the Ritz here, and my fantasy of getting you drunk and naked.”
    “Pretty much.” Maybe she was an idiot, she thought, but she, too, was happier with him than she was without him. “But you can buy me a drink at the airport bar and make sexual innuendos.”
    “If that’s the best I can do, let’s find a cab and get started.”
    Y ou’re back.” Bill McDowell trotted up to Callie the minute he arrived at the dig. His young, earnest face was still shiny from its morning scrub.
    Callie grunted as she looked through the dumpy level to the surveyor’s staff West Virginia Frannie held. “We were only gone a day, Bill.”
    “Yeah, I know, but nobody was sure when you’d be back. I had a dentist appointment first thing this morning or I’d’ve been here sooner.”
    “Um-hmm. How’d it go?”
    “Good. Great. No problems. You’ve got really nice teeth.”
    She managed to swallow the chuckle. “Thanks.” She noted the height on the staff that gave her vertical distance. “Next point, Frannie.”
    Jake had been right, again, about the couple from West Virginia. Frannie was skinny, silly and obsessed with Chuck, but willing to follow instructions.
    And unlike Bill, didn’t breathe down her neck and continually ask questions.
    She rotated the