“I would have loved to help you make my bed. Or unmake it.”

Even though her heart bumped hard, she gave him a chiding look. “Behave yourself. We said we were going to take this slowly, remember?”

“I know,” he agreed a bit reluctantly. “Still, I can’t help but fantasise occasionally.”

Which of course made her heart pound harder at the thought of him fantasising about her. She moistened her lips, trying to think of something clever to say.

A low sound escaped him as the smile slid off his face. His gaze was on her mouth now, his eyes darkened to a deep emerald. His head dipped towards hers, though he paused just short of their lips touching. Giving in to her own desire, she closed the distance.

GINA WILKINS

is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy books. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three “extraordinary” children.

A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms Wilkins sold her first book in 1987 and has been writing full time since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of the Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

Finding Family

Gina Wilkins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Prologue

The four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath house was so empty that Mark Thomas’s footsteps echoed when he walked through it. Gleaming wood floors were devoid of rugs, amplifying the sounds he made. Nothing hung on the walls.

Upstairs, a bed with no headboard and a small wooden chest were lost in the spacious master bedroom. One step down from the bedroom, a spacious dressing room led into a walk-in closet and an attached lounge with dormer windows that looked out over the front lawn. Except for his clothes, those areas were empty. The remaining three bedrooms were bare of furniture and decoration, though one held a half-dozen unpacked boxes filled with the few possessions he had brought with him to his new home.

Downstairs, a mismatched couch and chair had been placed haphazardly in the cozy front parlor, just to the left of the marble-floored foyer. The dining room on the opposite side of the entryway was empty. The ample, three-step-down end room that he thought of as a den, but which the Realtor had referred to as a gathering room, held only a large-screen television and a well-broken-in leather sofa.

In the kitchen, two wood-and-wrought iron bar stools provided the only seating. A small TV set, a coffeemaker and a microwave sat on the otherwise-empty U-shaped expanse of quartz countertops. The sunny breakfast room on the other side of the bar was as barren as the rest of his home.

He had owned the house for three weeks, and had lived in it for two. He had big plans for decorating, transforming the place from an empty shell to a warm, inviting home, which couldn’t happen soon enough, as far as he was concerned. But for now, he found satisfaction in the awareness that for the first time in his thirty-two years, he was living in a home that was not a rental.

Besides, he reminded himself, the longer he took to get the decorating finished, the more time he would be able to spend with the pretty and intriguing designer he’d hired.

It was still early on this warm summer evening, not yet dark outside. Mark flipped on the overhead lights in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he rather liked the idea of preparing his own dinner in his own kitchen. Unfortunately, he thought as he closed the fridge door, it took more than a carton of orange juice, a quart of milk and a couple of individual-sized yogurts to make a meal.

Looked as though he would have to resort to delivery. Again. He was simply going to have to find the time to go to the grocery store soon. He moved toward the phone to call the closest Chinese delivery. He knew the number by memory.

The doorbell rang just as he punched in the second digit.

“Wow,” he murmured, holding the receiver away from his ear and looking at it. “That was fast.”

Chuckling at his own bad joke, he hung up the phone and walked through the echoing hallway toward the front door.

He didn’t know the couple standing on the small covered porch. The dark-haired, dark-eyed woman was strikingly beautiful. The man had brown hair and eyes and a face that looked vaguely familiar, but not immediately recognizable.

“May I help you?” he asked, looking from the man to the woman and then back again.

The man spoke first. “Dr. Mark Thomas?”

“Yes.”

“I’m Ethan Brannon. This is Aislinn Flaherty.”

Neither name meant anything to him. “Nice to meet you.” He added a slight upward note to the courtesy, an implied question.

Ethan looked at Aislinn, who nodded slightly, as if to encourage him. Mark waited patiently until Ethan turned back to him to say, “This is going to sound strange, I know, but I hope you’ll give us the opportunity to explain. There’s a, um—there’s a chance that you and I could be brothers.”

Brothers?

Mark felt the word slam into him, though he hoped he was able to hide the reaction as he stared at the couple. More specifically, at the man who looked vaguely familiar. Suspiciously like the man he saw in the mirror when he shaved every morning.

He opened the door wider and took a step backward. “I think you’d better come inside.”

Chapter One

Rachel Madison’s cell phone rang just as she parked her small SUV in the driveway of Mark Thomas’s house in an upscale neighborhood outside Atlanta, Georgia. She glanced at the caller ID screen without enthusiasm. She wouldn’t mind so much if the call were about business, but she doubted that she would be that lucky.

Recognizing the incoming number, she knew that luck was not on her side this time. “Hi, Mother,” she said, holding the little phone to her ear.

“Rachel, you absolutely have to talk to your sister. She won’t listen to a word from me.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Rachel promised without even bothering to ask what she was supposed to say. “But I’m just about to meet with a client, so this is going to have to wait until later, okay?”

“First let me tell you what she said.”

“I’ll call you after my meeting and you can tell me all about it. But I really have to focus on my client now.”

Her mother sighed heavily. “All right. I suppose you should concentrate on your work. That’s more important right now.”

Even though her mother couldn’t see her, Rachel resisted an impulse to roll her eyes. “You know I don’t consider work more important than family. It’s just that I have an appointment.”

“I’ll let you go, then. Call me when you’re finished, okay?”

“I will.”

Closing the phone with relief, Rachel groaned when it buzzed again before she could even open her car door. This call, too, was from a number she recognized. “Hi, sis. Look, I’ve got a meeting—”

Typically, Dani didn’t give her a chance to finish the sentence. “You have got to talk to Mother, Rach. She’s gone too far this time. You have to tell her—”

“I’ll talk to her,” Rachel broke in rashly. “But I have to meet with a client, okay? He’s expecting me right now.”

“But—”

“I’ve got to go. I’ll call you as soon as I’m free.”

She hung up while her sister was still sputtering. Setting her cell phone to vibrate rather than ring, so that it wouldn’t interrupt her meeting if it buzzed again—which it undoubtedly would—she reached into the backseat for the samples and drawings she had brought with her.

She always looked forward to presenting her ideas to her clients, but she had to admit that this meeting was especially exciting. Dr. Mark Thomas wasn’t just any client. He was special. Attractive. Amusing. Intelligent. And the first client who had ever convinced her to mix business with pleasure and go out with him for an evening that had nothing to do with decorating.

It had been the most successful date she’d had in—well, in longer than she wanted to admit. No awkwardness, no stilted conversation, no discreet checking of watches, just a few hours of pleasant companionship. With a healthy dose of mutual attraction mixed in.

He’d been a perfect gentleman, leaving her at her door with a light kiss and an assurance that he would like to repeat the experience soon. She had gone to sleep that night replaying that brief, tantalizing kiss and fantasizing about a possible time when an evening together wouldn’t end on her doorstep.

The outside of his house was quite nice, if a bit cookie-cutter, she mused, juggling her load on the walkway to his front door. A redbrick Georgian, its two-story center section was balanced by one-and-a-half story wings on either side. Each wing sported two white-fronted dormer windows. Three brick chimneys jutted up from the shingled roof, one on either side of the central section, the other at the end of the left wing.

Multipaned windows were arranged with perfect symmetry on either side of the house. In typical Georgian fashion, the paneled front door was centered in the middle section, the front porch covered by a triangular portico supported by four white pilasters. Four brick steps led up the porch. A row of shining, leaded-glass panes served as a transom above the white door, spilling more light into the foyer.

It wasn’t a particularly large house by modern standards, topping out at just over four thousand square feet, but like the other similar size and style houses in the neighborhood, it proclaimed its owner as a successful young professional. Because she knew he had recently been made a partner in a thriving family-practice clinic, she doubted that Mark would have any trouble paying her fee.

Pausing at the door to shift the items she was holding and press the doorbell, she took a moment to reflect on how refreshingly well-adjusted Mark seemed to be. Educated, gainfully employed, apparently happy with his life, despite his lack of family. Perhaps happy because of that fact, she added wryly, though she didn’t really believe that.

Such a welcome change from the string of users and losers that had made up her dating pool for the past three years, ever since her divorce from a needy, neurotic man who still hadn’t completely accepted that she was no longer available to solve all his problems for him. She supposed she couldn’t blame her ex for thinking of her in that light. Everyone else in her life certainly did, she thought with a glare down at her cell phone.

The door opened in response to her buzz. Mark stood in the doorway, blinking at her with an uncharacteristic frown.

She saw immediately that something wasn’t quite right. He looked…disheveled, she decided. His typically neat brown hair was rumpled and there were shadows beneath his usually smiling green eyes. His old T-shirt and jeans had seen better days, a striking contrast to the impeccable, professional-casual clothing he had worn for their other meetings.

Judging from his expression, she would be willing to bet that he’d forgotten about this appointment. Which wasn’t at all like the Mark Thomas she had come to know in the few weeks since she had first met him.

“Rachel,” he said, almost as if it had taken him a moment to recognize her. “What…oh, damn. We had a meeting today.”

So he had forgotten. She shifted the portfolio beneath her arm. “If this is a bad time, we can always reschedule.”

“No. No, come in. I…” He pushed a hand through his hair, then shook his head impatiently. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m a little distracted today.”

She wasn’t going to ask. Something had obviously happened to disturb him, but whatever it was, it was none of her business. Despite their one dinner date, he was a client, and she had no intention of getting involved in his problems. The very last thing she needed in her life was someone else’s troubles, she assured herself firmly.

He closed the front door behind her and motioned her toward the nearly empty gathering room. “I had some news yesterday that’s left me pretty shaken,” he admitted. “I’m afraid I forgot about our meeting.”

She absolutely was not going to ask. She paused at the top of the three steps that led down into the room. “We can always meet another time. Why don’t you call me when you’re ready to reschedule?”

“No, this is as good a time as any. Actually, I could use the distraction,” he admitted, ushering her down into the room. “Can I get you anything to drink before we start? I have sodas or I could make some coffee.”

“A glass of water sounds good.” She wasn’t really thirsty, but she thought fetching the water would give him a chance to pull himself together a bit, mentally prepare himself for the meeting that had slipped his mind.

“Okay. Make yourself comfortable, and I’ll be right back.” And then he looked around the sparsely furnished room and gave her a faint, wry smile. “Well, as comfortable as you can get, anyway.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she reminded him brightly. “To help make your home comfortable for you and your visitors.”

Still looking distracted, he nodded and headed for the kitchen.

Rachel spent the brief time alone setting up her portable easel, arranging the samples she had brought on the floor and opening her portfolio, all the while lecturing herself about how important it was for her to keep this meeting on a professional basis.

This was business, she reminded herself. For today, she was the hired decorator and Mark was her boss and client. The budding friendship—with potential for more—that had been developing between them was on hold for the afternoon. Maybe indefinitely, depending on how the next hour or so proceeded. All she wanted now was to put this meeting behind them so she could get to work and he could deal with whatever had been troubling him when she’d arrived.

He’d said he received some disturbing news. Had someone he cared about passed away? Was he in some kind of trouble? She’d heard that doctors were always worried about being sued by disgruntled patients. She hoped Mark wasn’t having to deal with a nuisance lawsuit.

None of her concern if he was, she reminded herself again.

He had seemed so happy when they’d gone out to dinner last week. Excited about his new partnership in a family clinic where he would begin practicing after taking a couple weeks off to get settled in his home. Elated to have purchased his first house, and looking forward to having her decorate it to suit his tastes and needs. Maybe even intrigued by the chemistry that had sparked between them from the start, as she had been.

He’d told her he was pretty much on his own in life. Raised by a single mother who had died several years ago, he claimed to have no other surviving family, only a network of good friends for emotional support. Despite her frequent frustration with her own ever-present and often-demanding family, she had found it rather sad that Mark had none of his own.

As exasperated as she became with them, she dearly loved her mother, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. She knew she could go to them in times of trouble, though it was more often the other way around. For some reason, everyone seemed to turn to her whenever they needed anything—and somehow she usually figured out a way to help.

She had a real problem saying certain phrases. Like, “Sorry, I can’t.” Or, “Ask someone else this time.” Or just plain, “No.” After many years of self-examination, she had come to the conclusion that she’d been born with a “backbone deficiency.”

Which was why she was not going to get involved this time, she vowed. As alone in the world as he might be, Mark was a successful young doctor with a bright future and enough charm to float a boat. He didn’t need any help from her, except for decorating this lovely but empty home.

Mark returned with the glass of ice water. “Here you go. Can I get you anything else before we start?”

His smile was a bit forced, his tone artificially cheerful, but she didn’t let on that he wasn’t fooling her for a minute. “No, this is fine, thank you.”

Playing the game, she took a sip of the water, then looked around for a place to set the glass. Since there weren’t any tables in the sparsely furnished room, she set it on top of her portfolio. “If you’ll have a seat on the couch, I’ll show you the designs and samples I’ve brought along. If you’re still sure you want to do this now,” she added.

“Absolutely.” He sat on the couch, folded his arms and looked at her easel with such intense concentration that she almost sighed.

He was trying so hard to pretend he had put his problems out of his mind and was interested only in decorating. Once again, she found herself tempted to ask what had happened to upset him so, but she swallowed the question with a firm self-reminder that it was none of her business.

She began her presentation with the same thorough professionalism she would have used with any client. Room by room, she showed him the drawings she had made, the fabric samples and photographs of the furnishings she had selected for his consideration. He watched intently, studying everything she showed him, nodding whenever she paused for breath, fingering the fabric samples she handed him.

He agreed with everything she suggested. He didn’t ask one question. And because he had been eagerly involved in discussions about his decor ever since his first meeting with her, she suspected that he was barely hearing a word she said.

Don’t ask, Rachel, she admonished herself fiercely. Don’t get involved.

“So, you like the cranberry paint for the dining room walls?” she asked him, tapping a crimson paint chip.

He stared blankly at the square of colored cardboard. “Sure. Cranberry. Okay.”

He was breaking her heart. It was something about the look in his eyes. The slight slump of his shoulders. Whatever news he had received the day before, it had obviously hit him very hard. And maybe, she thought with a pang in her overly sensitive heart, there was no one for him to turn to for support or advice. Since he didn’t have any family.

“I know it’s a strong color, but I—” She swallowed. Don’t do it, Rachel. Keep it about the job. “I think you’ll really—”

After several moments of silence, he seemed to realize that she had stopped talking. “I’m sorry, did I miss something?”

Oh, give up. Setting down the paint chip, she moved slowly to sit beside him on the worn leather couch. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“About the red paint?”

She shook her head, resignation in her voice when she said, “About whatever is bothering you. I’ve been told I’m a very good listener.”

So much for staying uninvolved…

Rachel really was intriguing. Fresh-faced, Mark supposed some would call her. She looked younger than her thirty years, with her dimpled pink cheeks, flawless skin and clear gray-blue eyes. Average height, slender physique, light brown hair she tended to wear in an attractively messy low ponytail. Not beautiful, exactly. But darned close.

And speaking of close…

Mark glanced down at the hand Rachel had rested on his knee as she sat only inches away from him on the couch. This was most definitely not a come-on. Without unwarranted conceit, he acknowledged that as a single, young doctor, he’d been at the receiving end of enough insincere gambits to know when someone was pretending to be interested in his problems.

Rachel was different. No hidden agendas here. No self-serving angles. She was the real thing. Or at least, that was the impression he’d gotten of her. He would hate to find out that he was wrong. It actually surprised him a bit to realize how very much he would hate that.

He should politely shrug off her question. Assure her that her concern was appreciated but unjustified. After all, this was a woman he had hoped to impress. Wanted to get closer to. It would hardly help his cause for her to find out what a mess his life had just become.

“Thanks, but I’m okay,” he assured her. “Tell me more about this red dining room.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think you should be making decisions when you’re this distracted. You could be surprised to find yourself living in a house you absolutely hate.”

“I don’t think that will happen. I trust your taste. That’s why I hired you.”

She smiled. “I appreciate that. But you made it clear that this project is very personal for you. You said you wanted input at every stage, and I want to make sure you have that. So we’re not going to make any final decisions today. I’ll leave everything with you to go through when you can concentrate. And in the meantime, if there’s anything at all I can do for you—as a friend—I hope you won’t hesitate to ask.”

She really was a nice person, he thought, focusing on her sympathetic smile. Maybe she would understand if he told her about what had happened to him yesterday. As for her offer that he should let her know if there was anything she could do for him…

A glimmer of an idea formed in his mind.

“I had an unexpected visitor here yesterday,” he began slowly. “Two of them, actually. A man and a woman. I’d never met either of them before.”

Proving her assertion that she was a good listener, she merely nodded and waited for him to go on, her gaze focused on his face.

“The woman’s name is Aislinn Flaherty. She claims to be a psychic.” Before this statement could fully sink in, he cleared his throat and added, “The guy’s name is Ethan Brannon. And he says he’s my older brother.”

“Your brother?” she repeated in surprise. “You were raised as an only child, weren’t you?”

He nodded grimly. Being told that he had a brother was actually the least jarring of the news he’d been given during that encounter. “My, um, my mother told me that my father died while she was pregnant with me. She said she had no family of her own and that his family didn’t want anything to do with her or with me. We were on our own during my entire childhood, living pretty much hand to mouth, but generally happy.”

“This man, Ethan Brannon—do you believe what he said? Is there a possibility that he is your brother?”

“More than a possibility. He pretty much convinced me. As convinced as I can be before we get the results of DNA testing, anyway.”

“You’re going to be tested?”

“We both are. Ethan insisted, and I agreed.”

“So he claims he’s your half brother? The result of a relationship your father had before you were born?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Her left eyebrow rose just a little. “Oh?”

“Ethan doesn’t claim to be a half brother. He says he’s my full brother—one of two, actually.”

Rachel looked understandably confused. “There are two of them? And Ethan said you have the same parents?”

“Yes.” He swallowed. “According to Ethan, my mother—er, the woman who raised me…”

Stopping abruptly, he shook his head. “Never mind. You don’t want to hear this. I think we should talk about decorating. What did you say you want to do in here? Add tables, I hope.”

“Definitely tables. But you were going to tell me what Ethan said about your mother.”

He sighed. Might as well get this over with, he thought. Rachel was bound to find out the truth if they became involved in a personal relationship, as he’d hoped.

“According to what Ethan told me, the woman who raised me kidnapped me from a loving family. Parents, and two older brothers. My—the woman I knew as my mother was the nanny. Thirty years ago, when I was barely two, she pushed her car into a flooded river and took off with me, leaving everyone to believe I was dead.”

Rachel looked as though she wasn’t sure she had heard him correctly. “Your mother…?”

He nodded grimly. “Wasn’t my mother, after all. According to Ethan Brannon, my real mother is very much alive and living in Alabama with my father, an orthodontist. They are still unaware that their youngest son didn’t drown as a toddler.”

Chapter Two

Rachel had heard stories like this on television talk shows and in newspaper feature stories. She had never dreamed something so bizarre could happen to someone she actually knew. “This is…hard to believe. Did he have any proof?”

“His story was verified by one of my former patients last night. Posthumously.”

The tale was growing more convoluted by the moment. “Posthumously? I don’t understand. How—?”

Pushing a hand through his already disheveled hair, Mark grimaced. “Trust me, I know how strange it sounds. I’ll try to tell you from the beginning—at least as much as I’ve figured out, myself.”

Taking a deep breath, he began, describing a young married couple and their three boys who lived happily in North Carolina. The father was an orthodontist, the mother a housewife and active community volunteer, and because of their busy schedule, they hired a nanny to help them with their children, particularly the youngest son, Kyle.

The nanny, Carmen Thomas, became a part of the family, bonding closely with the children, especially Kyle. Explaining that she was alone in the world, she had seemed to find a purpose in her job and had been highly valued by her employers.

And then one day when Kyle was two, Carmen took the little boy out in a terrible storm. Flash flooding in the area had already claimed two lives, and no one knew why she’d left the house that day. Her car was discovered later, upside down in a flooded ravine. Though no bodies were found with the crushed vehicle, it was assumed that both the nanny and the child had been swept away, their remains buried beneath debris.

“Those poor parents,” Rachel murmured, imagining how devastating it must have been for the Brannons to lose their youngest child.

Mark didn’t seem ready to focus on emotions just yet. He was still struggling to deal with the facts of his past. “Unbeknownst to the Brannons, Carmen must have been planning the abduction for some time. The flooding proved to be a convenient cover for her disappearance. An acquaintance met her at the side of a mountain road that afternoon and helped her push her car into the water. The acquaintance then drove Carmen and the child out of the state.”

“An ‘acquaintance’helped Carmen kidnap a toddler?” Rachel shook her head in shocked disbelief. “No matter how close they were, what kind of a person would do that?”

“A person with serious emotional problems of her own. A woman who was told that she was rescuing a mother and her child from a violent domestic situation. During the ensuing few days, she began to suspect that she had been duped, but by then she felt that it was too late to change her course. She left the woman and child in Georgia and went on her way, trying to put them out of her mind. As I said, she had problems of her own.”

“That still doesn’t excuse what she did.”

“No. And it haunted her for years, despite her efforts to forget. Years later, fate or…something brought her back into my life several months ago. She was the nursing home patient I told you about. She died yesterday, leaving behind a letter describing the role she had played in my abduction.”

Growing more confused by the moment, Rachel shook her head. “Wait. How did she track you down? How did she know it was you? How did she become your patient in the nursing home?”

“Some of those questions I can’t answer. The rest aren’t really important right now. The fact is, I think I believe what she said. I think I am—or was—Kyle Brannon. Though I want the DNA tests to prove it, there’s just something about it all that feels, well, true.”

Maybe she was just naturally more skeptical than he. After all, she had a history of rescuing people from messes they’d gotten into as a result of being too gullible. Not that she thought of Mark as gullible, exactly, but still…

“If I were you, I would be very careful until after the DNA results become available. You said yourself that your former patient had emotional problems. The fact that Aislinn Flaherty claims to be psychic makes me very nervous. And you don’t know this guy who suddenly appeared on your doorstep, claiming to be your brother. For all you know, this could be some sort of elaborate scam.”

His lips twitched in a pitiful excuse for a smile. “Trust me, Rachel, I’m not quite as naive as you seem to fear. I’ll insist on the DNA tests, and I won’t do anything until after I’ve seen the results.”

She studied his face, trying to read beyond the wry expression. “How do you feel about all this?”

After a rather lengthy pause, he cleared his throat. “I don’t know, exactly. I’m having trouble processing everything.”

She nodded, completely understanding why he would feel that way. All-too-familiar words left her mouth then, her typical, knee-jerk reaction to seeing anyone in distress. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

She couldn’t imagine anything she could do, of course. This was so far beyond her realm of experience. And it wasn’t as if she knew Mark particularly well, herself.

“Actually, there is something…”

She tried to hide her surprise. “Um, sure. What is it?”

“Join me for dinner tonight?”

“You want me to have dinner with you?” She couldn’t see how another dinner date would help him with his family problem.

He nodded. “I’m supposed to meet Ethan and his girlfriend for dinner tonight. We all agreed it would be best to get together after I’d had a few hours to think about what they’d told me. It would be a really big help to me if you’d go with me tonight—you know, sort of moral support.”

She cleared her throat. “I don’t know, Mark. That sounds rather awkward.”

“It would be even more awkward for me to have dinner with Ethan Brannon and his girlfriend without having anyone there who’s on my side.”

“Your side? You make it sound like a confrontation rather than a getting-to-know-each-other evening.”

“I’m not expecting a confrontation. I just…well, I’d like to have someone there who knows me as Mark Thomas, you know? Not some missing kid named Kyle Brannon.”

“You have plenty of friends you could ask. People who have known you much longer than I have.”

“True. But you’re the only one I’ve told,” he replied with a disarming smile. “And I wanted to ask you out again, anyway. I was hoping to do so sometime during our meeting today—though, admittedly, I didn’t have anything like this in mind at the time.”

Nor had she envisioned that their second date would involve her going along as a buffer between him and his newfound brother. Definitely an awkward situation, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to get involved. She searched for the words to politely decline.

Before she could speak, her telephone vibrated against her waist. She glanced at the screen, grimacing when she saw that her sister was calling again. It seemed that she had a choice of how to spend her evening—either entertaining Mark’s brother or refereeing yet another of her own family squabbles.

“Okay,” she said abruptly, pushing her phone back into its holder. “What time?”

“That’s a yes?” He seemed rather surprised that she had accepted, as if he’d realized how close she had come to declining.

She nodded. “Sure. Why not?”

His smile was wry. “I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why you’d have liked to pass, but I’m not going to argue. I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”

She nodded even as she ignored the renewed vibration of the phone at her waist. “I’ll be ready.”

At least as ready as she could be, she added silently.

“C’mon, Rach, you’ve got to help me out. I don’t know how I’ll get through the evening without you.”

Holding her phone to her ear with one hand while she unzipped her slacks with the other, Rachel wondered absently when Robbie’s voice had taken on this rather shrill, whining tone. She was sure he hadn’t sounded that way when they had dated back in college. And it hadn’t been quite this bad before their three-year marriage had broken up, though it had certainly become more common as their relationship had slowly dissolved.

“I’m sorry, Robbie. I told you, I have plans for tonight. I can’t change them now.”

“But what will I do? Kaylee just doesn’t feel like working tonight. I can’t have an empty hostess stand.”

“Then you’ll have to find someone else to fill in, because I can’t do it tonight.”

Robbie wasn’t used to having Rachel stand her ground when he begged. Usually he could count on her to cave if he laid it on thickly enough. But not tonight, she vowed. She was already doing a favor for Mark. This time Robbie was going to have to find his own solutions to his problems.

“You’re doing this to punish me, aren’t you? Because I forgot to call you on your birthday last week. I know it hurt you that I didn’t remember, but I’ve been overwhelmed with everything that’s going on here. And Kaylee hasn’t been much help—even though I guess she really does feel lousy, having a cold and all—but I’ve apologized to you over and over, Rachel. I don’t know what else I can do.”

Rachel sighed loudly as her clothing fell to the floor at her feet. “I’m not mad at you for missing my birthday. I just can’t help you out tonight. I have other plans. You’re going to have to find someone else. Mary can handle hostess responsibilities tonight. You’ll have to call in one of the day staff to take up her serving duties. Call Hilary. She’ll do it, if you pay her overtime. She needs the extra money.”

“Mary’s too impatient to be a good hostess. She doesn’t have enough tact.”

“She’ll get better with practice. Or you’re going to have to hire someone else if Kaylee continues to bail on you. The point is, you can’t keep depending on me to come to your aid, Robbie. I have my own career. My own life.”

“The restaurant was your dream, too, at one time,” he reminded her, sounding more sullen than whiny now.

“It was never my dream. It was always yours. But I tried to support you in it—until you found someone else to be your cheerleader.”

“So that’s what this is about? You’re still jealous about Kaylee?”

She nearly tripped over her fallen clothing. “Are you kidding me? I will always be eternally grateful to Kaylee. If you hadn’t dumped me for her I might have spent years trying to hold our marriage together out of some misguided sense of loyalty and responsibility. This isn’t ‘about’ anything, Robbie. I just can’t help you tonight. I have a date, and I’m going to be late if I don’t hurry. I’m hanging up now. I suggest you get on the phone to Mary and Hilary while you still have time to prepare for the dinner rush.”

“A date? You didn’t say you have a date. Who is the guy? Can’t you reschedule for another—”

“Goodbye, Robbie.” She snapped her phone closed and headed for the shower.

Mark didn’t know why he was so nervous as he parked in the lot of Rachel’s apartment complex. It was just dinner, right? A double date of sorts, over a nice meal. He’d been on dozens of outings like that. No big deal.

Of course, this would be the first time he’d dined with a man who claimed to be his brother. And the guy’s sort-of psychic girlfriend. Not to mention a woman Mark, himself, had hoped to woo into his bed—once she’d selected a bed for him.

Wondering which of those factors made him most uneasy, he tugged at the collar of his deep blue shirt as he strode down the hallway of Rachel’s apartment complex. He hadn’t been sure what to wear. The restaurant where he and Ethan had agreed to meet wasn’t a jacket and tie sort of place. He’d settled on a blue dress shirt, open at the collar, worn with khakis and brown oxfords.

And because he so rarely obsessed about his clothing, that was just another sign of how rattled he was this evening.

Rachel opened her door with a smile that made him forget any qualms he’d had about inviting her.

“You look great,” he said.

“Thank you. I forgot to ask where we were going, so I wasn’t sure what was appropriate to wear.”

Only then did he notice what she had on, a sleeveless black dress with a knee-length hem. A small diamond pendant lay nestled in the tasteful amount of cleavage revealed by the V-neckline of the dress. Just enough of a glimpse to make him fantasize about seeing more.

“You look…great,” he said again, unable to think coherently enough to come up with a new compliment.

Shallow dimples appeared in her cheeks, then quickly disappeared. Captivated by them, he simply stared at her until she cleared her throat and said, “Um, would you like to come in?”

Chiding himself for his uncharacteristic awkwardness, he shook his head—both to clear his mind and as a negative to her invitation. “We’d better go, if you’re ready. Traffic’s pretty heavy this evening.”

“Just let me get my purse.”

She returned after only moments with a small black bag tucked beneath her arm. Locking her door behind her, she smiled up at him, and only then did he see the slight hint of nerves in her eyes. “I’m ready.”

It made him feel somewhat better to know that he wasn’t the only one with hesitations about this outing. “Yeah. Me, too. And thanks again for going with me tonight, Rachel.”

“Actually, you’re helping me out, too,” she confided, falling into step beside him.

“Yeah? In what way?”

“My mother and sister are squabbling and they’re trying to put me squarely in the middle. I’d have had to spend the evening refereeing a family confrontation. I’d much rather deal with your family problems than my own tonight.”

He laughed, as she had obviously intended for him to do. “Caught between a rock and a hard place, huh?”

She smiled up at him as he opened the passenger door of his car for her. “Not quite. You said you were planning to ask me out again today even before your brother showed up last night? I have to admit that I was hoping you would.”

Pleased, he held the door while she slid into the seat. All of a sudden, he wasn’t nearly as uneasy about the upcoming evening.

* * *

Rachel was struck immediately by the resemblances between Mark and Ethan Brannon. In his late thirties, Ethan was more sternly carved than Mark, with a few more lines around his dark green eyes and his mouth. And yet the similarities were so strong that most people would probably assume at first glance that they were related.

Their coloring, their build, something about the way they moved and spoke…within minutes she became convinced that the DNA tests would confirm Ethan’s assertion. While she supposed it was possible that the resemblances were coincidental, it was highly unlikely.

As for Ethan’s companion, Rachel thought Aislinn Flaherty was possibly one of the most beautiful women she had ever met. Perfect skin, gleaming waves of dark hair, exotically shaped dark eyes. Though she was drawn to Aislinn’s warm smile and friendly manner, she sensed a reserve in the other woman that went very deep. A protective wall, perhaps.

Mark had called Aislinn a psychic, though his tone had made it clear that he was skeptical of that term. Rachel agreed. She had never put much stake into any suggestions of extrasensory abilities, figuring that most people who made such claims had a mercenary reason for doing so. But even after a few minutes she could tell that there was something different about Aislinn.

Sitting at a quiet table with drinks and appetizers, Rachel, Mark and Aislinn chatted politely about the nice weather they’d had that day. Ethan didn’t seem the type to engage in small talk, judging by Rachel’s early impression of him. He sat quietly watching them, and she suspected that he was the kind of man who chose to stay on the sidelines of life, observing more than participating. She doubted that he missed much of what went on around him, though he probably kept most of his thoughts to himself.

In that respect, he was very different from Mark. Mark was a participator, someone who could be found at the very heart of most activities, the middle of any crowd. From what she had gathered during their short acquaintance, small talk came easily to Mark, usually, though he seemed to be struggling a bit with Ethan. Mark was a people person, gregarious and concerned, both of which served him well in his job as a physician. Ethan, she learned, was a self-employed small-business consultant who worked out of his home in Alabama, spending more time with a computer than with his clients.

Ethan waited until the subject of the weather was exhausted before he joined the conversation, and then he jumped straight into a more serious topic. “I’m sure you’ve thought a great deal about everything you learned yesterday,” he said to Mark.

“I haven’t been able to think about anything else today,” Mark admitted with a wry glance at Rachel. “As Rachel can attest. She and I were supposed to talk about furnishing my house today and I couldn’t even concentrate long enough to pick paint colors.”

“I’m a professional decorator,” she explained when Ethan and Aislinn looked at her. She figured that was all they needed to know about her relationship with Mark at the moment.

Aislinn looked as though she would like to follow up on that tidbit, but Ethan stayed on topic. “I still haven’t told the rest of the family that we found you. I knew you wanted time to think about everything first.”

Looking a little nervous, Mark nodded. “I think we should wait until the DNA results come back before you break the news—just in case.”

Ethan shrugged. “I don’t have to wait. I know what the tests will show us.”

“So confident,” Mark muttered.

“I was old enough to remember when you disappeared. I remember what you looked like then—and I can see who you look like now. You look like a Brannon.”

Rachel could almost hear Mark swallow hard in response to that blunt comment. She knew he was still trying to adjust to his new identity, that he didn’t think of himself as a Brannon. She doubted that he knew how to think of himself at all now.

“That’s not exactly indisputable evidence,” he insisted. “We should wait until we have the test results.”

“But that could take weeks.”

“Ethan.” Aislinn gave him a stern look. “Stop trying to railroad him. Give him time to come to terms with all of this.”

“I gave him all day.”

She snorted delicately. “One day to process having his entire life history changed? Seriously?”

“My history changed, too,” he reminded her with a frown.

“Yes. But it’s different for him. You’ve always known exactly who you are.”

Mark cleared his throat. “I am still here.”

Aislinn sent him a quick smile. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to talk about you as if you weren’t.”

Rachel sighed when her cell phone rang in her purse. She’d forgotten to silence it again. At least she had the volume turned down low so that few people around would be bothered by the rings. Apologizing to her dinner companions, she fumbled in her purse, thinking that she would check the readout—just in case it really was important—and then mute the sound for the rest of the meal.

“It’s your sister,” Aislinn said. “I don’t think it’s an emergency.”

“It’s never a real emergency with Dani,” Rachel replied in resignation. “Only in her own—”

She stopped abruptly as the significance of the number on her caller ID screen suddenly hit her. “How did you know it was my sister?”

Looking suddenly sheepish, Aislinn grimaced. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I guess I’m a little nervous, myself, tonight. I spoke without thinking.”

Dropping the muted phone back into her purse, Rachel studied the other woman a bit warily. “Mark told me you’re a psychic.”

Aislinn winced. “I don’t really like that word. I don’t consider myself a psychic. I just get feelings sometimes that usually prove to be true.”

“From what you told me, it’s more than that,” Mark interjected. “Ethan said you knew I was still alive after looking at a picture of me as a toddler, taken before I was…taken. You somehow sensed that I hadn’t died in that flood, as my family believed.”

Ethan nodded somberly. “It took her a while to convince me,” he admitted. “I didn’t know her very well when she first sprang it on me, and to put it bluntly, I thought she was trying to run some sort of scam on me. I probably wouldn’t have even given her a chance to change my mind if she hadn’t been my sister-in-law’s longtime best friend. My sister-in-law’s a cop—I figured she’d know if her best pal was a con artist.”

“So you just thought I was crazy, instead,” Aislinn said wryly.

Ethan gave her a look that was so blatantly intimate it made a funny little shiver run down Rachel’s spine. Maybe it was a touch of envy, she decided, wondering what it would be like to have a man look at her quite that way.

“You managed to convince me otherwise,” he murmured.

A slight touch of color tinged Aislinn’s cheeks as she returned the look. There was no doubt in Rachel’s mind that this couple was very much in love. It would have been interesting to watch that relationship develop, she mused, thinking of Ethan’s initial skepticism of Aislinn’s motives.

“You said your sister-in-law is a police officer?” she asked. “She’s married to your other brother?”

Looking away from Aislinn, Ethan nodded. “Her name’s Nic. She and Joel have only been married a couple of months.”

“What does your brother do?”

With a faint smile, Ethan glanced at Mark. “He’s a doctor. A pediatrician.”

“It must run in the family,” Rachel remarked, struck by the coincidence. “And you said your father is an orthodontist?”

He nodded. “And Mom’s practically a professional community volunteer. The whole family is into taking care of other people. Which makes me the oddball.”

“That’s not true,” Aislinn argued loyally. “You’ve helped dozens of small business owners in your consulting practice. Not being as social as the others doesn’t make you an oddball.”

“Who’s the older brother?” Rachel asked. “You or Joel?”

“I’m the eldest. Joel’s three years younger and Kyle, here’s, a year younger than Joel.”

Mark frowned. “I, uh, would rather you’d call me Mark. I know it wasn’t the name I was given at birth—hell, it was given to me by the woman who stole me from my family—but it’s the name I’ve used for thirty years.”

“Sorry,” Ethan said. “You have the right to answer to any name you like. The family will get used to thinking of you as Mark.”

Looking somewhat grim, Mark reached for his water glass. “We’ve all got a lot to get used to.”

Rachel rested her hand lightly on his knee beneath the table. It was a gesture of support and understanding rather than flirtation, and from the way Mark covered her hand with his own, she could tell that he accepted it that way. She could imagine how conflicted he must be about his eventual meeting with his parents and his other brother.

“It’s going to be all right,” Aislinn assured him kindly. “You have a very nice family. I’m sure you’ll all develop a close friendship with time.”

“Is that one of your psychic predictions?” Mark asked, sounding more prickly than Rachel had heard him before.

Though Ethan frowned in response to Mark’s tone, Aislinn didn’t seem to take offense. Perhaps she, too, understood the turmoil Mark must be experiencing. “It’s just an educated guess. I’ve met all of your family, and I like them very much. As a matter of fact, I’m about to become a Brannon, myself. Ethan and I are going to be married.”

Because Aislinn seemed to be making an effort to defuse some of the tension at the table, Rachel cooperated eagerly. “That’s wonderful news. How long have you been engaged?”

“About twenty hours,” Ethan replied, glancing at his watch. “Not even long enough for me to buy her a ring yet.”

Aislinn laughed softly. “I don’t think she meant it quite so literally.”

“Congratulations, you two.” Mark was smiling again now. “That’s great news.”

“Thanks.” Ethan looked amusingly proud. “We had a few rocky spots—mostly due to me, I’ll admit—but she finally saw what a prize I am.”

“And so modest,” Aislinn added with a roll of her eyes.

Their food was delivered, and all of them concentrated for a few minutes on their meals, giving them a brief respite from trying to keep the conversation going. Ethan was the one who broke the silence, speaking to Mark with what Rachel was beginning to see as typical bluntness.

“I debated for a while about whether we should even try to find you. I knew you would have a life of your own, and I didn’t know how you would feel about having a bunch of strangers suddenly claim to be your family. Aislinn convinced me it wouldn’t be fair to any of us not to bring the truth to light. So—did we make the right call? Or do you wish we’d never shown up at your door?”

All eyes were on Mark as he considered his answer. Rachel suspected it was too early to ask that particular question. He didn’t know yet how he felt about this dramatic turn his life had taken.

But then he sighed lightly and answered with equal candor. “I guess there’s a part of me that wishes exactly that. Thirty-six hours ago, I knew exactly who I was and where my life was headed. Now—”

He shook his head. “Now everything is different. And I can’t say I’m happy about that yet. But when it comes right down to it, I guess I wouldn’t change your decision. I’d rather know the truth than to live the rest of my life in ignorance.”

Ethan nodded, looking as though he both understood and approved of Mark’s response. “I’d have felt the same way. You’ve got the option now of choosing how to proceed from here—but at least you have the facts.”

“You’re giving me the choice about whether to ever tell the rest of the family about me?”

Ethan hesitated—and then shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. My, er, our parents have as much right to know the truth as you did. They may be strangers to you now, but you are their son, and they’ve spent thirty years grieving for you. They deserve to know the truth, even if it’s going to be tough for them to hear.”

Rachel couldn’t imagine what it would be like for them. To suddenly discover that the baby boy they’d lost was now a grown man? That they had missed his entire childhood? That someone they had trusted had deliberately stolen those years from them?

She imagined that in some tiny way, it would be easier for them to believe he had died all those years ago, though primarily there would be joy that he had survived.

“I’m going to tell them,” Ethan repeated. “But I’ll consider your request to wait until after we get the DNA results. I can see your point about that giving us more verification of the story. Still, I don’t like keeping it from them for that long.”

“I think it would be best. If there’s even the slightest chance that you’re wrong, it would be cruel to tell them and then have to take it all back.”

“I’m not wrong. But I’ll wait—for a while. After that, it’s up to you, I suppose, where we go from there. I hope you’ll want to meet them, give them a chance to get to know you, but that’s really your decision. I can’t make you do anything.”

“I’ll meet them,” Mark promised. “If the DNA comes back positive. But—”

“But you aren’t exactly looking forward to it.” Again, Ethan seemed to understand perfectly. “Can’t say I blame you. I tend to go out of my way to avoid emotional encounters with other people.”

Mark managed a smile. “Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

“You aren’t the only one who’s dreading telling the Brannons what really happened that day,” Aislinn said, her expression grim now. “Ethan and I are going to announce our engagement—and then I’m going to have to tell them that it was my mother who helped Carmen kidnap you that afternoon.”

Chapter Three

“Your mother?” Rachel blurted before she could stop herself.

Aislinn grimaced. “I thought Mark had told you the whole story.”

“He said Carmen had an accomplice—someone who had been told she was helping a woman take her child out of an abusive situation.”

And then Rachel remembered what else Mark had told her about that woman. “He said she was his patient at the long-term care facility. And that she—”

“She died before Ethan and I arrived in Atlanta, leaving a letter telling the whole story,” Aislinn finished evenly. “I can’t begin to understand exactly how she ended up in Mark’s care, though I think she somehow arranged that on her own. I don’t know how it happened that my best friend married Mark’s brother, bringing me into their lives and leading Ethan here. I can only assume that some higher power intervened to bring justice to a family that had suffered entirely too much.”

“I’m very sorry about your loss.”

“Thank you. But I didn’t actually know her,” Aislinn said with a rather sad little shrug. “She left me with my grandfather and my great-aunt when I was only six months old. My mother was a restless spirit with a lot of emotional baggage. She had special gifts of her own, but she never learned to live comfortably with them. She spent many years engaging in self-destructive behavior and making poor judgment calls, such as helping Carmen smuggle Mark out of North Carolina. She ended up dying alone in the nursing home, a wealthy widow with multiple sclerosis and a guilty conscience.”

And Rachel had thought her family was complicated. “This is all very strange.”

“Tell me about it,” Mark muttered.

“Maybe we should spend some time getting to know each other,” Aislinn suggested, apparently trying to lighten the mood for the remainder of the meal. “Mark, you said you’re decorating your house?”

He nodded, taking advantage of the opportunity to change the subject. “I just moved in a couple of weeks ago and I didn’t bring much with me from my old apartment. I hired Rachel to help me furnish and decorate, make the place look nice and comfortable.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“Not to Ethan,” Rachel speculated, studying his expression.

Ethan gave her a wry smile. “I’ve got to admit decorating doesn’t really interest me. I buy furniture that’s comfortable and functional and I arrange it in a way that’s most practical for me. Aislinn, now, likes that sort of thing. She’s a professional cake designer.”

Intrigued, Rachel asked Aislinn several questions about her business, and Aislinn responded in kind, so that they were soon talking like old friends. Rachel was even able to forget about Aislinn’s “gifts” for a little while, and enjoyed visiting with a woman with whom she had quite a few things in common. Ethan and Mark listened, neither adding much to the conversation.

She didn’t know how much help she had given Mark this evening. She’d been more of an intrigued spectator than a supporter, despite their brief under-the-table bonding.

They were almost finished with their desserts when Aislinn glanced at Rachel’s purse. “Your phone’s ringing again.”

Lifting her eyebrows, Rachel looked down at the purse. “But I turned off the ringer.”

Ethan shook his head in resignation. “If she says it’s ringing, you can bet it is.”

Pulling out the phone, Rachel checked the screen. “You’re right, it is. I don’t suppose you can tell me who’s calling?”

Hearing the hint of a challenge, Aislinn smiled faintly. “Not this time. I don’t think it’s an emergency, though.”

“Not to me, it isn’t.” Knowing Robbie would disagree, for that was who was trying to reach her, probably with another woeful tale of how understaffed he was at his restaurant that evening, Rachel slipped the phone back into her purse. “Funny how it always seems to be an emergency to whoever’s calling me.”

Aislinn searched her face, and Rachel had the uncomfortable feeling that the other woman, whether psychic or simply intuitive, saw entirely too much. But all she said was, “Some people get so busy taking care of everyone else that they leave no time to see to their own needs.”

Because that comment was all too applicable to her life, Rachel lifted her coffee cup to avoid having to respond.

Mark parked in the lot of Rachel’s apartment complex and wondered even as he turned off the engine if this would be the last time he would drive her here. He was rethinking yet again his decision to ask her to accompany him. Considering how nervous and uncomfortable he had been all evening, not to mention the inherent awkwardness of the entire situation, it would be a surprise if she ever agreed to go out with him again.

Which would be a shame, he thought regretfully. He really liked her, wanted to see her again—and not just for business. But he couldn’t blame her if she decided his life was in too much turmoil right now for her to get involved with him. Especially since she had confided that she had family problems of her own.

Without giving her a chance to decline, he opened his car door to walk her to her apartment. If this was to be their last date, he wanted to make it last a while longer.

“Would you like to come in for coffee?” she surprised him by asking when they reached the door.

He studied her expression to try to determine if she meant it or if she was only being polite. Because he wanted to accept, he decided it didn’t matter why she’d asked. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

He was curious how the decorator had done her own apartment. He liked what he saw—which boded well for his own place. He had seen pictures of her work, of course, but it was even better to see such a personal example. “Nice.”

“Thank you. I know it’s a little modern for your tastes, but it all seemed to work with the architecture here.”

Studying the clean lines of her furniture and the bold, sleek shapes of the accessories she had chosen, he nodded. “I agree.”

“Have a seat. I’ll put the coffee on.”

He settled on the couch, watching her leave the room. He really enjoyed watching her walk. Not too blatantly sexy, but just seductive enough to kick his libido up a notch.

Telling himself to rein it in, he looked around the room again. The basic theme was muted—midtoned woods, neutral fabrics, soft beige paint on the walls. Soothing and comfortable, with an occasional shock of bold, primary color to keep it from being too monotonous. A vivid red pillow. A cobalt-blue vase. A splash of bold green in a painting.

It was a lot easier to admire Rachel’s decor than to dwell on his own tumultuous emotions.

She returned carrying two mugs of coffee. “Sorry I took so long. I needed to check my messages.”

“It didn’t feel like that long. You get a lot of calls, don’t you?”

She made a wry face as she handed him his mug and settled on the couch beside him. “I’m afraid so. My family’s in the habit of thinking of me as their own personal ‘Dear Abby,’ on call 24-7.”

“So you’re the family caretaker?” He looked at her over the rim of his mug as he took a sip of the excellent coffee. “Most families seem to have someone who serves in that capacity, from what I’ve observed. Not from my own experience, of course.”

She shrugged. “I sort of fell into the role. My mother’s a dear woman, but my father spoiled her a bit. Ever since he died a couple of years ago, she has expected me to continue that pattern. I’m the oldest, you see. My sister, Dani, is three years younger, and my brother, Clay, just turned nineteen. Dani and Clay always seem to be in some scrape or another.”

“So you get to be the responsible one.”

She smiled. “I don’t really mind. Most of the time.”

“Between running your business and taking care of your family, it must be difficult for you to find time for yourself.”

She shrugged, which he supposed was an answer in itself. “I would think you’d have the same problem, considering your very demanding career.”

“Yes, well, I’m taking a few weeks off before starting the new practice. And I don’t have a family to worry about once I do start—er, at least I haven’t to this point.”

“You’re having trouble dealing with all of this, aren’t you?”

He set his mug on a coaster on her low coffee table. He was tired of talking about his newfound family. Besides, he didn’t like thinking of himself as someone else who needed to unload his problems on Rachel’s sympathetic shoulders. “I’ll get used to it. Look, I’m sorry tonight was so weird and awkward. I hope it didn’t scare you off from going out with me again—just the two of us next time.”

She smiled faintly. “I didn’t think tonight was so weird. I enjoyed meeting Ethan and Aislinn. They’re both very interesting people. As for you—I don’t scare that easily. If I did, I wouldn’t have gone out with you in the first place. I usually have a firm rule about not dating clients, especially when a job is ongoing—or in our case, just barely started. Had I been worried about consequences, I would have made an excuse not to have dinner with you last week.”

He found her straightforward manner very refreshing. If she was this candid in all her responses to people, it was no wonder so many came to her for advice and support.

He smiled. “I don’t usually mix business with pleasure, myself. Asking you out during our second business meeting was hardly my style. But I just couldn’t resist.”

Dimples flashed in both her cheeks with her smile. “I rather like being irresistible.”

He reached out to trace one of those alluring dimples with the pad of his right thumb. “You are.”

A hint of pink warmed her cheeks, but it didn’t seem to be caused by embarrassment. Rather, he thought he saw the same awareness in her eyes that he was feeling, himself. Which gave him the courage to lean his head closer to hers. The way she tilted her face upward was all the encouragement he needed to press his mouth to hers.

He had kissed her once before, briefly, when they had concluded their one previous dinner date. Just a tantalizing brush of lips that had left him hungry for more. This time he allowed himself to linger, and he was rewarded when she responded with an eagerness that mirrored his own. Maybe he hadn’t been the only one hoping that one initial kiss would lead to more?

He slid his arms around her, and hers went around his neck. She felt so good against him. Slender, yet strong, rather than fragile. Cooperative rather than yielding. When her lips parted for him, it was as much demand as invitation.

No shy ingenue here, but a woman with the confidence born of experience. He wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Her brown hair waved softly around his fingers when he buried his hand at the back of her head. He loved the clean, natural feel of it. Her own fingers toyed with the shorter hair at his nape, causing a shiver of reaction to zip down his spine.

She tilted her head to a new angle, drawing in a quick breath before diving into the next kiss. He closed his eyes and went under with her, letting currents of sensation carry him away.

They were drifting downward toward the sofa cushions behind her when the telephone rang. Its shrill chime shattered the intimacy of the moment. As much as he wanted to pretend he didn’t hear it, he felt a sudden tension grip Rachel, and he knew the interlude was over.

Just as well, he told himself, drawing reluctantly away. It was too soon for this, anyway. And the timing wasn’t exactly ideal, considering everything else that was going on in his life right now.

Now if only he could believe any of that.

Her expression, which fell somewhere between regret and reprieve, told him that she was having a very similar internal dialogue. Sliding away from him, she reached for her phone and glanced at the caller ID screen. A sigh escaped her, and she set the phone down without bothering to answer. “I’ll let voice mail take it.”

“Don’t miss a call on my account.”

She shook her head. “It’s my ex-husband. I’m not particularly interested in talking to him right now.”

He knew she’d been married; she had mentioned it briefly during their first dinner together. He had not known that she stayed in contact with her ex.

The mood was most definitely broken. He pushed a hand through his hair and stood. “It’s getting late. I’d better go. Thanks again for going with me tonight.”

She walked him to the door. “So you and Ethan are going to have your tests Monday morning?”

He nodded. “They’re heading back home after that. Apparently, he’s led everyone to believe he’s on a business trip.”

“You still think it would be best for him not to mention you to the rest of the family until the test results are back?”

“Yeah. I still want him to wait.”

“How long will it take?”

“A couple of weeks, most likely. If the lab’s backed up, it could take three.”

“That’s a long time to ask him to keep such a big secret.”

“It’s been thirty years,” he said with a shrug. “They can wait another few weeks.”

She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t argue with him. “Do you think you and Ethan will stay in contact while you wait for the results?”

He smiled slightly. “I won’t hang up on him if he calls. I don’t think Ethan’s much of a phone chatter, though.”

“No. Neither do I.”

He reached for the door.

“You know what the test will say, Mark,” she said quietly as his hand fell on the doorknob.

He paused without looking back at her. “I’m not psychic like Aislinn.”

“You don’t really have to be, do you?”

He sighed. “No. I’m pretty sure I’m exactly who Ethan said I am. I just need to see the test results before I make any decisions, you know?”

“You should do what feels right to you.”

He wished he knew what that was. “I’d like to schedule another meeting with you about my house. I’ll look at all the samples and drawings you left there and I’ll try to be more informed and coherent next time we talk.”

“I’m free for a while tomorrow afternoon. Or would you rather wait until—”

“Tomorrow sounds good,” he said, jumping on the offer before she could change her mind. “What time?”

“What about Ethan and Aislinn? Don’t you have any plans with them tomorrow?”

“Not really. I think they’re going to do some sightseeing around Atlanta tomorrow. We’re meeting for breakfast Monday morning before the DNA test.”

She frowned a little, and he suspected he knew what she was thinking. She probably thought he should have offered to entertain the other couple in his town. To be honest, he felt a little guilty about not doing so. But the truth was, he just hadn’t known what to do with them—not while he was still struggling to think of them as family. He was well aware that he was using the DNA test as a way to stall for a few more weeks before he had to fully face the looming changes in his life.

To his relief, she decided to follow his lead and concentrate on her work rather than his complex personal situation. “Two o’clock?”

“I’ll be ready,” he promised.

He was in a surprisingly good mood as he headed back to his car. It had nothing to do with his newfound family. Little to do with his renewed decorating plans. And everything to do with the fact that even after this not particularly spectacular evening, Rachel still seemed to be interested in him.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you all evening,” Dani scolded her sister, less than half an hour after Mark left.

“That’s why I called you back,” Rachel answered with forced patience. “I couldn’t talk earlier, but now I can. What do you want?”

“I need to talk to you. What have you been doing all day, anyway?”

“I spent the day with a client.” She saw no need to go into any further detail.

“You work too hard, Ray-Ray. All day on a Saturday?”

There was no mistaking the genuine concern in Dani’s voice, and Rachel softened in response. “Don’t worry about me, sis. You know I enjoy my job.”

She felt a little guilty for leading her sister to believe she’d been working all day, rather than sharing a strictly personal dinner with Mark, but she didn’t give in to it. She wasn’t anywhere near ready to confide in Dani that there could be a new man in Rachel’s life. Dani would tell their mom, and then the two of them would hound Rachel for details and start offering unwanted advice.

“I know. But you should leave time for yourself, too.”

It was eerily reminiscent of what Aislinn had said earlier. Rachel cleared her throat, her guilt intensifying. “Um, Dani—”

“Besides, I really needed to talk to you today. Mother’s driving me nuts. You’ve got to help me convince her to get off my case about Kurt.”

Guilt dissipated in a puff of exasperation. “This is really between you and Mother. I don’t want to get in the middle this time.”

“But you have to talk to her. She’ll listen to you. She’s never listened to me.”

“Maybe because you get too defensive and argumentative with her. If you would just stay calm and discuss her concerns and then quietly present your own position, it would be so much more productive for both of you.”

“She’s the one who won’t stay calm. She starts ragging on me about Kurt and then trying to tell me how to live my life, and then when I calmly tell her that I’m old enough to know what I’m doing and I don’t really need her to make my decisions for me, she tries to make me feel guilty and irresponsible.”

Amazing how oblivious Dani could be about her own behavior, Rachel thought with a shake of her head. Anyone who’d heard that aggrieved speech would think that she was completely innocent in her frequent disagreements with her mother. Rachel, who had been a spectator for all too many of those head-to-heads, knew better.

Dani was always the first to raise her voice, the first to burst into tears, the first to claim that no one cared about her or what she wanted. Clay hadn’t dubbed Dani the drama princess for nothing. Their mother, he had added, was still the queen. When Dani asked what that made Rachel, he had merely shrugged and said Rachel was the “executive producer”—frantically putting out fires behind the scenes.

“And where do you fit into this scenario you’ve created?” Dani had asked pointedly.

With a shrug, Clay had replied, “Me? I’m just a member of the audience.”

That response still bothered Rachel when she thought about it. Losing his father in his teens and being raised in a household of strong-willed and very vocal women had not been particularly easy for Clay. As a result, he had searched for his identity outside the home—and she wasn’t thrilled about some of the places in which he had looked. Where he was still looking.

But she had to focus on her other sibling for now. “Dani, you can’t blame Mother for being worried about you. Let’s face it, you haven’t always made the best choices when it comes to men. And Kurt is married.”

“Don’t you start, too,” Dani said, immediately on the defensive. “He’s getting a divorce.”

“He’s been saying that for months. There’s been no evidence of it. Can’t you admit that there is reason to be concerned that he’s using you, Dani? That he has no intention of getting a divorce, but every hope of keeping you obligingly on the side for a while longer?”

“Now you sound just like Mother. I didn’t call you for a lecture.”

“No, you want me to argue your point to Mother. And I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I’ll stay completely out of it, but I won’t try to defend Kurt.”

“Well, thanks a lot.”

“There’s no need to snap at me. I’m not going to side with her, either. I’m not getting involved either way.”

“Neither one of you will listen to me. You’re both being closed minded and judgmental. If you would just give Kurt a chance…”

Rachel had heard this spiel all too many times. She cut in firmly, “I’ll listen to you anytime you need to talk, but I’m not arguing with Mother for you. Now, it’s getting late, and I’m tired. So, good night. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Fine. Great. Be that way. I won’t bother you with my problems again.”

She wished, Rachel thought as she closed her phone after Dani summarily ended the call. But she would bet that she hadn’t heard the end of this argument.

Chapter Four

“Would you rather start in here,” Rachel asked, walking into Mark’s bedroom, “or downstairs? It’s up to you.”

Mark looked around the bare room, his gaze lingering on the unadorned bed covered with a set of plain beige sheets and a green blanket. “Wherever you prefer to begin. Either option works for me.”

She followed his glance toward the bed, noted the head-shaped indention in the single pillow and, clearing her throat, turned quickly away. “Well, if you plan to entertain, you’ll want the gathering room finished first for your guests. But some people want their own personal space done first, just so they’ll have a beautiful room to wake up in.”

She hoped it wasn’t obvious to him that even as she spoke, she pictured him waking up in this room, all warm and tousled and heavy-eyed. The image made her mouth go dry.

She moistened her lips discreetly. “So, while I can have crews doing some work in more than one room at once, you’ll need to decide which one you want to focus on, if you still want to be actively involved with the selection of furnishings and decorations.”

Some clients were content to let her make all the choices, consulting with them very little during the process. Mark, on the other hand, had said he wanted to approve every item she brought in, though he was open to her suggestions. She didn’t mind working either way, though she’d had clients who had driven her nuts with their indecisiveness or frequent mind changes. She thought working with Mark would be a pleasure—in many ways.

“It will be nice to have this room done.” Standing beside the empty fireplace topped with a bare wood mantel, Mark looked around the large, spartanly furnished space with a wry smile. “Blank walls aren’t exactly the first thing I want to see every morning. And that bed has never been particularly comfortable. I just never got around to replacing it while I lived in the apartment I rented before. Probably because I knew I wouldn’t stay there long.”

“We’ll make sure you have a comfortable mattress. And that mahogany-framed bed with the paneled headboard we picked out is going to look great in here, especially when we add the double dresser and side tables. And a bench at the foot of the bed, so you can sit to put on your socks and shoes. With some nice artwork on the walls and a gorgeous rug to center the room, it will look amazing in here, I promise.”

“I believe you,” he said with a smile. He waved an arm toward the doorway that led down into the dressing room, closet and lounge. “We’ll do those areas while we’re at it, won’t we? It’ll be nice to have the lounge furnished for reading and watching TV in the evenings.”

“Yes, of course, we’ll work in there at the same time. The decor of the lounge will carry over from in here, making the rooms flow beautifully together. I want this suite to feel like a private retreat to you, a place to unwind and recharge.”

“I like the sound of that.”

She glanced again at the bed, and was aware that she was having to work to keep her attention focused on decorating. “So, this room and then the gathering room?”

“Sure. I don’t plan to entertain anytime soon, anyway.”

Not even his newly discovered family? Or was his lack of furniture and decoration another excuse for avoiding that meeting? She made a mental note to get as much done as possible at the same time in both his bedroom suite and the gathering room. He would have to meet his family eventually, and she thought he should have a nice place in which to entertain them.

Not that she was getting involved, she assured herself firmly. She was just doing her job.

“So, when are we going shopping?” Mark asked, rubbing his hands together in a gesture of anticipation. “I’ve got a few more days before I start my new practice. I’d like to have this project well underway before then.”

She laughed. “We can start whenever you’re ready. Except for a couple of minor details to take care of during the next few weeks, you’re my primary client right now.”

With what he’d agreed to pay her, she didn’t really need another client at the moment, she thought in private satisfaction. The price they’d agreed upon was fair, but generous.

“So we can start tomorrow?”

“Aren’t you getting the DNA test tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but I’ll be finished by noon. We could meet somewhere at, say, one o’clock.”

“You don’t want to spend the rest of tomorrow with Ethan?”

“He’s leaving town immediately after the test. He said he has to get back to work, and so does Aislinn.”

It still bothered her a little that he wasn’t trying to spend more time with his long-lost brother. It seemed to her that they would want to get to know each other better while they had this opportunity.

She suspected that Ethan considered himself to be giving Mark time and space, but that he would have been agreeable to seeing more of each other while he was in town. Mark was the one who was erecting barriers—both emotional and physical.

Still none of your business, Rachel, she told herself. “Okay, we can start tomorrow. We can meet at McClain’s Home Furnishings at one.”

“Great. Now, have we finished all our business for today?”

They had spent more than an hour discussing her drawings, samples and catalogs prior to coming upstairs to his bedroom to make a few final decisions. Unlike the last time they’d tried to consult, Mark had been fully engaged, asking lots of questions, vetoing a few ideas he didn’t like at all, making some suggestions and enthusiastically welcoming hers.

“Yes, we’ve done pretty much all we can for today. The painters should be able to start by Wednesday, and in the meantime, we can shop. You’ll have to order much of your furniture, so it will be a few weeks before it all comes in.”

Mark wasn’t the type who wanted to furnish his house at leisure, spending a long time shopping for just the right pieces for each room. He’d already informed her that he wanted the place completely furnished and decorated within a month, if possible, so that he would have a fully livable home in which to start his new medical partnership. She would almost call his behavior “nesting.” Which her friend Kristy, a former psychology student, would be sure to interpret as a readiness to settle down, start a family, move into the next phase of his life.

She swallowed hard, and told herself it would be wiser not to pursue that line of thought much further.

She had told him before, of course, that decorating was not an overnight process, but he always seemed to hope she had overstated the time frame. “That long?”

“A few weeks is actually pretty quick for an entire house. Had you wanted any carpentry work or other major renovations, you’d have been looking at a minimum of three months.”

“Then it’s just as well I like the house as it is, isn’t it? I can’t think of anything I’d change other than the wall colors, which we’ve chosen.”

“Yes, you were fortunate to have these beautiful wood floors. And the stone floor in the kitchen is exactly what I would have chosen for you, myself.”

He nodded. “So, now that you’re off the clock, so to speak, how about having dinner with me this evening? Not to talk about decorating.”

“I would love to,” she replied, “but I can’t. I have to go to my mother’s for dinner tonight.”

He managed to look both disappointed and amused. “You sound so eager.”

She wrinkled her nose in response to his ironic tone. “I know. I wish I could be more enthusiastic about it. I love my family, I really do—but when my mother and my sister start in on one another, as they undoubtedly will tonight, I want to lock them in separate rooms.”

“Still feuding, huh?”

“Pretty much. Dani’s seeing someone Mother doesn’t approve of, and—” She suddenly stopped and shook her head, wondering what she was doing. She never talked about her personal life to her clients. Not that Mark was strictly a client, but still. “You wouldn’t be interested.”

“I’m interested in everything about you,” he replied simply. “And, after all, you’re learning all about my, er, family.”

She’d even had dinner with a couple of them. And that thought sparked an idea. Something about turnabout being fair play. “Why don’t you join us this evening?”

His eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re inviting me to dinner with your family?”

She gave herself a moment to reconsider. Taking him to dinner could cause problems in itself. And yet, her family was much less likely to bicker when they had company at the table. For one thing, they would be too interested in grilling him about everything from his family history to his intentions toward Rachel.

But she had already blurted out an invitation, and she wouldn’t take it back now. “Yes, but feel free to beg off. I mean, I can understand if you’d rather not—”

“I’d love to.”

“Um—you would?”

“Absolutely. I’d enjoy meeting them.”

“I warn you, they can be a little nosy. So, be prepared. They’ll probably want to know all about you. There’s no need for you to tell them about your family history right now. I’m sure you would rather not talk about that with strangers.”

“I don’t even like to think about it myself, yet,” he admitted, confirming her earlier speculations. “But I’m pretty good at politely evading interrogations when I want to. My geriatric patients don’t even blink before asking the most personal questions you can imagine.”

She chuckled. “I can imagine. My grandmother used to grill all my boyfriends mercilessly. One of them told me it was like being in a confessional with his priest. Another likened it to being interrogated by a homicide detective.”

“Guess I’m lucky I missed that.”

She grinned. “What makes you think that? Grandma is still very much alive, and she’ll be at dinner tonight.”

He laughed, and she loved the sound. It was nice to know that she’d taken his mind off his own family problems for a little while. “So, how are you going to introduce me?”

“I’ll just refer to you as a new client,” she promised.

“Are you in the habit of bringing clients home to dinner?”

“No. You’ll be the first, actually.”

She wasn’t sure when he had moved closer. She didn’t remember seeing him take any steps. “That makes me feel very special,” he murmured.

Something about his smile made a delicious shiver run down her spine. “I would tell you that you are, but that might give you a big head.”

He lifted a hand to run his fingertips along her jawline. “I think you’re pretty special, too.”

Suddenly very much aware that they were standing in his bedroom, she cleared her throat. “Why don’t I pick you up this time? Around six-thirty?”

“Sounds good,” he murmured. “And while we’re still on personal time…”

He lowered his head to press his mouth to hers.

“The hydrangeas really are beautiful, aren’t they?” Aislinn mused, gazing at a rather spectacular display of bright purple blooms. “I love it here in the shade garden. It’s so much cooler under these big trees.”

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

She looked up at Ethan with a chiding expression. “You’re drifting again. You aren’t even seeing these beautiful flowers.”

He gave a shrug that was only partially apologetic. “I didn’t come to Atlanta to visit the botanical gardens.”

“I know. But you knew I wanted to see them. The same reason you spent two hours in the High Museum of Art before we came here.”

His expression softened. “Have you had a good time?”

Leaning against his arm, she smiled up at him. “I’ve had a wonderful time. And I can’t wait to visit the aquarium when we leave here. These are the three places I’ve always wanted to see in Atlanta.”

“Then I’m glad we had the chance to do so. Tonight I’ll take you somewhere special for dinner, if you like. I know a couple of really good Atlanta restaurants where I’ve eaten on business trips to the area.”

“That sounds wonderful. It’s been a lovely day, Ethan. A very special way to celebrate our engagement.”

“So I guess it’s a good thing that Mark blew us off today?” he muttered.

“He didn’t blow us off. He just needs time. You, of all people, should understand. Didn’t you need time to adjust to the changes in your life after you met me? Isn’t that why you barricaded yourself alone in your river cabin for a couple of weeks while I stewed about whether you would ever let me get close to you again?”

“Well…yeah, I guess. But that was different.”