When he didn’t answer, she began to feel real anxiety. “Can’t it wait until dinner’s over?”
“It could. But we don’t want to take the chance that David might come by the house before you hear what we have to say.”
Melanie looked at her with compassion.
“Hear what?”
“On Wednesday evening, Shannon drove by our property, just looking around. But I caught her. We had a short, private talk. It seems David had a relationship with her before he ever met you.”
“No, he didn’t. You must have misunderstood. He told me that when Shannon came to the institute in response to the ad, he took her out to dinner to interview her. After that night he never saw her again. End of story.”
He shook his head. “She tells a slightly different tale.”
“Then she’s lying!”
She saw Melanie and Jack exchange private glances.
“Maybe she is, CC. I hope she is, because I know how much you love David. I think he’s pretty special, too.” He paused, shrugged, averted his eyes.
“Still…” he continued. “When you see him later, just ask him if he’s told you the whole truth about his relationship with her.”
“They didn’t have one,” Catherine insisted. “It exists only in her imagination.”
“Catherine?” Melanie said quietly. “Apparently she’s in love with David. She told Jack that until you came along, she was planning to marry him.”
Tears stung Catherine’s eyes. “I don’t believe it.”
“We don’t want to believe it, either,” Jack muttered. “You know how much I love you, CC. We only told you this as precaution because we don’t want to see you get hurt. If it’s a lie on her part, then you’d have nothing to lose by asking him. But it’s your call.”
“I don’t need to ask him. I trust him completely.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “If you trust him, then that’s good enough for me. We’ll never bring it up again. Let’s go. I’m starving!”
Catherine held back.
“You two go on.”
She saw alarm in his expression. “Where are you going?”
“I’ve decided I’m going to wait for David at my place. Tell everybody I’m sorry, but I’m too excited about seeing him to be good company.”
She dashed past them and climbed into her MG. Her tires squealed on the pavement as she tore down the drive. The warm July evening was beautiful, but she was crying so hard it might as well have been raining. Catherine could barely see and had to pull over more than once.
Call me, David. I’ve never needed anyone in my life like I need you tonight.
As soon as she arrived at her condo, she checked her answering machine in case David had called after she’d left. Desolate when she didn’t hear his voice, she threw herself on the bed and sobbed.
In a little while, the buzzer sounded. She sat up to listen. It buzzed a second, then a third time. She flew through the hall to the door.
“Who is it?”
“David!” It was his deep, familiar voice.
Her fingers were clumsy as she unfastened the bolt. Before she could completely open the door, he shouldered himself inside.
“Catherine!” he cried as he drew her into his arms.
Aching for this closeness after a deprivation that felt like months instead of days, she lifted her head. They kissed again and again with an unquenchable thirst. No kiss was long enough or deep enough. The miracle of two bodies coming together like this blotted out the world.
Her body was molded to his, driven by a force she couldn’t control and didn’t want to. “If I’d had to wait one more minute for you to come home—” Feverish with need, she covered his face with tiny kisses. Her lips had a life of their own as they traveled over eyelids and nose, sampling the masculine texture of his skin.
His mouth chased after hers, kissing the very breath out of her. “I’m never leaving you again.”
“Please, let’s get married right away.”
The dark blue eyes she adored were charged with new light. “I’ve had September first circled on my calendar since we met. It’s a Saturday.”
She smiled before giving him another hungry kiss. “I was thinking much sooner than that.”
His hands stilled on her face. “Any sooner, and we wouldn’t be able to plan the kind of wedding I’m sure your parents have in mind for their only daughter.”
“I don’t want a big one. All I care about is being with you. Didn’t you say something about driving to Nevada?”
“I did say that, and I’d take you there in a second if I thought you really meant it. But you know as well as I do that it would disappoint your family. Even though it’s going to be hell, I can wait another month for the privilege of becoming your husband. I’d like everything legal before I start making love to my wife the way I want to—and the way I will for the rest of our lives.”
“Our honeymoon…” she said breathlessly.
“I have access to a villa with a private beach on one of the Greek islands. The crowds will be gone by September. That’s where I’ve dreamed of us spending our honeymoon.”
“It sounds wonderful!”
He reached in his trousers pocket and pulled out a ring. It was the exquisite pear-shaped diamond they’d chosen, mounted in white gold. Finding her left hand, he pushed it onto her ring finger, then kissed her palm.
His eyes narrowed on her features. “I’ve been waiting all week to put this ring on your finger. You have no idea how much I love you. Come here to me, Catherine.”
She threw her arms around his neck, needing no urging. While the passion flared between them, she couldn’t hear Jack and Melanie’s voices.
David had a relationship with her before he ever met you.
Ask him if he’s told you the whole truth.
She’s in love with David.
Until you came along, she was planning to marry him.
WHEN CATHERINE met him at the door, her response had been everything he could have hoped for. But her suggestion that they get married in Nevada as soon as possible wasn’t in character.
His gut always told him when something was wrong. Though she’d accepted his ring, he knew there was definitely something wrong. The only thing to do was get it out of the way before it grew larger. Expose it—confront it. She’d agreed to marry him. He didn’t want any shadows darkening his universe.
They moved to the couch, where he pulled her onto his lap, pleased to see that the red roses he’d sent her had been placed on the coffee table. Their heavy scent filled the room.
She buried her face against his neck. “How was the trip? How did things go with your mom?”
“It did her a world of good. We were finally able to talk about the past. She cried when Mitch and I told her what we’d discussed with the doctor. Before we got home, she agreed to make an appointment with him.”
Catherine hugged him tighter. “That’s wonderful.”
“She’s expecting you for dinner tomorrow. Seeing that diamond on your finger will give her another reason to get up to a new day.”
In answer, Catherine kissed him with the kind of passion he had no defense against.
“Darling? If tonight’s the night you want to make love for the first time, there’s nothing I’d like more. But before I carry you in the bedroom, I need to know what’s bothering you.”
He felt her draw in a deep breath as she straightened.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
Slowly she turned her head until they could stare into each other’s eyes. Hers looked haunted. He didn’t have to ask.
This had to do with her twin.
“Are you still feeling guilty because you don’t want to meet your twin?”
She averted her eyes.
“It’s all right, Catherine. Let’s talk about what’s really upsetting you.”
He could see her throat working. “Shannon came out to the house this week. Jack saw her in her car a
nd they talked. Apparently your name came up in the conversation.”
David had known Shannon couldn’t let it go. An icy chill crept through his body. “Go on.”
“According to Shannon, you and she had a relationship before you ever met me. I told Jack what you told me. That you’d taken her to dinner once, and then you’d never seen her again.
“Jack said Shannon intimated it was more than that. She says she’s in love with you. She told him she was planning to marry you until I entered the picture. I told him it had to be a lie. That was good enough for Jack. He told me he’d never bring it up again.”
Lord help me.
“Look at me, Catherine.”
Once again she shifted her eyes to his.
“As God is my witness, Shannon and I never had a relationship.”
She grasped his hand in both of hers. “I knew it!”
“But— I haven’t told you everything about that night.”
The shattered look on Catherine’s face tore him to pieces.
“Dear God.” Tears spurted from her eyes.
“Please don’t tell me you slept with her. Please don’t.” She started to pull away from him, but he held on to her.
“I won’t, because it never happened. It never could have happened. That was the problem. I wasn’t attracted to her that way.”
Catherine brushed away the tears with her fingers. “And she was? Attracted to you, I mean?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t sense this before you asked her out to dinner?”
What he said now would upset her. But he knew he’d never be able to live with himself if he didn’t tell her the whole truth. This woman deserved his total honesty.
“When people come to the institute to be a participant in our study, I often do the initial interview.”
“I know. You’ve already told me.”
“This was different. In order to understand, you have to step outside yourself, to a time before you and I met. Will you try?”
After a long silence, she said, “Yes.”
“When Louise told me we had a drop-in, I asked her to send the person to my office. It turned out to be Shannon White from Tacoma, Washington. There was only one word to describe her. As Mitch would say, she was a gorgeous, knockout blonde.”
At this point Catherine slid off his lap. He had no choice but to let her go. Her body rigid, she faced him from a few feet away.
“I felt an immediate attraction to her. It was physical, of course. That’s all it could be. I didn’t know her! Since I started the institute, I’d never dated anyone who worked for me or came in as a volunteer.
“But in her case I made an exception and I asked her out to dinner. She seemed so eager to accept, I realized the chemistry was working for her, too. It was my way of mixing business and pleasure—enjoying an evening with a lovely woman and getting the information we needed.”
Her moist gray eyes stared at him as if he were a completely unknown quantity to her.
“I picked her up at her hotel and we drove downtown. She’d only come to Portland a few times before. I’d been so impressed by the renovation of the Crompton warehouse, I decided to take her to dinner there. Someone at work recommended the steakhouse.
“As the evening progressed, I began my official interview with her. Naturally I learned a lot about her in a comparatively short period of time. But the date fell far short of my expectations.”
David could tell that every word of explanation distanced Catherine a little more.
“Let me ask you a question. In the past, have you ever been out with a man you really wanted to get to know, but at some point you realized you weren’t interested, after all?”
He waited to go on until she’d nodded.
“That experience is exactly what happened to me. As good-looking as she was, as intelligent, that vital emotional connection was missing. It was so odd because the initial attraction had been stronger than anything I’d felt in years.
“You have to understand something else. For the first few minutes in my office, I’d thought maybe she was the one.”
Catherine seemed to retreat even further, but he had to go on. He had to finish.
“When dinner was over, I took her back to her hotel. While we stood talking outside the door, she invited me in. I’ve never slept with a woman on a first or second date. But I might have gone into that room with her if I’d felt the desire.
“I kept wondering why I didn’t. I thought maybe something was wrong with me. How could I blow so hot at the office, and then so cold at dinner? Since I was the instigator of our date, it didn’t seem fair to her. Maybe I was too tired or too focused on my work. I worried that I wasn’t giving her—us—enough of a chance. I thought if I kissed her, maybe I would find the elusive compon—”
“Passionately?”
“Yes.”
Catherine tried to stifle a moan, but he heard it and got to his feet, anxious to reassure her. She backed away. Where Catherine was concerned, that was a new experience for him, and it hurt.
“The one and only kiss I gave her meant less than nothing to me. In fact, it turned me off so completely, I had my answer. She wasn’t the right woman for me at all. I’d made a mistake.
“Naturally, at that point I was sorry I’d asked her out, because I don’t like hurting anyone. I also regretted having broken my rule about socializing with anyone connected with work.
“I told her that if we were ever contacted by someone whose picture and data matched hers—someone who was searching for a twin—the institute would get in touch with her right away. I told her goodbye, Catherine, not good-night. She couldn’t have been under any illusion that I wanted to see her again.
“Unfortunately I didn’t anticipate that she’d fantasize about something that never got off the ground. The next day she phoned my office wanting to take me to lunch. I put her off. She phoned other times, even came to Portland on a Friday afternoon hoping to take me to dinner. Again I had to tell her I was busy.
“When the waiter told her she had a double, she came to my office to discuss with me how she planned to find you.” In a few words, he told Catherine what advice he’d given Shannon. “She left, and I haven’t seen or talked to her since.
“Now you know the whole truth. All of it.”
Her silence defeated him.
“Do you believe me, Catherine?”
“Yes,” she answered in a wooden voice. “I still shiver when I recall the look in your eyes at the speedway. It was almost…revulsion. You thought I was Shannon. I remember driving away thinking how awful it would be if a man I cared about ever looked at me that way.”
Relieved the truth was out in the open at last, he reached for her. But she raised her hands to ward him off.
“Don’t touch me right now, David. I need time alone. Please leave. You’d better take this with you.” She pulled off her diamond and returned it to him with an unsteady hand.
Incredulous, he held the ring between his fingers. It was still warm. “I thought the truth would clarify everything,” he said as unemotionally as he could. “What’s going on in your mind?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “How can you ask me a question like that? Earlier tonight I was ecstatic. I was so happy….”
“I felt the same way when I slid this ring on your finger. I still do.”
She shook her head. “Everything’s changed.”
“Of course it hasn’t! You admit you’re in love with me, and I’ve just asked you to be my wife!”
“That was before.”
“Before what?” he demanded. “Are you telling me you’ve never kissed another man and then regretted it?”
“No!” she cried, “but he didn’t happen to be your identical twin brother!”
“Catherine, when I met Shannon I didn’t even know you existed. She and I shared one dinner. Whatever I felt for her was over by the time I’d kissed her. I’m sorry if that sounds brutal, but it’s the truth.
“When I met you, something wonderful happened to me. Something I can’t explain. Yes, you looked like Shannon. I’ve already told you how strongly I was attracted to her appearance. But when you smiled at me and told me I’d mistaken you for someone else, I felt the essence of you. I sensed right away that you were nothing like Shannon.
“Don’t get me wrong, Catherine. I’m sure she’s a wonderful woman in her own right. If I sound callous about her, I don’t mean to. But she isn’t you.
“I wish to God she’d never come to the institute looking for her twin. But she did. It’s a fact of life. It’s also a fact of life that you and I met accidentally at the speedway.
“Don’t you understand that it was your spirit I responded to, your charm? It drove me to look for you. Eventually I would have found you, with or without Mitch’s help. As far as I’m concerned, it was destiny that we met again at the building site. I fell in love with you on the spot. And you fell in love with me. Don’t you dare deny it!”
“I’m not denying anything.”
“Then why all this anguish?”
She buried her face in her hands. “I wish I knew.”
He struggled for breath. “Catherine, when I was in college, my best friend and I met two sisters at a football game. They were both cute, about eleven months apart. He was attracted to the older one, and I liked the younger one, so everything seemed fine.
“We went for pizza afterward. By the end of the night, my friend was starting to make moves on my date. At first I was angry because I liked the girl I was with a lot. But as time wore on, I could see she had feelings for my friend, too.
“They didn’t plan for it to happen. It just did. Today they’re happily married with three children. The older sister met someone later, and she’s married, as well. The point is, no one can create the connection between two people. It’s there or it’s not.”
She wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands. “You can’t compare that situation to ours!”
The pain in her eyes seemed to accuse him. “You were so attracted to my twin, you took her out and kissed her the same night. Within a week you were attracted to me. It just took you a little longer to get around to kissing me.”
The Unknown Sister Page 12
