Which Twin?

“Oh, no you don’t, Anna.” The man’s arms tightened around her as his harsh voice rose above the rattle of the rain. “I’m not going to put you down and give you the chance to pull God-knows-what new stunt. Not till we’re inside where it’s dry and I get a damned good explanation for what you’ve been up to.”

Rose was fully prepared to explain her actions, but she wasn’t about to take the heat for what someone named Anna might have done. Aware that they were moving past the French doors she’d noticed earlier, she opened her mouth to tell him that he was making a mistake.

“Look,” she started, but before she could say another word, one of the doors opened.

The man stopped, and Rose turned. Framed in the doorway was a blond woman dressed in a champagne-colored jacket over a matching skirt. She was maybe a shade over five feet tall, and from the lines marking her delicate, perfectly made-up features Rose guessed she was somewhere in her late forties or early fifties.

The woman’s fingers tightened around a small ivory purse as she frowned and spoke sharply. “Logan, what are you—”

She broke off as her dark-brown eyes met Rose’s. Lifting a slender hand to cover her mouth, the woman blinked and breathed a stunned-sounding, “Anna?”

Again the Anna business. Rose shook her head, but the man named Logan was already replying.

“Yes, Elise. She slipped on the tiles and took a fall. I need to get her inside and see if she’s broken anything.”

As the man carried Rose through the doorway, the woman backed into the cream-and-beige room, her wide brown eyes gazing in surprise before narrowing slightly.

“Anna,” she said. “You know how dangerous those tiles are. I must have told you a hundred times that—” The woman broke off. Her eyes narrowed further as she went on, “Where have you been, young lady? What have you done to your hair? And where did you get those clothes? Not to mention those vulgar earrings?”

Rose frowned. Young lady? No one had addressed her in such a patronizing, belittling tone since her junior year in high school. And as to the comment about her earrings, she touched the long tangle of beads strung in hues of blue and purple that her mother had given her this past Christmas, then opened her mouth to protest the term vulgar. But before she could say a thing, again she heard, “Anna?”

This time the word was barely a whisper, filled with unmistakable relief. Rose turned. A tall man with gray hair that nearly matched his light-charcoal suit stood on the threshold between the bedroom and the hallway behind him. He appeared to have paused in the act of tugging loose his red silk tie to stare across the room at Rose.

The man holding Rose was quick to reply. “Yes, Robert. Anna took a fall, and I want to lay her down on the bed and see if anything is broken.”

He’d barely taken one step forward before Rose gave a protesting wiggle and managed to blurt out, “That’s not necessary. I’m fine, just let me—”

“Logan,” the blond woman interjected, stepping toward them. “I really think it would be better if you took your sister up to her bed.”

Rose followed the woman’s gaze to the water dripping from her thoroughly soaked purple skirt and turquoise sweater, then over to the large bed draped in a pristine ivory coverlet.

The arms holding her tightened convulsively. A second later she was being whisked past the bed, then the man named Robert. The action took place so quickly that Rose found herself halfway down a cream carpeted hallway before it occurred to her to twist violently in an attempt to escape this Logan person’s hold.

“Put me down,” she demanded.

When he ignored her, instead turning and mounting a set of stairs, Rose tried again. “Look, I’m sorry about sneaking up to the balcony. That was wrong of me, but—”

Rose stopped speaking as she realized that Logan had reached the top of the stairs and turned down another hall without even looking at her. When he came to a stop in front of a closed door, Rose demanded, “Have you heard one word I’ve said?”

The man ignored her as he stretched out the arm supporting her legs, grasped the doorknob and twisted it several times. When the door didn’t open, he finally looked at her, his eyes narrowed with undisguised fury.

“All right, Anna. Dig your key out of that dammed suitcase you call a purse.”

Rose shook her head helplessly. This was her fault, she supposed. The first time he’d called her Anna, she should have pointed out his mistake. And she shouldn’t have run, shouldn’t have acted so irrationally.

“Please listen to me,” she said in a low, level tone. “I’ve been trying to explain that you are mistaking me for someone else. I don’t have a key to this room, because I don’t belong here. So just…put me down and allow me to leave.”

“What do you mean, you don’t…” he began.

“Hey, kiddo,” another voice broke in. Rose turned to see the gray-haired man approach, followed by the blond woman. “Give me your purse,” the man went on, “and I’ll fish that key out.”

When he reached toward the bag’s shoulder strap, Rose twisted away. “No!” she yelled. “What’s wrong with you people? Why won’t you listen to me? I’ve been trying to tell you that I don’t know you. I don’t know…”

She paused, frowning as she realized that both these people’s faces were vaguely familiar. She gave her head an impatient shake and finished, “I don’t know any of you.”

The gray-haired man frowned, the woman gasped, and the stranger named Logan sighed. “Anna, give your father that damned key.”

Before Rose could tell him she didn’t have a father, the woman stepped forward and snapped open her ivory purse. “When Anna insisted on getting a key made for her room, I suspected she’d eventually lose it, so I had the locksmith make one up for my key ring. Here, I’ll get us in.”

As Logan backed off to allow access to the lock, Rose once more demanded to be put down and began kicking for emphasis. Aware that her actions had broken his grip, Rose tried to twist out of his arms, but as the door clicked open those arms tightened again and he carried her into the room. She opened her mouth once again to attempt to make these people, especially the one holding her so firmly, understand that some mistake was being made. But once she caught sight of her new surroundings, all she could do was stare.

The carpet was the color of amethyst, the walls a pale shade of lilac. The bed she found herself being carried toward was covered in pale aqua—the exact color scheme of her room back in Seattle. Well, perhaps not exact. The tones she’d used were several shades darker, but, still, Rose found the similarity startlingly uncanny.

Even more uncanny was the neatly folded quilt at the foot of the bed, composed of yellow and pink flowers appliquéd onto alternating squares of turquoise and purple. It matched perfectly the one lying across the foot of her own bed—the exact same colors, faded slightly from repeated washings.

She knew her quilt was one of a kind, made by her mother the year she was born. Yet this one was…

“Just like mine,” she whispered.

“It is your room, Anna,” Rose heard Logan say, as he placed her on the bed.

Rose looked up. The man remained bent over her, frowning deeply, but the concern in his hazel eyes lent a certain softness to his scowl.

“I’m going to get Dr. Alcott,” the blond woman said abruptly. She glanced at Logan. “Aunt Grace somehow learned that Anna was missing and became so upset that we had to call the doctor in.”

She dropped a disapproving frown on Rose, then turned to leave the room. A second later the woman’s voice echoed from the hall.

“Robert, Martina says that Chas is on the telephone. He needs to speak to you about tonight’s speech.”

The man glanced at the door, down at Rose and finally to Logan. “I should only be gone a moment. Keep an eye on your sister, won’t you?”

Rose saw one corner of Logan’s mouth lift in a ghost of a smile as he watched the older man leave. Taking advantage of her captor’s momentary distraction, she rolled off the opposite side of the bed and onto her feet, then made a mad dash for the still-open door. But before she even made it around the edge of the bed, Logan was blocking her escape with his body. When she raised her hands to push him out of the way, he grabbed her wrists and demanded, “Blast it, Anna, what the hell is wrong with you?”

Rose looked up as she tried to pull her wrists free. She winced as the large hands tightened around them, then shook her head.

“Haven’t you been listening to me at all?” she asked. “I do…not…know…you. I’m not someone named Anna. My name is Rose. I know I shouldn’t have come onto your grounds. I certainly shouldn’t have been up on your balcony, but—”

Rose stopped speaking. She had to. The man in front of her had begun to laugh.

Chapter 2

The laughter had started as a soft chuckle, but it quickly built in strength and volume until it was nearly deafening. As he continued to chortle, his grip on Rose’s wrists relaxed slightly, though not enough for her to break free.

Rose knew this because she jerked her hands down, hard, in an attempt to escape. At this point he stopped laughing, and although he tightened his grip, a slight smile tilted one corner of his mouth as his eyes once more locked on to hers.

“Good grief,” he said with a shake of his head. “Not that again.”

Rose stared at the crooked smile she’d seen so often in her dreams, then looked up to the amused eyes. Behind the gently teasing glint she saw a mix of anger and concern. Her response was a mutinous frown. Who was this man to stand there laughing at her, judging her? For that matter, who were any of these people? What was this place? Just what sort of nightmare had she stumbled into?