Shock was a jolt up Alyssa's spine and the words 'Who are you?' bubbled up inside of her. This woman standing before her in a pixie cut and oversized button-up, battered jeans and converse. Her face pretty but plain, and large tawny eyes bright and unjaded.

Nothing about the present reality jived with past memories, and when the two layered overtop the other, the edges blurred—not quite lining up. Not quite exact. Too many things were different. Changed.

But entirely unfazed, or thrown off, smiling through tears, Eva threw her arms around Alyssa, dragged her close. The first lurch of feeling happened in Alyssa's heart, the second—her gut. A tangled mixed of emotions, all hot and cold and complicated went to war inside of her. How was she supposed to feel after all this time?

Alyssa pulled back, tried to smile but her face felt tight. Forced. "You look...different."

They'd both had waist length hair once. Their mom had refused to cut it when they were kids and they'd both maintained that glossy length as women. But Alyssa's had lost hers to chemo—and she'd had hopes to grow it back out to its former glory. To return to normal and the way things were.

"So do you." Laughing Eva stroked a finger across the stripe of purple in Alyssa's hair. "Isn't this a violation of the corporate dress code policy? I thought people got fired for less."

Ice shot through the heat, cooling whatever good mood seeing her sister again had sparked.

A snap of a camera sliced through the moment, loud as a gun fired by Alyssa's ear. Startled, she turned to see a woman—breathtaking, stunning—a few feet away with a professional grade DSLR in hand. Sun burst in through the back windows, haloing her fiery red hair—the colour deepened in a salon—and fell to the center of her back in a wild, glorious length.

Which now accounted for the voices she'd heard above the music when Marshall had ducked out with the dogs.

"Sorry, didn't mean to break the moment. It was just too perfect." The redhead looked up, her eyes, a searing shade of grey softened with happy tears. "I wanted to document this first meeting for Eva. I'm Jenelle. Your sister by marriage, soon enough."

Crossing the room, Alyssa expected a handshake or maybe a more metropolitan kiss on the cheek, instead—much like her brother—Jenelle went in for a fierce, bone-cracking kind of hug. Pulling back, Alyssa was forced to tip her head up to meet her gaze. At a paltry five four, Alyssa was used to being dwarfed, but this woman had more on her than just inches. She had a presence about her that was all runway and Amazonian goddess bundled into a sensual package.

Keeping a white knuckled grip on her purse, Alyssa forced another smile, this one a lot harder to manage. "I didn't know there was anyone else here."

"I couldn't wait to meet you. And we had to finalize a few details for next weekend. We wanted to have a little kind of party. A celebration, you know?"

Alyssa must have paled because Jenelle leapt in quickly to add, "Nothing crazy. Just a few near and dear. My parents of course, Eva's friend Claire Willows and her daughter Sam. My brother Ethan, who works at the precinct, and my younger sisters are also here for the weekend—they're a couple of terrorists, but you'll love them."

Alyssa slid her gaze to Eva as Jenelle prattled off at least another half dozen names, her look full of silent imploring but found that the connection she'd so easily shared with her twin wasn't there. Once they'd been able to communicate without words and now...now it was like trying to learn a whole new language without the benefit of a translator to guide her.

They spoke around her, something about going to the kitchen for wine and Alyssa numbly followed along. Offering a nod or a smile where applicable. But a noise buzzed in her ears. Loud. Deafening. A glass was thrust into her hands, a chilled white wine. Alyssa brought it to her lips, sipped carefully. Slowly. Needing that crisp chill to soothe the ache in her throat.

It was weird, too weird, where it had never been. From Annelise—no, Eva now, she had to remind herself, from Eva's short hair to even the way she moved. Different. So different. And the clothes. Eva had traded in her bold colours and cuts for simple and uninspired.

Nothing about this person standing in front of her was the sister Alyssa lost five years ago.

And that, surprisingly, hurt.

They spoke about some party a sort of 'Welcome' to Haven dinner to celebrate their reunion. And listening with half an ear to the details it certainly wasn't anything fancy, but this wasn't she'd been prepared for at all.

An event crawling with people. People Alyssa didn't know or give a damn about, people who had become so integral in her sister's life and who, apparently, had so seamlessly filled the void of love and family, leaving Alyssa standing on the outskirts. An outsider.

            "I've got to run," Jenelle said rising to pluck up her purse, winging a coat she'd had perched on the back of a chair around her shoulders. "Mom and I will be by around say...seven? She'll want to pick your brain," she added, smiling at Alyssa, "with the menu and such. To make sure there's plenty of things you like. Guest of honour privileges and all that."

            Eva smiled, crossing to her friend. "Sounds good."

Alyssa watched the easy, effortless display, the two of them talking and embracing and that knot in her belly cinched tighter, twined with bitterness.

            And she hated the feeling. Hated the resentment that flared inside of her blood. It made her feel small and petty, and dammit, she wanted to cry. To scream.

            When they were alone, Alyssa drained the rest of her glass and barely resisted the urge to throw it. Now the house was really quiet and she didn't have a clue what to say or do next. So she reached for something safe.

            "Where are the girls?"

            "With Nate for the weekend," Eva answered casually, sinking back into her chair, fiddling with her glass of wine. Then, in the stretch of Alyssa's confused silence, followed up with an explanation. "I guess you wouldn't have heard...about a week after Randy was sentenced Nate's lawyers pleaded their case to witness protection to re-establish contact.

            Galled, Alyssa blinked. In all their emails—both brief and long, not once had her sister thought to mention something so...huge? That was yet another knife to her already tender heart. "And you let him?"

            "He's their father, Lys, I didn't have much of a choice. He had rights, and the threat was gone. Took about a week, but he came out here for the first couple of visits. Then he did something I never expected—he moved to Vancouver to be closer to them."

            "Dipshit?"

            Eva snorted at the use of Nate's nickname. "I know, right?" Rising from her seat, Eva moved to the sink where a large array of flowers—freshly cut from her garden, Alyssa imagined, sat in the sink. "He wanted us all to come back to Toronto, but I told him that wasn't possible. That Haven is home to them now and uprooting them again would be unfair. Cruel." Turning on the taps, Eva filled the duo of vases lined on the counter with water. Slotted flowers into the blue glass vessels.

"Though it's complicated, it's working. We started with a couple of hours here and there. Lucy took the longest to warm up to him and I don't know if she'll ever quite see him as her father, she's come to understand that he's family and that makes him important. We now rotate every other weekend with an open door policy for major holidays and milestones, so the other doesn't have to miss out."

"And you're okay with this? With him?"

Adjusting the assortment, Eva hefted the vase, brought it over to the table and set it in the center. "He's changed, Lys. Losing his daughters gave him perspective about what really matters. He's a better person and a better father because of it. There's no animosity between us anymore. And he says that he's forgiven me, and accepted that I'm in a happy, loving relationship." A smile softened her features at the mentioning of Marshall, and seeing it made Alyssa's guts snarl, like barbwire cinching around her already raw insides.

"Though there is a bit of male posturing on his part whenever Marshall comes around," Eva said over her shoulder, oblivious to Alyssa's internal struggles. "Nate recognizes that it's only because of what Marshall's done that he can now see his kids at all."

Alyssa could not argue the truth in that. The public exposure had virtually eradicated any further need for keeping them apart. The whole sordid mess was out there, on the lips of every major news station and reporter—Alyssa and Annelise had been the stars of major hype. 

"So, now that you're out in the open again, I'd imagine you're itching to pick up on a few things," Alyssa said, reaching for the envelope in her purse. Inside was the signed photograph of a massive cosmetic makeup superstar in the film industry who had come to her company as a client. And with the photograph was his agents contact details. Details Alyssa had procured for her sister to help make her dreams come true.

"What things?"

"The makeup effects, being a big-name in the movie biz," she said, more than a little confused.

"Oh, I gave all that up ages ago." Eva's words ended on a laugh. And that sound was like fractured glass, slicing Alyssa's moment of joy to ribbons.

"But...it was your passion."

Nonplussed, Eva shrugged absently. "More an interest, but it's not me. Not anymore. I learned to appreciate faces, though. How to understand them and the moods captured in the smallest of gestures. But its photography that drives me now. The gallery is my passion."

            Alyssa's hand slackened on the envelope, returning it to the confines of her purse. 

She'd tucked this away as a Christmas gift during that first difficult year, partly in hope that Randy Kincaid's trial would quickly go to bed and she'd soon be reunited with the family the cruel bitch of life had ripped from her. Only that never happened. And as the years went on, unfolding around her, Alyssa had clung to that gift—a ballast to keep her sane in a sea of crazy.

When things got too difficult, when she'd reached the point of breaking, Alyssa would play the reel in her mind, of what this pinnacle moment would be like as she handed this to Annelise. When they were finally—finally­—together again. 

But this was wrong. All wrong. Nothing about this was how she'd imagined it was supposed to be. They were supposed to click back in to place. Two pieces that fit together. No effort or work required. This was her sister. Her twin. But the more Alyssa stood there, absorbing, taking it all in, the more Alyssa realized she didn't know this person anymore.

And somehow this was worse, so much worse, because it was like losing her sister all over again.

Annelise was gone. And Eva Turner stood in her place. A stranger.

A thick, rolling blanket of grief slid over her body, layer upon layer upon layer until Alyssa felt so bogged down she could hardly move. Like the ghost of Marley with his chains.

"Are you okay?"

Pulling herself out of her stupor, Eva's hands were on her shoulders and Alyssa looked into eyes that were so familiar, yet so changed. And hated that she wanted to cry. "I'm just tired. Long flight."

Eva let go of her shoulders, a look washing over her that was all startled realization. "Oh, right. I have a room all ready for you if you want to lie down? We moved Hailey in with her sisters during your stay. You can imagine how that went over with a thirteen year old. It'll be a tight fit but—"

Alyssa's blood chilled. Here? Stay here? Emotions burned through her. Too bright and hot and wild, stripping her bare. Leaving her drained and exhausted. "No. Thank you. That's not necessary. I'll go back in to town. Stay a hotel or B&B or something."

"Lys..." Eva's eyes, dark whiskey, fractured with hurt, "you really don't have to do that."

"It's fine. I want my space. I need my space." And God, did she ever. The walls were closing in around her. Tight. So unbearably tight. 

"I can't have you spending money."

And I can't spend another second suffocating. "It's fine."

"Marshall has a cabin. For writing," Eva said, her voice thin and distant. "A blue one in the cove, about a five minute walk to the beach. He goes there when he needs some calm and quiet to focus."

Perfect! Alyssa chewed the inner lining of her cheek. "I don't want to intrude."

"He won't mind." Eva smiled, but the gesture didn't extend beyond the curve of her cheekbones. "He wrapped up his final edits last week so he's not going to need the space." Turning, Eva rummaged around on the counter, found a set of keys. Two, a brassy kind of gold with an ace of diamonds card dangling from the keychain.

"I can take you there? Help you get settled in."

"I'll manage." Alyssa took the keys, their fingers brushing briefly. "I always do."