His Virgin Bride. Margaret Mayo

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      Prologue

      “I’m sure it won’t be much longer, Miss Blakely.”

      “Thank you,” Abby murmured.

      She looked around the lawyer’s office uncomfortably. The furnishings were so rich—the coffee table in front of her dark walnut, the sofas soft, toffee-colored leather, the burgundy rugs deep and velvety, the lights muted.

      Abby had never been in a lawyer’s office before, and if a plane ticket hadn’t been sent to her, she doubted she would be in one now.

      Who would give a gift to her?

      But that was what the registered letter had said. That she had been named as the recipient of a substantial gift, the donor anonymous. Her phone call to the law firm had gotten her no more information, just an invitation to be in the office of Hamilton, Sweet and Hamilton, in Miracle Harbor, Oregon, today, on February 15, at 10:00 a.m. precisely.

      “Miss Blakely, are you sure you won’t have coffee?”

      The receptionist smiled kindly at her, and Abby knew she was doing a terrible job of hiding her discomfort. She knew she did not look like the kind of woman who belonged in these rich surroundings. Her wardrobe these days ran to things that washed easily. Clothes that she could wear in the sandbox or the playground, clothes that stood up to small handprints and grass stains and drool. And so she was wearing a casual skirt of stain-disguising navy blue, a matching tunic and a sweater jacket. She had made the ensemble herself for less than fifty dollars.

      She caught her reflection in the highly polished wood of the coffee table, and patted her short blond hair self-consciously. Even the cut was about low maintenance rather than style.

      She had been away from her just-turned-two daughter for less than twenty-four hours, and she felt as if a hole inside her heart was opening and getting wider by the minute. It was now almost ten-thirty.

      “Is there a problem?” Abby asked. She looked wistfully at the door, sorry she’d been tempted to come here, sorry she’d accepted this odd invitation, knowing somehow her life was about to take an unexpected turn. Why now, when what she wanted most was a life without unexpected turns? A life of stability for her baby, Belle.

      But that is why she had come here, too. Yes she was skeptical, but some small part of her hoped the gift would be something that would enable her to give her daughter exactly the life she wanted for her. A little house of their own, instead of the apartment. A nicer neighborhood, closer to a park. A new sewing machine so Abby could take in more work.

      Counting her chickens before they hatched, she reprimanded herself. Still, she had been sent a plane ticket worth several hundred dollars. She had been picked up in Portland by a limo and deposited at Miracle Harbor’s most luxurious hotel. And the letter had promised the “gift” was substantial.

      Hope was what had made her cross the continent, from Illinois to this small hamlet in Oregon. Miracle Harbor. The town, built in a half moon on the hills surrounding a bay, was a place of postcard prettiness—neat rows of beautiful old shingle-sided houses behind white picket fences, rhododendrons growing wild, the air delightfully warm and scented of the sea.

      “Is there a problem?” she asked, again.

      “No, of course not. We’re just waiting for the arrival of the other parties.”

      “The other parties?” Abby asked, baffled. This was the first she had heard of other parties.

      The receptionist suddenly was the one who looked uncomfortable, as if she had revealed more than was professionally acceptable.

      So when the door swung open, both she and Abby looked to it with relief.

      A woman stepped into the office, in dark glasses and a short fur jacket. A long skirt, shimmering jade-colored silk, swirled around her slender legs as she moved with a breezy self-confidence into the room. Her hair was beautifully coiffed, and yet a hint of something wild remained in the way it swung, electric, around her shoulders.

      There was something so familiar about her, Abby thought, frowning, and then realized the woman must be almost exactly her own size and height. Even her hair color was familiar, tones of wheat mixed with honey.

      “Hi. I’m Brittany Patterson. I—”

      As she caught sight of Abby out of the corner of her eye, her voice froze. She swung around and stared. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. Slowly, she lifted the sunglasses off her eyes, and Abby felt the blood drain from her face, thought for an awful moment that she was going to faint.

      Because the face she was looking at was the very same face she looked at in the mirror each day.

      The makeup was bolder, the eyebrows more carefully shaped, this woman lovelier somehow, and yet identical to her in every way.

      The door swung open again, and Abby turned to it in relief, needing a distraction from the intensity of emotion, the confusion welling up within her.

      Another woman entered the office, breathless, as different from the woman in the fur jacket as night from day. She was in jeans and a jean jacket, both faded nearly white, her long hair swept back off her face in a careless ponytail.

      Different from the other woman, except in one way.

      Her face was identical. And so was her shade of hair. And the striking hazel of eyes nearly blue, except for a star of brown around the pupil.

      As if in a dream, Abby got up from the deep sofa. Moved toward the other women, and then began to shake. She sat back down. Silently, the other women came and sat down, too, СКАЧАТЬ