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Rather than look repelled, Paul smiled "I’d better tell you the story about that car I boosted when I was sixteen, and the time Sarah dressed up as Cindy Crawford for our anniversary"
"It’s all right, Jessa" Sarah chuckled at her expression "We don’t keep secrets from each other, and now that you’re here, we can’t Coe, well-equipped kitchen Sarah expertly prepared a hot breakfast of pecan-studded pancakes, sliced peaches, and fragrant chamomile tea She happily accepted Jessa’s offer to set the table while Matthias told Paul about Drew Riordan being exposed, Rowan’s trip to Atlanta, and the terrifying encounter with Lawson
"You’ll need to go to the farm, Matt," Jessa heard Paul say "Sarah and I will drive you all out tomorrow"
"Where is the farm?" she asked Sarah
"It’s a place Gaven owns in central Tennessee He spends tiets away froesture toward the north "When Paul and I --GenHance seized our costume business, called in the note on our house, cleaned out our accounts, and had us both charged with inco, they probably would have gotten us, too"
"How did you end up here?"
"Matthias didn’t tell you? He owns this place" Her eyes twinkled "He has about two hundred different properties all over the country He asked us if we’d like to run an inn, and since Paul and I like people, and we’ve always drea a little country house, it seeht here," Jessa guessed
"He brings us others from time to time The ones who are alives them a little break before they have to become someone else" Sarah handed her a platter with three tall stacks of pancakes "Serve yourself first, or the guys won’t leave you a crumb"
Over pancakes Sarah told theuests Jessa winced as she heard about the neho had gone for a nature walk, succumbed to a moment of passion, and ended up with a case of poison ivy in the worst possible places Paul contributed his tale of the New York executive who had been grimly determined to ride one of their horses and have photos taken to show his friends back in the city, at least until he slid off the back of the horse and sprained his tailbone
Matthias excused himself from the table so that he could use the Clarks’ phone to contact Rowan, leaving Jessa alone with the couple
Jessa wanted to ask Sarah more details about her life and her ability, but didn’t quite kno She’d spent soher own that she had no idea how to even initiate such a conversation
Once more Paul saw her anxiety "I think Jessa would like to hear about soave hirateful look "Other than Matthias and Rowan, I’ve never met others like me in person I have so many questions Do you mind?"
"Not at all," Paul told her "Ask away"
"How did you two rimaced "It was pretty typical of how people like us usually hook up Paul and Ifor their biological parents We hit it off, compared notes, and found out we had a lot in coo," Paul put in "That’s where ere both adopted as infants Most of the records were lost, but we know the Catholic Church was involved in placing us We also ot romantically involved"
"Thank heavens for ood families and had normal childhoods, at least until I was hit by a car when I elve, and Sarah contracted itis when she was sixteen We both should have died, but instead we caestured toward his face "My eyes used to be brown The doctors thought the brain helanced at his wife "Sarah did better She kept her ability a secret from everyone"
"It wasn’t hard," she said, and the air wavered around her as her ied into that of a wide-eyed, stocky man in a white lab coat "This doctor was the only one who ever caughtup," he said in Sarah’s voice, "and he quit drinking the sa her to her normal appearance
Jessa had watched the transfore shape"
"I wish I could I’d definitely do soular cheek "What we think I do is alter the light around me so what you see is hoant to appear to you I can also cast an illusion that changes the appearance of anyone within five feet of me, which is how I can do this" The air around the table wavered, and suddenly Jessa sao Sarahs sitting at the table She laughed as she looked down at herself and saw that she had been changed into a Sarah clone as well
"That is a," she said
"It’s just a brain trick," Sarah said, dispelling the illusion "It doesn’t fool Paul, because he can see the shifts in light intensity whenever I dress up I need the light, too; I can’t use my ability in complete darkness Also, my body stays the saed into an exact twin of the faet is still plain old Sarah Clark" She dropped the illusion