Desperately Seeking Twin... Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Dearest Reader

  Other Books by

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  Devin Quantermain on the art of Being a twin

  My brother and I are as different as night and day—except in looks, of course. He’s Mr. Big Business, Mr. By-The-Books. I’d do anything not to put on a suit and tie. He’s got his whole life planned out, and I’d rather see where life takes me. The one thing we usually can agree on is women. If he met my latest client, I’m sure he’d fall head over heels-just the way I have. Blair is a knockout. But she says she can’t think about romance right now…not until she finds her long-lost twin sister, Claire. Lucky for her, she’s come to the right detective!

  Blain Stephens on the art of Being a twin

  Until a few days ago, I thought I was an only child. It’s so strange to imagine that there’s someone out there walking around who looks exactly like me! Suddenly it seems to be the only thing I can think about. Well, almost the only thing. You see, there’s this private investigator…. He’s like a combination of Mel Gibson and Columbo (without the raincoat), and he has this annoying habit of thinking he’s always right. He’s convinced we’d make the perfect couple, which makes me insist he’s wrong. But there’s a part of me that suspects Devin Quartermain, P.I., might be who I’ve really been searching for all along…

  Dear Reader,

  Christmas is pretty much upon us, and I have to tell you, I love this time of year. The lights on all the trees and houses, the carols playing at the mall (because who can avoid hitting the mall at least once this season?) and especially the piles of presents and rolls of wrapping paper that start piling up in the officially designated corner of my dining room. And I have a Christmas gift for you this month, too.

  Marie Ferrarella’s Desperately Seeking Twin… is not only a terrific story about a woman finding the twin she never knew about and true love just in time for the holidays. It’s also one part of a simultaneous duo called TWO HALVES OF A WHOLE. The other book, The Baby Came CO.D., is out right now from Silhouette Romance, so be sure to pick it up, too. You’re going to love this special two—book package.

  And you’ll also want to buy Seducing Santa, a wonderful Christmas book from talented Beth Henderson. When the town’s most perfect Santa fails to get hired because he’s simply too good at his job, it’s time for him to start giving gifts of another sort. So he takes to matchmaking and brings the gift of love to two people who are perfect for each other—and just too stubborn to see it.

  Happy Holidays to you all—and don’t forget to come back next year (!) for two more wonderful novels all about unexpectedly meeting, dating—and marrying—Mr. Right Yours,

  Leslie Wainger

  Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S. 3010 Walden Ave., P.O Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Ene, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Desperately Seeking Twin…

  Marie Ferrarella

  To Jessi, who the doctor thought was going to be twins, and who was always active enough to qualify as twins

  Dearest Reader,

  My husband’s father was a twin. There is a saying that twins skip a generation, so it was with absolute terror that I listened to my doctor tell me right after my first ultrasound during my first pregnancy that it looked as if I might be having twins. I wasn’t sure at the time that I was up to handling one baby, much less two. Heck, I was just learning how to handle a husband (years later, I’m still learning).

  Mercifully, it was just a shadow on the ultrasound. I had only one baby at a time, although both Jessi and Nik had enough energy for twins during those first formative years. But, looking back, I’d have to admit that having twins might have been a unique experience.

  Even more unique is being a twin—forever knowing that there is someone walking around with your birthday and your face, and it’s not you. How much stranger it might be to discover that piece of information years into your life. That is just what I’ve tried to explore in Desperately Seeking Twin… (and, to a lesser extent, in The Baby Came C.O.D., available this month from Silhouette Romance). I’ve added an extra set of twins to this mix for good measure. Hope the end results bring you a measure of pleasure. Oh, and by the way: Happy Holidays! Since you’ve just purchased my book, mine already are.

  Love,

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Silhouette Yours Truly

  †The 71b., 2oz. Valentine

  Let’s Get Mommy Married

  Traci on the Spot

  Mommy and the Policeman

  Next Door

  **Desperately Seeking Twin…

  Silhouette Romance

  The Gift #588

  Five—Alarm Affair #613

  Heart to Heart #632

  Mother for Hire #686

  Borrowed Baby #730

  Her Special Angel #744

  The Undoing of Justin

  Starbuck #766

  Man Trouble #815

  The Taming of the Teen #839

  Father Goose #869

  Babies on His Mind #920

  The Right Man #932

  In Her Own Backyard #947

  Her Man Friday#959

  Aunt Connie’s Wedding #984

  ‡Caution. Baby Ahead #1007

  ‡Mother on the Wing #1026

  ‡Baby Times Two #1037

  Father in the Making #1078

  The Women in Joe Sullivan’s

  Life #1096

  †Do You Take This Child? #1145

  The Man Who Would Be

  Daddy #1175

  Your Baby or Mine? #1216

  **The Baby Came C.O.D. #1264

  Silhouette Special Edition

  It Happened One Night #597

  A Girl’s Best Friend #652

  Blessing in Disguise #675

  Someone To Talk To #703

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  Baby in the Middle #892

  Husband. Some Assembly

  Required #931

  Brooding Angel #963

  †Baby’s First Christmas #997

  Christmas Bride #1069

  Wanted Husband, Will Train#1132

  Silhouette Desire

  †Husband. Optional #988

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  *Holding Out for a Hero #496

  *Heroes Great and Small #501

  *Christmas Every Day #538

  Callaghan’s Way#601

  *Caitlin’s Guardian Angel #661

  †Happy New Year—Boby! #686

  The Amnesiac Bride #787

  Serena McKee’s Back in Town #808

  Fortune’s Children

  Forgotten Honeymoon

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Christmas Stories 1992

  “The Night Santa Claus Returned”

  ‡Baby’s Choice

  †The Baby of the Month Club

  *Those Sinclairs

  **Two Halves of a Whole

  Books by Marie Ferrarella writing as Marie Nicole

  Silhouette Desire

  Tried and True #112

  Buyer Beware#142

  Through Laughter and Tears #161

&nbs
p; Grand Theft: Heart #182

  Silhouette Romance

  A Woman of Integrity #197

  Country Blue #224

  Last Year’s Hunk #274

  Foxy Lady #315

  Chocolate Dreams #346

  No LaughingMatter #382

  Silhouette Romance

  Man Undercover #373

  Please Stand By #394

  Mine by Write #411

  Getting Physical #440

  1

  Blair and Claire, twenty—three months.

  The smile froze on her face like a still life that no longer had any feeling behind it. Very slowly, she turned the photograph around again and looked down at the people forever captured by the camera’s lens.

  People who threatened to change life as she knew it.

  As she sat amid the scattered remnants and mementos of her mother’s life that she had pulled out of the jumbled bottom dresser drawer, Blair Stephens stared uncomprehendingly at the photograph.

  At her past. A past she hadn’t known, until this moment, that she had.

  The air suddenly seemed to have been sucked out of her mother’s small, tidy bedroom. Blair couldn’t breathe. Her icy fingers held on to the photograph so tightly that they felt as if they were going to snap off.

  Her eyes clouded as she focused on the tiny faces in the slightly faded color snapshot.

  Anger and confusion ripped through the insulating tissue of numbness, assaulting her like twin falcons

  bent on destruction. What did this mean? What the hell did this mean?

  Who was the other child in the photograph with her? The child wearing the same dress, the same pink, lace—trimmed ribbon cocked slightly to the left.

  The child wearing the same face.

  Who was she?

  And who was the woman sitting between them, an arm tightly wrapped around each child as if she were holding precious packages?

  Who?

  Why?

  The last question echoed in her mind like a cry shouted into a bottomless canyon that came ricocheting back. Why?

  Blair became vaguely aware of a shadow falling across her. Rousing herself, she looked up. Aunt Beth was standing in the doorway, a sympathetic smile on her lips. She looked enough like her mother to make Blair’s heart jump within her breast.

  It took her heart a very long, painful moment to catch up to what her mind already knew—that Ellen Stephens was gone.

  They had buried her this morning, saying words over the newly formed mound of dirt and standing in a semi—circle around it, all but oblivious to the drizzling autumn rain.

  She had stood there, surrounded by her family, feeling lost and alone.

  But not nearly as lost and alone as she felt at this moment, holding the photograph in her hand. And she still didn’t know what it meant.

  Was afraid to know what it meant.

  Or perhaps, a distant, tiny voice whispered, she already knew what it meant.

  The sympathetic look on Beth Wilson’s face turned to one of concern as she drew closer to her sister’s only child. Everyone in the family had wanted to come into the room, using some pretext or other, to check on Blair. But Beth had talked them out of it, saying that one person was better in this case than having a crowd push their way in, however wellintentioned. Right now, Blair needed her space, and she needed love. Beth thought she could give her both.

  Seeing only the young woman she dearly loved, Beth set her private pain aside and placed a hand on Blair’s shoulder. She had thought this was a bad idea, sifting through Ellen’s things now. It was too soon. Grief needed time to settle.

  But Blair had always been stubborn. Just like Ellen, Beth thought fondly. “Anything I can do to help you, Blair?”

  It was an offer her aunt, all of her aunts and uncles, not to mention her cousins, had already made. Blair had turned them all down. She’d come in here to sort through her mother’s things, feeling that it was best to get the painful job over with now, while she was still numb from the funeral.

  It had been foolish to believe that it might not hurt as much that way. It hurt just to be in the same room where she’d shared secrets with her mother. Where she had poured out her heart the night Billy Adams had dumped her for Carole Anne, just because Carole Anne had suddenly bloomed and was now wearing a bra while she could have still worn T—shirts and shown no noticeable difference from her male cousins.

  “Wait,” her mother had promised knowingly, “your turn will come.” And the next year, when she’d turned fourteen, it had.

  It was in this room that her mother had given her her treasured pearl drop necklace to wear to the senior prom. And in this room she’d let her climb into bed when the thunderstorms had made all the monsters a five—year—old’s mind could conjure up come bounding out of the closet to frighten her.

  The room sang of memories.

  It hurt like hell to be here alone, but it was a bittersweet hurt and Blair had faced up to the task like her mother’s daughter. Bravely. Her mother had always wanted her to be strong, no matter what. It didn’t seem right to give in to cowardice now of all times.

  But there were tremors racing through her now, as she held up the photograph for her aunt to see.

  “You can tell me about this.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  Aunt Beth reached for the photograph as she sat down beside her on the bed. Priding herself on being the family historian, she was fully prepared to give Blair a narrative to go along with the scene.

  But she wasn’t prepared to see the photograph again. Not this one.

  When she looked up at Blair, the color had drained from her face. “Where did you get this?”

  Blair nodded at the drawer that was still hanging open. “I found it in there. At the bottom of the drawer, beneath the things I made for her.”

  Ellen Stephens had saved absolutely everything her daughter had turned her childish hand to, both in elementary school and beyond. Every drawing, every poem, every take—home project was lovingly put away, preserved within the confines of two large bureau drawers. Even the ridiculous candlestick holders she’d been forced to make in metal shop were here.

  More than once, Blair had urged her to “clear out that junk” and make serious use of the space. And she’d been secretly pleased when her mother staunchly refused, referring to them as her treasures.

  “Someday, when you have a child of your own, you’ll understand how precious all these things really are,” her mother had told her with a knowing look in her eyes.

  And Blair had felt safe and loved.

  She felt fearfully adrift now.

  In her heart, Blair prayed that her aunt could give her an anchor, something to hold on to. Because something dark and lost within her was struggling to come forward, threatening a tidal wave that could wash away the foundations of everything she held dear. Everything she believed in. It wasn’t anything she could point to or say with certainty, it was just a feeling. A very strong feeling.

  But still, she had to ask. Had to know. Curiosity, her parents liked to brag, had always been her best asset. And her main flaw.

  Blair waited, but her aunt said nothing. She only continued staring at the photograph, as if it were a ghost come back to haunt her.

  “Who’s the other little girl, Aunt Beth?” Blair pressed.

  Soft brown eyes full of sympathy, as well as sorrow, turned to look at her.

  Her mother’s eyes, Blair thought. Everyone in the family had brown or hazel eyes. Even her father had had brown eyes. Everyone, except for her. Hers were blue. A deep, rich blue. When she was little, she’d thought her eyes made her an outcast. Her mother had told her they made her special.

  Beth placed a hand on top of hers. “She didn’t tell you?”

  Fear grew, telegraphing itself through Blair’s limbs, dampening her palms, weakening her knees.

  “No,” she whispered, her eyes never leaving her aunt’s face. “Tell me what?”

  A small smile hin
ting of the sadness just beneath played across Beth’s lips as she looked at the young woman she had regarded as her niece for the last twenty—two years. Ellen’s child. No matter what else was said, what was brought to light, Blair would always be Ellen’s child. Beth had begged Ellen to tell Blair the truth before she found out some other way. And Ellen had promised that she would.

  How like Ellen to procrastinate. Ellen, who was always late with everything, had left this to the last. And then hadn’t gotten around to it.

  Beth squeezed Blair’s hand. “She meant to, Blair. She really meant to, but I guess she was afraid.”

  Blair forced air into her lungs before she could ask, “Afraid? Afraid of what?” Blair gripped her aunt’s hand, willing her to end this torture and tell her straight out. She was beginning to think some pretty awful things. “Aunt Beth, who is the other little girl? And who’s the woman with her?”

  There had to be a logical explanation that would banish this strange, sick feeling from her stomach. Was the other little girl in the photograph a cousin she didn’t know about? A long lost relative her mother had forgotten to mention? She’d heard of cousins who looked enough alike to be twins.

  Oh, please, let it be that.

  But as she watched her aunt, Blair knew that the explanation wasn’t nearly as simple as the one she was praying for.

  Beth drew a long breath as she placed the photograph on the bed. There was love in her eyes when she took both Blair’s hands into hers.

  “The little girl is your twin sister. And the woman in the photograph…” Her voice faltered, cracking. She began again. “The woman is your mother.”