Part 17 (2/2)

”Now, what's this other thing you were talking about?” Evan slipped his arm protectively around Claire's shoulders. ”Just how does Claire figure into your case?”

Devin laughed softly to himself. Wait till Evan heard about this! ”Claire is my case.”

”What?” Claire didn't understand. How could she be his case when she'd never met him before?

If he began in the beginning, it would take too long to get to the point. Devin hopped to the middle. ”Ms. Walker, do you know that you're adopted?”

An uneasy feeling began to creep through her. Claire nodded. ”Yes, my father told me just before he died that he and my mother adopted me when I was about two years old.” And then it came to her, riding on a bolt of lightning. ”Is this about my sister?”

Libby urgently tugged on the edge of her sweater. ”You have a sister, Mama?”

Her arm went around Libby, as if to s.h.i.+eld her from any shock. ”A twin.”

It only confused Libby more. ”Did you split in half, too, Mama?”

”No, honey, that's not how twins happen-exactly.” She didn't have time to explain it to her now. As Claire looked at Devin, something twisted inside her chest, p.r.i.c.ked by anxiety. ”Is it about her?” she asked again in a whisper. She was vaguely aware that Evan's arm had tightened around her shoulders.

He nodded. ”She didn't know about you until just recently. She found a photograph of the two of you with your mother-your birth mother-among her adoptive mother's things after she died. According to the back of the photograph, you were twenty-three months old. She'd been trying to locate you ever since.”

Claire could feel herself trembling as joy, sorrow and confusion mixed in disproportionate measures within her. Part of her almost felt that this wasn't real. And yet, hadn't she always known? Even before Dr. Richmond had told her about her twin, hadn't something within her always felt that there was a piece of her that was missing?

”And my birth mother?” She wasn't even fully conscious of forming the words.

He hated being the bearer of bad news, but at least it was tempered with good, Devin thought. ”Died a long time ago, I'm afraid. Of cancer. That was why you were put up for adoption,” he explained quickly. He knew how much this had mattered to Blair. ”She didn't have anyone to care for the two of you.”

So it wasn't a case of abandonment, Claire thought as tears crept from the corners of her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She'd been loved, not deserted like Rachel. She felt Evan leaning in to her and, for a moment, she grasped at the comfort he silently offered.

Claire drew in a large breath, then let it out slowly. She was in control again. ”When can I meet her?”

Devin walked out of the den, closing the doors behind him. Not that, knowing Blair, they would remain that way. He just wanted a moment to set the stage. It had taken him two days to get everything prepared. He'd done what he had intended to do beforehand. He'd asked Blair to marry him, and she had said yes. A yes that hadn't been borne on the tailwind of an emotional charge, something he knew was about to happen.

She'd said yes because she loved him as much as he had come to love her. As much as, he could see, Evan and Claire loved each other.

Now he was going to give Blair the gift he'd wanted to give her all along. They'd met when she'd hired him to find her sister. Things had quickly escalated between them, and though he had never mixed business with his private life before, this time he'd been helpless to prevent it. He made amends for that. He'd just given her back her retainer, leaving her to wonder if that meant that he was giving up the search for Claire.

She should have known him better than that, he mused, going out to the car. But she would. They had a lifetime before them to learn about each other's habits and traits, small and large.

He was rather looking forward to the learning process.

They were outside the car, waiting for him. Evan was holding the baby in his arms while Libby clutched Claire's hand. Devin grinned. He was never going to get used to the sight of his brother holding a baby, or the idea that Evan was a family man. It was something he was going to have to work on.

”C'mon,” he beckoned. ”I left her waiting in the den. Knowing her, we have about half a minute left to surprise her.”

His hand on Claire's shoulder, Devin ushered her into the house. It was actually more of a mansion, he thought, and it belonged to Blair's aunt Beth. It was where the family, their numbers now large, congregated for holidays and celebrations. Behind them, he heard Evan telling Libby to remain with him. They all knew that this moment belonged to the two sisters who had been separated for twenty-two years.

”You'll be with her in a few minutes, I promise,” Evan said, his voice patient.

Libby pouted, but did as she was told. She had come to trust Evan almost as much as she trusted her own mother. Mama had told her that they were all getting married and Evan was going to be her daddy. Mama was right, she thought with glee. Dreams did come true if you hoped hard enough.

Claire walked in uncertainly, antic.i.p.ation making each breath she drew shallow. There were people in the house, people smiling at her. Some of the younger ones were staring unabashedly, awed by the resemblance between her and Blair, someone who had always been in their lives.

Blair's family. Blair had a family, Claire thought. That had to be such a wonderful feeling. Devin had filled her in on Blair's life as much as he could on the way down from San Francisco. Her twin had grown up believing she was an only child, just the way Claire had. But unlike hers, Blair's adoptive mother had a myriad of brothers and sisters. There had always been a house full of cousins for Blair to share her life with.

Claire felt envious, but happy that at least one of them had had a full, rich life.

No one was saying a word as they watched her pa.s.s. It was almost eerie.

And then she saw her.

Saw the woman who looked just like her. Her other half. Blair was staring at her, disbelief in her eyes.

And suddenly, Claire remembered a fragment that had haunted her younger years. She remembered there being a little girl who had looked just like her sitting beside her on the floor. She'd thought she'd dreamed it, imagined it, gotten a mirror mixed in with reality. Things like that happen when you're very young.

But it hadn't been a dream or a mirror. There had actually been someone else. Someone with her face, her eyes, her hair.

The other half of her.

And then suddenly, they were together again, two halves of a whole, sobbing and talking as they fell into each other's arms.

”I didn't think you were real,” Claire cried, framing Blair's face between her hands. Her vision blurred. She blinked away the tears. ”I thought I made you up.”

”I had the same thought,” Blair said excitedly. ”But you're here, you're really here.” How would she ever be able to thank Devin for finding her sister? There didn't seem to be a way. ”Did he tell you?” Blair asked suddenly. ”Devin? Did Devin tell you about our mother?”

Emotions choking her, Claire couldn't speak, only nod.

Blair wanted to be sure that Claire knew everything, that she wasn't tormented by feeling that she had been abandoned, the way she had believed herself to be. ”That she didn't just give us away because we were inconvenient? That she loved us?”

It had meant so much to Blair to find that out, to know that she had been loved from the very beginning. She wanted Claire to know that, too, to have the same secure feeling that had finally come into her grasp.

”Yes, he told me everything.” Claire's voice was hoa.r.s.e as she tried to clear away the tears scratching along her throat: Libby finally broke away from Evan and dashed to her mother, then stopped short as she looked from one woman to the other.

”Mama?” she said uncertainly. At least, it looked like Mama. She had on the same clothes and she smiled at her the same way, but what if she was wrong?

Claire knelt down beside her daughter and hugged her. That was when Libby knew it was all right.

Rising again, Claire placed her hands on Libby's shoulders and ushered the girl before her. ”Libby, I'd like you to meet your aunt Blair.”

Blair bent down to be closer to Libby's level. ”h.e.l.lo, Libby. How are you?”

Libby couldn't help staring. ”You have Mama's face.” She wasn't sure she understood all this. Was this magic? Or were they all on TV? ”And he has Evan's.” She looked at Devin, her eyes growing huge again. ”Are you outer- s.p.a.ce people?”

Laughing, Evan came forward. He s.h.i.+fted Rachel to his other shoulder. ”I think that might be my fault. I let her watch an old 'Star Trek' episode with me the other night. I was exposing her to science,” he explained, answering the question in Claire's eyes. ”The captain split in half during a malfunction in the transporter room. I think Libby thinks we might have visited a transporter room.”

Tickled, Blair laughed as she ruffled her new niece's hair. ”No, honey, we're not from outer s.p.a.ce-we're from Newport Beach. And we're your family.” Blair slipped her arm around Claire's shoulder. ”From here on in.”

Devin could only shake his head as he looked around him at his brother, the two women in their lives and the two children.

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