Their coloring, their build, something about the way they moved and spoke…within minutes she became convinced that the DNA tests would confirm Ethan’s assertion. While she supposed it was possible that the resemblances were coincidental, it was highly unlikely.
As for Ethan’s companion, Rachel thought Aislinn Flaherty was possibly one of the most beautiful women she had ever met. Perfect skin, gleaming waves of dark hair, exotically shaped dark eyes. Though she was drawn to Aislinn’s warm smile and friendly manner, she sensed a reserve in the other woman that went very deep. A protective wall, perhaps.
Mark had called Aislinn a psychic, though his tone had made it clear that he was skeptical of that term. Rachel agreed. She had never put much stake into any suggestions of extrasensory abilities, figuring that most people who made such claims had a mercenary reason for doing so. But even after a few minutes she could tell that there was something different about Aislinn.
Sitting at a quiet table with drinks and appetizers, Rachel, Mark and Aislinn chatted politely about the nice weather they’d had that day. Ethan didn’t seem the type to engage in small talk, judging by Rachel’s early impression of him. He sat quietly watching them, and she suspected that he was the kind of man who chose to stay on the sidelines of life, observing more than participating. She doubted that he missed much of what went on around him, though he probably kept most of his thoughts to himself.
In that respect, he was very different from Mark. Mark was a participator, someone who could be found at the very heart of most activities, the middle of any crowd. From what she had gathered during their short acquaintance, small talk came easily to Mark, usually, though he seemed to be struggling a bit with Ethan. Mark was a people person, gregarious and concerned, both of which served him well in his job as a physician. Ethan, she learned, was a self-employed small-business consultant who worked out of his home in Alabama, spending more time with a computer than with his clients.
Ethan waited until the subject of the weather was exhausted before he joined the conversation, and then he jumped straight into a more serious topic. “I’m sure you’ve thought a great deal about everything you learned yesterday,” he said to Mark.
“I haven’t been able to think about anything else today,” Mark admitted with a wry glance at Rachel. “As Rachel can attest. She and I were supposed to talk about furnishing my house today and I couldn’t even concentrate long enough to pick paint colors.”
“I’m a professional decorator,” she explained when Ethan and Aislinn looked at her. She figured that was all they needed to know about her relationship with Mark at the moment.
Aislinn looked as though she would like to follow up on that tidbit, but Ethan stayed on topic. “I still haven’t told the rest of the family that we found you. I knew you wanted time to think about everything first.”
Looking a little nervous, Mark nodded. “I think we should wait until the DNA results come back before you break the news—just in case.”
Ethan shrugged. “I don’t have to wait. I know what the tests will show us.”
“So confident,” Mark muttered.
“I was old enough to remember when you disappeared. I remember what you looked like then—and I can see who you look like now. You look like a Brannon.”
Rachel could almost hear Mark swallow hard in response to that blunt comment. She knew he was still trying to adjust to his new identity, that he didn’t think of himself as a Brannon. She doubted that he knew how to think of himself at all now.
“That’s not exactly indisputable evidence,” he insisted. “We should wait until we have the test results.”
“But that could take weeks.”
“Ethan.” Aislinn gave him a stern look. “Stop trying to railroad him. Give him time to come to terms with all of this.”
“I gave him all day.”
She snorted delicately. “One day to process having his entire life history changed? Seriously?”
“My history changed, too,” he reminded her with a frown.
“Yes. But it’s different for him. You’ve always known exactly who you are.”
Mark cleared his throat. “I am still here.”
Aislinn sent him a quick smile. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to talk about you as if you weren’t.”
Rachel sighed when her cell phone rang in her purse. She’d forgotten to silence it again. At least she had the volume turned down low so that few people around would be bothered by the rings. Apologizing to her dinner companions, she fumbled in her purse, thinking that she would check the readout—just in case it really was important—and then mute the sound for the rest of the meal.
“It’s your sister,” Aislinn said. “I don’t think it’s an emergency.”
“It’s never a real emergency with Dani,” Rachel replied in resignation. “Only in her own—”
She stopped abruptly as the significance of the number on her caller ID screen suddenly hit her. “How did you know it was my sister?”
Looking suddenly sheepish, Aislinn grimaced. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I guess I’m a little nervous, myself, tonight. I spoke without thinking.”
Dropping the muted phone back into her purse, Rachel studied the other woman a bit warily. “Mark told me you’re a psychic.”
Aislinn winced. “I don’t really like that word. I don’t consider myself a psychic. I just get feelings sometimes that usually prove to be true.”
“From what you told me, it’s more than that,” Mark interjected. “Ethan said you knew I was still alive after looking at a picture of me as a toddler, taken before I was…taken. You somehow sensed that I hadn’t died in that flood, as my family believed.”
Ethan nodded somberly. “It took her a while to convince me,” he admitted. “I didn’t know her very well when she first sprang it on me, and to put it bluntly, I thought she was trying to run some sort of scam on me. I probably wouldn’t have even given her a chance to change my mind if she hadn’t been my sister-in-law’s longtime best friend. My sister-in-law’s a cop—I figured she’d know if her best pal was a con artist.”
“So you just thought I was crazy, instead,” Aislinn said wryly.
Ethan gave her a look that was so blatantly intimate it made a funny little shiver run down Rachel’s spine. Maybe it was a touch of envy, she decided, wondering what it would be like to have a man look at her quite that way.
“You managed to convince me otherwise,” he murmured.
A slight touch of color tinged Aislinn’s cheeks as she returned the look. There was no doubt in Rachel’s mind that this couple was very much in love. It would have been interesting to watch that relationship develop, she mused, thinking of Ethan’s initial skepticism of Aislinn’s motives.
“You said your sister-in-law is a police officer?” she asked. “She’s married to your other brother?”
Looking away from Aislinn, Ethan nodded. “Her name’s Nic. She and Joel have only been married a couple of months.”
“What does your brother do?”
With a faint smile, Ethan glanced at Mark. “He’s a doctor. A pediatrician.”
“It must run in the family,” Rachel remarked, struck by the coincidence. “And you said your father is an orthodontist?”
He nodded. “And Mom’s practically a professional community volunteer. The whole family is into taking care of other people. Which makes me the oddball.”
“That’s