Breaker's Reef by Terri Blackstock Page B

you were a part of things without even trying.
    She didn’t expect such terror at the prospect of finding what she’d searched for all this time.
    “You’ll have to do it sometime, Amelia.” Jamie’s look was pointed. “We don’t have enough money to stay longer than a couple of days.”
    Jamie was a good friend. She’d come along for moral support—knowing that Amelia’s nerves would get the best of her and she’d need a hand to hold. Amelia hated letting her down.
    “I know, and I will. Tomorrow, I promise.” She twisted her long blonde hair around her finger until it almost cut off the circulation; she was like a little girl at vacation Bible school, clinging to her mother’s knees and begging her not to make her go in.
    It wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to have more courage. She’d been relentless in tracking her birth mother down, more fearless with each phone call that got her closer to her goal.
    Was she going to let it slip through her fingers because of a case of nerves? If she did, she’d never forgive herself. “What if she doesn’t want to see me?”
    “We’ve been through all this.” Jamie came to a stop sign and gave her a long look. “You said you were ready. You’ve been building up to this for a whole year.”
    It was true. Jamie had been with her every step of the way, rooting her on and offering ideas. The day Amelia got a copy of her original birth certificate and learned her mother’s name, Jamie was there, just as excited as she.
    Now Jamie sighed. “I’m gonna be totally bummed if we did this all for nothing.”
    Amelia knew that for all Jamie’s encouragement, she was running out of patience. As they sat at the stop sign, Jamie pulled her bottle-blonde hair up from her neck to cool it off, since her air conditioner wasn’t working that great.
    “I’ll be bummed too. I promise, I’m going to do it tomorrow. I just need to get my head straight first. Plan what I’ll say. I thought we’d get here and have a little more trouble finding where she was, you know? I didn’t expect that lady to tell us right off the bat. It threw my rhythm off.”
    Jamie shot her an amused look. “Your rhythm? Don’t go dramatic on me, Amelia. You don’t need a rhythm to knock on someone’s door.”
    “Okay, so it sounds crazy. But I don’t know yet what I want to do after I meet her. Like, if she does accept me, what relationship do I want to have? Will I want to be friends? Will I need tocall her
Mom
? Will I spend holidays with her, visit her in the summers? When I get married someday, will she sit on the row with my parents, or will she sit somewhere else like anybody else who comes? I have to work through these things.”
    “Now you’re acting mental. Normal people don’t have to have the outcome for every possible scenario before they take the first step.”
    “So you’re calling me crazy?”
    “Yes. Certifiable.” Jamie looked at her with those impatient eyes, and suddenly Amelia started to laugh. Jamie broke into a smile too and started to drive again.
    “Okay, so we go back to the room, get a good night’s sleep, you write about a hundred angst-ridden pages in your journal, and tomorrow—”
    “Tomorrow we go and knock on her door. I’ll be ready then.”
    “Promise?”
    “Promise.”
    “Okay, then. We’ll go back to the room.” Jamie flicked her hair back over her shoulder and glanced at Amelia. “Now
that’s
something to be afraid of.”

CHAPTER 16
    C ade gave the information about Marcus Gibson to the GBI, letting them know his department was available to help in any way they needed. They’d planned to put Gibson under twenty-four-hour surveillance, but they hadn’t been able to locate him yet.
    Cade took advantage of the lull to go to the jewelry store and pick up the ring he’d had made for Blair.
    The Colonel from Crickets—Cade’s favorite diner—was there, standing at one of the display counters, studying some necklaces.