A Bride In Waiting

He looked up and down the street as if checking to see if anyone was watching, then shrugged and pulled a folded piece of pink paper from his pants pocket. “This was delivered to my house a few minutes ago, just as I was leaving to go to our wedding rehearsal.”

Sara returned her pepper spray to her purse and examined the paper. “A flyer for twenty percent off on treating your lawn for grubworms?” Maybe the man was crazy after all.

“The other side.” He reached across and flipped the paper over. The words leaped off the page, scrawled in a hasty, flowing script.

I have to leave town for a few days! Tell Mom and Dad I’ll call them this evening! When I come back, I’ll have some really big news! I know you’ll understand that I absolutely had to go because you’re my best friend in the whole world and you always understand me!

Hugs—Analise

P.S. By the way, you might want to postpone the wedding rehearsal for a few days!

Sara’s heart sank. This couldn’t be her sister, this person who wrote so exuberantly and ended every sentence with an exclamation point. This irresponsible person who deserted her fiancé on the day of their wedding rehearsal.

“I’m sorry,” she said, handing the note back to him.

He shrugged. “That’s Analise.”

“You mean she’s done things like this before?”

“Not quite this bad. And not since we decided to get married. Her parents and I thought marriage might make her a little more dependable, but it looks like we were wrong.” He stuffed the paper back into his pocket. “I apologize for the mistake. You really do look like her.”

“Like her twin.”

“Yeah. Like her twin. Well.” He shifted from one foot to the other, a nervous action at odds with his urbane appearance. “I guess I might as well get on over to the church and face the music. So I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing before I came along and interrupted.”

“Yes. Okay.”

He made no move to leave and neither did she. Sara felt oddly reluctant to part from Lucas. A natural reluctance since she desperately wanted to find out more about the missing Analise. It wasn’t even partly because of the way Lucas had touched her hair or the way he was looking at her, as if he wanted to touch her again.

“Maybe you could tell me—”

“I have an idea—”

They both spoke at the same time.

He smiled. “Go ahead. You first.”

“I just got to town a little while ago, and I’m trying to find some information about...missing members of my family. I don’t know where to start.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think because Analise looks like you, she may be a relative.”

“Maybe.” She saw no reason to tell him everything.

He nodded slowly, assessingly. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do my best to help you find your relatives if you’ll help me for just a couple of hours.”

Sara gulped and fumbled for her pepper spray. “What do you want me to do?”

“Analise will be back in a few days with some story of a new discovery, some new kind of a butterfly they’ve identified over in Dallas or something equally ridiculous.”

Sara’s mouth went dry. “A new species of butterfly? She’s interested in butterflies?”

“Bugs. All kinds of bugs. She’s a zoology major.”

“I wanted to major in zoology with a specialty in entomology! That’s insects,” she explained at Lucas’s startled look.

“I know what it is. That’s Analise’s field, too.”

“Oh!” She told herself she shouldn’t become too excited; that could only lead to disappointment. Nevertheless the evidence was mounting. The evidence plus that odd feeling she’d always had about having a sister. Her mother had told her that was normal for only children, but she’d never quite believed her on that one.

“Be glad you didn’t,” he said, and for a moment Sara thought she must have spoken aloud, but he was responding to her comment about her frustrated desire to major in zoology. “Analise hasn’t had much luck finding a job in that field. Anyway, she’ll be back in a few days and everybody will laugh and shake their heads because everybody loves her in spite of her flaky ways. But today her parents, who are wonderful people, are going to be very worried about her.”

He pulled the folded paper from his pocket again and regarded it balefully. “There’s no way we can reschedule the rehearsal. We made the wedding plans in a bit of a hurry. Analise couldn’t make up her mind until the last minute. Now the wedding’s set for next Saturday afternoon, squeezed in between one in the morning and another one in the late afternoon, and this is the only time we could get the church for rehearsal between now and then. This whole thing started out a mess, and it’s getting worse.” He looked directly into her eyes, his gaze so powerful, Sara felt her legs could turn to rubber and he’d still be able to hold her erect. “Unless you come to that rehearsal with me and pretend to be her.”

“What? Pretend to be somebody else? I couldn’t do that!”

“Sure you could. This is a rehearsal. All you have to do is whatever the coordinator tells you. I’ll pay you. Fifty dollars an hour. A hundred dollars an hour.”

She stared up at him, shocked and dismayed by the offer of money. In spite of her misgivings about pretending to be someone else, she’d wanted to agree until then, wanted to find out about this woman who looked so much like her.

But how many times had her mother warned her not to trust anyone with money? And illogical as she now knew such warnings, they were too deeply ingrained in her to ignore.

She shook her head slowly, a part of her still wanting to go with him, to take a chance for once in her life, to explore a path that might lead to a new identity for herself...to her real mother...or maybe, just possibly, to a sister.

“I’ll help you find whatever information you need, and when Analise comes back, I’ll make sure you get to meet her first thing.”

He’d moved closer to her or she to him, so close she could smell his expensive cologne, a scent that didn’t quite mask his own rugged, masculine essence.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

His features softened and his hand lifted to her cheek, pushing her hair back from her face. Above her his lips moved, forming the word please, and she could almost feel those lips on hers.

Wicked! her mother would have said. Dangerous!

“Yes,” Sara said.

Chapter Two

Sara clutched the steering wheel with one hand and the door handle with the other as she drove across town with Lucas in the car beside her, guiding her along the unfamiliar streets.

What on earth was she doing, going somewhere with a strange man, entering a strange world, pretending to be another woman? Was it possible this strange man could even turn out to be the kidnapper her mother had always feared?

The last notion was another holdover from her mother’s paranoia, she tried to reassure herself. A kidnapper didn’t approach his victim and ask her to pretend to be his bride.

Nevertheless, she was infinitely relieved when Lucas directed her into the parking lot of a huge stone church. Surely a kidnapper wouldn’t take his victim to church first.

“Park over there,” he said, indicating a far comer of the lot, “so nobody will notice you’re not driving Analise’s car.”

Sara’s gaze swept the assortment of luxury automobiles directly in front of the church. Her ten-year-old midsize sedan would certainly stand out in that company. “What kind of car does Analise have?”