WHOSE_BABY?.

Janice Kay Johnson.

Chapter 1.

O+ O does not = B. So why was she even nervous? Oblivious to the salt-scented breeze and the familiar whoosh of the broken surf, LynnChanak stared at the envelope in her hand.Open it , she told herself.Then you can quit worrying about nothing . And nothing was just what it would prove to be. ThatPortlandlab had mixed up somebody else's blood with Sh.e.l.ly's. It was dumb to let the results shake her even for a minute. Poor Sh.e.l.ly had had to endure being stuck with a needle again, which still made Lynnmad, but it was done, over with, and now with the results from the new lab she'd be able to refute her ex-husband's ridiculous accusation.

There was no way a second lab would make the same kind of mistake. Lynn and Brian both had Type O blood; heaven help her, she'd once been foolish enough to think that meant they were made for each other.

With both parents having Type O blood, Sh.e.l.ly had to have the same.

So why not open the envelope?

"Mama!"Lynn's three-and-a-half-year-old daughter tugged at her sleeve. "See what I found?"

The small hand cupped a flame-red, wave-polished chunk of agate that beachcombing tourists would

have killed for.

Lynnsmiled in delight and hugged her daughter. "That's a pretty one! You've got sharp eyes!"

She sat on a gray, winter-tossed log on the beach, the pile of mail in her hand. This was a daily ritual for her and Sh.e.l.ly when the shop was closed. Wait for the mail, don sweatshirts against the sharp breeze, and then walk the two blocks from home to the rocky beach, famous for the sea stacks that reared offsh.o.r.e.OtterBeachhad been a tiny lumber town until theOregoncoast became a favorite tourist destination. Now streets were lined with art galleries and antique shops, and prime beachfront real estate was taken by inns and bed-and-breakfasts.

Lynn's bookstore was one block over from the main street. The upstairs of the old house was home, the downstairs her business. During tourist season, she stayed open six days a week. By the time winter storms pounded the coast, she only bothered to open from Thursday through Sunday for locals and for the few hardy souls who came for romantic weekends and beachcombing after storms deposited j.a.panese floats and agates on the sh.o.r.e.

"I'll give this to Daddy next time he comes," Sh.e.l.ly announced. "C'nyou save it for him, Mommy?"

"You bet, sweetie," agreedLynn, hiding her dismay. How was she going to explain to a three-year-old why Daddy wasn't visiting anymore?

Giggling, Sh.e.l.ly wormed her hand into the pocket ofLynn's faded, zip-front sweatshirt to deposit her find. The chunk of agate joined the crab claw and the mussel sh.e.l.l entwined with dried seaweed that she'd already collected.

For a momentLynnwatched as Sh.e.l.ly wandered away. She looked so cute in her denim overalls and rubber-toed sneakers, her mink-brown ponytail straight and sleek.Lynntried hard to see what Brian did, but how could she? This was herdaughter .

So what if her own hair was a warm, wavy chestnut-brown, if Brian was blond? So what if Sh.e.l.ly's eyes were brown, whileLynn's were green and Brian's blue? Kids didn't always look just like their parents. In fact, they hardly ever did. The genes that created a person were like ... like the threads of color in a Persian carpet, thousands of bits of wool, woven together with a complexity that defied any ability to say that a certain blue came from such and such a sheep. Sh.e.l.ly might look like some forgotten great-grandmother. Did itmatter that her face wasn't a reflection of her father's?

Apparently it did to Brian. He'd always been unreasonably jealous, both before they were married whenLynnconsidered possessiveness romantic and after. The marriage had been a mistake, a terrible mistake. Guilt ate atLynnevery time she thought about Brian, because she knew the failure was hers. She shouldn't have married him. He was right, when he had believed she didn't love him enough.

But she had never been unfaithful. There hadn't been another man; probably never would be, now that she knew she wasn't capable of the kind of pa.s.sion a lifetime commitment required. She hadn't given Brian any reason to suspect she was seeing anyone, so it outraged her that now he should claim Sh.e.l.ly wasn't his.

Lynnbitterly resented having to put a three-year-old through the scary process of having blood drawn, but she'd done it. Not just because she needed Brian to keep paying the child support, but also because Sh.e.l.ly needed her dad.

So why wasn't she tearingopen the envelope? Lynn wrenched her gaze from Sh.e.l.ly, crouched on her heels ten yards down the beach staring with intense fascination at something, and studied the return address on the envelope.McElvoy Laboratories, Seattle, Washington.

A different lab. Lynn hadn't taken Sh.e.l.ly back to their regular clinic for the second blood draw. She'd driven to Lincoln City. Of course she should have marched back into their doctor's office, waving that stupid piece of paper and proclaiming her indignation at the mistake. She shouldn't have had to pay for the second round of a.n.a.lysis. But she'd felt ... cautious.

She made a face. Gun-shy. Brian had made her paranoid. She didn't want to give him any ammunition. If he knew about the first results, he wouldn't believe the second ones. He'd want more, instead of accepting the truth when she handed it to him.

Anyway, a voice whispered,what if it wasn't a mistake? Sh.e.l.ly doesn't look like either parent.

"Oh, right!" she said out loud. For Pete's sake, she'd been awake and present during her awful labor. Sure, because of the hemorrhaging, she hadn't seen her newborn daughter for the first hours, but then they'd laid the tiny red-faced baby at her breast, and she'd held her and loved her ever since. And, d.a.m.n it, so had Brian! Only, now he had to get suspicious. Or cheap. He was late sometimes with the child-support check. Think what a good excuse this would be not to pay at all!

Lynn glanced up again; her daughter was in the exact same spot. A miniature tide pool, probably. Sh.e.l.ly had learned not to take living creatures from them, only to observe. She'd seen the difference between the rich color of a sea star clinging to a rock beneath the water and the dull hard body of a dead preserved one. She loved the scamper of tiny crabs, the dart of brown sandpipers,the hoa.r.s.e roar of sea lions on the rocks offsh.o.r.e. This was home, magical and familiar at the same time.

Like having a child. For fleeting moments, Lynn saw through her daughter's eyes and became three years old again.Wondering, awed, frightened, rea.s.sured by simple comforts.

Other times, Lynn was perplexed by this complete, small person her daughter seemed to be. It was as if she'd been born whole, finished, and all Lynn could do was open the world to her. The idea that a parent could shape her child was as silly as believing the same blood type meant two people were mysteriously akin.

Open it.

Lynn couldn't understand her reluctance. She kept fingering that d.a.m.ned envelope. She'd peeked at all the bills, even flipped through a couple of publishers' catalogs as if their spring lists mattered more than the blood that traced pale blue lines beneath the translucent skin of her daughter's wrists, that beaded crimson when Sh.e.l.ly skinned her knee. Lifeblood.

Still Sh.e.l.ly crouched in the same spot, her attention span astonishing for a child her age. She didn't need her mom right now, except as home base. A pocket and a smile and a hug.

Lynn tore open the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper. Unfolded it, and stared down at the bald black letterB . There was more, but she didn't see it.

Her heart pounded so hard she wouldn't have heard Sh.e.l.ly scream. Her vision misted, and she had the eerie sensation of being alone on the beach after a late-afternoon fog had rolled in. Everything was gray, indistinct, abruptly looming in front of her and then swallowed behind her.

Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d.

There had been no other man. Only Brian, ever. If Brian wasn't the father of Sh.e.l.lySchoening , then she

Lynn wasn't her mother, either. How was that possible? She moaned and hugged her knees.How? She could think of only one answer. Somehow, two babies had been switched in the hospital. The little girl laid to nurse at her breast wasn't the one she'd carried for nine months. Her own baby had been given to another mother. Somewhere, a toddler with bright blue eyes like Brian's or chestnut-brown hair likeLynn's called another woman Mommy.

Lynnwhimpered again. "Mommy?" Swallowing her terror,Lynnlooked into Sh.e.l.ly's frightened brown eyes. "Yes, honey?" She sounded only a little hoa.r.s.e.

"Is Mommy sick?"

To death. Her whole world was her daughter. Not that unknown child somewhere, the one who might

look like her, b.u.t.this child the one she'd nursed and diapered, whose toes she'd tickled andcounted, the one who squeezed her hand and waited for an answer. "No," she said. "Yes. Mommy's tummy felt funny for a minute. Like this." She burrowed her hand inside theOshKosh overalls and tickled until Sh.e.l.ly's elfin face crinkled with a giggle.

Sh.e.l.ly wrapped her arms around her mother's neck and pressed her cold, plump cheek against Lynn's. "I wanna cheeseburger," she confided. "And chocolate milk." Lynn hugged back. Hugged until the toddler squeaked with alarm. "You know what?" Lynn said. "A cheeseburger sounds good to me, too.And chocolate milk. What do you say we go home?" Sh.e.l.ly nodded vigorously. Lynn rose from the log, feeling as stiff as an old woman. She collected her pile of mail and took her daughter's small hand. Feeling numb, she turned her back on the waves, her sneakered feet accustomed to the way the beach stones and sand gave with each step. One forward, half back. A struggle that strengthened the body.

Her daughter chattered. Lynn heard not a word, although she smiled and agreed. She focused pa.s.sionately on only one thought: Sh.e.l.ly washers . n.o.body must ever know that maybe, somehow, she wasn't. After lunch, while Sh.e.l.ly napped, Lynn sat at the kitchen table and convinced herself that Brian couldn't insist on this blood work. She'd give up the child-support moneyfirst, tell him he could think what he liked. Even agree that he was right, although she hated the idea of letting him believe she'd sneaked around and had sweaty s.e.x with some man she hardly knew because, after all, she had no real friends who were male.

It took untilfive o'clockforLynnto get angry. She put water on to boil for macaroni and went to check on Sh.e.l.ly. She was curled at one end of the shabby velveteen couch watchingDumbo for the thousandth time. Her flowered flannel blanket was tucked under one arm and her thumb was in her mouth. On the dentist's advice,Lynnhad been trying to break her of sucking her thumb, but tonight she didn't say anything, just kissed the silky top of Sh.e.l.ly's head and breathed in her essence before going back to the kitchen.

Things like babies getting switched in the hospital didn't happen!she thought incredulously, then more firmly. Parents were always afraid they would, but hospitals took such precautions these days.Lynnstill had the plastic band that had been around Sh.e.l.ly's plump wrist when she was released from the hospital. It had exactly matchedLynn's.

No. There had to be some other explanation.

This lab was wrong, too?

She poured the macaroni into the boiling water and frowned.

Wait! Could Brian have lied about his blood type? She stirred the macaroni and tried to remember. Had she said what hers was first? It would be like him to try to create a fiction to make it sound as though they were destined for each other. He'd wanted her from the first time they'd met, in the bookstore where she'd worked after she graduated from college.

Closing her eyes,Lynntried to replay the scene. A popular professor at the university had been in a car accident, and the English department had held a blood drive. She'd been resting after giving a pint, when the nurse pushed back the curtain and said, "If you've finished your juice, you're all set!"

And there Brian was, on the next gurney. Still lying down, he'd turned his head and grinned. "Hey, they've been sucking blood out of you, too, huh?"

He'd come into the bookstore for the first time just the previous weekend. Or, at least, she'd noticed him for the first time. And how could she not have noticed him? He was six feet two inches, with short sun-streaked blond hair and bright blue eyes. He was tanned from skiing atMount Hood. She'd asked, because it was winter and most people inPortlandwere pale. He looked like a surfer, broad shouldered and athletic and golden.

"Well, it was voluntary," she'd said shyly.

"Yeah, so they say." He waved away the orange juice and sat up without taking it slowly. How like a man!

Somehow they ended up walking out together. And ... yes! He'd asked, "What type blood do you have?"

She did volunteer the information first. She distinctly remembered the way he'd turned and said, so seriously, "That means the same blood runs through our veins. We must be meant for each other."

She'd made it a joke; they'd both laughed, but a small thrill had run through her at the idea, presented with the intensity and gravity of a marriage proposal.

The more fool her!

She dumped the macaroni into the waiting colander, jumping when the boiling water splashed her hand. She should have known better. The single, chipped porcelain sink was shallow, and she was always careful.

Tears sprang to her eyes. "d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n," she muttered, turning on the cold water and sticking her hand under it.

Why,that creep ! All thisanguish, and he'd lied!

She told herself she was furious, but really relief flooded her in a sweet tide. Such a simple explanation! And after she'd come up with such a convoluted one.

The relief lasted all evening. She played Chutes and Ladders with Sh.e.l.ly, then told silly stories and every knock-knock joke she could think of at bedtime, buoyed by that wash of exquisite release from fear.

She thought about calling him, the sc.u.mbag, and saying, "I might think about checking our daughter's blood type, if I knew what yoursreally is."

But, although she should be madder than she was,Lynnstill thought she should cool down before she confronted him. Besides, she wanted to be sure of herself.

She could ask his mother. No, better yet, she could call the blood bank and say that he'd been in a car accident, and she didn't remember his blood type but she knew he'd donated.

That was the moment when she remembered. There she was, checking to be sure the bathroom door was open enough to cast light into the hall so Sh.e.l.ly wouldn't get scared if she woke up later. One part of Lynn's mind thought, six inches, that's perfect, and another part was wondering if she shouldn't add more books on tape to her stock downstairs a man, a tourist, had asked for them Sunday, and left without buying anything after looking at what she did have and oh yes, she had to pick up peanut b.u.t.ter at the store tomorrow, since Sh.e.l.ly practically lived on it.

Through all her other preoccupations, she felt the onset of fear and the p.r.i.c.kle of goose b.u.mps on her skin even before a memory came to her. A woman from the blood bank had called, not long afterLynn and Brian got married, and she'd askedLynnto encourage her husband to donate blood again.

"He's got Type O, you know," she said, "and we're terribly short."

Lynnhad said helpfully, "My blood is O, too," and she'd promised she would ask Brian, but she'd definitely come down to the blood bank herself. She had, and he must have, too, after work, not romantically together this time. That part didn't matter; what did was that the blood bank had specifically wanted him to come in because he had O.

Instead of going to bed, Lynn felt her way back along the narrow hall to the kitchen, with its tiny refrigerator so old she had to regularly defrost the freezer part, the linoleum with the pattern worn to a blur, the brand-new shiny white stove, bought when the old one gave up the ghost at the worst possible moment, the way it always went. In the brightness when she switched on the light, the cheery yellow she'd painted the cabinets looked garish, a disguise as obvious as a clown's red nose.

The living quarters of the house were crummy; she'd put all her money into the downstairs, the bookstore. She'd had to. She and Sh.e.l.ly could make do,Lynnhad told herself. Until the store became really profitable. If bookstores ever did.

But now she couldn't help looking around and imagining what other people would think. If, for example, Sh.e.l.ly's real, biological parents were trying to take her back.

I wouldn't look very good, would I?Lynnthought. Her knees crumpled, and she sank onto one of the two mismatched chairs that went with the tiny, scarred Formica and metal kitchen table.I don't have much to offer Sh.e.l.ly materially, and I'm divorced, and my ex-husband thinks I must have cheated on him.

Those other parents, they could take Sh.e.l.ly away from her. She remembered a photo from some horrible child custody case, when the little boy was screaming and reaching for the only parents he'd ever known while the biological father carried him away. How painfully easy it was to transpose faces: she was the one trying to be brave, make this seem like the right thing, while Sh.e.l.ly was ripped away from her like one of the beautiful sea stars from a slick wet rock.

Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d.

She drew up her knees and hugged herself and shook, panting for breaths. She could hear herself gasping. She must be in shock, she felt so strange. Cold, and frightened, as if an intruder had crept in and violated her, as if she would never feel safe again.

n.o.body must ever know.That was her only hope.n.o.body. Ever.

Eventually the shaking pa.s.sed, and she saw again her kitchen, tidy and spotlessly clean, however shabby, and on the refrigerator Sh.e.l.ly's bright crayon drawings that were supposed to be sea stars or seals or horses, those inner imaginings that her short fingers were not yet capable of rendering. It was home: loving, safe, clean and ordered. What else mattered? Certainly not money.

Nor blood. She didn't care whose ran through Sh.e.l.ly's veins. She would never let it matter.

But first, she had to be sure.

The blue plastic clock on the wall said eight-thirty. Not too late to call Brian's mother.

RuthSchoening's voice held caution, once she knew who was on the phone.

"Lynn. My, it's late in the evening to be calling."

Not:Oh, gracious, Sh.e.l.ly is all right, isn't she?

Lynnnoticed the lack, and decided on honesty. "Brian's told you he doesn't think Sh.e.l.ly is his daughter, hasn't he?"

The pause resonated with awkwardness. "He did say something."

"I would never..." The automatic denial caught inLynn's throat. Oh, G.o.d. She might someday have to claim shehad . She took a breath. "You don't believe that, do you?"

Really, she was begging,You knowme . Please say that you have faith in me, that you love Sh.e.l.ly no matter what.

"It's not really my business," her ex-husband's mother said, the constraint in her voice obvious.

"She's your granddaughter."

"Is she?"

She had begun to shake again,Lynnnoticed with peculiar detachment. "This is so ridiculous," she exclaimed, trying to laugh and failing.