Too Wild

“Isn’t he going to notice when his bride doesn’t show up for the rehearsal?”

Travis took a deep breath. “That’s where you come in. We need you to impersonate Kathryn until she returns.”

Jenna dropped her cheeseburger onto its plate and stared at him as if he’d just sprouted antennae.

“You’re out of your mind,” she said matter-of-factly, her cheek full of half-chewed cheeseburger.

“You haven’t even heard my offer yet.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not going to help Kathryn or the dimwit who agreed to marry her.”

Kathryn had never explained why she and Jenna were estranged from each other. Apparently the rift was a deep one, judging by Jenna’s reaction, but Kathryn had mentioned how she and her twin had switched places many times as children—how it had in fact been one of their favorite games.

“You’ll be quite well compensated.” He noted a gleam of interest in her eye that she quickly subdued.

“I’m earning a good living already. I don’t need anyone’s charity.”

From the looks of Jenna’s neighborhood, Travis was willing to bet she was barely scraping by on her meager freelance earnings, and that she could definitely use the money he had to offer.

“Not charity. Payment for a job completed.”

“Yeah, whatever. I still won’t do it.”

“You don’t even know what the compensation will be.”

“Not enough.” She turned her attention to her milk shake.

He could tell by the tenseness in her narrow shoulders that he had to pull his final punch. “Twenty-five thousand dollars.”

Chocolate milk shake spurted from her mouth across the table and onto the lapel of his favorite jacket. She stared at him wild-eyed.

He dipped his napkin into a glass of ice water and dabbed at the spot until it disappeared, and when he looked back up, she was scooting out of the booth.

“Where are you going?”

“Away from you and whatever crooked scheme you’ve cooked up.” She stood and shrugged on her small leather backpack.

Travis stared after her as she headed for the door.

He hadn’t anticipated her walking away once he’d started to talk money. Nor had he imagined he’d be so mesmerized by the sway of her hips in those faded Levi’s that he’d be frozen in place, speechless and unable to form complete thoughts. No, things weren’t going the way he’d planned at all.

2

JENNA CLIMBED THE STAIRS to her apartment, her mind playing over and over Travis’s proposal. Had she made too rash a decision? Twenty-five grand was a lot of money to walk away from, yet the thought of not only helping Kathryn, but actually taking over her life, was just too much to contemplate all at once.

Jenna had spent every moment since she’d left home ten years ago trying to forget that she was not unique in the world, that she had an identical twin out there and that she wasn’t even the best liked of the two. Kathryn had always been their parents’ favorite, their teachers’ favorite and the one who had more friends and more boyfriends. Kathryn knew the art of getting along to get along, while Jenna had been born with a rebellious streak that angered authority figures and scared away the faint of heart.

An image of Travis Roth popped into her head. A perverse little part of her wondered if he was faint of heart, or if he’d be the kind of guy who could hang on when life with Jenna got unpredictable. Crazy thoughts, considering a guy like Travis and a girl like Jenna would never get together, not in a thousand years—unless, of course, some sort of paid services were involved.

Like being hired to impersonate her sister.

The thought gave Jenna a shudder. Impersonating Kathryn would be like taking a giant leap backward in time. She’d be admitting that all her rebellion in the past ten years had been for nothing—that with a bottle of dye, some scissors, a change of clothes and a bit of makeup, she was just a duplicate of her ever-so-proper sister.

The wild hairstyles, the sexy clothes, the wild men, the wild nights out…

All for nothing.

The choices she’d made to prove herself an individual could be wiped away in one fell swoop.

Jenna reached her floor of the apartment building, and the first thing she saw was her door standing ajar. She froze, and her stomach contracted into a rock.

Could Travis have gotten it open before he came outside and found her trying to escape? Possible, but how could he have so quickly gotten around the couch she’d jammed up against it earlier? That, along with getting past the locks, would have taken more time than he’d had to come back outside and catch her sneaking away.

She took a step closer and saw that the locks hadn’t been broken, and an image of the open fire-escape window flashed in her mind. In this neighborhood, no one left fire-escape windows open unless they wanted to find all their valuables and not-so-valuables for sale at a swap meet the next weekend.

Her heart raced. Should she go in or just leave and call the police from a neighbor’s place? Common sense told her to leave, but curiosity had her aching to peek inside, if only for a moment.

Her computer—she had to know that it was safe.

Jenna held her breath and stepped into the doorway, thinking of how she was going to pitch Guard-Dog-In-A-Box out the window at Travis Roth’s head if she saw him outside her building again. Slowly, she eased her head around the half-open door, until she could see the interior of the apartment.

It took her a moment to make sense of the changes since she’d last been there an hour ago. Couch overturned, cushions ripped open, papers and books strewn everywhere, bookshelves emptied and her laptop missing from her desk.

Jenna’s heart pounded in her ears as she realized the months—the years— of work saved on her hard drive that now might be missing, and she didn’t see her box of floppy disks anywhere among the mess.

She gripped the door frame and resisted the urge to rush in and search for her laptop and files before she knew for sure that the intruder was gone. She needed to think, make a plan…. First she’d go to Mrs. Lupinski’s and ask to use the phone.

She backed away from the door and crept up the stairs.

Damn it.

Was Travis Roth a diversion for someone to break into her apartment? No, that didn’t make sense. He hadn’t come expecting that she’d flee out the window, that they’d end up having lunch at a diner down the street…But he could have had some other plan to get her out of the apartment. Could that whole story about her sister have been an elaborate charade?

Her mind raced from thought to thought, and her hands began to shake as the reality of what she’d likely just lost sank in.

Jenna raised her fist to knock on Mrs. Lupinski’s door, but the door swung open at that moment and her neighbor, in mint-green curlers and a red satin robe, peered out.

“Shouldn’t have left your window open, huh! Saw some guy climbing up the fire escape, and twenty minutes later he walked right out the front carrying a black bag full of stuff.”

“Did you call the police?”

“How was I supposed to know if he was up to no-good? Could have been a friend of yours for all I knew.” Mrs. Lupinski’s robe slid open in the front to reveal a black lace nightgown. The sounds of a daytime soap opera could be heard in the background.

Jenna shuddered. She knew better than to argue with her cantankerous neighbor. “I need to use your phone. My apartment has been robbed and ransacked.” While you were up here minding your own business.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

She wanted to throw up or kick something. Or both. Tears burned her eyes, but she blinked them away, determined not to let her neighbor see how upset she really was.