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      Prologue

      The four-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath house was so empty that Mark Thomas’s footsteps echoed when he walked through it. Gleaming wood floors were devoid of rugs, amplifying the sounds he made. Nothing hung on the walls.

      Upstairs, a bed with no headboard and a small wooden chest were lost in the spacious master bedroom. One step down from the bedroom, a spacious dressing room led into a walk-in closet and an attached lounge with dormer windows that looked out over the front lawn. Except for his clothes, those areas were empty. The remaining three bedrooms were bare of furniture and decoration, though one held a half-dozen unpacked boxes filled with the few possessions he had brought with him to his new home.

      Downstairs, a mismatched couch and chair had been placed haphazardly in the cozy front parlor, just to the left of the marble-floored foyer. The dining room on the opposite side of the entryway was empty. The ample, three-step-down end room that he thought of as a den, but which the Realtor had referred to as a gathering room, held only a large-screen television and a well-broken-in leather sofa.

      In the kitchen, two wood-and-wrought iron bar stools provided the only seating. A small TV set, a coffeemaker and a microwave sat on the otherwise-empty U-shaped expanse of quartz countertops. The sunny breakfast room on the other side of the bar was as barren as the rest of his home.

      He had owned the house for three weeks, and had lived in it for two. He had big plans for decorating, transforming the place from an empty shell to a warm, inviting home, which couldn’t happen soon enough, as far as he was concerned. But for now, he found satisfaction in the awareness that for the first time in his thirty-two years, he was living in a home that was not a rental.

      Besides, he reminded himself, the longer he took to get the decorating finished, the more time he would be able to spend with the pretty and intriguing designer he’d hired.

      It was still early on this warm summer evening, not yet dark outside. Mark flipped on the overhead lights in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. He wasn’t particularly hungry, but he rather liked the idea of preparing his own dinner in his own kitchen. Unfortunately, he thought as he closed the fridge door, it took more than a carton of orange juice, a quart of milk and a couple of individual-sized yogurts to make a meal.

      Looked as though he would have to resort to delivery. Again. He was simply going to have to find the time to go to the grocery store soon. He moved toward the phone to call the closest Chinese delivery. He knew the number by memory.

      The doorbell rang just as he punched in the second digit.

      “Wow,” he murmured, holding the receiver away from his ear and looking at it. “That was fast.”

      Chuckling at his own bad joke, he hung up the phone and walked through the echoing hallway toward the front door.

      He didn’t know the couple standing on the small covered porch. The dark-haired, dark-eyed woman was strikingly beautiful. The man had brown hair and eyes and a face that looked vaguely familiar, but not immediately recognizable.

      “May I help you?” he asked, looking from the man to the woman and then back again.

      The man spoke first. “Dr. Mark Thomas?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’m Ethan Brannon. This is Aislinn Flaherty.”

      Neither name meant anything to him. “Nice to meet you.” He added a slight upward note to the courtesy, an implied question.

      Ethan looked at Aislinn, who nodded slightly, as if to encourage him. Mark waited patiently until Ethan turned back to him to say, “This is going to sound strange, I know, but I hope you’ll give us the opportunity to explain. There’s a, um—there’s a chance that you and I could be brothers.”

      Brothers?

      Mark felt the word slam into him, though he hoped he was able to hide the reaction as he stared at the couple. More specifically, at the man who looked vaguely familiar. Suspiciously like the man he saw in the mirror when he shaved every morning.

      He opened the door wider and took a step backward. “I think you’d better come inside.”

      Chapter One

      Rachel Madison’s cell phone rang just as she parked her small SUV in the driveway of Mark Thomas’s house in an upscale neighborhood outside Atlanta, Georgia. She glanced at the caller ID screen without enthusiasm. She wouldn’t mind so much if the call were about business, but she doubted that she would be that lucky.

      Recognizing the incoming number, she knew that luck was not on her side this time. “Hi, Mother,” she said, holding the little phone to her ear.

      “Rachel, you absolutely have to talk to your sister. She won’t listen to a word from me.”

      “I’ll talk to her,” Rachel promised without even bothering to ask what she was supposed to say. “But I’m just about to meet with a client, so this is going to have to wait until later, okay?”

      “First let me tell you what she said.”

      “I’ll call you after my meeting and you can tell me all about it. But I really have to focus on my client now.”

      Her mother sighed heavily. “All right. I suppose you should concentrate on your work. That’s more important right now.”

      Even though her mother couldn’t see her, Rachel resisted an impulse to roll her eyes. “You know I don’t consider work more important than family. It’s just that I have an appointment.”

      “I’ll let you go, then. Call me when you’re finished, okay?”

      “I will.”

      Closing the phone with relief, Rachel groaned when it buzzed again before she could even open her car door. This call, too, was from a number she recognized. “Hi, sis. Look, I’ve got a meeting—”

      Typically, Dani didn’t give her a chance to finish the sentence. “You have got to talk to Mother, Rach. She’s gone too far