sailing past, laughing, but she planted her feet and gripped the handlebars of her bike, then did that same damn I’ve-seen-a-ghost stare that Simone had done when Kate stepped into her office.
Kate swallowed hard. Every inch of her skin tingled like a thousand needles being stabbed into a pincushion. The face—the girl—she was the one from the picture.
She couldn’t leave now. She had to see. She had to know.
Fear rippled through her. She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what to do. But something pushed her forward. “Hi.”
“You,” the girl said, still staring wide-eyed at Kate. “You…you look like—”
“My name’s Kate. Are you Julia?”
“Yes.” Her eyes narrowed. “How do you know my name?”
“A friend told me.” The awkward silence and the way the girl continued to stare at her like she had a third head was more than Kate could bear. She glanced up the road. “I came to talk to your dad. Is he home?”
The girl jumped off her bike as if she’d just been slapped. “He’s not home. He can’t see you.”
Kate’s palms grew damp. “Wait—”
“Julia!” A male voice echoed from across the street. “Time to come in!”
The girl’s bike crashed to the ground. She sprinted across the pavement and up the path toward a stately, three-story house. A man was just stepping down off the porch. A man dressed in slacks and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms. A man with blond hair and a devastatingly handsome face that didn’t even compare to the one Kate had seen in magazines or on the Internet.
A man, she realized as she drew in a sharp breath, who up close didn’t just look a little like her son. He looked just like him.
Chapter Five
Ryan’s adrenaline surged as Julia tore straight at him, her face a mix of fear and anger and heartache.
“What is it?” he asked as he dropped to one knee in front of her, gripping her shoulders and scanning her body to make sure she wasn’t hurt.
“I…go inside, Daddy. Go inside!”
“Julia, calm down. What’s wrong? Tell me what happened.” His gaze jumped past her, to her bike lying in the road. To the person standing in the middle of the street staring at them. To the woman who looked like…
The air whooshed out of his lungs. His knees turned to gelatin. “Oh, my God.”
“No, Dad!” Julia pushed against his shoulders, tried to force him back into the house as he slowly rose to his feet. “No, Dad. It’s not her. It’s not her, Daddy. It just looks like her. Please, Daddy, please. Look at me.”
His gaze dropped to Julia’s tear-streaked face. Panic filled her eyes, but it barely registered. With shaking arms, he lifted her out of his way then looked toward the brunette standing still as stone in the road. Watching him like he was watching her.
His head spun. His pulse raced. It couldn’t be.
He was vaguely aware of a car screeching to a halt next to the curb, of Mitch climbing out of his Land Rover, of Julia’s hysterical voice as she tried to pull him back into the house, but he couldn’t feel her hands. Couldn’t seem to stop his feet from moving forward. He felt like he was in a fog. A dream. Like he was hallucinating in broad daylight.
Somehow he made it down the block, stopped in front of her. Stared at her in shock. At his side he heard Mitch mutter, “Mother of God.”
No one spoke. For a long minute there was nothing but silence. And fear and hope and utter disbelief. And then his heart lurched in his chest.
“Oh, my God.” He closed the distance between them, cupped her face in his hands, ran his fingers over the smooth skin of her jaw. This couldn’t be real. It had to be a dream. Memories bombarded him from every side, condensed beneath his breastbone and squeezed as he soaked her in. As he felt her pulse beat beneath his fingers. As the heat of her body surrounded him to leave him foggy and light headed.
She was real. She was warm and soft and alive beneath his fingers. She was…Annie.
She stared into eyes. Recognition flared in the depths of those green gems. And that connection they’d had from the very start, from the first second they’d met so long ago, burned hot and bright, warming him in places he hadn’t even realized had gone cold.