“What are the other possibilities?”
“Stolen by fairies?” Amelia tried for humor.
“Changeling.” Anna guffawed, except it wasn’t laughter, but rather the sound of someone losing her grip.
Tension crackled between them.
“I should go,” Amelia murmured. “Give you time and space.”
“No, no.” Anna reached out, grabbed her hand again, and clung to her. “Please don’t go. We have to figure this out.”
“Not in one day.” Amelia tugged her hand away. “We’ll talk later.”
Out on the front porch, cymbals—clang, clang, clang.
“Please.” Anna pressed her palms together beseechingly. “Please stay. We have a guest room.”
Amelia slipped her purse off her shoulder, opened it up, took a business card from the gold-plated card case, and passed one to Anna. “Here’s my contact information. I’ll be staying at the Moonglow Inn on the beach. Call me tomorrow and we’ll speak again. Right now, this is too much for either of us.”
Anna moved as if to hug her again, but Amelia backed up, leaving her twin snatching at air. She couldn’t be the one to comfort her sister. She simply didn’t know how.
“Please stay.” Anna sounded so lost.
“Anna,” Kevin said in a scolding tone that made Amelia dislike him. “Stop being so needy and let the poor woman go.”
Chapter Five
Anna
The Angry Husband
“What the hell, Anna?” Kevin asked after Amelia left. He looked as if he’d been gut kicked, his eyes big as golf balls, and his hands fisted at his sides.
Yes, well, try having it happen to you, bucko. Identical twin you never knew about knocks on the door . . .
“I-I don’t know.”
“You have an identical twin sister?” He jammed his fingers through a thick thatch of blond hair.
“Apparently.”
“How?”
Anna lifted her shoulders, her mind stuck in neutral, unable to go either forward or reverse. She couldn’t find the words to express her feelings. It was like being reunited with a long-lost friend she’d never known.
Or finding a soul mate.
Never in a million years would she ever have thought she’d wake up one late spring morning, open her front door, and find herself standing there. How was she supposed to process this? Especially with Kevin glaring at her as if she’d been keeping secrets from him intentionally.
“I don’t like this,” Kevin hissed.
“Neither do I.”
“Why didn’t Amelia call first and break the news more gently?”
Anna settled her hands firmly on her hips. “You’re starting to tick me off, big guy.”
“How’s that?” His face turned blustery.
“This is happening to me not you.”
“Babe, when something happens to you or the kids, it happens to me, too. I wanna crunch something.” He made a motion like he was crushing a beer can in his right hand.
Anna resisted rolling her eyes and instead recalled what he’d looked like in high school running down the length of the football field, his long blond hair streaming from beneath his helmet, a youthful Nordic god in all his glory, the football tucked into the crook of his arm, and grinning like he owned the world when he scored the game-winning touchdown.
She remembered how her heart had tripped over itself knowing she was his girlfriend and later that night she would be in his arms as he made love to her for the first time. The fire still burned after all these years, but sometimes, when he turned all caveman and possessive, she just wanted to kick him in the seat of his pants.
Anna shot him a look that she hoped said, Rein it in, dude. Even though the kids were still outside on the porch, he was talking loud enough for them to overhear.
“What is it specifically you don’t like?” she asked.
“This ‘twin’ sister showing up out of nowhere.” He gestured wildly, working himself up. “How do you know she’s who she says she is?”
“Seriously?”
“Well?” He had the same expression on his face that he got whenever he suspected a client of insurance fraud.
Anna reached up and gently knocked her knuckles against the side of his head. “Duh, she looks exactly like me.”
“You’re naïve.” He grunted and lowered his eyelids in a skeptical squint. “She could be scamming us.”
Anna snorted. “What are you saying? That she’s a total stranger who went through the trouble of having her appearance altered just so she could take us for the two hundred dollars and some change in our bank balance?”
“Wait, what?” He drew his head back. “Is the checking account that low?”
“You’re getting sidetracked. Stay on topic. Amelia didn’t come here to scam us. This isn’t a soap opera.”
“It sure feels like one. A twin sister you never knew existed shows up on our doorstep. How does that happen? I don’t trust her any farther than I can throw her.”
“I believe that she’s my twin and while I haven’t had time to fully explore and process what that means, I welcome her with open arms and I’m glad she’s come to Moonglow Cove.”
Kevin snorted.
She knew that snort. He was struggling to stifle his opinion. “What?”
“You’d hug Satan if he came knocking, bake him cookies, and try to redeem him.”
His words hit her like road gravel dinging her minivan’s paint job—not real damaging but annoying all the same. “I thought you liked that about me.”
“I do. I do.” Kevin quickly backtracked. “You’re a kind and giving person and I love you for it, but compassion has an assigned risk.”
This time, she couldn’t help it. She rolled her eyes at Kevin’s insurance jargon. She much preferred his sports metaphors.
“Meaning . . . ?”
“Bottom line? You collect people like strays.”
“I do not.” Her cheeks heated.
“Winnie,” he said, holding up one finger like he was going down a checklist. “Case in point.”
“Winnie’s family.”
He held up a second finger. “The Harmonious Housewives.”
“We’ve been together since high school! We’re like sisters.”
“My point.” A third finger went up. “Darla.”
“Darla? She’s my best friend and the most incredible employee I’ve ever had. She’s family, too.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We’ve got enough family members without adding more.”
“Kevin Jerome Drury, you can never have enough family.” She sank her top teeth into her bottom lip.
Kevin had grown up in a house with six brothers and sisters and while he’d mellowed considerably since their marriage, he still clung to the not-enough-resources-to-go-around mentality. Sometimes that trait led to a get-it-while-you-can outlook on life that Anna didn’t care for.
“Not all of us were blessed with a huge clan the way you were,” she murmured. “You take your family for granted.”
He had the decency to look hangdog. “That was a lousy thing to say, Bean.”