A Bride In Waiting

“You still need that ride?”

“I’ll get Analise to take me.” After I kill her.

As he strode along the sidewalk, Lucas forced himself to smile and greet everybody he met, pretend nothing was wrong. He turned at the corner and went toward Wyandotte, the next street over, resisting the impulse to run, to catch his flaky fiancée quickly before she did something else crazy.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Greene. How’s Willie’s rheumatism?”

“Better, Lucas. Nice to see you. Tell Analise I said hello.”

He turned onto Wyandotte and there she was, staring into the window of Fulton’s Antiques.

Lucas clenched his teeth as he strode toward her., What kind of game was she playing, sending him a note telling him she was leaving town, then putting on those frumpy clothes, pulling her hair back in that braid and going downtown? Did she think she was disguised? Tall and willowy with that red hair and those distinctive features—large eyes, wide forehead and straight, patrician nose—it would take more than a change of clothes and hairstyle to disguise Analise Brewster.

She didn’t even look up as he approached.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

Sara Martin flinched at the angry tone in the man’s voice, but he couldn’t be talking to her. Someone else was in trouble this time.

She turned her back to the sound and started to continue down the street, anxious to avoid whatever scene was about to occur.

The man grabbed her arm. “Analise!”

She gasped, whirling to face her attacker, automatically bringing her knee up to his groin then smashing her heel into his instep. The heel of her hand went toward his nose, but she stopped herself as he released her, gave a strangled groan and sank to his knees on the sidewalk.

She gaped at the man in shock. “Omigosh! It worked!” She reached toward him to help him up, then recalled herself and stepped backward.

She’d always thought her mother was a little paranoid the way she constantly forced her to practice self-defense techniques, to be prepared to get away from a potential attacker and run. But now she’d actually been attacked, and she’d freed herself and she was standing on the sidewalk of a strange town, thinking she ought to help her attacker instead of running for her life. She had the actions right, but the attitude had gotten off track somewhere.

The man didn’t look dangerous. However, in his khaki slacks and white knit shirt with a little animal embroidered on one side, his black hair immaculately cut and styled, he did look exactly like the kind of man her mother had always taught her to fear—sophisticated, worldly, possibly wealthy.

Even so, the exasperated expression mingling with the pain in his brown eyes kept her rooted in place. That and the equally exasperated tone in his voice when he once again called her by the name of her favorite childhood doll as he struggled to his feet.

“Damn it, Analise, why’d you do that? What in heaven’s name are you up to? Did you think wearing that frumpy dress and pulling your hair back would disguise you? Have you gone completely nuts?”

Frumpy? She’d made this dress herself. Maybe she ought to kick him again.

Taking a couple more steps backward, she fumbled in her purse then withdrew her pepper spray. “Look, mister, either you’re the one who’s nuts, or you’ve mistaken me for somebody else. My name is not Analise. It’s—” She hesitated, the old fears surfacing, fears her mother had drilled into her head all her life. Never talk to strangers. Never tell anyone your name or my name or where we live. She pointed the spray at him. “It’s not Analise,” she finished. “I’m leaving now, and you’d better not try to stop me, or I’ll use this.”

The tendons stood out on the man’s neck, and the muscles clenched in his tanned, square jaw, a jaw out of sync with the perfect clothes and hairstyle. “Analise, this isn’t funny.”

A small, birdlike woman with curly blue hair came up from behind the man, stopped, smiled and wagged a finger. “Why, Analise and Lucas! What are you two naughty. lovebirds doing here when you’re supposed to be at your wedding rehearsal?”

Either the whole town was crazy, or she really did look like this Analise. Which could mean—

Her heart skipped a beat then went into an erratic rhythm as she thought of the implications of another woman looking so much like her.

“Hello, Mrs. Wilson,” the man said smoothly. “I guess we just lost track of time. We’re on our way right now.”

No, it couldn’t be. If Analise was her biological mother, she’d be too old to be marrying this Lucas person. Unless he liked older women. Or her mother had had a face-lift.

“I can’t wait to see that wedding gown, Analise. Eleanor told me it’s the prettiest thing she ever made.” She looked at Sara’s loose cotton dress and frowned, then changed it back to a smile. “Of course, you look beautiful in anything. Even with your hair pulled back like that. Though I like it better all loose and curly. Don’t you, Lucas?”

The man she called Lucas lifted the long braid off her back and stared at it curiously. “Yes, I do,” he said, his hand moving along the length of the braid then up to her head, his touch exploratory and surprisingly gentle.

Sara sucked in her breath, fighting fear and confusion. She wanted to bolt away from these two people who called her by the name of a doll, from this man who shouldn’t be touching her so familiarly and from her own unexpected pleasure at that touch.

“You kids get on to the church now, you hear?”

“We will, Mrs. Wilson.” Lucas’s voice was strangely subdued, the anger and exasperation in his dark eyes replaced by confusion as he spoke to Mrs. Wilson but looked directly at Sara.

“How did you get this thing attached so good?” he asked as Mrs. Wilson walked away.

“What thing? My hair?”

He continued to hold the braid with one hand. “It can’t be your hair. Yesterday your hair was only shoulder length.”

Sara swallowed hard and gripped the pepper spray tighter. Just in case. “I’m not your Analise,” she said, the words coming out barely above a whisper. “I came to town this morning. I’m looking for...relatives. If your Analise looks so much like me, maybe she’s my... relative.”

Lucas said nothing, but his narrowed gaze and raised eyebrow showed his skepticism.

“Turn loose of my braid,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll take it down and show you how long my hair is. It comes to my waist. It’s never been cut, never been shoulder length.”

He didn’t turn it loose. Instead, he pulled the band from the end and began to unwind the strands. She held her breath as he ran his fingers through the heavy mass of her hair, plunging them into its depths, over her scalp and down again.

Somehow the action seemed far too intimate for two strangers standing on a public street in the middle of the day.

No, she realized, not the action, but her reaction. Lucas’s touch exploded her nerve endings, sending delectable sensations washing over her, making her wish he’d never stop.

She jerked away from him, her hair swirling about her, out of his reach. “You see?” she asked breathlessly. “I’m not Analise.”

Lucas blinked against the sunlight as if suddenly awakened, one hand still outstretched to the space where her hair had been. His hand fell to his side. “No, you’re not.” His voice had a dusky quality that matched the look in his dark eyes. “You have her skin, her eyes, her lips...”

She stepped back before he could touch her again, before he could stir those sensations she didn’t want stirred.. “I need to go.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to herself or why she felt it necessary to say the words. He wasn’t restraining her.

“Except for the way you wear your hair, you could be her twin, but you’re not her.”

“Her twin? I could be her twin?” Sara’s mind whirled. Was that possible? Could her real mother have given birth to twins, and her adoptive mother only took one of the girls? Did she have a sister, a twin she’d never met who’d been adopted by someone here in Briar Creek?

She’d named her favorite doll Analise and pretended it was her sister. Had that been more then wishing? Twins were supposed to have that kind of sixth sense about each other, even when separated at birth.

“Is Analise your fiancée? Can I meet her? Please. It’s very important.”

He stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, then ran his fingers through his own hair, shook his head and laughed without humor.

“Yeah, she’s my fiancée and, no, you can’t meet her. I don’t know where she is.”

“You don’t know where your fiancée is?”