The Secret Between Them by Susanne Dietze

Author:Susanne Dietze
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-04-30T16:17:39+00:00

* * *

When she went inside, Harper changed into a comfy cotton dress and opened her laptop on the kitchen table. She owed an email to her next-door neighbor in Phoenix who was picking up her and her mom’s mail. It might not hurt to draft an email to her mom, too. It would probably take time and a few revisions to get it just right. She wanted her mom to call as soon as she was free, but she didn’t want to alarm her, either—

A message in her inbox caught her eye, however. The DNA company. Her results were in.

The emails she had intended to write could wait. With shaky fingers, she clicked the link.

It felt like forever, logging into the system. The first screen she saw was a pie chart of her estimated ethnic makeup. As her mom had said, her ancestors were primarily from the United Kingdom, but there were also slices in the pie representing Germany and Eastern Europe. She’d explore all the information in more depth later, but she had other details on her mind.

Heart pounding, she found the tab that said Genetic Connections.

At the top it said Mother: Unknown.

Father: Unknown.

Sighing, she sat back. It wasn’t a surprise that her mom wasn’t listed, since she hadn’t submitted her DNA to the company. Apparently, her father hadn’t, either. Nice as it would have been to have a name for him right here and now, though, she still had hope. She scrolled down, pulse racing. Maybe there would be distant cousins she could reach out to.

The next name on the website didn’t list the relationship, but she recognized the name and accompanying photo avatar at once.

Patricia Davis. 1801 cM. across 44 segments. 26% shared DNA.

Trish, smiling at her from the photo of herself she’d uploaded to the site.

A hasty online search answered her questions about cM—centimorgans, a measurement used for DNA. Those who shared that amount of DNA were either grandparent/grandchild, half siblings...or aunt/niece.

Her brain jumped to a conclusion, but she needed to think methodically.

Slow down. Seek the Lord for wisdom. Take a breath.

So she did—in, out—focusing as her heart rate slowed from its frantic pace. Thanks for being with me, God. Please help me make sense of this.

She stepped into her sandals and rushed out to the grove to pray and walk...and reason this out. Talking to God the whole while, she marched through the trees, determined to consider all possibilities—no matter how ridiculous or unfathomable they seemed—so she could cross them off her list with confidence.

First, she had to consider the grandparent/grandchild scenario. Could Trish be Harper’s grandmother?

No way. Trish was too young—maybe ten years older than Sheila.

The half-sibling thing was the next option to go over. It meant that Trish and Harper shared a parent. They obviously couldn’t have shared a mother, since Sheila was younger than Trish.

Could Harper and Trish share a father?

That was a firm no, too. From what she’d heard, Trish and Doug’s father had died when they were young adults, years before Harper was born.

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