The glass taunted her.

Ariella Avery stood outside the Garrity County branch of the Texas State Police staring at the emblem sprawled over the tinted window, feeling like the biggest coward in creation.

It was just a woman. Just a stranger. She’d share a few words with her, see what the other woman thought about the entire evil birth mother thing, and then she would be free to get back on with her life.

Ari didn’t have to see this sister she’d never met before ever again. But she had been the one to start the hunt for her lost siblings, and she had to be the one to see it through.

Because a teenage boy was counting on her doing just that.

There was no way she was ever going to break a promise to Simon again. She’d told her little brother once that she would do whatever she had to in order to keep him safe.

Less than two weeks later he had almost died in her place.

Hard for her to forget that.

She would not fail Simon again.

“We don’t have to do this.” They had two other brothers and a sister who could have done this instead. Those three half-siblings were all older than Ariella, and a heck of a lot meaner. Braver. She wasn’t just the hundred-ten-pound runt of the pack, she was also the wimpiest. “I can page Ashton back. He’ll bring the car and we can arrange a meeting some other way.”

Rafe, the half-brother she’d known the least amount of time, ate people for breakfast on a regular basis. He certainly scared the crud out of Ariella every time she’d had the misfortune to catch his attention.

He could have done this, easily. And then walked away and forgotten it completely. She glanced over her shoulder in time to see the company car that had driven her and Simon the four counties south of where she lived.

“Why? You chicken?” Simon was only thirteen but as tall as she was and about twenty pounds or so heavier. Ariella was close to five-ten. He easily matched that—their two older brothers were both over six-and-a-half feet tall, broad-shouldered, and strong. Simon was going to be equally as big.

It was possible their mother had been tall, as well. No one except Simon knew for sure. And he refused to ever talk about her.

Denise Daviess had sold nearly all of her children, one-by-one, two-by-two, just whichever kid or kids she had with her at the time she needed some cash would go. Like…puppies. Ari still didn’t know how she’d fully managed it.

Ari had been worth a hundred grand to her birth mother. Money her father—a kind, loving, wonderful man who’d worked with his hands for a living—had barely had to spend. But he’d been determined to get his daughter.

Ari had gone home with her father from the hospital three days after she’d been born.

She’d never met her mother. And Ari never would.

Denise had done only one noble thing in her life—she’d died trying to protect Simon from a killer.

A killer Ari had brought into the then twelve-year-old Simon’s life.

“I’m going in.” Simon shot a look of determination at her and crossed narrow arms over his skinny chest. “You can stay out here and be a big wimp if you want.”

“Don’t be a butt, Simon.”

He grinned, looking very much like their eldest brother. “Come on. What’s the worst that could happen? We don’t like her? She’s a serial killer? We’ve both already done that.”

Yes, they had. And the kid had put things in real perspective. Ari wrapped her hand around the metal handle and opened the door.

The Garrity TSP post was tiny. Three desks were in what passed as the bullpen and there were two doors leading off that area. One had Sheriff Zoey Daviess emblazoned on the glass. Ari pivoted and headed there.

Toward yet another sister.

She wished her older sister Paige was there to do this. An FBI agent, Paige would have been right at home in the small police station.

Ari, not so much.

Simon took another step toward the door. Ari firmed her resolve—she would not be wimpier than a not quite fourteen-year-old boy.

A receptionist, a pretty Native American woman probably in her mid-fifties, stopped them. “Zo—oh. Well…I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. May I help you?”

“We’re here to see Sheriff Daviess.”

“Of course. I’ll tell Zoey you’re here…” The woman hesitated. “And what names should I give her? And the reason for your visit?”

“It’s Ariella Avery, and this is a private family matter. Thank you.”

Ari waited while the woman knocked on and then entered the sheriff’s office door. Her eyes met Simon’s; the kid just smirked. If he felt fear, he was darned good at hiding it. The brat.

He was becoming more and more like their eldest brother Luc every day. It could be worse. He could act more like their other older brother. Rafe defined the word misanthrope well at times. At least where his biological family was concerned.

With Jillian, Rafe had done a complete one-eighty. He adored his new fiancée. And had nearly died protecting Jillian. To see the love he had for Ari’s best friend after all of the hell they’d been through was wonderful. Ari could never ask for more for Jillian. Except that her friend had fallen for any other man than Rafe, the brother who definitely hadn’t wanted Ari, Simon, Paige, or Luc in his life.

The woman returned, a perplexed expression on her face. “Sheriff Daviess will see you now.”

“Thank you.”

Simon glanced at her, a sudden vulnerability in the eyes that were identical to Ari’s.

Ari pulled in a deep breath—she was twice Simon’s age, an adult. Ari had started this whole quest and he was looking toward her to get through this. No one who had spent a dozen years facing constant rejection enjoyed walking into a situation where rejection was a high probability. Especially a child. She knew that from personal experience. He needed her.

She grabbed her little brother’s hand and stepped toward the sheriff’s office.

It was now or never.

The sheriff met them at the door. Ari stopped and just stared.

“Wow!” Simon said, recovering faster than Ari. “Cool!”

Cool wasn’t exactly the word Ari would use to describe the woman staring back at her.

Eerie, surreal. Strange. Those were better words. Far better words.

“What can I do for you?” The woman’s voice was cool. Her body language said Stay Away loud and clear. More nerves filled Ari, shaking her out of her shock.

She and Paige looked a good deal alike—but this woman… There was no denying she and Ari were related. At all. Other than the fact that Zoey Daviess had a good thirty or so pounds on Ari, they were almost identical.

Sixteen months separated them in age. Which wasn’t much. People seeing them side by side would think they were twins. No doubt about it.

She hadn’t expected this, even though she, Paige, Simon, Luc, and Rafe did resemble each other strongly.

“Well?” The woman wasn’t exactly welcoming. “Who are you? Why are you here?”

That didn’t make any sense. She’d emailed Zoey not even three days ago to set up this meeting. “I’m Ariella; we spoke through email. About our biological mother.”

“I didn’t speak to anyone.”

“I printed the email to make certain I had the date and time correct.” Ari fought the nerves again. She was always fighting anxiety over something any more. Since Henry. And she hated it, hated feeling so afraid. She’d fought and fought to put the fear behind her.

Being abducted and held for three days would do that to a woman—or at least she tried to tell herself that so she would have a reason for the debilitating fear that had plagued her for two years now.

She had to get control back. Soon.

This was a good first step. Maybe. Finishing the quest that had caused it all might be the key to just fixing her.

She ruthlessly shoved the churn of nerves away. Simon needed someone to take the lead; like it or not, that was going to be her.

“I didn’t get any email.”

Oh.

“Someone emailed me back.” Ari pulled the official letter she’d had Mel—Jillian’s older sister—send on their behalf, along with the printed email. “I—”

She held the papers out to her new sister and watched as Zoey read them quickly. If possible, Zoey’s face tightened even more. She was equally as pale as Ari, and the eyes were identical in shape and size. Even the slant of her eyebrows was the same. The mouth was wider than Ari’s, though. She may have been an inch or so taller, too. Heavier, by a bit. Zoey didn’t look like an underfed teenager like Ari sometimes felt she did. She hadn’t always been as thin as she was, but it wasn’t that long ago that she’d been shot in the chest. She’d dropped twenty pounds in the hospital, and had yet to put it back on.

There was no denying it—this was another of her siblings, just like Simon, Luc, Paige, and Rafe. And the three younger boys from her father and stepmother. Only this one was a funky distorted mirror image.

Ari had asked Mel—who worked for Blessed Reunions, an organization that helped people reunite with lost loved ones—to find the rest of the children born to her biological mother.

As far as they knew, none of the children of Denise Daviess shared the same fathers, but all of the women’s children looked just like her. Even Luc, whose father was most likely African-American and Rafe, whose father was probably Latino, greatly favored the mother who had sold them.

“You’re our sister,” Simon said the words that none of them could deny.

“I’m not.”

“Are, too. You look just like us.” Simon’s stubbornness started to rear its head. Ari winced. He could be a bit hard-headed and difficult, especially when he felt passionately about something. But then again, all of Denise Daviess’ children could be that way when they felt strongly. Even she had once possessed that trait. Before she’d turned into the queen of wimps.

“We believe you are. Our biological mother was Denise Daviess. Can we sit down?” The words just came. Simon’s face had her talking before she even realized she was going to. The kid had a fantasy that every brother or sister they found was going to be wonderful and greet them with open arms. One big, happy, loving family.

It basically had worked that way for Simon—Paige and her husband, Luc and his wife, and Ari had all immediately made room for the child in their lives. Gave Simon the love their biological mother had denied the child for the first twelve years of his life. Even Rafe wasn’t as stand-offish with Simon as he was the rest of them.

Simon thought it was going to be that way with every child of Denise Daviess.

Ari knew better.

Logic told her that of the dozen or so children born to that woman, at least some of them were not going to be good people. Nor were they all going to welcome this intrusion into their lives.

Rafe certainly hadn’t. If it wasn’t for Jillian, she doubted he’d have let her and Simon into his life at all.

He certainly wasn’t too happy with Luc being a part of his life, either.

Those two brothers were never going to get along.

But she and Simon did. She and Paige were getting to know one another, and Luc—well, Luc adored all three of them.

There wasn’t anything her eldest half-brother wouldn’t do for her, Simon, or Paige. Now Rafe…Luc would far prefer to feed Rafe to a troll or something. And he’d said as much. Several times.

“May we sit and talk about this for a moment?” Ari tried again. They’d come this far, she had to at least try.

“There isn’t much to talk about. I—” The sheriff checked her watch as she spoke. A flash of worry hit her eyes. “Listen, maybe we share some DNA, but that’s it. I’m not interested in answering any questions or warm family reunions. In fact, I’m expecting someone in about five min—”

“I’m early, Zo.”

Ari turned, then gasped. A teenage girl with black-and-blue hair and Denise Daviess’ eyes stared back at her. The girl smiled, a dead-on ringer for Rafe’s smile, and stepped closer. “You’re them. I’m glad you came. I’m your little sister Pen, Penelope Jean.” She paused, then looked at Simon. “You’re younger than I am. I’m seventeen. Almost. Ok, so I just turned sixteen four months ago, but I’m in college so I bump a year for people who just won’t understand it.”

“We…I…I’m Ariella Avery.” Ari held out her hand and shook the girl’s hand. She was an inch or so shorter than Ari. The skin was just as pale, the eyes big and dark and shaped just the same as her own, the hair was a shade darker with blue streaks and braided into two long braids. She wore a black top and dark jeans, with knee-high black leather boots.

She looked so much like Paige it was remarkable. She even had multiple ear piercings. Dragons.

“I know.” The teenager smiled again. “I found you in the Snotty Garlic. You’re the woman who’s going to marry the Gorgeous Governor.”

The Snotty Garlic was a stupid tabloid that delighted in pairing Ari up with the governor of Texas. Who just happened to be the adoptive older brother of her half-brother Rafe. It was a complicated connection, and the were just friends. Friendly acquaintances, at the most. A widower with two children, he was in and out of Finley Creek all of the time. And was always with his two brothers. Since his brothers were in love with her two closest friends, that left Marc and Ari paired up quite often. Which the tabloid-type sites ate up like candy.

She usually didn’t mind; he was a nice, kind man who did not cause her anxiety. She liked him much better than she did Rafe. He was a safe escort who wanted nothing from her.

Someone at the Garlic had a real crush on the governor. Unfortunately, they also seemed to enjoy stalking Ari, for whatever reason. Something Ari didn’t fully understand. They had practically fixated on her about a year ago and she hated it. She thought it had something to do with her connection to Luc.

Simon laughed. Ari hoped her cheeks weren’t flaming at the moment. “I’m not involved with Marc...Governor Deane. We’re…just friends.”

“Pen, did you send this email to these people?” Zoey asked, her tone almost that of a chiding mother.

Ari’s mind filled with questions. There was no denying that Pen was a Daviess, and there was also no way that the twenty-eight-year-old Zoey was her mother.

They must have missed a birth certificate somehow. That brought them up to a known seven children of Denise Daviess that they had contact information for, including Ari. But at least five more birth certificates were also confirmed. Five more siblings out there, somewhere. Unless Denise Daviess had lied.

“Yes.” The girl’s chin rose stubbornly. She looked a lot like Simon in that moment. “I knew when I saw Ariella in the Snotty Garlic that she was our sister. I mean, she looks just like you, Zo. Kind of hard to miss. What was I supposed to do, wait until I’m eighteen just because some arbitrary law says I’m still a kid, even though I’ve already graduated high school? She’s our sister. So I did some digging. In files. And I didn’t even know about him. And there’s even more. Aren’t you tired of being alone all the time?”

“I’m not alone. I have you, remember?”

Ari envied them that close bond. She had known Paige for two years now, and they would never be that close. Distance made it almost impossible; Paige’s job took care of the rest. They weren’t like Jillian and her sisters. Her friend had four and they were tied so tightly together you could almost see the strings.

All of Ari’s siblings were either far too young to be close to, or they lived too far away.

Well, except for Rafe. But he was a whole different ballgame. One she was carefully learning the rules for.

She did see Luc on a frequent basis. Sometimes he’d hop into his private helicopter and zip down to Finley Creek from his home in St. Louis. Sometimes it was just to take her to dinner, sometimes it was just to hang out for the day with Mel’s husband. The two men were good friends, and had been for years.

It was just coincidence that had them all together now.

And Ari’s quest to find her birth mother. If she hadn’t found Simon, their mother wouldn’t be dead. That was something she would never forget.

That decision had triggered so much change in her life Ari didn’t have a clue what to do next.

It saved her brother. It got Simon away from his abusive mother and to Paige and her husband where he was loved and cared for. It had been good change for Simon.

That made every moment of the hell she’d gone through worth it. It had saved Simon. Literally.

Her brother had a future because of it. Ari would go through every single minute of what had happened again to ensure the same results. The kid she loved was alive and safe because of the hell she’d gone through.

She dropped into the chair in front of the sheriff’s desk and looked at the two sisters she didn’t know. Then at the little brother she’d grown to love so quickly. “I think we need to talk, don’t you? We didn’t even know Pen existed. We know there are more kids out there still. Apparently more than we thought. Somewhere. And possibly between Pen and Simon in age. Or younger. They are just kids. And we don’t know what she did with them. Obviously. We are trying to find them.”

Pen hopped up on the corner off her sister’s desk. “I’m sorry about what happened in that fire. I saw the articles. But…can I ask you a question? Is the governor a good kisser? I bet he would be. He looks like he would. I loved those photos of you in that black dress at that ball. And the videos of the way you were dancing with him that were on the Garlic. And he looked really, really hot in that tux, and I love his eyes—”

“Penelope! Enough. You’re being rude.” Zoey stared at Ari for a long time. Ari just stared right back. It was like looking into one of those fun house mirrors. You see yourself, but it’s distorted somehow. Broken. Or just leaning strangely.

Disconcerting.

Finally, the slightly older woman relented. She looked at Pen and at Simon and her body language softened. Zoey waved toward Simon. “Sit down. One talk. Then I never want to think about that woman again.”

Simon sat.