Borrowed Identity

Michael helped her over the fallen beam and out the door. As she started toward the house, Boomer fell into step beside her, with Michael tailing them. Kelly didn’t dare look back, feeling his perceptive gaze burning holes in her. He had almost died trying to rescue her. She should be grateful. She should be glad to have him around.

But her resentment grew.

He was lying to her, holding secrets in those dark eyes. She saw it in his every glance. She had the horrible feeling he knew exactly who had locked her in the garage, and he wasn’t going to tell her. He knew she wasn’t crazy.

She wasn’t losing her mind.

Or was she?

MICHAEL WALKED BEHIND Kelly as they followed the path to Moore House, ready to catch her if she stumbled. Neither of them spoke. There was a certain comfort to be found in silence. At least there was for Michael. It gave him opportunity to think.

At the house, he opened the front door and took a step back, allowing Kelly to enter first. He watched her limp up the steps, and realized she must have hurt her leg earlier. His hands itched to help her. Guilt flowed through his veins. She could have been killed. He should have been with her, but he’d gone to town to talk to Paddy. Following his agenda was important, but he wouldn’t risk Kelly’s life for it. Leaving her on her own was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

He followed her to the parlor. His concern for her escalated when she sank into the covered sofa and buried her face in her hands. He could tell by the way her shoulders shook that she was fighting tears.

Michael didn’t know what to do for her. Comforting traumatized women was not one of his specialties. He felt helpless, and he didn’t like it. Taking a seat next to her, he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her to his side. He hoped it would be enough. He wanted her to feel safe.

A soft sigh was her only response.

Michael looked around the room. The parlor was definitely not one of his favorite spaces in Moore House. It was bleak. A spider would have second thoughts about living in such a room. The sheet-draped furniture loomed around them like ghosts from the past. Michael wouldn’t have been surprised to see them move.

He wanted to ask Kelly about the burns on her arms. He wanted to know who had hurt her.

She straightened her back and said, “I thought I was going to die. I know you don’t believe me, but those doors were locked.”

“It’s possible… Maybe someone locked you in as a joke,” he suggested. “Then they got scared and unlocked the doors without letting you in on their prank.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Some joke. It was freezing in there and the stupid garage was falling apart.” She took a deep, cleansing breath and regained her composure. “You saved my life.”

“You would have been fine. Eventually you would have tried the doors again and found them open.”

“How did you know to look in there for me?” she asked.

“Boomer was circling the garage when I got back from town. That’s how I found you. You never mentioned what you were doing in the garage in the first place,” he added.

“I thought I saw someone duck inside there. I went to check it out. I don’t understand it,” she said. “I was so sure I saw someone, but the garage was empty. I don’t know how they got out without me seeing them.”

“Maybe they walked around the corner of the building, and you just thought you saw them go inside,” Michael stated.

“Yes. I guess that’s possible,” she said. “I heard the lock click shut soon after. I knew I was trapped before I tried the door. It was the worst feeling in the world.” She turned to him, staring deep into his eyes as if searching for truth. “Who would do something like that? And why?”

He shrugged his shoulders. He wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to spill his guts, confess the real reason he was at Moore House, but he couldn’t as he had to put this woman’s well-being before anything else. He felt responsible for her. He had an overwhelming urge to protect her at all costs. The problem was he wasn’t absolutely sure he knew who was behind all the trouble.

She shivered and he pulled her closer, trying to warm her with his body heat. His hand stroked her arm, heating her flesh with friction. She was chilled to the bone. If he hadn’t found her so quickly, it was possible she could have died from hypothermia.

“Would you mind starting a fire?” she asked.

He looked at the fireplace with concern. Not long ago a friend of his had tried to light a fire in his hearth only to discover it had been booby trapped. Fortunately his friend had survived with only minor burns. Michael assured himself he wasn’t that careless. He would be able to spot the wire before he triggered it.

Kelly’s eyes burned holes in his back as he crossed the room to the fireplace. He quickly scanned the mantel for matches and found none. Bending his knees, he hunched down, checking the logs for a trap. Copper fireplace tools were on his right and there was a basket filled with logs to the left. Nothing looked tampered with. There were no matches here, either. What if they were in another room such as the kitchen? Did Kelly expect him to know where they were kept?

Was this a trick to slip him up? Did she suspect?

She rose slowly to her feet. He saw her approach from the corner of his eye.

Kelly pulled a box of matches from an opening at the side of the fireplace. She handed them to him without a word. She didn’t need to say anything. Her suspicious expression spoke volumes.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Here I am taking my time and you’re freezing.”

“I’m fine.”

“Would you like me to warm you?” He winked at her, causing her to blush.

“Not right now. Thank you.”

“Okay. If you say so.” He grinned up at her, playing his part to the hilt. “But you can have a rain check, redeemable any time you want.”

Several long moments later the fire blazed to life. Michael could feel rather than see Kelly hovering over him. Once he succeeded in his task he had no choice but to look at her. He stood, turning to face her. She wasn’t looking at him.

Her blue gaze was focused on the fire. The light danced in her eyes, giving her the appearance of an angel in a trance. She was more than beautiful, he reluctantly admitted to himself. During his thirty-three years he had known his fair share of women, some of them beauties in their own right, but none could have held a candle to this lady.

Her eyes were bluer than the Montana sky. Her hair, the color of twenty-four carat gold, spilled over her slender shoulders in luxuriant waves. His hands itched to touch the silky strands. Her heart-shaped face and delicate features were a sculptor’s dream. Her lips were sensuous and pink. Michael had a hard time keeping his gaze from dropping to that lovely mouth when standing face-to-face with her.

She hugged herself and stepped closer to the fire, then slowly turned to him as if feeling his eyes on her.

“You know something?” she said. “At first when the door locked I thought maybe I was hallucinating. Then I realized I really was locked inside. I don’t know which is worse—thinking I’m crazy or knowing someone is trying to hurt me.”

“Why would you think you were crazy?” His eyes narrowed on her face, he tried hard to understand what she was saying. “Because of the dreams you had the other night? That was the medication. I thought we already went over that.”

“The dreams have nothing to do with it. It’s my mother. I’ve always been afraid I’d wind up like her.”

Michael froze, hearing the pain in her voice.

“You didn’t press me to tell you about my mother before and I appreciate it, but I think you need to know.” She continued. “I think I was six or seven the first time my mother went to the hospital. I barely remember it. Apparently she’d tried to kill herself—I’m not sure how. I think it was probably an overdose. I remember her medicine cabinet being filled to the point of overflowing with pills. My father called an ambulance, and the police came. She was gone for a week or so. When she came back, she was different.”

Kelly fell silent.

Michael chose his words carefully, afraid he might push her too hard. She could totally withdraw or freak out on him.

“How was she different?”

“She was a walking zombie.” Kelly’s fair eyebrows furrowed together with the memory. She stared into the distance. “I don’t think she even recognized me. She lived in a fog. No emotion whatsoever. I thought I’d done something wrong.”

“Didn’t your father explain things to you?”

“I was a child,” she reminded him. Her gaze swung to Michael. “I couldn’t possibly understand what was happening to her. When I was old enough, my father filled me in and I wished he hadn’t. It turned my life upside down. I was so afraid of becoming like my mother.”

Was it possible to pass insanity from mother to daughter? For Kelly’s sake, he hoped not. She’d had a rough life by the sound of it. She deserved better.