“Okay, Mom. Whatever you need.”
“May I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“What’s wrong with your sister?”
Mike’s forehead crinkled. “What do you mean?”
“Something’s eating Anna.”
“She seemed fine yesterday when I stopped by the bakery. Why?”
“She canceled our hair appointment last minute. She wouldn’t stand me up unless something was wrong.”
Mike shrugged. “Maybe she and Kevin got crossways.”
Robin splayed a hand to her heart. “Is there a problem in their marriage? What aren’t you telling me?”
He raised his shoulders and his hands, palms held up. “Nothing, nothing big. I’ve just noticed that they seem to have been more at odds lately, but all married couples go through bumpy times. It’ll blow over.”
Robin didn’t like the sound of that. Now she was more concerned than ever.
“Let’s get this finished. Afterward, I’ll take you for an early dinner.”
“Just you and me?”
“Just you and me. Gia is working the church fundraiser and Shelley is watching Faith at the Moonglow Inn.”
“Can we swing by the bank before?”
“Sure.”
“And afterward, pop in to see Anna?”
“She’s fine, Mom,” he said in a measured tone.
Robin pressed her palms together. “Please?”
Mike let out a sound that was part sigh, part chuckle. “Okay, but don’t blame me if Anna slices you like a Ginsu. She hates it when you hold her feet to the fire.”
“Anna won’t go off on me,” Robin said confidently. “I’m her mother.”
But deep inside she felt a stiff scrabble of fear. There had been something different in her daughter’s voice that morning, a note she’d never heard before.
An ominous note that worried her more than a severe storm warning.
Chapter Seven
Anna
Getting to Know You
Anna barely slept.
Thinking of her twin, she kept drifting in and out of slumber, and eventually found herself getting up to scour the internet in the middle of the night for any mention of Amelia.
It took almost an hour, but at last, buried several pages deep into a search engine, she came across a short article about her sister’s first cello solo with the Chicago Symphony.
This was a big deal. Big enough to warrant a Wiki biography page. But Amelia didn’t have one. In fact, Anna couldn’t find anything else about Amelia.
Why not?
“You sound like Kevin,” she muttered when, bleary eyed at three a.m., she poured herself a cup of coffee and called Darla to tell her that she needed to take a few days off and to contact the college coed who worked part-time to see if she could help out at the bakery.
As did most bakers, Darla got up in the wee hours of the morning to bake for the six a.m. breakfast crowd. Anna did the same on Mondays, Darla’s day off. The bakery was closed on Sundays.
Darla could tell something was up, but her friend didn’t push for explanation. “On it. Let me know if you need anything.”
Anna hung up, stared at her reflection in the kitchen windowpane, and muttered, “I have a twin sister.”
Turning her back on her reflection, she closed her eyes and took a sip of coffee. She tried to be in the moment, savor the hit of caffeine, but she simply couldn’t concentrate. She had to figure out when and how she would break the news about Amelia to her mother and brother. They still dwelled blithely in the land of “before.”
This was so hard. She had no idea how to start, but she was grateful that Kevin was out of town.
Yesterday, right at five, she’d taken the bake sale cupcakes to the church and her sister-in-law, Gia, had told her that Mike and Robin had dropped by the house to see her.
Thankfully, she’d been picking up the kids and missed their visit, but she couldn’t keep dodging her family.
She had a plan for introducing them to Amelia, but first, she needed to get to know her sister better.
Picking up her phone, she yawned and then texted her mom. I’ll B out of pocket for 2 days. Dinner party on Sat! Bring Mike and fam. 6 p.m. See U then.
After that, she texted her brother, Mike, and Kevin’s mother, Veronica, a similar message, switched off her phone, and tossed it back on the table
With a fretful heart, she slipped into her son’s room, curled up in the race car bed with her drowsy boy, and took a short nap.
* * *
At eight a.m. on Wednesday, June 2, Anna showed up at the Moonglow Inn with her kids in tow. She hesitated in the minivan, wondering if it was too early for Amelia to be up and about. She tended to forget everyone didn’t wake up as early as she did.
You’re here. Just do it.
She hustled the kids from the vehicle. Allie had her face buried in her phone screen, while sleepy Logan yawned and clung to her hand. She probably should have left them with a sitter, but the kids were a solid buttress against her footloose emotions, and she needed them with her.
As if they were on some cosmic timetable, Anna stepped into the foyer, just as Amelia descended the stairs.
That same jolt of recognition slammed through her at the sight of her twin, almost as impactful as it had been the previous day.
Amelia stopped halfway down the stairs and met her gaze.
Anna’s heart and hopes jumped into her throat in one tightly packed knot.
Her sister stunned in form-fitting beige capri pants, a black top with a Peter Pan collar and three-quarter-length sleeves, gold Grecian sandals, and a French pedicure. Anna would look like a blimp in that outfit, but her twin appeared daisy fresh, and eye-catchingly gorgeous.
Anna stared down at her cutoff blue jeans, faded green tank top that had seen better days, ten-year-old Birkenstocks, and unpolished toenails. What had she been thinking when she’d gotten dressed?
Rhetorical question. She hadn’t been thinking about clothes at all.
Their gazes fused.
A curtain of breathless dizziness fell over Anna. How did you go about reconciling that you had a long-lost identical twin? She had no idea.
When people saw them together, heads would swivel, and someone was bound to mention the sighting to her mother. Gossip spread like wildfire in Moonglow Cove.
Uh-oh. Things were quickly spiraling out of her control.
Hmm. It looked like she might not be able to wait until that dinner party to break the news about Amelia to her family.
“Morning,” Anna said, putting as much cheer into her voice as she could scoop up.
“Good morning.” That was it. Simple. Direct. A bit distant.
No worries. She got it. She truly did.
Anna crooked a finger at Amelia and inclined her head toward the beach. Without another word, she took both her kids’ hands and walked out the front door, still struggling to catch her breath.
“Mom?” Allie asked. “Are you okay?”
Wham! Her daughter was too perceptive. Bringing the kids along wasn’t such a hot idea after all.
“I want you and your brother to stay at the bakery with Darla,” she said, letting go of her daughter’s hand long enough to text her friend and ask if she could keep an eye on the kids for a few minutes.
Darla: Send ’em on.