Kitabı oku: «A Bride In Waiting»

Chapter One

Steam hissed from under the hood of Lucas Daniels’s silver Mercedes.

Muttering a curse, he slammed a fist against the steering wheel then yanked the traitor of a car to the side, into a parking space on Main Street—smack in the middle of downtown Briar Creek, Texas, on a Saturday afternoon.

Great. He could get out right here and make an announcement to the whole town rather than waiting for them to hear it via the gossip line. Skip the middleman. Maybe the news would travel fast enough that he wouldn’t have to be the one to tell his future in-laws, who were doubtless waiting at the church.

Analise Brewster will not be attending her own wedding rehearsal because she has skipped town. Make that skipped town, exclamation point since Analise’s note announcing that fact oozed exclamation points. And why not? She talked in exclamation points.

Both Lucas and Analise’s father, Ralph, had thought marriage would curb her impulsiveness, bring out a sense of responsibility, but so far the engagement hadn’t done much in that direction.

Her parents, especially her mother, were going to be very upset, as they always were when she got out of their sight for longer than a few minutes. They were overly protective and Analise was overly independent, a bad combination.

With another vehement curse, he climbed out into the east Texas summer day. The June sun beat down from above while heat rose from the street in waves to assault him from below. Though at this point he really couldn’t tell how much of that heat came from the sun and how much from his own anger.

He reached for the hood and burned his fingers on the hot metal. “Damn!” He bit back the rest of the litany of swearwords he’d have liked to run through.

A big hand clapped him on the back. “Got a problem, Lucas, my boy?”

My boy. After six years of practice, he was still a boy, still the new doctor...still Wayne Daniels’s son, accepted only because Ralph Brewster had taken him into his established practice. This new scandal wasn’t likely to increase anybody’s confidence in him. Lucas turned toward the smiling face. “You could say that, Herb.”

“Need a ride somewhere?”

Lucas plowed his fingers through his hair. He might as well tell Herb the truth and get it over with. Briar Creek was a small town. If, by chance, there was one person here that he didn’t know, Analise’s family did. Soon everybody would know about Analise’s latest escapade.

“Yeah,” he said. “Thanks. I could use a ride to the Methodist church over on Grand.”

“Getting ready for that big wedding, huh? I just saw Analise walking down Wyandotte.”

“What?”

Herb chuckled. “Reckon she’s gonna be late to your shindig, like she’s late to everything else. That’s our Analise.”

Lucas grabbed Herb’s arm. “Just now? You saw her just now?”

“Well, as long ago as it took me to drive one block. I wasn’t driving very fast, of course. I’m not in any hurry.”

“Which direction was she going?” .

Herb pointed up the street. “That way.”

Lucas whirled and charged in the direction Herb indicated. “Thanks!” he said over his shoulder.

“You still need that ride?”

“I’ll get Analise to take me.” After I kill her.

As he strode along the sidewalk, Lucas forced himself to smile and greet everybody he met, pretend nothing was wrong. He turned at the corner and went toward Wyandotte, the next street over, resisting the impulse to run, to catch his flaky fiancée quickly before she did something else crazy.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Greene. How’s Willie’s rheumatism?”

“Better, Lucas. Nice to see you. Tell Analise I said hello.”

He turned onto Wyandotte and there she was, staring into the window of Fulton’s Antiques.

Lucas clenched his teeth as he strode toward her., What kind of game was she playing, sending him a note telling him she was leaving town, then putting on those frumpy clothes, pulling her hair back in that braid and going downtown? Did she think she was disguised? Tall and willowy with that red hair and those distinctive features—large eyes, wide forehead and straight, patrician nose—it would take more than a change of clothes and hairstyle to disguise Analise Brewster.

She didn’t even look up as he approached.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

Sara Martin flinched at the angry tone in the man’s voice, but he couldn’t be talking to her. Someone else was in trouble this time.

She turned her back to the sound and started to continue down the street, anxious to avoid whatever scene was about to occur.

The man grabbed her arm. “Analise!”

She gasped, whirling to face her attacker, automatically bringing her knee up to his groin then smashing her heel into his instep. The heel of her hand went toward his nose, but she stopped herself as he released her, gave a strangled groan and sank to his knees on the sidewalk.

She gaped at the man in shock. “Omigosh! It worked!” She reached toward him to help him up, then recalled herself and stepped backward.

She’d always thought her mother was a little paranoid the way she constantly forced her to practice self-defense techniques, to be prepared to get away from a potential attacker and run. But now she’d actually been attacked, and she’d freed herself and she was standing on the sidewalk of a strange town, thinking she ought to help her attacker instead of running for her life. She had the actions right, but the attitude had gotten off track somewhere.

The man didn’t look dangerous. However, in his khaki slacks and white knit shirt with a little animal embroidered on one side, his black hair immaculately cut and styled, he did look exactly like the kind of man her mother had always taught her to fear—sophisticated, worldly, possibly wealthy.

Even so, the exasperated expression mingling with the pain in his brown eyes kept her rooted in place. That and the equally exasperated tone in his voice when he once again called her by the name of her favorite childhood doll as he struggled to his feet.

“Damn it, Analise, why’d you do that? What in heaven’s name are you up to? Did you think wearing that frumpy dress and pulling your hair back would disguise you? Have you gone completely nuts?”

Frumpy? She’d made this dress herself. Maybe she ought to kick him again.

Taking a couple more steps backward, she fumbled in her purse then withdrew her pepper spray. “Look, mister, either you’re the one who’s nuts, or you’ve mistaken me for somebody else. My name is not Analise. It’s—” She hesitated, the old fears surfacing, fears her mother had drilled into her head all her life. Never talk to strangers. Never tell anyone your name or my name or where we live. She pointed the spray at him. “It’s not Analise,” she finished. “I’m leaving now, and you’d better not try to stop me, or I’ll use this.”

The tendons stood out on the man’s neck, and the muscles clenched in his tanned, square jaw, a jaw out of sync with the perfect clothes and hairstyle. “Analise, this isn’t funny.”

A small, birdlike woman with curly blue hair came up from behind the man, stopped, smiled and wagged a finger. “Why, Analise and Lucas! What are you two naughty. lovebirds doing here when you’re supposed to be at your wedding rehearsal?”

Either the whole town was crazy, or she really did look like this Analise. Which could mean—

Her heart skipped a beat then went into an erratic rhythm as she thought of the implications of another woman looking so much like her.

“Hello, Mrs. Wilson,” the man said smoothly. “I guess we just lost track of time. We’re on our way right now.”

No, it couldn’t be. If Analise was her biological mother, she’d be too old to be marrying this Lucas person. Unless he liked older women. Or her mother had had a face-lift.

“I can’t wait to see that wedding gown, Analise. Eleanor told me it’s the prettiest thing she ever made.” She looked at Sara’s loose cotton dress and frowned, then changed it back to a smile. “Of course, you look beautiful in anything. Even with your hair pulled back like that. Though I like it better all loose and curly. Don’t you, Lucas?”

The man she called Lucas lifted the long braid off her back and stared at it curiously. “Yes, I do,” he said, his hand moving along the length of the braid then up to her head, his touch exploratory and surprisingly gentle.

Sara sucked in her breath, fighting fear and confusion. She wanted to bolt away from these two people who called her by the name of a doll, from this man who shouldn’t be touching her so familiarly and from her own unexpected pleasure at that touch.

“You kids get on to the church now, you hear?”

“We will, Mrs. Wilson.” Lucas’s voice was strangely subdued, the anger and exasperation in his dark eyes replaced by confusion as he spoke to Mrs. Wilson but looked directly at Sara.

“How did you get this thing attached so good?” he asked as Mrs. Wilson walked away.

“What thing? My hair?”

He continued to hold the braid with one hand. “It can’t be your hair. Yesterday your hair was only shoulder length.”

Sara swallowed hard and gripped the pepper spray tighter. Just in case. “I’m not your Analise,” she said, the words coming out barely above a whisper. “I came to town this morning. I’m looking for...relatives. If your Analise looks so much like me, maybe she’s my... relative.”

Lucas said nothing, but his narrowed gaze and raised eyebrow showed his skepticism.

“Turn loose of my braid,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll take it down and show you how long my hair is. It comes to my waist. It’s never been cut, never been shoulder length.”

He didn’t turn it loose. Instead, he pulled the band from the end and began to unwind the strands. She held her breath as he ran his fingers through the heavy mass of her hair, plunging them into its depths, over her scalp and down again.

Somehow the action seemed far too intimate for two strangers standing on a public street in the middle of the day.

No, she realized, not the action, but her reaction. Lucas’s touch exploded her nerve endings, sending delectable sensations washing over her, making her wish he’d never stop.

She jerked away from him, her hair swirling about her, out of his reach. “You see?” she asked breathlessly. “I’m not Analise.”

Lucas blinked against the sunlight as if suddenly awakened, one hand still outstretched to the space where her hair had been. His hand fell to his side. “No, you’re not.” His voice had a dusky quality that matched the look in his dark eyes. “You have her skin, her eyes, her lips...”

She stepped back before he could touch her again, before he could stir those sensations she didn’t want stirred.. “I need to go.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to herself or why she felt it necessary to say the words. He wasn’t restraining her.

“Except for the way you wear your hair, you could be her twin, but you’re not her.”

“Her twin? I could be her twin?” Sara’s mind whirled. Was that possible? Could her real mother have given birth to twins, and her adoptive mother only took one of the girls? Did she have a sister, a twin she’d never met who’d been adopted by someone here in Briar Creek?

She’d named her favorite doll Analise and pretended it was her sister. Had that been more then wishing? Twins were supposed to have that kind of sixth sense about each other, even when separated at birth.

“Is Analise your fiancée? Can I meet her? Please. It’s very important.”

He stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, then ran his fingers through his own hair, shook his head and laughed without humor.

“Yeah, she’s my fiancée and, no, you can’t meet her. I don’t know where she is.”

“You don’t know where your fiancée is?”

He looked up and down the street as if checking to see if anyone was watching, then shrugged and pulled a folded piece of pink paper from his pants pocket. “This was delivered to my house a few minutes ago, just as I was leaving to go to our wedding rehearsal.”

Sara returned her pepper spray to her purse and examined the paper. “A flyer for twenty percent off on treating your lawn for grubworms?” Maybe the man was crazy after all.

“The other side.” He reached across and flipped the paper over. The words leaped off the page, scrawled in a hasty, flowing script.

I have to leave town for a few days! Tell Mom and Dad I’ll call them this evening! When I come back, I’ll have some really big news! I know you’ll understand that I absolutely had to go because you’re my best friend in the whole world and you always understand me!

Hugs—Analise

P.S. By the way, you might want to postpone the wedding rehearsal for a few days!

Sara’s heart sank. This couldn’t be her sister, this person who wrote so exuberantly and ended every sentence with an exclamation point. This irresponsible person who deserted her fiancé on the day of their wedding rehearsal.

“I’m sorry,” she said, handing the note back to him.

He shrugged. “That’s Analise.”

“You mean she’s done things like this before?”

“Not quite this bad. And not since we decided to get married. Her parents and I thought marriage might make her a little more dependable, but it looks like we were wrong.” He stuffed the paper back into his pocket. “I apologize for the mistake. You really do look like her.”

“Like her twin.”

“Yeah. Like her twin. Well.” He shifted from one foot to the other, a nervous action at odds with his urbane appearance. “I guess I might as well get on over to the church and face the music. So I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing before I came along and interrupted.”

“Yes. Okay.”

He made no move to leave and neither did she. Sara felt oddly reluctant to part from Lucas. A natural reluctance since she desperately wanted to find out more about the missing Analise. It wasn’t even partly because of the way Lucas had touched her hair or the way he was looking at her, as if he wanted to touch her again.

“Maybe you could tell me—”

“I have an idea—”

They both spoke at the same time.

He smiled. “Go ahead. You first.”

“I just got to town a little while ago, and I’m trying to find some information about...missing members of my family. I don’t know where to start.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think because Analise looks like you, she may be a relative.”

“Maybe.” She saw no reason to tell him everything.

He nodded slowly, assessingly. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do my best to help you find your relatives if you’ll help me for just a couple of hours.”

Sara gulped and fumbled for her pepper spray. “What do you want me to do?”

“Analise will be back in a few days with some story of a new discovery, some new kind of a butterfly they’ve identified over in Dallas or something equally ridiculous.”

Sara’s mouth went dry. “A new species of butterfly? She’s interested in butterflies?”

“Bugs. All kinds of bugs. She’s a zoology major.”

“I wanted to major in zoology with a specialty in entomology! That’s insects,” she explained at Lucas’s startled look.

“I know what it is. That’s Analise’s field, too.”

“Oh!” She told herself she shouldn’t become too excited; that could only lead to disappointment. Nevertheless the evidence was mounting. The evidence plus that odd feeling she’d always had about having a sister. Her mother had told her that was normal for only children, but she’d never quite believed her on that one.

“Be glad you didn’t,” he said, and for a moment Sara thought she must have spoken aloud, but he was responding to her comment about her frustrated desire to major in zoology. “Analise hasn’t had much luck finding a job in that field. Anyway, she’ll be back in a few days and everybody will laugh and shake their heads because everybody loves her in spite of her flaky ways. But today her parents, who are wonderful people, are going to be very worried about her.”

He pulled the folded paper from his pocket again and regarded it balefully. “There’s no way we can reschedule the rehearsal. We made the wedding plans in a bit of a hurry. Analise couldn’t make up her mind until the last minute. Now the wedding’s set for next Saturday afternoon, squeezed in between one in the morning and another one in the late afternoon, and this is the only time we could get the church for rehearsal between now and then. This whole thing started out a mess, and it’s getting worse.” He looked directly into her eyes, his gaze so powerful, Sara felt her legs could turn to rubber and he’d still be able to hold her erect. “Unless you come to that rehearsal with me and pretend to be her.”

“What? Pretend to be somebody else? I couldn’t do that!”

“Sure you could. This is a rehearsal. All you have to do is whatever the coordinator tells you. I’ll pay you. Fifty dollars an hour. A hundred dollars an hour.”

She stared up at him, shocked and dismayed by the offer of money. In spite of her misgivings about pretending to be someone else, she’d wanted to agree until then, wanted to find out about this woman who looked so much like her.

But how many times had her mother warned her not to trust anyone with money? And illogical as she now knew such warnings, they were too deeply ingrained in her to ignore.

She shook her head slowly, a part of her still wanting to go with him, to take a chance for once in her life, to explore a path that might lead to a new identity for herself...to her real mother...or maybe, just possibly, to a sister.

“I’ll help you find whatever information you need, and when Analise comes back, I’ll make sure you get to meet her first thing.”

He’d moved closer to her or she to him, so close she could smell his expensive cologne, a scent that didn’t quite mask his own rugged, masculine essence.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

His features softened and his hand lifted to her cheek, pushing her hair back from her face. Above her his lips moved, forming the word please, and she could almost feel those lips on hers.

Wicked! her mother would have said. Dangerous!

“Yes,” Sara said.