Page 39 of Mating Mia
The woman’s eyes soften with something like regret, and she shakes her head gently. “No, sweetheart, I’m not. But I did meet her. Years and years ago.”
Disappointment crashes through me, so intense I might have staggered if not for Jace’s steady hand at the small of my back. It’s not like I expected my mother to be this elderly woman, but part of me had desperately hoped to find her.
“You knew my mother?”
“I’m Larissa,” she says, stepping back and gesturing for us to enter. “Please, come in. I can explain the entire story.”
I nod, trying to hide my disappointment as I follow her into the house, Kane, Jace, and Finn trailing behind me like protective giant bodyguards.
The interior is cozy and warm, with floral-patterned furniture and walls lined with framed photographs. It smells offresh-baked cookies and furniture polish, the kind of home I always dreamed of growing up in.
“Sit, sit,” Larissa urges, pointing to a comfortable-looking sofa. I lower myself onto it gratefully, my back aching from the weight of my pregnancy. Kane immediately sits beside me, his thigh pressed against mine, while Jace perches on the armrest.
Finn remains standing, his back to the wall, eyes constantly scanning our surroundings.
“I told the adoption agency to keep my contact information available for you,” Larissa explains, settling into an armchair across from us. “In case you ever needed anything. I’ve hoped for years that you might come looking.”
“You knew I was kidnapped?” I ask, leaning forward as much as my belly will allow.
She blinks in surprise. “Kidnapped? No, I had no idea. I thought you were adopted through proper channels.”
I exchange a glance with Kane, whose jaw has tightened at this revelation. So the adoption agency had covered this up.
“The adoption agency told us today that I was one of six babies taken from the adoption center years ago,” I explain. “The Jenkins family wasn’t my legal adoptive family. They took me.”
Larissa’s hand flies to her chest, horror written across her face. “Oh my God, I had no idea. They told me that you were adopted.”
“It’s not your fault,” Finn says, his voice gentler than usual. “We’re just trying to understand what happened.”
I nod in agreement with Finn, trying to keep my emotions in check.
“I’m looking for my birth mother,” I tell her. “The agency gave us your address because they said you might have been an intermediary. Do you know anything about her? About what happened?”
Larissa sighs, her gaze drifting to the window as if looking back through time. “It was so long ago. More than twenty years now. I was driving home one rainy night with my husband- he’s passed now, God rest his soul—when we saw a figure on the side of the road.”
My breath catches, and I feel Kane’s hand tighten around mine.
“She was just a girl, really. Couldn’t have been more than twenty. She was bleeding badly, collapsed in the ditch. When we pulled over, we realized she’d just given birth, right there on the roadside.” Larissa’s eyes meet mine, and I see tears gathering in them. “She was holding a tiny baby wrapped in her jacket. That baby was you.”
“Oh my god,” I whisper, my free hand instinctively going to my belly. The thought of giving birth alone, on the side of a road, in the rain sounds horrifying.
“What did she look like?” Jace asks, leaning forward with intense interest. “Did she say her name?”
Larissa shakes her head. “She was in bad shape—pale as a ghost, shivering. Dark hair, I remember that. Soaked through from the rain. And her eyes...” She looks directly at me. “They were just like yours. That same unusual hazel color.”
The revelation that I have my mother’s eyes makes my chest ache with a strange, bittersweet longing. A physical connection to a woman I’ve never known.
“She handed you to me,” Larissa continues, “and begged me to take care of you. Said someone was after her, that they’d kill you both if they found you. Before I could ask more questions, she passed out right there on the road.”
“What happened then?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
“My husband carried her to our car. We put her in the backseat, with you still in my arms. She was bleeding so badly, I was sure she’d die if we didn’t get help.”
Finn steps forward, his expression intense. “Did she regain consciousness?”
Larissa nods. “About halfway to the hospital. She woke up in a panic, demanding to be let out of the car. When I told her we were taking her to a hospital, she became even more frantic. Said ‘they’ would find her there.”
“Who was ‘they’?” Kane asks, his deep voice rumbling with barely contained anger.
