“You bet. Thanks. For the unnecessary pep talk, for the coffee and muffin. I rearranged my office to make room for the wall screen I’m going to order. I can toss my work up on it. Like giving myself a presentation. Want to see?”
“Only if I get to make sure it’s feng shui.”
“I can accept that. Cleo, don’t get pissed, but Brandon did me a favor. I don’t think I’d ever have done this otherwise. And today? I really feel it’s what I’m supposed to do. What I was supposed to do.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as favor, but we’ll say his absolute assholiness gave you a push in the right direction.”
“That works. Come see.”
* * *
Three weeks later, she had the new website up and running for the writer—whose book wasn’t crap. She’d designed holiday ads for Baby Mine, and wedding invitations (was that irony) for her next-door neighbor’s niece.
By Christmas, she had three more website designs in the works, had designed two book covers and more digital ads.
She closed out what she’d expected to be the worst year of her life feeling on top of it.
Maybe the cut in salary and benefits stung a little, and the expense of shouldering the cost for her supplies and equipment stung a little more. But for a woman who’d been in business less than three months, she did just fine.
She’d have done finer without the plumbing emergency the week before Christmas, and the $1,600 that cost her.
But she did just fine.
She had to keep her prices competitive to build up her client list, her project portfolio. And, she reminded herself, she saved on gas—no commute—on lunches out, basic wear and tear on her car.
Did she miss the camaraderie of coworkers? Sometimes. Then again, she liked working solo, answering only to herself. And wearing whatever the hell she wanted.
Maybe she’d get a dog, or a cat. Since she didn’t leave the house for eight or ten hours every day, she could have a dog or a cat.
Companionship.
Food bills, vet bills—with a dog, possibly a groomer.
She’d think about it, work out a budget.
Most of all, tightening her belt a little meant nothing compared to the satisfaction of doing what she loved, and the way she loved doing it.
She wasn’t worried.
Yet.
In mid-January, while Boston shivered under two feet of snow, when business had slowed—it would pick up again—she answered the door.
The man looked to be into his late forties—what she could see of him in his heavy coat and ear-flap hat. He held a briefcase in his gloved hand, and smiled.
Slow, easy, charming.
Under brows sharp and black, his eyes, soft, almost eerily blue, studied her through the lenses of a pair of glasses. The silver frames matched the tufts of hair that found their way from under the cap.
“Ms. Sonya MacTavish?”
“Yes. Can I help you?”
“I’m Oliver Doyle, attorney for the late Collin Poole. Your uncle.”
“I don’t have an uncle—other than my aunt’s husband, Martin. I don’t know anyone named Collin Poole.”
“Your father’s brother.”
“You have the wrong information, Mr. Doyle. My father didn’t have a brother.”
“I believe he was unaware he had a brother. His twin. Your father was Andrew MacTavish, born March 2, 1965.”
“Yes, but—”
“He was adopted, as an infant, by Marsha and John MacTavish.”
“Mr.…”
“Doyle. I understand this is confusing, it’s irregular. And I understand if you don’t feel comfortable inviting me to come in and explain. I’m staying at the Boston Harbor Hotel, and would be happy to meet you where you would feel comfortable. Let me give you my card. And this.”
He took a business card case out of his coat pocket, and a photograph. “This is Collin Poole. He was a close friend of mine, a lifelong friend. He died just before Christmas.”
“I’m very sorry, but…”
She trailed off as she stared at the photo.
“That was taken nearly thirty years ago. My wife took it, of Collin and me. I’ve seen photos of your father at about the same age. They were twins. Not quite identical, but it’s very close, isn’t it?”
“I don’t understand this.”
“How could you? I take it you haven’t done any DNA testing?”
“No.”
“They were born in Maine, in the house that’s been in the Poole family for over two hundred years.”
She had photos of her father at this age. She could see the differences—he’d worn his hair longer. He’d been a little taller, leaner, his chin more square.
But for those slight differences, she’d have sworn she was looking at her father.
“You’d better come in.”
“I appreciate it. I’m a Mainer, born and bred, but this wind cuts. You have his eyes. As I said, I’ve seen photos of your father, and I knew Collin very well. You have the same deep green eyes, from the Poole side of the family.”
Family seemed wrong. Family seemed impossible. “Let me take your coat.”
“Thank you.”
When he pulled off the cap, she saw the black of his eyebrows running through the silvery gray hair.
“I can make coffee.”
“I’d appreciate that. Just a drop of milk in mine.”
She felt numb. How could her father have had a brother—a twin—and not know it? How could her grandparents not have told him? How could they have separated brothers, taking only one as theirs?
And why hadn’t this uncle ever contacted her, or her father, if he’d known?
“You have questions.”
Mr. Doyle stood, studying photos she had on shelves along with pretty or interesting things that had caught her eye over the years.
“I’m going to try to answer them. Can we sit here, at the table? I also have some other things to show you, some papers.”
“All right.”
She set his coffee on the table, sat. “You said he died last month. Was he ill?”
“It’s kind of you to ask. I’ll try to explain that, too. First, I want to tell you Collin didn’t know he had a brother, not for many years. That was kept from him. He learned about your father shortly before your father’s death. From me. Genealogy is my hobby, a kind of passion really. I decided to research Collin’s as a gift. Do an extensive family tree, as it seemed there were missing pieces—or branches, we’ll say, on that tree.”
He opened his briefcase. “This is a picture of Collin’s father. Your father’s father. This was their mother.” He laid another photo on the table, smiled a little. “It was the sixties, after all.”
The woman—girl, really—had long, straight blond hair. She wore a colorful band around it, over her forehead. A pretty face, Sonya thought, heavy on the eyeliner around blue eyes. A thin build in a T-shirt and low-slung bell-bottom jeans. She held up a two-fingered peace sign with a hand studded with rings.
“Lilian Crest, though apparently she went by the name Clover when this was taken. She died giving birth to the twins. A home birth that went very wrong, it seems. And a storm that knocked out power and phone for two days. The house—the manor—is a bit remote. Not inaccessible by any means, but a few miles from the town of Poole’s Bay.”
“She’s so young.”
“Only nineteen when she died. She’d left home at seventeen. She and Charles took up residence in the manor. His parents, twin brother, and his sister made their home just outside of Poole’s Bay. At that time.”