Читать книгу Taking On Twins - Carolyn Zane, Carolyn Zane - Страница 5

One month after that first Valentine kiss, Wyatt lay on a blanket in the Memorial Union Quad, Annie curled at his side, her head resting on her backpack. She was close enough to set him on fire with desire, but not close enough to kiss. Oh, yeah. Wyatt released his frustration in a long, slow breath directed at the high clouds that scudded by.

That was Annie for you.

It was a beautiful spring day. Here in Prosperino, the college campus by the sea was a riot of color and the fragrant aroma of a landscape in bloom. A perfect day for lovers. For kissing. For ducking off into the bushes for a little “hot and bothered.”

Wyatt stripped off his T-shirt to better work on his tan. He glanced at Annie. She was studying her biology.

For crying out loud, didn’t she ever give it a rest? He had some biology he’d like to show her. He flexed a biceps and watched her from his peripheral vision to see if she noticed. She didn’t. He flopped over onto his back.

Annie was a nice girl. The type of girl a guy brought home to mother. Even the kind of kooky, hormone-ravaged woman his foster mother, Meredith, had been lately.

Yep. Annie Summers was the kind of girl a guy married.

The renegade thought shocked him and he nearly choked on his gum. Married? Where had that come from?

The pink tip of her tongue protruded from her mouth as she scrunched her brow and highlighted endless paragraphs of proton/neutron-type information. He groaned, low in his throat. She was driving him batty.

Overhead, seagulls wheeled and cried, begging the students for leftover crumbs from lunch. Annie was such a sucker for the noisy critters. She called them “baby” and “honey” and enticed them with bits of her sandwich. She didn’t even do that for him, he thought grumpily.

He called the stupid, noisy birds “air-rats” and shooed them off. They reminded them too much of himself as a boy he guessed. Always begging for food.

He fired a pebble at one now, and without looking, Annie reached up and smacked his hand. He chuckled. She was so cool.

They’d been dating for nearly a month now, and it had been the slowest, most torturous month of his life. Courting this woman took finesse. Savoir-faire. A patience born of wisdom and maturity.

A veritable sainthood.

Hell, he’d be a monk by the time she got done with him. So far, she’d given up three dinky little good-night kisses and some hand-holding at the midnight movie. He’d relived every moment of these whisper kisses a million times after each successful union of their lips. But always, she’d push him away, shyly claiming that she needed time.

Time? Time for what? he wanted to know.

Normally, he’d have moved on to greener pastures by now, but this was Annie.

Annie was different.

Annie was his soulmate. He’d known that from the moment his lips had touched hers back there on Valentine’s Day and a clap of thunder had gone off in his head that left him deaf to any kind of rhyme or reason when it came to one flame-haired, fiery-tempered, good-humored, overly studious Annie Summers.

“Hey.” He reached over and tugged a strand of her wild red mop away from her cheek.

“Mmm?” Her highlighter squeaked as she found a particularly interesting section in her text.

“Want to go to a party on my dorm floor tonight?”

“Sure.”

“Really?” Annie wanted to party tonight? During dead week? Had a Frosty Freeze opened in hell?

“Yeah. I could use a study break.”

Wisely, Wyatt bit back the sound of impatience he’d been on the verge of snorting.

Study break?

This would be no milk and cookies study break. This was to be a kegger of mass proportion. An out-and-out rock-n-roll, get-down-and-funky brawl. He couldn’t wait. Right now his roommate and a couple other guys who were freshly twenty-one were out scoring the beer and other accoutrements. He could fairly hear the electric guitars tuning up from here. By ten o’clock that night, people would be swinging from the chandeliers. He just hoped Annie would loosen up for once and enjoy herself.

No such luck.

By ten that night, Annie was angrily shrugging into her slightly beer-stained jacket and marching out the door and back to her room. Wyatt, whipped puppy that he envisioned himself to be these days, followed, bellowing her name like a lovesick bull.

“Annie!”

“Shut up,” she barked.

She jerked her arm out of his grasp when he finally did catch her out on the sidewalk. The moon was full—which no doubt accounted for at least some of the insanity up on his dorm floor—and he could clearly see the disgust etched into her flawless brow.

“But wait. I can explain. I had no idea, really, that it was going to be such a big, well, riot, actually—”

“Bull.”

“No, really, I’m not lying. I knew it’d be wild, but not that bad. Especially that guy with the can of Crisco. He was kidding, I think. Anyway, I’m sorry. Forgive me?”

She slowed slightly. He was breathless. Man. When the woman was mad, she could move. They reached the end of the street that fronted his dorm and Annie turned down a main drag that led to the library.

No doubt she had some studying to do, he thought sourly. The street lamps shone through the trees and cast eerie patterns on the pavement. Now and then a Thursday night reveler or two would pass. Staggering, slurring, singing and generally firing Annie up even more. He grinned, imagining that her face was nearly as hot as her hair.

As her body.

Oh, man, she had to forgive him.

Out of energy reserves, he grabbed her arm, and when she tried to jerk away, he didn’t let go.

“Annie.” He was breathing heavy now, from the exertion or from the effect her anger had on his libido, he couldn’t tell. “Annie, please, honey, I’m sorry.”

Annie sighed. “I can’t believe you like hanging out with those…those…” She groped for the perfect word, meant to scathe. To blister. To singe.

“Animals?” he supplied helpfully.

“Yes!” she exploded, sending the word into the next zip code. “They were horrible!” She gave her arms a frenetic waving. “All gropy and dopey and—”

“Freaky and geeky?” He pulled her off the beaten trail and into a small grove of trees at the side of the library. “Goofy and doofy?” Steering her against a tree, he leaned across her body, balancing against a smooth trunk with his palm. Looking into her eyes, he arched a brow and grinned. “Dancy and fancy?”

“Don’t make me laugh.”

“Why not?”

“I’m mad and I want to stay that way.”

“What if I don’t want you to?”

“Tough noogies,” she said petulantly.

He brought his lips to hers and rubbed them lightly across. “Don’t be mad,” he whispered into her mouth. Her breath was sweet. Minty and warm and fresh and…Annie.

“I can’t help it. I want you to respect me. Not treat me like some kind of brain-dead, sex-crazed party animal.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, raining kisses in a line along her jaw until he reached that little place behind her ear where she’d dabbed something musky. “I’ll never treat you like a sex-crazed animal again,” he murmured, reclaiming her mouth and speaking against her lips, her nose, her chin.

“Promise?” she breathed.

He noted that her lungs were laboring nearly as hard as his now.

“Promise.”

“What?” she murmured and wound her arms around his neck. “What did you promise? I—I forgot.”

“I promise to treat you like a sex-crazed party animal.”

“Good.” She didn’t seem to realize, or care about, his mistake.

Wyatt wasn’t actually sure that it was a mistake, but he was too busy filling his hands with her silky red curls to analyze. Just the same, before she could protest, he closed his mouth over hers for their first real kiss. A deep, soul-searching kiss that he put everything he had into, knowing that—for this evening anyway—it was all he’d get from Annie.

He eased her flat up against the tree trunk and pressed his body into hers, absently noting how well her valleys fit his hills and vice versa. As he lay over her, he lowered his hands from where they’d been tangled in her hair and captured her wrists and pulled her arms up over her head.

She writhed beneath him, arching against him, returning his kiss with every bit of the passion he’d dreamed of from the moment he’d laid eyes on her. From deep in her throat, a whimper of sorts issued, and she melted against him, her head moving back and forth, seeking, searching for a better fit of her mouth under his.

He moved with her, accommodating, anticipating her every move, straining to become a single unit with her. He released her arms and she wound them at the back of his neck. His own hands settled at her jaw. Beneath his onslaught, Wyatt could feel her losing herself, becoming weightless, boneless, fearless. He knew because the same thing was happening to him.

It was a blissful feeling that he’d never experienced before. A feeling he never wanted to lose. A feeling of unity.

Of belonging.

This. This must be what love was all about, his muzzy mind reasoned, as he tore his mouth from hers just long enough to gasp for air and go back for more. No wonder so many people spent their lives searching for it. If this was at the end of the rainbow, count him in.

With his fingers, he traced the contours of her face, memorizing the feel of her cheeks, the union of their mouths, the way her fabulous hair tickled his cheeks, his neck. He breathed in the sea air, the scents of spring flowers, the velvety, cool darkness, the scent of Annie’s perfume mixed with spilled beer and old leather. He listened to the serenading crickets, the distant music and laughter of a party in progress and the footfalls of the occasional passerby. He committed each of these things to memory, realizing this was an experience he never wanted to forget.

What Wyatt hadn’t realized at the time was that this very kiss welded him to Annie Summers for the rest of his natural life.

Even after she married another guy and bore his sons.

Wyatt woke with a start, and for a moment, couldn’t remember where he was. Slowly reality began to dawn and he realized that he’d fallen asleep in his clothes. Again. And dreamed of Annie. Again.

Blearily, he rolled on his side and checked the clock. Three in the morning. The Hacienda de Alegria was wrapped in the kind of cottony, deep silence that only happened at that particular hour. He sat up and pulled off his T-shirt and flung it on the floor.

He’d been sweating.

Must have been some dream.

Right now, he could only recall fragments, but as usual, Annie played a starring role in his bed. He unzipped his jeans, eased them over his hips and kicked them off. Then, reaching for the light on his nightstand, he clicked the room into a blackness the color of the hole in his heart. Even now, fully awake, he could feel Annie’s body pressed against his.

How had he ever been stupid enough to let her go?

Back then, as a child of a broken home, he’d had something to prove, he guessed. Making it to the top was all-important.

When Annie had to leave school during her junior year and return home after her father had a debilitating stroke, their long-distance relationship had begun to suffer under the strain. She’d felt strongly about her family ties and decided that she was needed at home to help run the family business. It was a heartrending decision, but family had come first to Annie.

And at the time, being so young, he hadn’t understood the deeply precious gift that family could be. But Annie had. To Annie, family was everything.

Always.

Still.

And now, seven years later, Wyatt lived in regret.

His Annie had married someone else. Borne his children and was now his widow. She would probably always love the father of her sons and carry his insurmountable memory in her heart till the day she died.

He could have been the father of those children. Her one and only love. If only he hadn’t thrown it all away for a meaningless career that did not love him back at the end of the day.

Wyatt punched his pillow. He knew eating his heart out was fruitless, so he tried to envision Annie older now. Grayer. Life-ravaged. Age-spotted. Stoop-shouldered. Knock-kneed. Tongue-tied. Rotten-toothed.

Wyatt’s chuckle was grim.

Seeing Annie face to face again would no doubt be the only way he’d ever be able to fully purge her from his soul. To get on with his life. To realize that what they had was now dead. Over. Ancient history.

By now she was undoubtedly a battle-scarred old crone. The nagging, perpetually weary mother of two identical little demons. He was lucky to be footloose and fancy-free of that ugly scene.

And, if he repeated this mantra often enough, he might just start to believe it.

The next morning in the wee Saturday hours, after a quick discussion with Rand, Wyatt phoned the airline from his room and reserved the last seat on a flight leaving from San Francisco to Seattle. From Seattle he’d catch a commuter to Jackson Hole and be in Keyhole by early lunchtime. Then he called and arranged for a cab to meet him out front in fifteen minutes.

At least now he had a legitimate excuse for going to Keyhole without looking like the loser he feared Annie would see in him. He hoped she was still single. He guessed that she was probably was. He’d have called and asked before now, but until this deal with Emily came up, he hadn’t been able to figure out a way to barge back into her life. A life that seemed to have gone on quite happily without him. He had to give her credit. That was something he’d been unable to do.

Maybe this trip would give him a chance to apologize and maybe work on a sense of closure, if nothing else.

For once, Wyatt was glad that Lucy was a terminal matchmaker.

He could barely believe that within a matter of hours, he’d be in the same town as Annie. His gut clenched and his heart picked up speed at the thought. He and Rand had agreed to keep this trip low-key with the family. No need to risk Emily’s location by letting too many in on the secret.

Already, he’d repacked and made his excuses—an unexpected business appointment in the Midwest—to Liza, Nick and Joe, whom he’d found having coffee out by the pool. They’d all been disappointed, but understanding. Especially since he’d promised Liza a pound of flesh if he didn’t make it back in time for her wedding.

Nobody had a hard time believing that Wyatt put business first. He always had.

They had no way of knowing that he was a changed man. Or at the very least, an evolving man.

On his way out to await his cab, Wyatt breathed in all the familiar morning scents of Joe Colton’s “House of Joe.” Rich, aromatic coffee wafted in from the kitchen and a warm breeze carried the fragrance of blooming roses in from the courtyard where Nick and Liza were to be married next week. The bakers were working overtime, and though the fresh cinnamon rolls and coffee cakes smelled heavenly, Wyatt couldn’t eat. He was too keyed up over the thought of seeing Annie again.

Before he stepped out the front door, Wyatt heard voices coming from the parlor, just off the foyer. He paused to poke his head inside and bid a quick goodbye to whoever might be in there. As he cracked the door, the voices grew heated, rising in both volume and intensity.

Uncle Graham and his son, Jackson, were at it again.

Grimacing, Wyatt backed away. Rather than chance drawing their attention, he left the door ajar and moved as far away from the parlor as possible, and still be in the house and able to watch for his cab through the leaded glass sidelights at the front doors. Unfortunately, as much as he tried to block it out, it was impossible not to overhear the content of the disturbing conversation.

Jackson’s voice had an ominous, feral quality. “Okay, Dad. One more time. The reason you’ve been making these massive deposits into this mystery account is because you are being…blackmailed?”

“Keep your voice down,” Graham growled.

“Why the hell should I keep my voice down? Blackmail is illegal! Whoever is doing this to you can be stopped. Get yourself a good lawyer. I’m available. If you don’t want me, the family is loaded with them. Just ask Rand or Wyatt. I’m sure they can think of a way to bail you out of whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into.” Jackson’s voice was filled with the parental censure usually reserved for father to son and not vice versa.

Wyatt could hear the soles of Jackson’s shoes tattooing out an agitated beat that must have had him pacing in furious circles.

“That wouldn’t be prudent.”

“What, you don’t like Rand? Wyatt?”

“Has nothing to do with them. Or you.”

“Then what?”

“I’m being blackmailed by a member of the family.”

The echo of pacing footsteps stopped.

At this, Wyatt felt a warning tension grip the muscles at the back of his neck and he abandoned his position behind the giant potted palm and as casually as he could—given the circumstances—moved to the parlor door to listen. This was far too interesting to ignore.

Jackson sounded incredulous. “Come again?”

“I’m being blackmailed by a member of this family.”

“Who?”

“I find it difficult to say, as I don’t want to tarnish your image of someone you hold to be nothing less than a saint.” Graham sounded smug. Arrogant. A man who had not one whit of his brother, Joe’s, grace and maturity.

“I find your childish games tiresome, Dad. Why don’t you cut to the chase before I doze off?”

“Can’t have that.” The legs of a chair scraped against the floor. “Perhaps this will wake you up. I’m being blackmailed by Meredith.”

Silence.

“Cat got your tongue?”

Jackson snorted. “Why would Aunt Meredith blackmail you?”

Graham seemed to take great pleasure in dropping this particular bomb. “Because I’m Teddy’s father.” The snick of a lighter sounded and a haze of pungent cigar smoke filtered out to the foyer. “Surprised?”

Silence.

“Son, you seem a little dismayed by the indelicate truth.” Graham’s harsh laughter rumbled. “Having a hard time believing that Joe’s lily-pure wife could take pleasure in my bed? Or perhaps it’s finding out that you have a little brother that’s a bit off-putting.”

A sound of pure disgust issued from Jackson’s throat.

“Not so perfect after all, are they?” Graham sucked on his cigar for a moment. “Still have good old Uncle Joe and Aunt Meredith up on the damned pedestal?”

Wyatt’s mind raced. More than ever, he was convinced that Meredith was not Meredith. Emily’s situation seemed increasingly grave with every tick of the parlor clock. Clearly, Patsy Portman had a dangerous agenda. He couldn’t get to Keyhole soon enough. A sense of urgency had his mouth dry as day-old toast and his heart roaring like a wounded lion in his ears. He’d have to call Rand and Lucy from Keyhole and tell them what he’d overheard.

Outside, a car horn sounded. His cab. As quietly as possible, Wyatt retrieved his luggage and made good his escape. Fresh air filled his burning lungs as he opened the double doors that led out of the house. With a gentle pull, he closed the door behind him, then moved to the portico and handed the cabby his luggage.

“Airport,” he instructed.

As he left the parlor and headed for the dining room, Jackson Colton fought the bile that rose in his throat. His father’s confession disgusted him more than he could ever put into words. Although he couldn’t say he was surprised. His father was no choirboy.

And Meredith. Meredith had changed.

As a child, he’d adored his Aunt Meredith. In fact, he’d looked upon her as a second mother. But in the past years—before the time of Teddy’s birth, in fact—Jackson had noticed changes in Meredith that more than disturbed him. For so long, everyone had tried to pass these changes off as postpartum depression or the accident, but Teddy. was eight years old now and the accident happened a decade ago.

His sister, Liza, had once hinted that she believed something very amazing and unbelievable accounted for the changes in Aunt Meredith. At the time, Jackson had brushed off the wild notion. But now, as he reflected back on Liza’s crazy theory, a chill raced down his spine and he feared there might just be more than a grain or two of truth there.

When he arrived in the dining room, he was dismayed to discover that he was not entirely alone.

Meredith was seated at the head of the table with a cup of coffee, a croissant and the society page. Languidly, she lifted her gaze from the print and trained it on Jackson. A small smile played at her lips, and she sat up a little straighter.

“Good morning, Jackson.”

“Is it, Meredith?”

He could feel her watching him pick up a serrated knife and begin to saw his bagel in half.

“Something wrong, dear? You don’t seem quite yourself.”

Still holding the knife, Jackson turned to face her. “Funny, I could say the exact same thing about you.”

Meredith’s face hardened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just this—If you don’t stop extorting money from my father, I will go to the police.”

Meredith laughed, playing it light, as if she thought he were joking. “Jackson, honey, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

Jackson had to hand it to her. She was as cool as the other side of a pillow on a hot summer day. “I’m talking about the fact that my father is paying you hush money because he’s afraid Joe will write him out of his will, if—” his voice grew steely “—Joe finds out that his rotten little brother is really the father of your son.” He ran the blade of the knife across his fingertip, testing its sharpness. “So, since my father is too much of a spineless jellyfish to call your bluff, I guess the dubious pleasure is mine.” Jackson stabbed his knife into the cutting board and turned to look her in the eye. “Back off. Do I make myself clear?”

Meredith blanched and clutched her cup till it rattled against the saucer. “Don’t you dare threaten me, Jackson Colton.”

“Or what?”

“Or you, my precious nephew, will be sorry.”

“I’m already sorry.”

Shaking with rage, Meredith watched Jackson stalk out of the room and frantically wondered exactly what he knew. He couldn’t know that she was an impostor. No one knew that—with the exception of Emily—and soon, that would no longer be a problem.

Meredith reached into the pocket of her robe for her ever-present bottle of tranquilizers. After several botched attempts, she was finally able to shake two into her palm. She tossed them into her mouth and chased them down her throat with a gulp of coffee.

She took a deep, cleansing breath, and waited for the rage to subside and the little voices that shrieked in her head to quiet down.

Breathe in, breathe out.

In…out… In…visualize the peaceful place…out. She focused on the hands of the wall clock and watched a minute dissolve into ten.

Yes. There now. She was fine. She would be just fine.

Better than fine, actually.

A rough plan began to form in the back of her mind. She needed Jackson gone now too, but it would get a little messy if there were too many murder attempts all at once. No, there had to be an easier way to get rid of Jackson.

Too bad she couldn’t send him to jail. That was a good place to go, if you were an annoyance. She ought to know. She’d certainly spent her share of time in jail. The tranquilizers began to kick in, giving her a relaxed and vaguely euphoric feeling. Jail. Hey, now. Maybe she should give this jail thing some thought. Maybe that wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

But for what?

Unless…

Unless she could get him to go for the attempt on his uncle’s life.

A light bulb flashed on in Patsy’s mind.

That was it.

Her heart began to hammer. In fact, while she was going to all the trouble, she’d set him up for both attempts on Joe’s life. A slow smile crept across her lips. Oh, yes, Patsy, honey, she gave herself a mental pat on the back, you are good.

Satisfied as a cat with a bowl of cream, Meredith went back to the society section and her half-empty cup of coffee. After a little nap, she’d get started on her plan to get Jackson out of the picture, and thereby solve a lot of nasty problems.

Annie Summers, her mouth full of bobby pins, looked into an antique, gilt-framed wall mirror with disgust. Her hair. Her lousy, rotten, crinkly, goofy hair was having one of its notorious bad days. The April sun streamed in from a nearby window, creating a rusty halo that gave her a bit of a fallen angel look. She curled an upper lip to enhance the effect. It was hopeless. No amount of spray or gel or relaxer or blow-drying or clippy doo-dads would whip it into submission, either. They hadn’t invented the product that could handle her particular mop, and the day they did, she was buying stock. She’d be a millionaire overnight.

“Moah? Amicks?” she muttered around the hairpins.

“Yeah?” Noah and Alex’s muffled voices came from the back of her shop.

“Mat are oo doing?”

“Playin’.”

“Id oo tut ’er shoes on, yike I asked?” Annie removed the pins from her mouth and crammed them into her makeshift bun and hoped for the best.

“Uh…” Whispered laughter and some scrambling reached her ears. “Yeah, we’re putting our shoes on.”

“Are you putting them on your feet?” She grinned at their giggles. One didn’t live with two five-year-olds and not know when they were up to no good.

“Er, uh, okay,” Alex, self-appointed spokesman for the two, answered.

“Are you putting them on now?”

“Uhh…yeah.”

“Are you wearing socks?”

“Oh…well—”

With a sigh, Annie dropped her brush on a Louis XIV love seat and strode from the showroom of the antique store, Summer’s Autumn Antiques, that she’d inherited from her father. Moving into the play area she kept next to her office for her boys, she stopped short and stared.

“What the—” Exasperated, Annie shook her head. “What are you guys doing in your—” she took in the bare chests and, in one case, bare bottom “—underwear? Alex, where is your underwear?”

“It was his idea,” Alex said, pointing at Noah.

“Was not.”

“Was too!”

“What idea?” Annie asked.

“We were going to put our clothes on the dog and surprise you.”

As Alex explained, Chopper, the aging black Lab, came hobbling out from behind the toy box, his foot caught up in the arm of a sweater. He sported socks and shoes on three of his four feet. His tail, which he wagged pitifully, protruded from the fly of some small body’s—obviously Alex’s—underpants. Chopper looked absolutely miserable.

Try as she might, Annie could not hold back the giggles. Screaming with delight, the boys joined in, doing a little jig that had their skinny little bodies flailing and leaping.

“Why on earth did you think to put clothes on poor Chopper?”

“No shirts, no shoes, no service,” Noah offered.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Annie looked back and forth between the two faces, mirror images of hers, both earnest in their explanation.

“We wanted Chopper to come out to lunch with us—”

“—and he couldn’t go if he was naked—”

“—cause Emma says the sign in the window says—”

Annie held up her hand. “Okay. I get it. But you guys need to know that they don’t serve dogs at the Mi-T-Fine Café. Even well-dressed dogs, like Chopper, here.”

Alex’s face fell. “Never?”

“Never?” Noah echoed.

“Nope.” She gestured to the dog. “And since they don’t serve naked kids either, put this poor animal out of his misery and you two get dressed.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll give you five minutes. If you’re not ready, I’m going without you. And I’m ordering hot dogs.”

“Hot dogs!” the boys shouted with glee and in record time were ready for lunch on the town—or at least at the restaurant next door—with Mom.

Over the glass entrance doors of the Mi-T-Fine Caféin Keyhole, Wyoming, an electronic chime announced Wyatt’s arrival. The restaurant was doing a healthy business and no one in particular looked up to see who’d come in. From inside the kitchen a wonderfully familiar female voice called, “Take a seat. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

It was Emily. She sounded safe and healthy, anyway. That was a good sign. Wyatt breathed a sigh of relief.

“Take your time. I’m in no hurry,” he called and wandered to an empty booth in the front of the restaurant near a bank of windows that overlooked the quaint main street.

Keyhole was a Mecca for tourists on their way to or from Yellowstone National Park. Nestled in a lush valley, surrounded by spectacular, majestic mountains, the little town ingeniously mixed the new and the old to create a trendy, upbeat feel. Keyhole was known to antique hunters all over the country for its delightful painted lady Victorians, western facade buildings and the historic treasures they held within.

Skiers—both water and snow—hikers, climbers, wind-surfers, hunters and fishermen enjoyed the sports offered by the great outdoors. All around the perimeter of town, hotels were popping up as Keyhole became a mini-Aspen. It wasn’t unusual to see celebrities shopping or skiing in Keyhole anymore. Luckily, growth was relatively slow and Keyhole had managed to maintain its small-town flavor.

Wyatt could see why Annie loved this town. Like Prosperino, it was a bit of heaven on earth.

He plucked a menu from between the sugar container and the salt-and-pepper shakers and studied the special that was clipped to the cover.

At the other side of the café, Annie shushed her rowdy boys and, cocking her head, listened for the mellow baritone again, to no avail.

“No,” she whispered. “Couldn’t be.” Craning her head, she searched the aisle and tried to peer over the high-backed booths and the partitions that blocked her view of the front of the room.

That voice.

Just the sound of it unleashed a plethora of emotion within her, both good and bad. Annie shrugged off the crazy notion as her boys distracted her, wrestling over crayons. Must be someone who sounded incredibly like him, she thought and rubbed the gooseflesh that had risen on her arms.

“Alex, eat the bun too.”

“But I’m saving it for Chopper.”

Annie threw her hands up. Where Chopper was concerned it was impossible to reason with her boys. “Fine. But don’t put it in your shirt pocket. You’re getting mustard everywhere.”

“Okay.” Alex removed the mustard-slathered bread and slapped it into her hand. “Here. Could you put this in your purse?”

Annie exhaled mightily and searched the ceiling for patience. Her crisp white blouse now sported yellow polka-dots in various shapes and sizes. Dabbing at them with a napkin only made them worse.

From inside the kitchen, Emily recognized the familiar voice and openmouthed, flew to the pickup window and craned her neck to catch a glimpse. Wyatt! After seven solid months on the lam, to finally see a member of her family was overwhelming. She blinked back the tears of joy. Help had arrived at last and now, perhaps, someone might just take her seriously.

Reaching behind her, she untied her apron and waved at Roy who was busy over the sizzling grill. Helen was making coffee and Geraldine was out on the floor. They’d be fine without her for a few minutes. “I’m taking a break,” she called and they nodded.

Emily rushed through the restaurant as old fashioned as its name implied. The walls were a rough plank and overhead, shelves were loaded with historic knickknacks and plants. In the background, some easy listening was piped in through speakers in the ceiling. The murmur of voices ebbed and flowed, and underscoring it all, silverware clanked and the grill sizzled.

Wyatt glanced up at the sound of her approach. “Emily!” He held out his hand and pulled her into the booth beside him and gave her temple a sound kissing. Eyes thirsty, he drank in the sight of her, checking her over until he was satisfied that she was all right. He reached up, touching her shock of chestnut-red hair and was once again reminded of his Annie.

Emily plucked a napkin from the chrome dispenser on the table and crushed it to her mouth. “How did you find me?”

“Rand and Austin tracked you down.”

“I would have called, but it’s not safe.”

“I know.”

“You do?” She pushed her napkin to her eyes and cast him a watery smile. “You believe me?”

“We all do.”

“Oh,” she blubbered. “Finally.”

“Better late than never?”

“Oh, yeah.” Smile tremulous, she turned her back to the aisle. Facing him, she leaned on her elbow to create some privacy. “I don’t have much time. This is the middle of the Saturday lunch rush and it can get a little hairy here.”

“That’s fine,” Wyatt said with a nod. “We can talk later. I plan on staying for several days—”

“Really?” Emily heaved a ragged sigh. “I’ve been starved for news of home.”

“Well, I’m loaded with that, and more.” He tapped the envelope that lay in front of him on the table, then slid it over to rest in front of her.

Emily stared. “What’s this?”

“The news you’ve been waiting for. It’ll make some interesting nighttime reading, that I can guarantee.”

“It’s about Mom?”

“And her identical twin sister. A woman named Patsy Portman.”

“A twin. I knew it,” she murmured.

“We’re guessing that you were right all along about Patsy taking Meredith’s place.”

“It happened the day of the accident. I just know it. Remember when Mom went off the road and wrecked the car?”

“Emily, do you have any idea what may have happened to Meredith?”

“I can’t remember,” she whispered. “It happened so fast, and it’s years ago now. I was crying and confused. My head hurt and Mom’s head was bleeding so much. I think I passed out. What I do remember is seeing another woman there who looked exactly like Mom. Then, I don’t remember anything until she brought me into the emergency room. I couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t bleeding anymore…”

Wyatt slowly nodded. “Meredith must have disappeared between the accident and the emergency room, while you were unconscious.”

Snatching another napkin from the dispenser, Emily scrubbed at her nose. “Mmm. That’s what I’ve always suspected. But no one believed me until now.”

“We believe you, honey. We’re on your side and we’re here to help you.”

“What about Mom?”

Wyatt slipped an arm around her shoulders and brought the top of her head to his neck. “We’re working on that. Austin’s on her trail, as we speak.” He tried to inject a note of confidence into his voice. “What exactly happened the night you left?”

In a halting voice, Emily spoke. “Someone tried to kill me. And, he nearly succeeded.”