“Don’t tell me what I want to hear.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to. It’s perfect. I love it. The circle—a strong symbol, and with strong colors. The petals give it dimension and interest. Using a font with a flow, going with a curve, brings it together. It’s got balance, interest, a smart use of white space.”

  “I didn’t want hard edges, or too slick and modern, but not fussy or too traditional. I didn’t want to go cute or girlie, but I liked the hint of female with the petals.”

  “Direct hit. Holy crap, Son, you’re off and running.”

  “I’m going to be redesigning a website for a writer—first book coming out in November. The one she’s got is absolute crap, nothing holy about it. And I’m nudging her to have me redo her social media look. Which is also crap.

  “I hope her book isn’t. She’s sending me an advance copy.”

  “You’ll lie if it sucks.”

  “You came over to give me a pep talk.”

  “Yeah, and that’s unnecessary. But we have coffee and muffins. Can you take a break?”

  “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.”

  “Twins run in the family.”

  “They do. Charles was, by all accounts, devastated by her death, and I’m afraid wanted nothing to do with the children he blamed for it. He took his own life not long after. Before he did, his sister took Collin, and adopted him. Your father was placed with a foster family, and put up for private adoption. Out of state, you see. The Poole family insisted—from what I can read in the paperwork—the adoptive family have no information regarding his birth parents.”

  “They didn’t know.” The relief there came in a flood. “My grandparents. They didn’t know Dad had a twin. They would have taken them both. They’re good people. Loving people.”

  “I can’t tell you why the Pooles separated the children. I know that Patricia Poole, your father’s grandmother, was a very hard woman. I know that your father’s uncle, Lawrence, closed up the manor again after his brother’s death. and it stayed closed until Collin opened it when he turned eighteen. It came to him, you see. Legally when he turned eighteen, as his uncle died four years before without an heir.

  “You make good coffee.”

  “Would you like more?”

  “I wouldn’t say no. This is a lot to take in,” he said when she went into the kitchen. “And it may seem like a lot of history you don’t need to know.”

  “I don’t know any of the history, so I need to know.”

  “Collin and I grew up in Poole’s Bay together. He was best man at my wedding—thirty-three years ago this spring. And I stood up for him at his.”

  “You married young.”

  He laughed. “Not so very young, but when you know, you know.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Thank you,” he said when she brought him another coffee. “Collin didn’t have much interest in his family’s history, but he loved the manor. I can’t tell you how often the two of us—or a gang of us—snuck into it when we were boys. It’s quite haunted.”

  “Naturally.”

  At her amused tone, he looked down into his coffee. “Well. In any case, it’s a storied history, but his interest was art. Like your father. Like you.”

  “He was an artist?”

  “That was his calling, his passion. Though he was pushed into the mold of the family business. Shipping, shipbuilding. Poole’s Bay is named for the first Poole who began building wooden ships, who started a mill, who founded Poole’s Bay and built the original portion of the manor, in 1794.”

  As if catching himself, Oliver held up his hands.

  “A storied history, as I said, which I hope you might find some interest in.”

  “He never knew any of this, my father. He never knew he had a brother, a twin.”

  “No, and I’m sorry for it. I want to assure you, Collin was a good man, a good friend, and if he’d had the opportunity, I have no doubt he’d have been a good brother. He’d have been a good husband and father.”

  “You said you stood up for him at his wedding.”

  “I did, some five years after he did the same for me.”

  “Did he have children?”

  “No. Tragically, Johanna died on their wedding day.”

  “That’s—” It closed her throat, clutched at her heart. “That’s horrible.”

  “It was. She fell, coming down the stairs during the reception. There was nothing anyone could do. Collin was never quite the same. He rarely left the manor. He grieved, Ms. MacTavish, deeply.”

  “Sonya,” she murmured. “I can’t imagine how awful it had to be for him.”

  “He spent the rest of his life mourning her, largely closed off from the world. I was allowed in, and my family, as they’d become his family. But he cut himself off from his own. As for the business, the work of it was left primarily to cousins, though his grandmother kept her hand in until the day she died. As his lawyer, I handled his financial interests in the business, and as a Poole, he retained that financial interest, but he spent his days painting and maintaining the manor he and Johanna loved. The home they’d planned to spend their lives in together.

  “The home,” Oliver continued, “and all it contains, he left to you.”

  Chapter Four

  Shock was too mild a word.

  “I’m sorry, what? That’s crazy. He didn’t even know me.”

  “You’re his brother’s only child.”

  “But—you said cousins took over the family business. It doesn’t make sense for him to leave a house to a stranger.”

  “You weren’t a stranger to him. You’re family. And while he was a reclusive man for the last decades of his life, he had an interest in you, your career. He admired your work.”

  “My … work.”

  Oliver gave her that slow, easy smile.

  “The manor has excellent Wi-Fi—Collin saw to that. Reclusive didn’t mean ignoring technology or modernization. As I said, when he learned about your father, his brother, his twin, through my research into his genealogy, he had every intention of contacting him. Then another tragedy, another death. He mourned your father, too, Sonya, though they’d been separated only days after sharing a womb.

  “You’re what’s left of his brother, and the only direct descendant of their biological father.”

  For the first time in her life, she fully understood the concept of head-spinning. “Listen, I’m going to appreciate the sentiment, even the cinematic weirdness of the inheritance from a long-lost uncle.”

  Oliver let out a laugh at that. “He would have liked you. I think you would have liked him.”

  “Maybe, but beyond sentiment and weirdness, there’s practicality. I’m just months into establishing my own business. What am I going to do with a house in Maine? A house,” she added, “you keep calling a manor. Which implies a big house in Maine I wouldn’t be financially able to afford or maintain.”

  “There’s a trust for that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Collin established a trust for the maintenance of the manor. It’s very well-funded and broad-based. I should know, as I’m the trustee. Practicalities such as utilities, taxes, insurance will continue to be paid out of the trust. Repairs, any necessary or desired changes—paint, for example, or other upkeep and personal taste options? You’ll find the trustee very open, as his client instructed.”

  “I—”

  “As his heir, you’ll inherit the rest of his estate, including a five-percent interest in the Poole businesses. This percentage is a token, a maintaining of tradition. He left the rest of his interest to your cousins, and that is substantial.”

  Then he paused, adjusted his glasses. “Your inheritance is contingent upon you taking up residence in the manor for a period no less than three years, for no less than forty weeks per year.”

  “Live there?” The shocks just kept coming. “I’m supposed to just pick up and move? To Maine?

  “You can contest the will. I’m a good lawyer, Sonya, so the terms are tightly knit as my friend and client wished. But you can contest it, and may prevail there. It would cost you a great deal of money and time. On a personal level, I’ll tell you I wish he’d taken my advice—as his friend and lawyer—and contacted you.”

  “I can just say no. I could just refuse to accept any of it.”

  “Of course. I hope you won’t.” He took two thick packets out of his briefcase. “I have a copy of his will, financial data, information on the businesses, the house. Photos, an inventory of the contents of the house.”

  He smiled at her. “A great deal of legal nonsense, which I’ll be happy to explain once you’ve had time to absorb all of this.”

  “Right now? I think that might take years.”

  “It’s a beautiful home, Sonya. Over the many years, the Pooles have added to the original structure, maintained it meticulously. It holds so much history. Your history. It was your uncle’s deep hope that you’d accept this legacy and carry it forward.”

  He rose. “My information, including my cell phone number, is in the packets. Please contact me, or have your attorney—which I advise you to retain—contact me. I’d be happy to meet with you and your attorney, and will be here through Thursday. I can and will come back at your convenience, or meet with you at my own office, at the manor, wherever it suits you.”

  She got up to take his coat from the closet. “You have to know this is crazy. All of it.”

  “He was of sound mind. Sound enough to make his wishes and terms clear and precise.” He put on his coat, pulled the ear-flap hat over his head. “You haven’t asked how much. How much the house is worth, the trust, the interest in the business, and so on. I find that very interesting.”

  “It’s not real. Or doesn’t seem like it.”

  “It’s very real. Look through the information, take time to think, hire a good lawyer.” He held out a hand for hers. “We’ll talk again.”

  She shut the door, then just stood. Waited to wake up. But it hadn’t been a dream, she admitted. No hallucination, not when those packets sat on her table.

  Though she barely felt her legs, she walked back, opened one. And pulled out a many-paged, blue-backed legal document.

  The Last Will and Testament of Collin Arthur Poole.

  It occurred to her she’d never seen an actual will, much less read one.

  She sat, and though it resulted in a banging headache, read every word.

  He’d left—bequeathed—some things to his lifelong friend. A specific painting titled Boys at Sea, an antique chess set and board, a first-edition copy of H. G. Wells’s The Time Machine.