Free Baked Alaska by Josi S. Kilpack Page A

about you tell me what’s going on. Right now. Why are you acting so strange? Is Tanice okay?”
    “Who?” Shawn asked, looking confused.
    “The woman from the deck last night, the one I still know nothing about. She’s doing better, right?”
    Shawn exchanged a look with Pete or Breanna—or maybe both of them—over her head, and it made Sadie’s frustrations rise even faster.
    “They said not to talk about it,” Pete reminded her. “If we could find somewhere private—”
    Sadie shot a glare over her shoulder before looking at Shawn again. “Well, you all get a gold star for doing what they told you to do.”
    “Maybe we should just go to one of our cabins,” Pete said, putting a hand on her shoulder.
    She shook off his hand as her concerns and frustration began morphing into anger. She was not a child, nor was she some delicate collectible that needed special treatment. Sadie opened her mouth to once again demand an answer when a fifth voice joined the melee.
    “Why did you have my mother’s picture?”
    They all turned around to see Ms. Lewish coming down the hallway, the picture in her hand, though she no longer had the documents.
    Ms. Lewish reached Breanna and pushed her aside before Bre had a chance to hold her ground. They were similar in height, but Ms. Lewish was built larger and was sturdier than Breanna’s more willowy form. Pete wouldn’t be so easy to get past, and Ms. Lewish stopped a few feet away from him. Her eyes cut past Pete to land on Sadie, who returned her stare. As they faced off, Sadie was surprised to feel an odd bond with the younger woman; she wanted answers, just like Sadie did.
    “What were you doing with this?” Ms. Lewish asked again, holding out the photo.
    Pete turned sideways, looking back and forth between the women on either side of him.
    Sadie couldn’t think of any reason not to be honest. “She was talking to my son on the first day of the cruise, but he wouldn’t tell me who she was. I don’t really know why I bought it. Just wanted answers, I guess, and thinking it might have some.”
    Sadie didn’t expect her words to affect the woman so strongly, but the confrontational look on Ms. Lewish’s face disappeared. The photograph dropped to her side as she looked past Sadie to Shawn.
    “This is your . . . adoptive mother?”
    A flash of heat landed in the middle of Sadie’s chest. Adoptive mother?
    Shawn’s hand was suddenly at Sadie’s back, pulling at her shirt as he moved down the hall, taking her away from Ms. Lewish. “Mom,” he said from behind her, but didn’t finish his thought as Sadie fought and pulled against his attempts to remove her from this confrontation.
    “She doesn’t know?” Ms. Lewish continued, still looking at Shawn.
    “No, I don’t know,” Sadie said quickly, finding her voice and trying to dig her heels into the cheap carpet. She threw an elbow behind her and hit Shawn, but it didn’t seem to faze him. “I don’t have any idea what’s happening here.”
    “Sadie,” Pete said.
    “Mom,” Breanna said at the same time that Ms. Lewish also spoke.
    “I’m Shawn’s birth sister,” she said. She lifted the photo and pointed at Tanice. Sadie’s entire body froze in dreadful anticipation. “This is our birth mother.”

Chapter 11
     

     
    “As a reminder, disembarkation is taking place on deck seven, midship and aft, with a wheelchair-accessible exit on deck four, aft. Please join us back on the ship tonight at eight and ten for the tribute to the Temptations in the Starlight Theater on decks nine and ten, forward. All passengers must be back on the ship by nine thirty tonight. Have a lovely afternoon in Juneau, Alaska.”
    Sadie let the cruise director’s words go in one ear and out the other while she leaned against the railing of deck thirteen forward and stared at the expansive forest that made up the backdrop of Alaska’s capitol city. It was obvious that the city planners had tried to preserve the land as