A Bride In Waiting
A Bride In Waiting
Sally Carleen
ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING…THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDEDr. Lucas Daniels viewed his bride-to-be's temporary disappearance with exasperation, fondness and resignation. After all, she felt the same way about him! Then a beautiful stranger strolled into town, looking exactly like his fianceé. In order to avoid upsetting their families, Lucas asked Sara Martin to stand in as the missing bride. But now he was wondering which bride to marry….Sara had been searching for a family, and now her wishes had come true. Not only did she have wonderful parents, but the look of love in her pretend groom's eyes warmed her heart. But when the clock struck twelve, would it end her fairy-tale dream or give her a true happily ever after?Long-lost twins discover their perfect grooms!
Sara. (#u6017fc46-ff88-5f64-82bd-6e2601b37a2e)Letter to Reader (#u9be5630e-969b-550f-9419-bdaa4bc9c93a)Title Page (#u2ad0f941-2d07-5faa-ad3f-38a47db6babd)Dedication (#u0a604f9b-c5e4-5841-b086-bbd2f57c5b50)About the Author (#u45e19ab7-6b4e-5890-bcdc-b52238bab23e)Chapter One (#ucc380f78-44c3-5609-9a50-c9ddfbb0c077)Chapter Two (#ubcd0d1bc-e1a4-537f-ad84-fece09806c76)Chapter Three (#uedf7dc81-2ddc-5610-bab8-02ee70aacbb1)Chapter Four (#u6334aae1-096c-5bef-9ea9-1a90c48fe80f)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Sara.
From the first time Lucas had seen her, he’d known she couldn’t be Analise, because Analise had never turned his brain to mush while sending his hormones skyrocketing.
Okay, he was attracted to Sara. Very attracted. And he liked her. Admired her. Respected her. Wanted to take care of her and make her happy.
But he wasn’t in love.
He couldn’t be in love.
He refused to be in love.
But every time he closed his eyes, Sara’s face appeared. And no matter how hard he tried to convince himself it was really Analise’s face, he didn’t believe himself.
Dear Reader,
In May 2000 Silhouette Romance will commemorate its twentieth anniversary! This line has always celebrated the essence of true love in a manner that blends classic themes and the challenges of romance in today’s world into a reassuring, fulfilling novel. From the enchantment of first love to the wonder of second chance, a Silhouette Romance novel demonstrates the power of genuine emotion and the breathless connection that develops between a man and a woman as they discover each other. And this month’s stellar selections are quintessential Silhouette Romance stories!
If you’ve been following LOVING THE BOSS, you’ll be amazed when mysterious Rex Barrington III is unmasked in I Married the Boss! by Laura Anthony. In this month’s FABULOUS FATHERS offering by Donna Clayton, a woman discovers His Ten-Year-Old Secret. And opposites attract in The Rancher and the Heiress, the third of Susan Meier’s TEXAS FAMILY TIES miniseries.
WRANGLERS & LACE returns with Julianna Morris’s The Marriage Stampede. In this appealing story, a cowgirl butts heads—and hearts—with a bachelor bent on staying that way. Sally Carleen unveils the first book in her exciting duo ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING... with the tale of a twin mistaken for an M.D.’s Bride in Waiting! It’s both a blessing and a dilemma for a single mother when she’s confronted with an amnesiac Husband Found, this month’s FAMILY MATTERS title by Martha Shields.
Enjoy the timeless power of Romance this month, and every month—you won’t be disappointed!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
A Bride in Waiting
Sally Carleen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Lynda Powell Cilwick, who believed in Sara long before I did.
SALLY CARLEEN,
the daughter of a cowboy and a mail-order bride, has romance in her genes. Factor in the grandfather in 1890s Louisiana who stole the crowd at political rallies by standing on a flatbed wagon and telling stories, and it’s no surprise she ended up writing romance novels.
Sally, a hard-core romantic who expects life and novels to have happy endings, is married to Max Steward, and they live in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, with their large cat, Leo, and their very small dog, Cricket. Her hobbies are drinking Coca-Cola and eating chocolate, especially Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream. Sally loves to hear from her readers; P.O. Box 6614, Lee’s Summit, MO 64064.
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.
Chapter Two
Sara clutched the steering wheel with one hand and the door handle with the other as she drove across town with Lucas in the car beside her, guiding her along the unfamiliar streets.
What on earth was she doing, going somewhere with a strange man, entering a strange world, pretending to be another woman? Was it possible this strange man could even turn out to be the kidnapper her mother had always feared?
The last notion was another holdover from her mother’s paranoia, she tried to reassure herself. A kidnapper didn’t approach his victim and ask her to pretend to be his bride.
Nevertheless, she was infinitely relieved when Lucas directed her into the parking lot of a huge stone church. Surely a kidnapper wouldn’t take his victim to church first.
“Park over there,” he said, indicating a far comer of the lot, “so nobody will notice you’re not driving Analise’s car.”
Sara’s gaze swept the assortment of luxury automobiles directly in front of the church. Her ten-year-old midsize sedan would certainly stand out in that company. “What kind of car does Analise have?”
He sighed and turned to her with a rueful grin. “A fast one. A small, red sports car that enables our local police force to write their quota of speeding tickets every month.”
A car that matched the handwriting on the note from Analise.
“I’ve never knowingly exceeded the speed limit in my life,” Sara mused. “Where does she get the money to pay all those tickets if she can’t find a job?”
“Her parents have big bucks. Her father, Ralph Brewster, is a doctor and her mother’s family founded this town.”
That information didn’t do anything to soothe Sara’s nerves. “I’m not sure I can do this, pretend to be someone so different.”
Lucas’s dark eyes scrutinized her face. He shook his head and for one moment Sara feared he was going to agree with her. In that moment she realized how desperately she wanted to do this, to find out more about Analise, the woman who looked so much like her.
To prove to herself that she could do this.
“Different?” he said. “I can’t get over how much you two look alike. It’s uncanny. If I didn’t know better... well, trust me, you won’t have any problems. All you have to do is listen to the wedding coordinator. She’ll tell you everything in a voice you couldn’t miss if you were in the next county. Let’s hurry. We’re late.”
They got out of the car and started across the lot toward the church. If the situation wasn’t bad enough, that church made it worse. It loomed ahead, big, old, solid and intimidating. The stained-glass windows seemed to watch her approach, daring such an inconsequential person as her to enter. She didn’t belong in any place so grand. The church knew it and all the people inside would notice immediately.
“Wait a minute.” Lucas’s words stopped her. She whirled back toward him, irrational fear flooding her for just a moment. Surely a kidnapper wouldn’t kidnap in a church parking lot. “We have to do something about your hair.”
He reached around her for the braid she’d redone and tucked it into the collar of her dress.
“Your skin’s cold,” he said softly, his fingers lingering deliciously on the bare flesh of her neck.
She laughed nervously. “It’s at least ninety degrees. I can’t be cold.” Though judging from the relative warmth of his touch, she knew she must be.
He jerked his hand away as though she had suddenly burned him. “Your skin’s clammy,” he said, his tone brisk and businesslike. “A typical reaction to stress. You’re really nervous about this, aren’t you?”
“I’m okay. Let’s get this over with.” She walked defiantly toward the church.
“Hey!”
She stopped again, one foot on the front step.
“I don’t know your name or anything about you.”
“Sara Martin. I’m a librarian. I’m from Deauxville, Missouri.”
He smiled, and Sara’s fears somehow vanished in that flash of white teeth against tanned skin, of his dark eyes lighting from within. “Hi, Sara Martin. I’m Lucas Daniels, and I’m a doctor from Briar Creek who’s greatly in your debt.”
He took her hand and they went into the church, into the hushed atmosphere of a huge auditorium with burgundy carpet that sank beneath Sara’s feet. Pews upholstered in velvet fabric of the same color sat in quiet, orderly rows. The place even smelled like burgundy velvet...rich and dignified and established.
The intimidating hush was shattered in the next second by a chaotic crowd of people bustling and shouting.
“Thank goodness you’re here! We were getting worried.”
“Analise, can’t you ever be on time?”
“Analise, my dress hasn’t come in yet!”
“Will everyone please settle down so we can get started here.”
Sara took an instinctive step backward and felt Lucas’s strong hands on her shoulders, supporting her and urging her forward.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, his voice deep and reassuring in her ear.
“The bride and her attendants stay at the back. I need the groom and his attendants here,” a slim, elegant woman standing to one side up front directed, and Lucas left Sara.
Three laughing, confident young women converged on her instead, and Sara shrank inside.
“Cool hair,” a brown-eyed blonde said. “Makes you look sophisticated. Kind of like a real wife.”
“Cool dress, too,” a short brunette added. “Wish I could carry off that look. On me, it’d just be dowdy.”
What was it with these people and her dress?
“Quiet, everyone,” the authoritative woman ordered. Obviously she was the coordinator Lucas had mentioned. “The minister, the groom and his attendants will enter from the front and stand looking to the back, waiting for the bride.”
As the men, including Lucas, moved solemnly into their places, the whole thing took on a dreamlike quality.
“Marilyn sings the solo, then as soon as the organist begins to play, Judy starts down the aisle. When she’s halfway, Kathy starts, then Linda. Okay, pretend the solo’s just finished. Nancy, begin the music.” Strains of organ music floated through the auditorium. “Judy, start down the aisle. As soon as you get to the front, turn and face the back, all attention focusing on the bride. Stop giggling, Judy, and, for goodness’ sake, don’t be chewing gum during the actual wedding.”
One by one, the three women moved down the aisle, leaving Sara alone with everyone staring at her.
Lucas had been wrong. She’d been wrong. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t pull off something so daring as masquerading as another woman. The most daring thing she’d ever done before was...well, the only daring thing she’d ever done was sell everything after her mother’s death and come to Briar Creek, Texas. And right now she regretted that, big time.
She half turned to run from the church, get in her car and go back to Deauxville, forget all about finding her real mother or this unlikely possibility of a twin sister.
But a tall, portly man moved up beside her and, smiling down at her, took her arm, and she was mesmerized by the total acceptance and love in his eyes. The organist broke into the strains of the wedding march.
“Okay, bride, you’re on. This is your show. Take it slow and graceful. Do not run down the aisle.”
The tall man winked. “My baby girl went straight from crawling to running. What makes that woman think you’re going to change now?”
Analise’s father.
The love that emanated from him was for his daughter, not for her.
But it was so hard not to luxuriate in the paternal adoration, something she’d never experienced before.
In a daze she walked down the aisle beside Analise’s devoted father, moving toward Lucas, Analise’s beaming groom. It was hard to fight the urge to become lost in the pretense, to believe she really was Analise Brewster, beloved daughter and fiancée, the person who belonged in this church, in this community, in this wedding.
“Who gives this woman in marriage?”
“Her mother and I.”
The older man placed her hand in Lucas’s. He gave her a conspiratorial smile, and she could no longer resist becoming hopelessly lost in the wedding fantasy.
“The minister reads the vows. You each answer ‘I do’ and exchange rings.”
“I do,” Sara whispered, holding her hand out for Lucas to slip on the invisible ring, then doing the same for him.
“Then you kiss the bride, turn to face the congregation, and the minister introduces you as Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Daniels.”
Lucas’s dark gaze held hers for an instant then dropped to her lips. As if in slow motion, his face lowered toward hers, his lips touching hers gently, possessively, lighting unexpected fires inside her while promising a lifetime of love and belonging. For that brief moment she almost believed that promise was for her.
“Now you walk down the aisle together.”
The voice of the wedding coordinator yanked Sara back to reality.
What on earth was the matter with her? Had she lost her mind? She’d agreed to this charade in exchange for promised assistance in her quest. Losing herself in a game of make-believe wasn’t part of that quest.
She was not Analise. This was not her wedding, the older man was not her father and Lucas was not her fiance.
She pushed against Lucas’s chest.
His heart pounding furiously, Lucas released Sara.
Around them the wedding party buzzed while the loudmouthed, pushy coordinator tried to get them quiet for another run-through or even two. They needed to have it down pat, she said, since it would be an entire week before the wedding, a lot of time to forget.
That was the last thing Lucas needed—to have to pretend to marry Sara again, to kiss her again.
Not that the kiss was a requisite part of the rehearsal. No, that had been entirely his idea. Actually, it hadn’t even been his idea. His body, his lips had taken control, demanding to touch this woman who looked so much like his fiancée but affected him in a way Analise never had.
That was how he’d known for certain she wasn’t Analise. Heaven help him, Analise had never set his hormones to boiling the way this woman did, and certainly never made him want to take care of her and protect her from the world.
Heck, the world needed protecting from Analise, he thought fondly. But Sara was a different story altogether. And he damn sure shouldn’t be feeling this way about another woman a week before his wedding.
Nerves, he told himself. That’s all it was. Because of Analise’s disappearance, he was hyped, his adrenaline pumping. He’d get away from here, do some deep breathing and get back to normal.
A tiny blond woman pushed through the crowd. “I can’t believe my baby’s getting married!” Clare Brewster exclaimed, reaching upward to embrace Sara. Lucas held his breath. Did Sara look enough like Analise to fool her own mother? He needed to get her out of there fast...to protect her identity as well as to protect his out-of-kilter libido.
Sara leaned stiffly to accept Clare’s embrace.
“Oh, good grief, Clare, don’t start already,” Analise’s father admonished.
“Hush, Ralph. Go remove an appendix or lift a face or something. Do you feel all right, Analise? You look a little pale.” She squinted upward, and Lucas repressed a smile at his future mother-in-law’s vain reluctance to wear glasses. “You need some lipstick, sweetheart, and a little blusher. I’m not sure I like that new hairstyle. It makes you look so old, so grown-up. And where did you get that dress? Oh, I know, that look is trendy. It’s just that it’s so...so—”
Lucas placed-a hand on Sara’s shoulder. “Analise isn’t feeling very good today. Why don’t you all do another run-through of the wedding without us? We know our parts.”
“You don’t feel well, baby? What’s the matter?”
“She’s a little queasy, that’s all. Prewedding jitters.” Lucas wanted to bite his tongue as soon as he said it. Would anybody believe a mere wedding could make Analise jittery? “Or maybe a bug of some kind,” he hastily added.
“We can’t do this without the bride and groom,” the coordinator protested.
“You certainly can,” Clare said. “I’m taking my baby home. I’ll have Annie make some of that potato soup you like, and you’ll be all better by the rehearsal dinner tonight.”
“No!” Sara and Lucas exclaimed in unison.
He’d forgotten about that stupid dinner and hadn’t even considered the possibility that Clare might drag Sara home with her.
Ignoring them both, Clare clutched Sara’s arm and tugged her toward the door.
Lucas flinched, expecting the worst. His future mother-in-law didn’t know she was dragging off an ersatz daughter who was skilled in the art of self-defense.
When Sara merely gave him a panicked look over her shoulder rather than mauling Clare the way she’d done him, he sent up a short prayer of thanks.
He grabbed her other arm. “She needs to go with me,” he said. He’d bargained with Sara for a couple of hours of her time, not an afternoon trapped by Analise’s demanding parents who’d be sure to figure out immediately that Sara was not their headstrong daughter. For everybody’s sake, he had to get her out of there. “We have some, uh, wedding arrangements to take care of.”
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Clare argued. “My little girl’s sick. She’s coming home with me. You’re not married to her yet.” Clare was taking full advantage of her “daughter’s” unaccustomed weakness.
“They’re really important,” Sara said in a strangled voice, “those arrangements Lucas and I need to take care of.”
Clare patted Sara’s cheek and smiled softly. “Can’t it wait for one more day, sweetheart? Can’t you be my little girl and let me take care of you one last time?”
A glazed expression came over Sara’s face as she looked down at Clare and, to Lucas’s astonishment, she nodded slowly.
“Then I’m coming with her,” he said. “After all, I’m a doctor.” It was the best he could come up with on such short notice.
Clare frowned at him. “So is her father.”
“And two doctors are better than one.”
Right now he needed a doctor of a different sort, one to figure out why he’d ever thought this crazy idea would work in the first place. Unlike Analise, he wasn’t given to doing impulsive things, and his first attempt was turning into a major disaster.
The three of them headed out of the church with Clare clucking and fussing over Sara’s health.
Lucas caught a fleeting glimpse of Ralph’s confused expression as Analise’s father followed behind them. He knew something wasn’t right with his daughter. Rather, the girl he thought was his daughter.
Somehow Lucas’s attempt to keep the situation smooth had resulted in a sticky mess.
“Lucas, where’s your car?” Clare asked as they exited the church.
“On Main Street,” he answered truthfully. “It overheated.”
“How did you get here?”
“I borrowed that car.” He pointed to Sara’s white sedan.
“Well, take it back and we’ll see you at the house later.”
“Analise has the keys.”
“Give him the keys, baby.”
Sara gave him another panic-stricken look as she handed him the car keys. He took them and Clare guided her into their Cadillac. Lucas gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring. “I’ll be right behind you,” he called.
Oh, boy, he thought as he trotted over to Sara’s car.
Not only did he have to figure out some way to get Sara out of that house, but he’d forgotten about that damn dinner tonight.
He’d bridged a stream only to have a chasm open at his feet. He couldn’t possibly ask Sara to pose as Analise again. All he’d done was delay the town’s and her parents’ knowledge of her defection. Ralph would be disappointed at Lucas’s failure to bring stability to Analise’s life. Clare would be a basket case. They were good people. He didn’t want to see either of them upset.
And, since his acceptance in Briar Creek hinged on Ralph’s acceptance of him, if Ralph’s daughter rejected him, all the old talk would start again.
He pulled onto the street behind Ralph’s car.
Maybe if he begged Sara...
Maybe if he let her attack him again, she’d feel guilty again and agree to this second favor.
In spite of the remembered pain, he had to smile at the way she’d defended herself. For someone so timid, she certainly knew her self-defense techniques and wasn’t afraid to use them.
Sara Martin was an enigma, a tantalizing enigma, one he’d be tempted to explore if he weren’t marrying Analise.
He frowned at his own thoughts.
He was engaged to Analise. He shouldn’t be having thoughts like that about another woman. He never had before, and this was certainly no time to start.
So what if Analise and he didn’t have that crazy, can’t-live-without-each-other passion that the world insisted on writing songs about. He’d seen what that grand passion had done for his parents...ruined both their lives.
Analise was his friend, someone who would never make him lose control of his life or bring him pain. In spite of the fact that Analise was untamed and passionate, their relationship with each other was sane and safe.
Thank goodness he was marrying Analise and couldn’t go chasing after tantalizing enigmas.
Chapter Three
Analise’s house was every bit as intimidating as the church, Sara thought as they drove through the security gate and up the hill. Huge live oak, pecan and magnolia trees lined the entry and spread around the big, white Colonial structure. A smaller edifice would be hidden, but the Brewster house sat in regal splendor on top of the hill overlooking its domain. Bright roses twined in orderly fashion over trellises on each side of the front porch.
Lucas pulled in behind them and parked in the driveway in front of the large detached garage, then the four of them followed the sidewalk that wound to the front porch. Clare continued to talk, but Sara didn’t hear anything she said. She looked down at the pebbled walk, at the velvety green lawn and called herself all kinds of an idiot. She’d always been so sedate, so sensible, so aware of the real world. She’d never indulged in daydreaming about things she couldn’t have.
Until today.
She’d almost escaped until Analise’s mother had reached up and touched her so gently and asked her to be her little girl one last time. She’d been determined she would get away from Analise’s parents, from the church, from Lucas...but suddenly she’d slipped into that blasted fantasy again just the way she had while walking down the aisle. Without warning, an intense, aching loneliness had overwhelmed her, a longing to be cared for by a mother like Clare.
Her own mother—her adoptive mother—had loved her in her own way. June Martin had been a strict disciplinarian and she hadn’t been a demonstrative person, but Sara could scarcely lament the lack of something she’d never had.
And she wasn’t feeling that lack today, she assured herself. She was just getting caught up in the pretense, the way an actress sometimes got caught up in the role she was playing.
Which rationalization didn’t help her situation. All she wanted to do right now was blurt out the truth and. get away from these people, this house, this town. Go back to her dull little life and forget about finding her real mother who hadn’t wanted her anyway so why was she so determined to find her?
Lucas’s hand at the small of her back urged her up the steps of the porch and into the tiled entryway of the big house.
A crystal chandelier sparkled overhead and a wide, curving staircase loomed before her.
“Go on upstairs to your room, and I’ll have Annie make you that soup,” Clare instructed.
Lucas guided her toward the stairs. The enduring scents of old wood and lemon oil wrapped around her, speaking of a permanence she’d never known. She laid a tentative hand on the smooth, cool surface of the banister.
“Don’t even think of sliding down that thing again,” Ralph called.
She looked back to see him grinning at her, but his gaze was intent...assessing. He knew something was wrong.
She gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Lucas hustled her up the stairs and into Analise’s room.
As soon as he closed the door behind them, she sank to the floor, drawing in huge gulps of air and expelling them in something between sobs and hysterical laughter. Lucas squatted beside her.
“I’m sorry, Sara. I thought this would be simple. I had no idea this was going to happen.”
“What about the rehearsal dinner? You failed to mention that!”
Lucas ran his fingers through his hair, mussing his immaculate style. “I forgot. I was so upset about everything else, I forgot about that damn dinner. I don’t suppose...” -
“No! Absolutely not. This is making a nervous wreck out of me. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“That’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked. Look, if you can just eat some soup and then say you feel better, I’ll get you out of here. That would be typical Analise behavior. She’s always charging off somewhere, doing something bizarre. Like she did today.”
“She goes off like that without telling her parents?” Sara asked incredulously. “I couldn’t even go out in the yard without asking my mother.”
“Analise always tells them, but it’s usually after the fact, when it’s too late for them to stop her. In this case, she told me, and I’m to tell her parents. She’s kind of impulsive.”
“Sounds like it.” Flaky and irresponsible, Sara would have said, though she found herself liking the absent Analise and wondering what it must be like to be so confident and so daring.
She leaned back against the door, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “When I left Missouri, I was determined to change my life, but I didn’t have quite this drastic a change in mind.”
“You’re doing great,” he assured her. “You’re totally safe as long as Clare doesn’t put on her glasses... and she’s so vain, I’ve never seen her wear them.”
“No, I’m not doing great. Her father suspects. Does she really slide down the banister?”
“That she does.” He leaned back against the door beside her, one knee upraised with his hand resting on it. “Analise is, um, high-spirited.”
“You must love her a lot.” What a stupid thing to say, she chastised herself. He was marrying the woman. Of course he loved her.
“Love Analise? Well, sure. Yeah. We’ve been best friends since I moved back here to go into practice with her father six years ago.”
“He must be a very successful doctor.” She looked around at all the opulence.
“He is,” Lucas agreed. “Successful and competent and a great guy. But this house belonged to Clare’s family.”
And Lucas was marrying the impulsive daughter of this prominent family.
Sara got to her feet shakily and walked across the room. What on earth was she doing here? What made her think Analise Brewster would want to claim her as a sister, even if that far-fetched possibility should be true?
“This room is as big as some of the places where my mother and I lived.”
“It used to be two rooms. Ralph and Clare had the wall knocked out when Analise was just a baby because she had too many toys for one room. Analise is an only child, and her parents overindulge her sometimes.” He grinned. “Most times.”
Sara stood for a moment studying the room with its plush white carpet, accented by colorful throw rugs. A red phone and a computer peeked from disorderly piles of paper on a rolltop desk. A white telephone—did Analise even have a private phone line?—sat on a nightstand next to a large bed with a white-eyelet spread almost hidden by bright throw pillows and stuffed animals. On one wall a large television stood guard over videotapes scattered casually around it. An elaborate stereo with compact discs in shining disarray occupied a corner, while an entire wall of built-in shelves was filled with books, photographs and assorted music boxes. In one corner, as if occupying a place of honor, a battered doll with remnants of red hair reclined in a doll carriage.
It was a comfortable room, one where Sara immediately and irrationally felt at home though she’d never lived in, or even visualized living in, such a room. Maybe it was the music boxes, something she’d have loved to collect if she’d had the money, or maybe—
“That doll looks a little like Analise,” she said, more to herself than to Lucas.
“Not really. Analise is much taller and has more hair,” Lucas teased.
Sara laughed. “I meant, she looks like a doll I used to have, a doll named Analise.”
“Really? That’s odd. I mean, it’s an unusual name. What an odd coincidence that you named your doll Analise when you look so much like her.”
“Yes, I guess it is.” She picked up the doll and studied it curiously. “I have no idea where I heard the name. I saw that doll in the store and decided her name was Analise and I absolutely had to have her. Probably because she had red hair like me.” Or because she reminded me of a twin sister I remembered only on a subconscious level? “We never had much money and we moved a lot, so I didn’t get many toys. I understood and usually didn’t complain, but this time I kept after my mother until she bought me that doll. Then I hung on to her until we moved to Iowa when I was nine. Somehow she got lost in that move, and I felt as though I’d lost my best friend.”
She returned the doll to its carriage and smoothed its dress then turned back to Lucas.
He stood in front of the door like a sentinel, arms crossed over his chest, feet braced wide apart. “Seems pretty normal you’d feel that way if you moved around a lot. Making new friends is hard.” He looked and sounded as if he knew from personal experience, and she recalled that he’d mentioned he’d moved back to town six years ago. But he didn’t pursue the topic. Instead he inclined his head toward the shelves. “There’s a picture of Analise—” he grinned “—the real one, not your doll.”
Sara walked over and picked up the eight-by-ten color portrait. At first she was disappointed. From all the confusion of identity, she’d expected to feel as though she were looking into a mirror. “I can see a resemblance,” she murmured, “but...I don’t know. She’s different. Prettier.” However, the more she stared at the picture, the more she saw of herself—her eyes, her mouth, her nose.
Her sister?
Her twin sister?
Lucas came up behind her, his breath, warm on her neck, and took it from her. “Resemblance, hell. She’s not any prettier than you are. The same hairstyle, a little makeup, a big smile and it’s you.”
Sara moved a step away from Lucas’s compelling nearness and picked up another picture, this one of Clare, Ralph and Analise, obviously taken a few years earlier. “Analise looks so happy.”
“She is happy. Nothing’s ever happened to make her sad.”
The tone of Lucas’s voice drew Sara’s attention. She looked at him closely, beneath the polish, the perfect haircut and expensive clothes, to the pain tucked away at the very back of his eyes. She could see it as clearly as she saw his face. Maybe it wasn’t that obvious to everyone, but she knew what to look for. To her chagrin, the added dimension made him even more attractive, tugged at her more surely than his hand on her arm in the church.
She had to get out of this house and away from these people before she lost complete control of her senses.
“Analise, why aren’t you in bed?”
Sara whirled to see Clare standing in the doorway holding a tray with a bowl of steaming potato soup. In spite of everything, the smell made her mouth water and her soul relax. Her favorite comfort food as well as Analise’s.
Another similarity.
Clare handed her tray to Lucas. “You can’t wear that dress,” she said as she crossed the room to the bed. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ll put on that nice robe your aunt Wilma sent you.” She turned down the bed and plumped the pillows then looked at Sara. “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Just go in the bathroom and change into something.”
Sara spotted a door at one end of the room and bolted toward it. With any sort of luck, it would lead not to the bathroom but to another dimension.
The door revealed a huge walk-in closet crammed full of brightly colored clothes. Clare was going to think her daughter was really sick if she didn’t even remember which door led to the bathroom.
Sara looked around desperately and finally spotted a pale pink quilted object that might be a robe dangling from a shelf in the back. She retrieved it, took a deep breath and returned to Lucas and Clare.
Clare smiled. “Why, thank you for humoring me, dear. Now I can tell your aunt Wilma you wore the robe.”
Sara stole a glance at Lucas. He smiled, his eyes twinkling, and tilted his head toward a door at the other end of the room.
Analise’s bathroom looked as though it had come straight out of the pages of a magazine. A huge gray marble Jacuzzi with shiny brass hardware dominated one side of the room with a matching vanity across the other. Someone had apparently cleaned this room as nothing but soft mauve towels and perfume bottles were in evidence.
A pale, frightened face stared back at Sara from the well-lighted mirror, a face that bore little resemblance to the vibrant, beautiful Analise in the picture Sara had seen. For a fleeting moment, she thought how lucky Analise was to have all these material things as well as two loving parents and an attractive, caring fiancé whose touch could create tantalizing tingles.
She shoved those thoughts aside. Envy never helped anyone. Certainly not envy of someone else’s fiancé.
She peeled off her clothes and put on the pink robe. No wonder Analise didn’t want to wear it. The fabric was scratchy and much too warm for this time of the year, plus the garment was large and bulky. But she wouldn’t have to wear it for long, just long enough to eat some soup and get out of there.
As she turned to go, she saw hanging on the door a brightly patterned silk robe of red swirled with green and purple. She couldn’t resist smiling. Even from what little she knew of Analise, this robe seemed perfect for her. She touched the soft fabric, letting it slide through her fingers, and felt a curious connection with the missing Analise.
Lucas had promised that she could meet his fiancée if she did this favor for him, and they’d gone way beyond “favor” at this point. However, she was no longer sure she wanted to meet her look-alike. She was intimidated by everything to do with this woman she’d never met, this woman who might be her sister.
She looked at herself again in the mirror. There were differences, but she looked more like Analise than Analise looked like Clare and Ralph. Ralph had dark brown, almost black, hair and hazel eyes, and Clare had blond hair, blue eyes and a small, uptilted nose. No red hair and green eyes or strong, straight nose.
Analise could very well be adopted, too.
Analise could very well be her twin.
Sara straightened her shoulders. Whatever the cost, she had to meet Analise, had to know if they were related.
She left the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and went to sit on the bed.
“Omigosh!” She shot up, then reached behind her and pushed experimentally. “It’s a water bed!”
“Analise, will you stop being silly and sit down,” Clare demanded.
Sara lowered herself uneasily onto the unreliable surface, and Clare handed her the tray.
Sara took a tentative taste of the soup. “It’s wonderful!”
“Good,” Clare approved. “As soon as you finish eating, you take a nap. I’ll come wake you in plenty of time to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.”
“I’ll stay with her for a while longer,” Lucas said, coming to sit on the side of the bed.
Clare leaned over and brushed the wisps of hair back from Analise’s face then kissed her forehead. Sara closed her eyes and tried not to enjoy the maternal gesture that belonged to Analise, not to her. But again, as at the wedding rehearsal, it was hard to keep in mind that this was all make-believe.
“Very well, Lucas,” Clare said. “You can stay with her, but don’t keep her awake.”
The older woman bustled to the door, and Sara realized for the first time that Analise’s parents seemed to have no problem with leaving her alone in her room with Lucas. Did that mean they knew and approved of Lucas and Analise...well, of their doing things married people did?
Lucas and Analise were engaged, and in this day and age, that sort of thing was accepted. There was no reason for her to feel that swift surge of...what? Pain? Envy?
Whatever it was, she refused to acknowledge or indulge it.
Clare paused at the door, looked back and sighed. “This will probably be the last time I get to take care of you,” she said wistfully. “I don’t suppose you want me to tuck Sara in with you this one last time?”
Sara’s fingers clutched the tray in her lap convulsively. She heard Lucas gasp. What on earth was Analise’s mother saying?
“Oh, don’t give me that look. I know you’re all grown-up and too old for dolls, but I saw you cuddling Sara and talking to her just last week. Lucas, don’t you dare make fun of Analise. Of course she’ll want to take that old doll with her when you get married. She’s an only child, and that doll’s been her pretend sister since she was just a little thing.”
Chapter Four
The door closed behind Clare, and Lucas turned to Sara. Her gaze was still riveted on the door and she looked as confused as he felt.
“What’s going on here?” he asked. “Who are you? Why does Analise have a doll with your name and you have a doll with her name?”
She shook her head slowly. As if in a daze, she stood and set the lap tray on the nightstand. Managing somehow to look graceful and regal even in that ridiculous robe, she crossed the room and picked up Analise’s picture again.
“Is Analise adopted?” she asked.
“No, of course not. Well, I don’t think so.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s never come up.”
“She doesn’t look like either Clare or Ralph.”
“I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. She doesn’t.”
Sara set the picture back on the shelf and shifted her gaze to him, her eyes alight with sudden hope. “I need to find out if it’s possible she’s my twin.”
“Your twin?” He scowled. From the time this woman had kneed him in the groin, crushed his shin and held him at bay with pepper spray, this situation had become more and more bizarre. “Analise is an only child. She doesn’t have any sisters, certainly not a twin.”
Sara darted back to sit beside him, her cheeks flushed with becoming color, and he could feel the charge of energy surrounding her. “But what if she’s not an only child? What if she was adopted? What if she has a twin sister?”
Sara’s animation made her more delectable than ever. He wanted to agree with her just to please her, to let her maintain that glow. But he couldn’t. She was getting a little far-out.
“Are you saying your mother might have had twins and given up your sister for adoption? Sara, you’re not making sense.”
“Yes, I am. I was adopted.” Her voice softened, sadness spreading a cloud over her enthusiasm. “I just found out a year ago when my mother had kidney failure and I offered to donate a kidney. The tests showed I couldn’t be her daughter, and she finally admitted the truth to me. So maybe I had a twin sister, and we were both adopted.”
Adopted That explained a few things, like her response to Clare’s kindness and her need to prove Analise was her sister. With the only mother she’d ever known dead and not her biological mother after all, Sara must feel very alone in the world. She was probably desperate to find a family. Nevertheless, he had to shatter her ill-founded hopes about Analise. “Twins adopted by different people? That’s impossible.”
“Why is it impossible? Analise and I look so much alike her own mother couldn’t tell the difference. And look at the other evidence. Even twins separated at birth always seem to have some sort of a connection. I studied about it in school. They wear the same kind of clothes, marry people with the same names, go into the same professions.”
“But you and Analise dress completely differently.” This whole thing was so crazy, he didn’t dare tell Sara that Analise, unable to find employment in her chosen field in Briar Creek and forbidden by her parents to move to a larger city, did volunteer work at the library.
“We do dress differently, that’s true. But she wanted to be an entomologist, and so did I. I studied library science only because my mother insisted.” She rose and moved around the room again. “How do you explain the coincidence of the dolls? And look at all the music boxes Analise has.” She picked up one he’d given Analise for her birthday a couple of years ago, a crystal unicorn on a base of mirrors. Carefully she turned it over, wound the key and listened to the strains of “Born Free” as they tinkled into the room.
“What about the music boxes?” he asked.
“I’ve always loved them. Every time we’d go into a store, I’d search for the music boxes, then I’d choose one and wind it up and listen until my mother found me.” She looked at him, her chin tilted defiantly. “I’ve lived my whole life with lies. Now I’m going to find the truth.”
“In Briar Creek? Why here? Did your mother tell you that your birth mother came from here?”
The tilt to her chin drooped slightly, and Lucas felt a momentary pang that he’d been the one to dampen her enthusiasm.
“Not exactly,” she said. “After she died, I found a crumpled pay stub that had fallen through a hole in the pocket of her coat and lodged in the lining. The coat had been cleaned several times and only the name of the bank survived. The First National Bank of Briar Creek, Texas. That’s why I came here. It’s the only clue I have.”
Lucas flinched at the mention of the bank where his father had worked, the bank that had sent his father to prison, but Sara’s expression was guileless.
“That bank was bought out several years ago,” he said, watching her closely for any reaction.
“I know. I tried to call them. I found out some big banking company from Dallas took them over, and they wouldn’t tell me anything. So I had to come here. It’s a small town. Surely someone here knew my mother. My adoptive mother. Maybe somebody will even know who my real mother is.”
“What about your father? The one who raised you, I mean. Your mother’s husband. You haven’t mentioned him. Where is he? What does he think about all this?”
She held the music box up to the sunshine coming through the windows and watched the play of rainbow colors as the light refracted through the crystal onto the mirrored surface. “I don’t have a father,” she said, the words matter-of-fact, detached, though he suspected the feelings associated with her statement weren’t nearly so unemotional. “My mother never married. She always told me he deserted us when he found out she was pregnant with me. But, of course, that part wasn’t true.”
He rose slowly and crossed the room to her. Cupping her face in his hands, he forced her to look at him. “Sara, you’re a beautiful young woman with your life ahead of you. Forget the past. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is what you do from now on.”
“What would you do if you didn’t know who your parents were, what they looked like, what kind of lives they’d led, whether you had brothers and sisters, if your father was a rocket scientist or in prison?”
Lucas dropped his hands. “What if you do find out he’s in prison?”
She winced at the harshness in his voice, turned away and busied herself with repositioning the music box on the shelf.
“Maybe you’re better off not knowing,” he said softly. “Having a family isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.”
“Neither is ignorance,” she said firmly.
Lucas smiled. “Touché. Okay, Sara Martin from Deauxville, Missouri. I’ll give you credit for another likeness to Analise. You’re both stubborn. So, what can I do to help? That was our agreement. You help me, and I’ll help you.”
He looked into her eyes which were the color of the magnolia leaves outside the window. That was strange. They were the same shade of green as Analise’s, but he’d never thought of Analise’s eyes as being like the magnolia leaves. Maybe it was because the scent of magnolias seemed to surround Sara, soft and sweet with an underlying, tangy hint of lemon. Her skin reminded him of magnolia flowers—creamy and velvety and fragile.
Helping Sara, spending any more time around her, might not be such a good idea. He enjoyed it entirely too much for an engaged man.
“Thanks, but other than introducing me to Analise when she returns, I can manage on my own.”
Good. That let him off the hook.
“Absolutely not,” he heard someone say. “A deal’s a deal.” He had to be the one who’d said it. He was the only person in the room with his lips moving.
What the heck. He might as well deal with and get over this strange fascination he had for Sara. If by some fluke she did prove to be a distant relative of Analise, he could be seeing her every Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthday. Drooling over the in-law would most certainly not come under the heading of proper etiquette.
“You can do one thing for me,” she said firmly. “Tell me where Analise gets her hair cut.”
“What...? Why do you want to know that?”
“So I can get my hair cut like hers and see how much I really look like her.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
Good question. Because he was enthralled with the luxurious length of her hair? Because he liked her just the way she was?
“Because it’s Saturday, and you’ll never be able to get an appointment. They’re always booked solid on Saturdays.”
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Sally Carleen
ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING…THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDEDr. Lucas Daniels viewed his bride-to-be's temporary disappearance with exasperation, fondness and resignation. After all, she felt the same way about him! Then a beautiful stranger strolled into town, looking exactly like his fianceé. In order to avoid upsetting their families, Lucas asked Sara Martin to stand in as the missing bride. But now he was wondering which bride to marry….Sara had been searching for a family, and now her wishes had come true. Not only did she have wonderful parents, but the look of love in her pretend groom's eyes warmed her heart. But when the clock struck twelve, would it end her fairy-tale dream or give her a true happily ever after?Long-lost twins discover their perfect grooms!
Sara. (#u6017fc46-ff88-5f64-82bd-6e2601b37a2e)Letter to Reader (#u9be5630e-969b-550f-9419-bdaa4bc9c93a)Title Page (#u2ad0f941-2d07-5faa-ad3f-38a47db6babd)Dedication (#u0a604f9b-c5e4-5841-b086-bbd2f57c5b50)About the Author (#u45e19ab7-6b4e-5890-bcdc-b52238bab23e)Chapter One (#ucc380f78-44c3-5609-9a50-c9ddfbb0c077)Chapter Two (#ubcd0d1bc-e1a4-537f-ad84-fece09806c76)Chapter Three (#uedf7dc81-2ddc-5610-bab8-02ee70aacbb1)Chapter Four (#u6334aae1-096c-5bef-9ea9-1a90c48fe80f)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Sara.
From the first time Lucas had seen her, he’d known she couldn’t be Analise, because Analise had never turned his brain to mush while sending his hormones skyrocketing.
Okay, he was attracted to Sara. Very attracted. And he liked her. Admired her. Respected her. Wanted to take care of her and make her happy.
But he wasn’t in love.
He couldn’t be in love.
He refused to be in love.
But every time he closed his eyes, Sara’s face appeared. And no matter how hard he tried to convince himself it was really Analise’s face, he didn’t believe himself.
Dear Reader,
In May 2000 Silhouette Romance will commemorate its twentieth anniversary! This line has always celebrated the essence of true love in a manner that blends classic themes and the challenges of romance in today’s world into a reassuring, fulfilling novel. From the enchantment of first love to the wonder of second chance, a Silhouette Romance novel demonstrates the power of genuine emotion and the breathless connection that develops between a man and a woman as they discover each other. And this month’s stellar selections are quintessential Silhouette Romance stories!
If you’ve been following LOVING THE BOSS, you’ll be amazed when mysterious Rex Barrington III is unmasked in I Married the Boss! by Laura Anthony. In this month’s FABULOUS FATHERS offering by Donna Clayton, a woman discovers His Ten-Year-Old Secret. And opposites attract in The Rancher and the Heiress, the third of Susan Meier’s TEXAS FAMILY TIES miniseries.
WRANGLERS & LACE returns with Julianna Morris’s The Marriage Stampede. In this appealing story, a cowgirl butts heads—and hearts—with a bachelor bent on staying that way. Sally Carleen unveils the first book in her exciting duo ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING... with the tale of a twin mistaken for an M.D.’s Bride in Waiting! It’s both a blessing and a dilemma for a single mother when she’s confronted with an amnesiac Husband Found, this month’s FAMILY MATTERS title by Martha Shields.
Enjoy the timeless power of Romance this month, and every month—you won’t be disappointed!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
A Bride in Waiting
Sally Carleen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Lynda Powell Cilwick, who believed in Sara long before I did.
SALLY CARLEEN,
the daughter of a cowboy and a mail-order bride, has romance in her genes. Factor in the grandfather in 1890s Louisiana who stole the crowd at political rallies by standing on a flatbed wagon and telling stories, and it’s no surprise she ended up writing romance novels.
Sally, a hard-core romantic who expects life and novels to have happy endings, is married to Max Steward, and they live in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, with their large cat, Leo, and their very small dog, Cricket. Her hobbies are drinking Coca-Cola and eating chocolate, especially Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream. Sally loves to hear from her readers; P.O. Box 6614, Lee’s Summit, MO 64064.
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.
Chapter Two
Sara clutched the steering wheel with one hand and the door handle with the other as she drove across town with Lucas in the car beside her, guiding her along the unfamiliar streets.
What on earth was she doing, going somewhere with a strange man, entering a strange world, pretending to be another woman? Was it possible this strange man could even turn out to be the kidnapper her mother had always feared?
The last notion was another holdover from her mother’s paranoia, she tried to reassure herself. A kidnapper didn’t approach his victim and ask her to pretend to be his bride.
Nevertheless, she was infinitely relieved when Lucas directed her into the parking lot of a huge stone church. Surely a kidnapper wouldn’t take his victim to church first.
“Park over there,” he said, indicating a far comer of the lot, “so nobody will notice you’re not driving Analise’s car.”
Sara’s gaze swept the assortment of luxury automobiles directly in front of the church. Her ten-year-old midsize sedan would certainly stand out in that company. “What kind of car does Analise have?”
He sighed and turned to her with a rueful grin. “A fast one. A small, red sports car that enables our local police force to write their quota of speeding tickets every month.”
A car that matched the handwriting on the note from Analise.
“I’ve never knowingly exceeded the speed limit in my life,” Sara mused. “Where does she get the money to pay all those tickets if she can’t find a job?”
“Her parents have big bucks. Her father, Ralph Brewster, is a doctor and her mother’s family founded this town.”
That information didn’t do anything to soothe Sara’s nerves. “I’m not sure I can do this, pretend to be someone so different.”
Lucas’s dark eyes scrutinized her face. He shook his head and for one moment Sara feared he was going to agree with her. In that moment she realized how desperately she wanted to do this, to find out more about Analise, the woman who looked so much like her.
To prove to herself that she could do this.
“Different?” he said. “I can’t get over how much you two look alike. It’s uncanny. If I didn’t know better... well, trust me, you won’t have any problems. All you have to do is listen to the wedding coordinator. She’ll tell you everything in a voice you couldn’t miss if you were in the next county. Let’s hurry. We’re late.”
They got out of the car and started across the lot toward the church. If the situation wasn’t bad enough, that church made it worse. It loomed ahead, big, old, solid and intimidating. The stained-glass windows seemed to watch her approach, daring such an inconsequential person as her to enter. She didn’t belong in any place so grand. The church knew it and all the people inside would notice immediately.
“Wait a minute.” Lucas’s words stopped her. She whirled back toward him, irrational fear flooding her for just a moment. Surely a kidnapper wouldn’t kidnap in a church parking lot. “We have to do something about your hair.”
He reached around her for the braid she’d redone and tucked it into the collar of her dress.
“Your skin’s cold,” he said softly, his fingers lingering deliciously on the bare flesh of her neck.
She laughed nervously. “It’s at least ninety degrees. I can’t be cold.” Though judging from the relative warmth of his touch, she knew she must be.
He jerked his hand away as though she had suddenly burned him. “Your skin’s clammy,” he said, his tone brisk and businesslike. “A typical reaction to stress. You’re really nervous about this, aren’t you?”
“I’m okay. Let’s get this over with.” She walked defiantly toward the church.
“Hey!”
She stopped again, one foot on the front step.
“I don’t know your name or anything about you.”
“Sara Martin. I’m a librarian. I’m from Deauxville, Missouri.”
He smiled, and Sara’s fears somehow vanished in that flash of white teeth against tanned skin, of his dark eyes lighting from within. “Hi, Sara Martin. I’m Lucas Daniels, and I’m a doctor from Briar Creek who’s greatly in your debt.”
He took her hand and they went into the church, into the hushed atmosphere of a huge auditorium with burgundy carpet that sank beneath Sara’s feet. Pews upholstered in velvet fabric of the same color sat in quiet, orderly rows. The place even smelled like burgundy velvet...rich and dignified and established.
The intimidating hush was shattered in the next second by a chaotic crowd of people bustling and shouting.
“Thank goodness you’re here! We were getting worried.”
“Analise, can’t you ever be on time?”
“Analise, my dress hasn’t come in yet!”
“Will everyone please settle down so we can get started here.”
Sara took an instinctive step backward and felt Lucas’s strong hands on her shoulders, supporting her and urging her forward.
“It’s all right,” he murmured, his voice deep and reassuring in her ear.
“The bride and her attendants stay at the back. I need the groom and his attendants here,” a slim, elegant woman standing to one side up front directed, and Lucas left Sara.
Three laughing, confident young women converged on her instead, and Sara shrank inside.
“Cool hair,” a brown-eyed blonde said. “Makes you look sophisticated. Kind of like a real wife.”
“Cool dress, too,” a short brunette added. “Wish I could carry off that look. On me, it’d just be dowdy.”
What was it with these people and her dress?
“Quiet, everyone,” the authoritative woman ordered. Obviously she was the coordinator Lucas had mentioned. “The minister, the groom and his attendants will enter from the front and stand looking to the back, waiting for the bride.”
As the men, including Lucas, moved solemnly into their places, the whole thing took on a dreamlike quality.
“Marilyn sings the solo, then as soon as the organist begins to play, Judy starts down the aisle. When she’s halfway, Kathy starts, then Linda. Okay, pretend the solo’s just finished. Nancy, begin the music.” Strains of organ music floated through the auditorium. “Judy, start down the aisle. As soon as you get to the front, turn and face the back, all attention focusing on the bride. Stop giggling, Judy, and, for goodness’ sake, don’t be chewing gum during the actual wedding.”
One by one, the three women moved down the aisle, leaving Sara alone with everyone staring at her.
Lucas had been wrong. She’d been wrong. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t pull off something so daring as masquerading as another woman. The most daring thing she’d ever done before was...well, the only daring thing she’d ever done was sell everything after her mother’s death and come to Briar Creek, Texas. And right now she regretted that, big time.
She half turned to run from the church, get in her car and go back to Deauxville, forget all about finding her real mother or this unlikely possibility of a twin sister.
But a tall, portly man moved up beside her and, smiling down at her, took her arm, and she was mesmerized by the total acceptance and love in his eyes. The organist broke into the strains of the wedding march.
“Okay, bride, you’re on. This is your show. Take it slow and graceful. Do not run down the aisle.”
The tall man winked. “My baby girl went straight from crawling to running. What makes that woman think you’re going to change now?”
Analise’s father.
The love that emanated from him was for his daughter, not for her.
But it was so hard not to luxuriate in the paternal adoration, something she’d never experienced before.
In a daze she walked down the aisle beside Analise’s devoted father, moving toward Lucas, Analise’s beaming groom. It was hard to fight the urge to become lost in the pretense, to believe she really was Analise Brewster, beloved daughter and fiancée, the person who belonged in this church, in this community, in this wedding.
“Who gives this woman in marriage?”
“Her mother and I.”
The older man placed her hand in Lucas’s. He gave her a conspiratorial smile, and she could no longer resist becoming hopelessly lost in the wedding fantasy.
“The minister reads the vows. You each answer ‘I do’ and exchange rings.”
“I do,” Sara whispered, holding her hand out for Lucas to slip on the invisible ring, then doing the same for him.
“Then you kiss the bride, turn to face the congregation, and the minister introduces you as Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Daniels.”
Lucas’s dark gaze held hers for an instant then dropped to her lips. As if in slow motion, his face lowered toward hers, his lips touching hers gently, possessively, lighting unexpected fires inside her while promising a lifetime of love and belonging. For that brief moment she almost believed that promise was for her.
“Now you walk down the aisle together.”
The voice of the wedding coordinator yanked Sara back to reality.
What on earth was the matter with her? Had she lost her mind? She’d agreed to this charade in exchange for promised assistance in her quest. Losing herself in a game of make-believe wasn’t part of that quest.
She was not Analise. This was not her wedding, the older man was not her father and Lucas was not her fiance.
She pushed against Lucas’s chest.
His heart pounding furiously, Lucas released Sara.
Around them the wedding party buzzed while the loudmouthed, pushy coordinator tried to get them quiet for another run-through or even two. They needed to have it down pat, she said, since it would be an entire week before the wedding, a lot of time to forget.
That was the last thing Lucas needed—to have to pretend to marry Sara again, to kiss her again.
Not that the kiss was a requisite part of the rehearsal. No, that had been entirely his idea. Actually, it hadn’t even been his idea. His body, his lips had taken control, demanding to touch this woman who looked so much like his fiancée but affected him in a way Analise never had.
That was how he’d known for certain she wasn’t Analise. Heaven help him, Analise had never set his hormones to boiling the way this woman did, and certainly never made him want to take care of her and protect her from the world.
Heck, the world needed protecting from Analise, he thought fondly. But Sara was a different story altogether. And he damn sure shouldn’t be feeling this way about another woman a week before his wedding.
Nerves, he told himself. That’s all it was. Because of Analise’s disappearance, he was hyped, his adrenaline pumping. He’d get away from here, do some deep breathing and get back to normal.
A tiny blond woman pushed through the crowd. “I can’t believe my baby’s getting married!” Clare Brewster exclaimed, reaching upward to embrace Sara. Lucas held his breath. Did Sara look enough like Analise to fool her own mother? He needed to get her out of there fast...to protect her identity as well as to protect his out-of-kilter libido.
Sara leaned stiffly to accept Clare’s embrace.
“Oh, good grief, Clare, don’t start already,” Analise’s father admonished.
“Hush, Ralph. Go remove an appendix or lift a face or something. Do you feel all right, Analise? You look a little pale.” She squinted upward, and Lucas repressed a smile at his future mother-in-law’s vain reluctance to wear glasses. “You need some lipstick, sweetheart, and a little blusher. I’m not sure I like that new hairstyle. It makes you look so old, so grown-up. And where did you get that dress? Oh, I know, that look is trendy. It’s just that it’s so...so—”
Lucas placed-a hand on Sara’s shoulder. “Analise isn’t feeling very good today. Why don’t you all do another run-through of the wedding without us? We know our parts.”
“You don’t feel well, baby? What’s the matter?”
“She’s a little queasy, that’s all. Prewedding jitters.” Lucas wanted to bite his tongue as soon as he said it. Would anybody believe a mere wedding could make Analise jittery? “Or maybe a bug of some kind,” he hastily added.
“We can’t do this without the bride and groom,” the coordinator protested.
“You certainly can,” Clare said. “I’m taking my baby home. I’ll have Annie make some of that potato soup you like, and you’ll be all better by the rehearsal dinner tonight.”
“No!” Sara and Lucas exclaimed in unison.
He’d forgotten about that stupid dinner and hadn’t even considered the possibility that Clare might drag Sara home with her.
Ignoring them both, Clare clutched Sara’s arm and tugged her toward the door.
Lucas flinched, expecting the worst. His future mother-in-law didn’t know she was dragging off an ersatz daughter who was skilled in the art of self-defense.
When Sara merely gave him a panicked look over her shoulder rather than mauling Clare the way she’d done him, he sent up a short prayer of thanks.
He grabbed her other arm. “She needs to go with me,” he said. He’d bargained with Sara for a couple of hours of her time, not an afternoon trapped by Analise’s demanding parents who’d be sure to figure out immediately that Sara was not their headstrong daughter. For everybody’s sake, he had to get her out of there. “We have some, uh, wedding arrangements to take care of.”
“Nothing that can’t wait,” Clare argued. “My little girl’s sick. She’s coming home with me. You’re not married to her yet.” Clare was taking full advantage of her “daughter’s” unaccustomed weakness.
“They’re really important,” Sara said in a strangled voice, “those arrangements Lucas and I need to take care of.”
Clare patted Sara’s cheek and smiled softly. “Can’t it wait for one more day, sweetheart? Can’t you be my little girl and let me take care of you one last time?”
A glazed expression came over Sara’s face as she looked down at Clare and, to Lucas’s astonishment, she nodded slowly.
“Then I’m coming with her,” he said. “After all, I’m a doctor.” It was the best he could come up with on such short notice.
Clare frowned at him. “So is her father.”
“And two doctors are better than one.”
Right now he needed a doctor of a different sort, one to figure out why he’d ever thought this crazy idea would work in the first place. Unlike Analise, he wasn’t given to doing impulsive things, and his first attempt was turning into a major disaster.
The three of them headed out of the church with Clare clucking and fussing over Sara’s health.
Lucas caught a fleeting glimpse of Ralph’s confused expression as Analise’s father followed behind them. He knew something wasn’t right with his daughter. Rather, the girl he thought was his daughter.
Somehow Lucas’s attempt to keep the situation smooth had resulted in a sticky mess.
“Lucas, where’s your car?” Clare asked as they exited the church.
“On Main Street,” he answered truthfully. “It overheated.”
“How did you get here?”
“I borrowed that car.” He pointed to Sara’s white sedan.
“Well, take it back and we’ll see you at the house later.”
“Analise has the keys.”
“Give him the keys, baby.”
Sara gave him another panic-stricken look as she handed him the car keys. He took them and Clare guided her into their Cadillac. Lucas gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring. “I’ll be right behind you,” he called.
Oh, boy, he thought as he trotted over to Sara’s car.
Not only did he have to figure out some way to get Sara out of that house, but he’d forgotten about that damn dinner tonight.
He’d bridged a stream only to have a chasm open at his feet. He couldn’t possibly ask Sara to pose as Analise again. All he’d done was delay the town’s and her parents’ knowledge of her defection. Ralph would be disappointed at Lucas’s failure to bring stability to Analise’s life. Clare would be a basket case. They were good people. He didn’t want to see either of them upset.
And, since his acceptance in Briar Creek hinged on Ralph’s acceptance of him, if Ralph’s daughter rejected him, all the old talk would start again.
He pulled onto the street behind Ralph’s car.
Maybe if he begged Sara...
Maybe if he let her attack him again, she’d feel guilty again and agree to this second favor.
In spite of the remembered pain, he had to smile at the way she’d defended herself. For someone so timid, she certainly knew her self-defense techniques and wasn’t afraid to use them.
Sara Martin was an enigma, a tantalizing enigma, one he’d be tempted to explore if he weren’t marrying Analise.
He frowned at his own thoughts.
He was engaged to Analise. He shouldn’t be having thoughts like that about another woman. He never had before, and this was certainly no time to start.
So what if Analise and he didn’t have that crazy, can’t-live-without-each-other passion that the world insisted on writing songs about. He’d seen what that grand passion had done for his parents...ruined both their lives.
Analise was his friend, someone who would never make him lose control of his life or bring him pain. In spite of the fact that Analise was untamed and passionate, their relationship with each other was sane and safe.
Thank goodness he was marrying Analise and couldn’t go chasing after tantalizing enigmas.
Chapter Three
Analise’s house was every bit as intimidating as the church, Sara thought as they drove through the security gate and up the hill. Huge live oak, pecan and magnolia trees lined the entry and spread around the big, white Colonial structure. A smaller edifice would be hidden, but the Brewster house sat in regal splendor on top of the hill overlooking its domain. Bright roses twined in orderly fashion over trellises on each side of the front porch.
Lucas pulled in behind them and parked in the driveway in front of the large detached garage, then the four of them followed the sidewalk that wound to the front porch. Clare continued to talk, but Sara didn’t hear anything she said. She looked down at the pebbled walk, at the velvety green lawn and called herself all kinds of an idiot. She’d always been so sedate, so sensible, so aware of the real world. She’d never indulged in daydreaming about things she couldn’t have.
Until today.
She’d almost escaped until Analise’s mother had reached up and touched her so gently and asked her to be her little girl one last time. She’d been determined she would get away from Analise’s parents, from the church, from Lucas...but suddenly she’d slipped into that blasted fantasy again just the way she had while walking down the aisle. Without warning, an intense, aching loneliness had overwhelmed her, a longing to be cared for by a mother like Clare.
Her own mother—her adoptive mother—had loved her in her own way. June Martin had been a strict disciplinarian and she hadn’t been a demonstrative person, but Sara could scarcely lament the lack of something she’d never had.
And she wasn’t feeling that lack today, she assured herself. She was just getting caught up in the pretense, the way an actress sometimes got caught up in the role she was playing.
Which rationalization didn’t help her situation. All she wanted to do right now was blurt out the truth and. get away from these people, this house, this town. Go back to her dull little life and forget about finding her real mother who hadn’t wanted her anyway so why was she so determined to find her?
Lucas’s hand at the small of her back urged her up the steps of the porch and into the tiled entryway of the big house.
A crystal chandelier sparkled overhead and a wide, curving staircase loomed before her.
“Go on upstairs to your room, and I’ll have Annie make you that soup,” Clare instructed.
Lucas guided her toward the stairs. The enduring scents of old wood and lemon oil wrapped around her, speaking of a permanence she’d never known. She laid a tentative hand on the smooth, cool surface of the banister.
“Don’t even think of sliding down that thing again,” Ralph called.
She looked back to see him grinning at her, but his gaze was intent...assessing. He knew something was wrong.
She gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
Lucas hustled her up the stairs and into Analise’s room.
As soon as he closed the door behind them, she sank to the floor, drawing in huge gulps of air and expelling them in something between sobs and hysterical laughter. Lucas squatted beside her.
“I’m sorry, Sara. I thought this would be simple. I had no idea this was going to happen.”
“What about the rehearsal dinner? You failed to mention that!”
Lucas ran his fingers through his hair, mussing his immaculate style. “I forgot. I was so upset about everything else, I forgot about that damn dinner. I don’t suppose...” -
“No! Absolutely not. This is making a nervous wreck out of me. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”
“That’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked. Look, if you can just eat some soup and then say you feel better, I’ll get you out of here. That would be typical Analise behavior. She’s always charging off somewhere, doing something bizarre. Like she did today.”
“She goes off like that without telling her parents?” Sara asked incredulously. “I couldn’t even go out in the yard without asking my mother.”
“Analise always tells them, but it’s usually after the fact, when it’s too late for them to stop her. In this case, she told me, and I’m to tell her parents. She’s kind of impulsive.”
“Sounds like it.” Flaky and irresponsible, Sara would have said, though she found herself liking the absent Analise and wondering what it must be like to be so confident and so daring.
She leaned back against the door, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “When I left Missouri, I was determined to change my life, but I didn’t have quite this drastic a change in mind.”
“You’re doing great,” he assured her. “You’re totally safe as long as Clare doesn’t put on her glasses... and she’s so vain, I’ve never seen her wear them.”
“No, I’m not doing great. Her father suspects. Does she really slide down the banister?”
“That she does.” He leaned back against the door beside her, one knee upraised with his hand resting on it. “Analise is, um, high-spirited.”
“You must love her a lot.” What a stupid thing to say, she chastised herself. He was marrying the woman. Of course he loved her.
“Love Analise? Well, sure. Yeah. We’ve been best friends since I moved back here to go into practice with her father six years ago.”
“He must be a very successful doctor.” She looked around at all the opulence.
“He is,” Lucas agreed. “Successful and competent and a great guy. But this house belonged to Clare’s family.”
And Lucas was marrying the impulsive daughter of this prominent family.
Sara got to her feet shakily and walked across the room. What on earth was she doing here? What made her think Analise Brewster would want to claim her as a sister, even if that far-fetched possibility should be true?
“This room is as big as some of the places where my mother and I lived.”
“It used to be two rooms. Ralph and Clare had the wall knocked out when Analise was just a baby because she had too many toys for one room. Analise is an only child, and her parents overindulge her sometimes.” He grinned. “Most times.”
Sara stood for a moment studying the room with its plush white carpet, accented by colorful throw rugs. A red phone and a computer peeked from disorderly piles of paper on a rolltop desk. A white telephone—did Analise even have a private phone line?—sat on a nightstand next to a large bed with a white-eyelet spread almost hidden by bright throw pillows and stuffed animals. On one wall a large television stood guard over videotapes scattered casually around it. An elaborate stereo with compact discs in shining disarray occupied a corner, while an entire wall of built-in shelves was filled with books, photographs and assorted music boxes. In one corner, as if occupying a place of honor, a battered doll with remnants of red hair reclined in a doll carriage.
It was a comfortable room, one where Sara immediately and irrationally felt at home though she’d never lived in, or even visualized living in, such a room. Maybe it was the music boxes, something she’d have loved to collect if she’d had the money, or maybe—
“That doll looks a little like Analise,” she said, more to herself than to Lucas.
“Not really. Analise is much taller and has more hair,” Lucas teased.
Sara laughed. “I meant, she looks like a doll I used to have, a doll named Analise.”
“Really? That’s odd. I mean, it’s an unusual name. What an odd coincidence that you named your doll Analise when you look so much like her.”
“Yes, I guess it is.” She picked up the doll and studied it curiously. “I have no idea where I heard the name. I saw that doll in the store and decided her name was Analise and I absolutely had to have her. Probably because she had red hair like me.” Or because she reminded me of a twin sister I remembered only on a subconscious level? “We never had much money and we moved a lot, so I didn’t get many toys. I understood and usually didn’t complain, but this time I kept after my mother until she bought me that doll. Then I hung on to her until we moved to Iowa when I was nine. Somehow she got lost in that move, and I felt as though I’d lost my best friend.”
She returned the doll to its carriage and smoothed its dress then turned back to Lucas.
He stood in front of the door like a sentinel, arms crossed over his chest, feet braced wide apart. “Seems pretty normal you’d feel that way if you moved around a lot. Making new friends is hard.” He looked and sounded as if he knew from personal experience, and she recalled that he’d mentioned he’d moved back to town six years ago. But he didn’t pursue the topic. Instead he inclined his head toward the shelves. “There’s a picture of Analise—” he grinned “—the real one, not your doll.”
Sara walked over and picked up the eight-by-ten color portrait. At first she was disappointed. From all the confusion of identity, she’d expected to feel as though she were looking into a mirror. “I can see a resemblance,” she murmured, “but...I don’t know. She’s different. Prettier.” However, the more she stared at the picture, the more she saw of herself—her eyes, her mouth, her nose.
Her sister?
Her twin sister?
Lucas came up behind her, his breath, warm on her neck, and took it from her. “Resemblance, hell. She’s not any prettier than you are. The same hairstyle, a little makeup, a big smile and it’s you.”
Sara moved a step away from Lucas’s compelling nearness and picked up another picture, this one of Clare, Ralph and Analise, obviously taken a few years earlier. “Analise looks so happy.”
“She is happy. Nothing’s ever happened to make her sad.”
The tone of Lucas’s voice drew Sara’s attention. She looked at him closely, beneath the polish, the perfect haircut and expensive clothes, to the pain tucked away at the very back of his eyes. She could see it as clearly as she saw his face. Maybe it wasn’t that obvious to everyone, but she knew what to look for. To her chagrin, the added dimension made him even more attractive, tugged at her more surely than his hand on her arm in the church.
She had to get out of this house and away from these people before she lost complete control of her senses.
“Analise, why aren’t you in bed?”
Sara whirled to see Clare standing in the doorway holding a tray with a bowl of steaming potato soup. In spite of everything, the smell made her mouth water and her soul relax. Her favorite comfort food as well as Analise’s.
Another similarity.
Clare handed her tray to Lucas. “You can’t wear that dress,” she said as she crossed the room to the bed. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’ll put on that nice robe your aunt Wilma sent you.” She turned down the bed and plumped the pillows then looked at Sara. “Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Just go in the bathroom and change into something.”
Sara spotted a door at one end of the room and bolted toward it. With any sort of luck, it would lead not to the bathroom but to another dimension.
The door revealed a huge walk-in closet crammed full of brightly colored clothes. Clare was going to think her daughter was really sick if she didn’t even remember which door led to the bathroom.
Sara looked around desperately and finally spotted a pale pink quilted object that might be a robe dangling from a shelf in the back. She retrieved it, took a deep breath and returned to Lucas and Clare.
Clare smiled. “Why, thank you for humoring me, dear. Now I can tell your aunt Wilma you wore the robe.”
Sara stole a glance at Lucas. He smiled, his eyes twinkling, and tilted his head toward a door at the other end of the room.
Analise’s bathroom looked as though it had come straight out of the pages of a magazine. A huge gray marble Jacuzzi with shiny brass hardware dominated one side of the room with a matching vanity across the other. Someone had apparently cleaned this room as nothing but soft mauve towels and perfume bottles were in evidence.
A pale, frightened face stared back at Sara from the well-lighted mirror, a face that bore little resemblance to the vibrant, beautiful Analise in the picture Sara had seen. For a fleeting moment, she thought how lucky Analise was to have all these material things as well as two loving parents and an attractive, caring fiancé whose touch could create tantalizing tingles.
She shoved those thoughts aside. Envy never helped anyone. Certainly not envy of someone else’s fiancé.
She peeled off her clothes and put on the pink robe. No wonder Analise didn’t want to wear it. The fabric was scratchy and much too warm for this time of the year, plus the garment was large and bulky. But she wouldn’t have to wear it for long, just long enough to eat some soup and get out of there.
As she turned to go, she saw hanging on the door a brightly patterned silk robe of red swirled with green and purple. She couldn’t resist smiling. Even from what little she knew of Analise, this robe seemed perfect for her. She touched the soft fabric, letting it slide through her fingers, and felt a curious connection with the missing Analise.
Lucas had promised that she could meet his fiancée if she did this favor for him, and they’d gone way beyond “favor” at this point. However, she was no longer sure she wanted to meet her look-alike. She was intimidated by everything to do with this woman she’d never met, this woman who might be her sister.
She looked at herself again in the mirror. There were differences, but she looked more like Analise than Analise looked like Clare and Ralph. Ralph had dark brown, almost black, hair and hazel eyes, and Clare had blond hair, blue eyes and a small, uptilted nose. No red hair and green eyes or strong, straight nose.
Analise could very well be adopted, too.
Analise could very well be her twin.
Sara straightened her shoulders. Whatever the cost, she had to meet Analise, had to know if they were related.
She left the bathroom, closing the door behind her, and went to sit on the bed.
“Omigosh!” She shot up, then reached behind her and pushed experimentally. “It’s a water bed!”
“Analise, will you stop being silly and sit down,” Clare demanded.
Sara lowered herself uneasily onto the unreliable surface, and Clare handed her the tray.
Sara took a tentative taste of the soup. “It’s wonderful!”
“Good,” Clare approved. “As soon as you finish eating, you take a nap. I’ll come wake you in plenty of time to get ready for the rehearsal dinner.”
“I’ll stay with her for a while longer,” Lucas said, coming to sit on the side of the bed.
Clare leaned over and brushed the wisps of hair back from Analise’s face then kissed her forehead. Sara closed her eyes and tried not to enjoy the maternal gesture that belonged to Analise, not to her. But again, as at the wedding rehearsal, it was hard to keep in mind that this was all make-believe.
“Very well, Lucas,” Clare said. “You can stay with her, but don’t keep her awake.”
The older woman bustled to the door, and Sara realized for the first time that Analise’s parents seemed to have no problem with leaving her alone in her room with Lucas. Did that mean they knew and approved of Lucas and Analise...well, of their doing things married people did?
Lucas and Analise were engaged, and in this day and age, that sort of thing was accepted. There was no reason for her to feel that swift surge of...what? Pain? Envy?
Whatever it was, she refused to acknowledge or indulge it.
Clare paused at the door, looked back and sighed. “This will probably be the last time I get to take care of you,” she said wistfully. “I don’t suppose you want me to tuck Sara in with you this one last time?”
Sara’s fingers clutched the tray in her lap convulsively. She heard Lucas gasp. What on earth was Analise’s mother saying?
“Oh, don’t give me that look. I know you’re all grown-up and too old for dolls, but I saw you cuddling Sara and talking to her just last week. Lucas, don’t you dare make fun of Analise. Of course she’ll want to take that old doll with her when you get married. She’s an only child, and that doll’s been her pretend sister since she was just a little thing.”
Chapter Four
The door closed behind Clare, and Lucas turned to Sara. Her gaze was still riveted on the door and she looked as confused as he felt.
“What’s going on here?” he asked. “Who are you? Why does Analise have a doll with your name and you have a doll with her name?”
She shook her head slowly. As if in a daze, she stood and set the lap tray on the nightstand. Managing somehow to look graceful and regal even in that ridiculous robe, she crossed the room and picked up Analise’s picture again.
“Is Analise adopted?” she asked.
“No, of course not. Well, I don’t think so.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s never come up.”
“She doesn’t look like either Clare or Ralph.”
“I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right. She doesn’t.”
Sara set the picture back on the shelf and shifted her gaze to him, her eyes alight with sudden hope. “I need to find out if it’s possible she’s my twin.”
“Your twin?” He scowled. From the time this woman had kneed him in the groin, crushed his shin and held him at bay with pepper spray, this situation had become more and more bizarre. “Analise is an only child. She doesn’t have any sisters, certainly not a twin.”
Sara darted back to sit beside him, her cheeks flushed with becoming color, and he could feel the charge of energy surrounding her. “But what if she’s not an only child? What if she was adopted? What if she has a twin sister?”
Sara’s animation made her more delectable than ever. He wanted to agree with her just to please her, to let her maintain that glow. But he couldn’t. She was getting a little far-out.
“Are you saying your mother might have had twins and given up your sister for adoption? Sara, you’re not making sense.”
“Yes, I am. I was adopted.” Her voice softened, sadness spreading a cloud over her enthusiasm. “I just found out a year ago when my mother had kidney failure and I offered to donate a kidney. The tests showed I couldn’t be her daughter, and she finally admitted the truth to me. So maybe I had a twin sister, and we were both adopted.”
Adopted That explained a few things, like her response to Clare’s kindness and her need to prove Analise was her sister. With the only mother she’d ever known dead and not her biological mother after all, Sara must feel very alone in the world. She was probably desperate to find a family. Nevertheless, he had to shatter her ill-founded hopes about Analise. “Twins adopted by different people? That’s impossible.”
“Why is it impossible? Analise and I look so much alike her own mother couldn’t tell the difference. And look at the other evidence. Even twins separated at birth always seem to have some sort of a connection. I studied about it in school. They wear the same kind of clothes, marry people with the same names, go into the same professions.”
“But you and Analise dress completely differently.” This whole thing was so crazy, he didn’t dare tell Sara that Analise, unable to find employment in her chosen field in Briar Creek and forbidden by her parents to move to a larger city, did volunteer work at the library.
“We do dress differently, that’s true. But she wanted to be an entomologist, and so did I. I studied library science only because my mother insisted.” She rose and moved around the room again. “How do you explain the coincidence of the dolls? And look at all the music boxes Analise has.” She picked up one he’d given Analise for her birthday a couple of years ago, a crystal unicorn on a base of mirrors. Carefully she turned it over, wound the key and listened to the strains of “Born Free” as they tinkled into the room.
“What about the music boxes?” he asked.
“I’ve always loved them. Every time we’d go into a store, I’d search for the music boxes, then I’d choose one and wind it up and listen until my mother found me.” She looked at him, her chin tilted defiantly. “I’ve lived my whole life with lies. Now I’m going to find the truth.”
“In Briar Creek? Why here? Did your mother tell you that your birth mother came from here?”
The tilt to her chin drooped slightly, and Lucas felt a momentary pang that he’d been the one to dampen her enthusiasm.
“Not exactly,” she said. “After she died, I found a crumpled pay stub that had fallen through a hole in the pocket of her coat and lodged in the lining. The coat had been cleaned several times and only the name of the bank survived. The First National Bank of Briar Creek, Texas. That’s why I came here. It’s the only clue I have.”
Lucas flinched at the mention of the bank where his father had worked, the bank that had sent his father to prison, but Sara’s expression was guileless.
“That bank was bought out several years ago,” he said, watching her closely for any reaction.
“I know. I tried to call them. I found out some big banking company from Dallas took them over, and they wouldn’t tell me anything. So I had to come here. It’s a small town. Surely someone here knew my mother. My adoptive mother. Maybe somebody will even know who my real mother is.”
“What about your father? The one who raised you, I mean. Your mother’s husband. You haven’t mentioned him. Where is he? What does he think about all this?”
She held the music box up to the sunshine coming through the windows and watched the play of rainbow colors as the light refracted through the crystal onto the mirrored surface. “I don’t have a father,” she said, the words matter-of-fact, detached, though he suspected the feelings associated with her statement weren’t nearly so unemotional. “My mother never married. She always told me he deserted us when he found out she was pregnant with me. But, of course, that part wasn’t true.”
He rose slowly and crossed the room to her. Cupping her face in his hands, he forced her to look at him. “Sara, you’re a beautiful young woman with your life ahead of you. Forget the past. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is what you do from now on.”
“What would you do if you didn’t know who your parents were, what they looked like, what kind of lives they’d led, whether you had brothers and sisters, if your father was a rocket scientist or in prison?”
Lucas dropped his hands. “What if you do find out he’s in prison?”
She winced at the harshness in his voice, turned away and busied herself with repositioning the music box on the shelf.
“Maybe you’re better off not knowing,” he said softly. “Having a family isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be.”
“Neither is ignorance,” she said firmly.
Lucas smiled. “Touché. Okay, Sara Martin from Deauxville, Missouri. I’ll give you credit for another likeness to Analise. You’re both stubborn. So, what can I do to help? That was our agreement. You help me, and I’ll help you.”
He looked into her eyes which were the color of the magnolia leaves outside the window. That was strange. They were the same shade of green as Analise’s, but he’d never thought of Analise’s eyes as being like the magnolia leaves. Maybe it was because the scent of magnolias seemed to surround Sara, soft and sweet with an underlying, tangy hint of lemon. Her skin reminded him of magnolia flowers—creamy and velvety and fragile.
Helping Sara, spending any more time around her, might not be such a good idea. He enjoyed it entirely too much for an engaged man.
“Thanks, but other than introducing me to Analise when she returns, I can manage on my own.”
Good. That let him off the hook.
“Absolutely not,” he heard someone say. “A deal’s a deal.” He had to be the one who’d said it. He was the only person in the room with his lips moving.
What the heck. He might as well deal with and get over this strange fascination he had for Sara. If by some fluke she did prove to be a distant relative of Analise, he could be seeing her every Christmas, Thanksgiving and birthday. Drooling over the in-law would most certainly not come under the heading of proper etiquette.
“You can do one thing for me,” she said firmly. “Tell me where Analise gets her hair cut.”
“What...? Why do you want to know that?”
“So I can get my hair cut like hers and see how much I really look like her.”
“You can’t do that!”
“Why not?”
Good question. Because he was enthralled with the luxurious length of her hair? Because he liked her just the way she was?
“Because it’s Saturday, and you’ll never be able to get an appointment. They’re always booked solid on Saturdays.”
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Sally Carleen
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: ON THE WAY TO A WEDDING…THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDEDr. Lucas Daniels viewed his bride-to-be′s temporary disappearance with exasperation, fondness and resignation. After all, she felt the same way about him! Then a beautiful stranger strolled into town, looking exactly like his fianceé. In order to avoid upsetting their families, Lucas asked Sara Martin to stand in as the missing bride. But now he was wondering which bride to marry….Sara had been searching for a family, and now her wishes had come true. Not only did she have wonderful parents, but the look of love in her pretend groom′s eyes warmed her heart. But when the clock struck twelve, would it end her fairy-tale dream or give her a true happily ever after?Long-lost twins discover their perfect grooms!