Birthright

team?”
    “No. No.” She squeezed his hand, and the initial awkwardness she knew they’d both felt dropped away. “Let’s get some shade.”
    She bent down first, grabbed two water bottles out of her cooler. “It was the guy who owned the land here, the developer. It looks like he came out, middle of the night, to salt the dig with some animal bones. He wasn’t too happy with the kink we put in his plans for the land. Somebody bashed in his skull. Probably a rock. Right now we don’t know who or why.”
    “You’re not staying here? You’re in a motel in town.”
    “Yes, I’m in a motel. I’m perfectly safe.” She handedhim one of the water bottles as they walked away from the site and into the trees. “Digger’s staying here. You remember Digger from that knap-in you and Mom tried out in Montana.” She gestured toward where he worked, practically butt to butt with Rosie.
    “He found the body the next morning. He’s really shaken up by it. And the cops are drilling him. He’s got a couple of D and D’s on his record, and a couple of destruction of property or something. Bar fights,” she said with a shrug. “Right now he’s scared brainless they’re going to arrest him.”
    “Are you sure he didn’t . . . ?”
    “Yes. As sure as I am I didn’t. Dig’s a little crazy, and he likes to mix it up, especially if there’s a female involved. But he’d never really hurt anyone. He’d never walk up behind someone and crush their skull with a rock. It’s likely it was someone from town. Someone with a grudge against Dolan. From what I gather, he had as many enemies as friends, and the sides were divided over this development.”
    “What happens now, with your project?”
    “I don’t know.” It was a mistake, she knew, to become overly attached to a dig. And she always made the same mistake. “We’re taking it a day at a time. Graystone’s called in an NA rep to approve the removal of remains.”
    She gestured again toward Jake and the stocky man beside him. “They know each other, worked together before, so things are pretty smooth in that area.”
    He looked at the man who’d been his son-in-law. The man he barely knew. “And how are you dealing with working with Jacob again?”
    “It’s okay. As far as the work itself, he’s just about the best. Since I am the best, that works out. On the other front, we’re getting along better than we used to. I don’t know why except he’s being less of a pain in the ass than he was. Which, in turn, makes me less of a pain in the ass. But you didn’t drive all the way down from Philadelphia to see the project or ask me about Jake.”
    “I’m always interested in your work and your life. But no, that’s not why I came.”
    “You got the results of the blood tests.”
    “They’re very preliminary at this point, Callie, but I . . . I thought you’d want to know.”
    The Earth did not stop spinning on its axis, but in that one moment Callie’s world took that final lurch that changed everything. “I already knew.” She took her father’s hand, squeezed it hard. “Have you told Mom?”
    “No. I will. Tonight.”
    “Tell her I love her.”
    “I will.” Elliot’s vision blurred. He cleared his throat. “She knows, but it’ll help her to know it was the first thing you said. She’s prepared as much as any of us can be prepared. I realize you’ll need to tell . . . the Cullens. I thought you might want me to go with you when you do.”
    She kept staring straight ahead until she was certain she could speak without breaking. “You’re such a good man. I love you so much.”
    “Callie—”
    “No, wait. I need to say this. Everything I am I got from you and Mom. It doesn’t matter about the color of my eyes or the shape of my face. That’s biological roulette. Everything that counts is from you. You’re my father. And this can’t . . . I’m sorry for the Cullens. I’m desperately sorry for them. And I’m angry, for them, for you and Mom, for myself. And I don’t know what’s going to happen. That scares me. I don’t know what’s going to happen, Daddy.”
    She turned into him, pressed her face to his chest.
    He gathered her in, clinging as she clung. She rarely cried, he knew. Even as a child tears weren’t her response to pain or anger. When she cried, it was because the hurt went so deep she couldn’t yank it out and examine it.
    He wanted to be strong for her, to be solid and sure. But his own