Beth Cornelison - Colton Christmas Protector

He felt the underside and checked the smaller top drawers for a key. Nothing. The matching file drawer on the opposite side of the desk slid open easily, and Reid walked his fingers through the contents of the drawer, scanning tab labels. “All that said, I—”

His gaze snagged on a file with the heading Penelope. He stilled, his line of thought forgotten. Furrowing his brow, he pulled out the file and flipped it open. The file was full of legal documents. A few medical records. A picture or two.

The last document was a petition for adoption. Hugh and his wife had signed as the adoptive parents and two names were scribbled on the lines for the birth parents. He blinked and reread the opening lines.

We the undersigned do permanently relinquish all claim and parental rights for our biological child, Lisa Umberton, to Hugh and Constance Barrington of Dallas, Texas...

His breath snagged in his chest, and the thump of his pulse grew in his ears. With fumbling fingers he flipped back to the front of the file to the first documents. A court order to legally change Lisa Umberton’s name to Penelope Lisa Barrington.

“You what?” Penelope prompted, dragging his attention away from the file. Her expression shifted when she glanced at him. “Reid, what’s wrong? Did you find something?”

Uncertainty and shock fisted around his lungs. He swallowed hard and scrubbed his cheek with his palm before stammering, “Uh, no. N-nothing...relevant.”

Did Pen know she was adopted? He thought back through the many meals he’d shared with Andrew and his wife through the years, game-day parties and birthday celebrations. Had she ever mentioned being adopted? She’d talked about how hard her mother’s death had been on her, how distant she felt from Hugh, how alone and out of place she’d felt in the large, sterile home growing up. She talked about her envy of Reid’s large family, how she’d hated being an only child.

But she’d never mentioned adoption.

“Reid,” Pen said, a note of excitement in her tone. “I found a safe.”

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