Look-Alike

He heard the doorknob jiggle and the door swung open. Miles grimaced, wondering if Brown had followed him here to harass him or if someone in town had heard of the murder and had come to do…what? Sympathize with him? Tell him he was no longer wanted in Raven’s Peak?

The floor squeaked as a woman walked into the office. Shadows hovered around her, and she was shivering, wide-eyed, so pale her skin looked like buttermilk. Faded dirty jeans and a damp long sleeved T-shirt hung on her frame, and her long dark hair lay in tangles around her cheeks.

Shock bolted through him as he focused on her face. He had to be seeing things. A ghost, maybe?

She looked exactly like his dead wife.

CAITLIN WAS STILL NUMB with shock and disbelief as she faced the sheriff. The ride she’d hitched to North Georgia had given her plenty of time to think. An overwhelming sense of grief and despair had filled her, along with a hundred questions. She was alone now, and had been in a mental hospital and didn’t know why. She’d lost all sense of time, and now her sister was gone, murdered.

She had to find out who had stolen her memories, and who had killed her sister.

Although her brain was still fuzzy about her past, and she couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen Nora, she instinctively knew they had been close. And if this sheriff thought Nora was her, maybe he had married Nora instead of her. Maybe Nora had played a twin switch and for some reason used her name. Even more confusing, she had fleeting memories of the doctors calling her Nora, of thinking she was Nora…

But she was Caitlin…wasn’t she?

The sheriff’s rugged face visibly blanched. “What the hell…who are you?”

She gripped her hands beside her as he removed his dark glasses. His black eyes raked over her, assessing, searching. “I’m Caitlin.”

He fisted his hands. “That’s impossible. I just saw my wife.” His harsh voice blazed with accusations. “She was dead.”

“I know…I saw the news,” Caitlin whispered. “That woman….my look-alike…” Her voice broke with emotions. “That was my sister, Nora.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re twins?” His nails scraped the wooden desk as he stood, sending a chill down her spine. “If you are Caitlin, where have you been?”

She wet her lips, her legs threatening to buckle. “In the hospital….”

Tension rattled in the air between them. His breath rasped out. Or maybe it was hers. She wasn’t sure.

His pained expression mirrored her own anguish, bringing reality crashing back. She was so confused. Why in God’s name was this happening?

A dizzy spell swept over her, along with exhaustion and the remnants of her harrowing escape. The room spun as she fumbled for something to hold on to.

If she were Caitlin and had been married to this man, why didn’t she remember him?

REELING WITH SHOCK, Miles captured the woman in his arms to keep her from slithering to the floor. She shivered against him, and he cradled her closer, uncertain whether to kiss her or shake the hell out of her until she admitted the truth about her identity and where she’d been. Was she really Caitlin? And if so, if she had a twin, why hadn’t she told him? What hospital had she been in? He’d searched across the Southern states and no one had listed her as a patient.

She whimpered, and he skimmed her face. Whoever she was, something had happened to her. She was suffering from fatigue and malnourishment.

Her hipbones pressed into his thighs as if she’d lost weight, her long dark hair was matted, and her damp clothes clung to her as if she’d been walking through the sleet for days. And those long black lashes that fluttered over her creamy skin glistened with tears.

Although confused as hell, he whispered nonsensical words to comfort her. All lies. He had no idea how things would be okay. A woman he’d thought to be his wife lay dead in the morgue, while he held a carbon copy of her in his arms.

Almost subconsciously, he stroked her back, memorizing her body, searching for some clue that this woman was his wife. That his prayers had been answered and that she’d come back to him alive. That the woman he’d found lying murdered in the creek with lilies floating around her naked body had been someone else. Her look-alike.

Too many unanswered questions clamored in his head, waiting for answers. He’d fallen for Caitlin’s act the first go-around. This time, he wouldn’t accept anything at face value. Not even her name.

Her slender body convulsed against his. “You’re freezing and in shock,” he said. “Let me take you to the hospital.”

“No!” She jerked away and huddled against the wall. “Please. Don’t make me go back there.”

He froze, studying her irrational response. Those pale green eyes that had once glowed with passion for him now looked glazed, terrified. “But you need medical care, you—”

“I won’t go back.” Her teeth chattered and her expression flared into the wild-eyed look of a mad woman. The panic in her tone suggested she would run if he didn’t stop her.

Then he’d never get the answers he needed.

She swayed and bumped into the wall, then her head lolled back and her legs buckled. He caught her just before she hit the floor.

His heart pounding, he swung her into his arms, then cradled her to him and hurried to his truck. He cranked up the heat to warm her as he drove up the mountain to his cabin.

Inside, he lay her on his bed and stripped her soggy clothes, the tremors in her body alerting him to the fact that she might be suffering from exposure. On the ride to his cabin, she had stirred, but was disoriented. She’d mumbled something about being locked up, held against her will, drugged out of her mind. But had she taken the drugs first, then slipped into an alternate reality, or were her ramblings evidence of a real-life nightmare?

The sight of her skin so pale, the small bruises on her wrists, ankles and around her waist, shook him to the core. There were needle marks on her arms, too, that resembled track marks.

Caitlin had not been a drug addict. She’d barely even drunk alcohol. At least not until the last week of their short marriage when she’d clung to that bottle of scotch like a lifeline.

What was going on? Had she decided to experiment and wound up in trouble? Had she become addicted and fallen in with some shady characters? Had she been kidnapped and drugged against her will? Was she Caitlin, and the dead woman her sister?

He wrapped a blanket around her, easing it over her arms, and forced her to sip some water. She barely opened her eyes, took a small sip, then collapsed again. His protective instincts kicked in, the guilt he’d harbored the last few weeks returning full force. Had their argument that last night started the wheels in motion that had caused her to end up like this?

He paused, gripping the bed. Did he really believe she was Caitlin? He’d seen the dead woman with his very own eyes. She looked like his wife. But so did this woman.

Whoever she was, she was in trouble. Whether she was his missing wife or his wife’s sister or an impostor, he owed it to her to find out what had happened. That trail might lead him to the truth about his wife.

Hating himself for reacting physically to her, he dragged his gaze from her face. But he had been so starved to see her the last few weeks, he pulled a chair close to the bed and studied her, memorizing her features. Her quivering lip needed to be calmed, stroked, kissed. The tremors rippling through her needed soothing. The bruises on her delicate skin needed tending.

Dammit. The lust he’d felt for her still thrived deep inside him. His sex throbbed for the heaven her body offered, the primal urges that overcame him the first time he’d lain eyes on her, trapping him in its clutches. But other emotions followed—hurt, denial, betrayal.

She had left him high and dry. Had run off without a word, scared him senseless, and left him under suspicion.

He had to have answers.

Jerking himself out of his stupor, he heated more blankets by the fire and wrapped them around her. She moaned and rolled to her side, curling into a fetal position and burying her head beneath the covers. He flexed and unflexed his hands, aching to reach out and hold her again, to confirm that she was alive.

The self-preservation part of him warned him not to. To phone Agent Brown and fill him in on the latest. To call the M.E. and pressure him for an ID. To take this woman’s DNA tonight and send it to the lab.

He walked over to the aquarium by the window and stared into the tank, wishing his head was half as clear as that damn water. The tank belonged to Caitlin. He’d never cared for pets, but she had loved the two little tropical fish. Had said they kept her company.

Hell, how had fish been company?

Still, when she’d gone missing he hadn’t been able to get rid of them. No, like an idiot, he’d fed them and even found himself talking to them, somehow thinking that if he kept them alive, she’d return to him.

A whimper broke the deafening silence. She rolled to her other side, her face a mask of pain and terror as she stared at him. Tears pooled in those pale green orbs and trickled down her cheeks, dripping onto the covers. She looked small and so damn helpless, it tore at his gut.

He gritted his teeth, stood and faced the fire, reminding himself not to be suckered in by her again. But her anguish was real, and the primal instincts that had drawn him to her in the first place were so strong they overrode the mental warnings screaming in his head. Grimacing, he strode back to her, crawled onto the bed beside her and pulled her in his arms. She tensed, but he whispered for her to rest. Finally she closed her eyes and burrowed against his chest. He rocked her back and forth, savoring the soft weight of her in his embrace and the sultry scent of her femininity as he held her tight.

Tomorrow he’d call the M.E. Tomorrow he’d find the answers. Tonight…tonight he’d hold her and pretend she was his wife.