There was that sheen of tears again, and this time, one of them escaped and made its slow way down her cheek. He bent and kissed it away, and felt her indrawn breath against him, the convulsive heave that was a sob trying to make it out. She stepped back and started to pull the nightgown over her head. It hurt, so he helped her. Gentle over her aching arm, smoothing the silky fabric over her body, looking at creamy lace and tiny buttons over her breasts, and chocolate-brown satin falling to the middle of her muscular thighs.
He pulled the sheet back, and she crawled inside, arranged herself carefully on her back, sighed, and said, “Before you ask—yes, I took another pill. And you make me feel some way… some way I never have, so I’m going to say this now. I know it’s way too soon to be so crazy about you, but I am anyway. I’ve tried and tried, but I can’t help it.”
He laughed. Gently, but her eyes, which had drifted closed, opened again. He said, “That’s quite the bold declaration, baby. But we’ll take it one step at a time, hey.”
Her eyes closed again as his hand reached under the silk of that gown and began to work on her thigh. Maybe to hear her sigh again, and maybe to ease that coiled spring inside himself. You did what you could, and just now, this was what he could do. She said, “That was good for me. That was out there on a limb. And nobody’s ever called me ‘baby’. Not even my mother.”
“You call Lily that.”
“But it’s not me.”
He kissed her forehead, but kept his hand working the muscles that had tensed again under the burden of her pain. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “It is. Everybody gets to be somebody’s baby sometimes. Seems you were meant to be mine.”
When he was winding his way down through the foothills to Kalispell, the night drawing in around the truck, the headlights showing him the way, he thought a few things.
First thing. Tobias is with her. The alarm’s set, and if it’s tripped, it doesn’t just go to the cops. It goes to me, too. He trusted his reaction time, and he’d bet he could trust Paige’s. But he trusted Tobias’s more than either one.
Second thing. You’re in too deep, mate. The water was closing in over his head, and he was going down fast. Tonight being a sterling example. Drifting off to sleep with her thigh under his hand, his thumb resting in the indentation that was proof of her courage and her determination, hearing her soft breathing and the trust in the body that curled toward him in sleep. Thinking about a woman crawling toward her fallen partner, leaving her blood on the pavement, intent only on getting him to safety. A woman ignoring her own wounds, her own pain, telling that man that she had him, and that she’d stay.
A woman, her badge and her service weapon locked in a drawer, banished from the job she’d sacrificed so much for, feeling every bit of her failure, deciding that the most important thing to do now was to help her sister, no matter what it cost her.
A woman with every bit of strength he’d ever fostered in himself. He knew exactly what that journey looked like, because he’d taken every step of it himself. People called it “the hard way,” but they didn’t know. They couldn’t see that every piece of it was born of weakness and pain, and the struggle to overcome it.
You built a muscle by tearing it into a thousand tiny places first and letting it heal stronger, and you built courage in exactly the same way. Every fight left its mark, like an oyster forming a pearl one hard-earned layer at a time. Until it was strong. Until it was beautiful.
As for what he was doing now? Putting himself and his battle-weary heart on the line one more time, knowing that this could be the hardest blow he’d taken yet?
That was the other problem. When you were built this way, you had no choice.
Jace was early. That was usually a better plan. Gave you a chance to evaluate the situation. He leaned against a wall in the echoing, nearly deserted Kalispell Airport and watched the status indicator change overhead.
On Time.
On Approach.
Landed.
Five minutes. Ten. And a weary straggle of after-midnight passengers coming through the gate, headed out the glass doors to the parking lot or over to baggage claim. One more stop, and then home and to bed.
He didn’t even pick her out at first. Clunky athletic shoes, jeans that were nothing in the world like “trendy,” a blue-checked flannel shirt hanging loose over them, and a khaki baseball cap pulled low over stubby blonde plaits.
The cap didn’t even match the shirt.
She didn’t look around, just made for the baggage carousel with the crowd. They didn’t need a meeting here that anybody might notice and comment on later, so Jace stepped out of the terminal and did the rest of his waiting with the sole of one boot planted against the concrete wall, gazing at a nearly empty curbside and a couple of hopeful taxis, and kept wide awake by the midnight-cool air here at the base of the Rockies.
She came out pulling a single medium-sized suitcase. Black. He pushed off the wall, still keeping it quiet, and said, “Lily.”
She whirled, dropped the handle of the suitcase so it banged to the pavement behind her, and lifted a hand to her heart. “Oh,” she said on a gasp. “You scared me.”
“I see that.” He picked up the suitcase and said, “We won’t hang about. Probably best.”
“How’s Paige?” she asked. Instantly, the same way her sister would have.
“Doing well. No worries. Wait until we’re at the truck, though.”
Paige would have argued, or at least have looked like she wanted to. Lily didn’t. It wasn’t far, and he tossed the case into the bed of the ute, opened her door, and watched her climb into it. Looking everything like Paige, and nothing like her. How did a woman climb into a truck in a feminine way? He couldn’t have said, but however it was, that was how she did it, unfashionable jeans or no.
When he’d started the engine and had the doors locked, he said, “Your sister’s good. I left her asleep in your bed.”
“Thank you,” she said. “For coming to get me, and for helping her. I never would have let her switch with me if I’d thought this would happen. Never. It’s not worth it. It was never worth it.”
“And if she’d known it would happen,” he said, pulling out onto the road and starting north with no company but the streetlights, “she’d never have done anything else.”
“Oh.” He could feel her gaze on him. As keen as Paige’s, but looking somewhere completely different. “You know that.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t say anything else, because he didn’t know her, however familiar her face was.
“I was worried once I got to the gate in San Francisco,” she chose to say next, “that somebody from Montana would know me on the flight, but nobody did. It’s a big state.”
“The ugly clothes worked as well,” he said. “I had to look twice.”
She laughed. “You realize these are Paige’s.”
“Oh. Crikey.”
“Exactly. Exactly. I keep telling her. All right, to be fair, these are some of the worst. But still. Right out of her terrible closet.”
“The uniform’s an improvement, that what you’re saying?”
“Well, no. The uniform’s terrible, too. So I guess she really has been dressing like me, if you don’t know that. Normally, she’d go through my whole closet for the plainest thing and wear that.”
“The first time I saw her,” he said, “she was wearing a pink apron and tackling a goat. I don’t think she’s enjoyed your wardrobe as much as she might have.”
“Why would she be wearing an apron? The apron’s for cooking. And why was she tackling a goat?”
“Both excellent questions. I thought she was mad as a cut snake in a sack.”
“But you talked to her anyway, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“Seems I like women that way. So why am I the scary neighbor?”
“Oh, dear. Did she tell you that? You look very handsome now,” she hurried to add. “You were just a little… ah…”
“Hairy?”
She laughed again. It was Paige’s laugh, clear and bright, and it wasn’t. He reckoned that laughter came more easily to her than to Paige, too. “Maybe just a little. Also, you glared a little bit.”
“Oh. Sorry. I was thinking, probably. That’s my Resting Killer Face, I hear. It’s effective at times.”
“You don’t like to talk to people. Except my sister. She doesn’t like to talk to people, either, so that’s good. And I’ll bet she glared back.”
“She did more than that. I think she threatened to kill me at one point. At least, it was strongly implied.”
“She’s been on edge lately,” Lily said. “But I guess you know that.”
He sobered. “I do.”
“So how is she, really? I’m asking you because she’ll tell me she’s fine. She’s ten minutes older. She thinks it’s ten years. And how did the meeting go? I’ve been scared to ask. I guess you can tell that.”
“She hurts,” Jace said, “but she’s healing. And the meeting was… interesting. I reckon Paige will want to tell you all about it. I’ll just tell you not to worry, because I think we’ve handled it.”
Lily sighed. “You sound just like her. All right. I’ll wait and make her tell me. I have my ways. But thank you for keeping her safe. She’s pretty special to me, you know? She’s pretty… she’s special. This month has been… it’s been… She says that leg thing was minor. It wasn’t minor. I felt it. I know. It took six units of blood. I’ll bet she didn’t tell you that. Or how many guys in the department donated blood for her. And she deserves so much better than what she’s had. She deserves everything.”
He said, “I know that, too.”
“She told you?”
“No. But I know all the same.”
When they got to the house, it was quiet and dark, except for the motion-sensing lights he’d installed at three places along the winding drive, which came on as advertised, one after the other. When he got down from the ute, Tobias let out his deep, slow welcome-bark, and Jace said, “That’s the all-clear signal,” then pulled Lily’s suitcase out of the bed and carried it up to the house.
She ran up the steps in front of him, then stopped and said, “Oh. I don’t have my keys. It’s always so weird to switch.”
“Do you do this often?”
“Not anymore. That’s why it’s weird.” She was all but dancing, and Jace got the keys in the lock fast. Lily had the door open almost before he’d finished, was flying into the house and up the stairs, and as Jace followed behind with the suitcase, the light went on in the bedroom. Paige was at the top of the stairs, and Lily was calling out something indistinct. Something that came from somewhere deep down. And rushing into her sister’s arms.
He brought the suitcase up and turned to leave, and Lily tore herself away enough to say, “Don’t go. I want to hear it from both of you. If Paige can tell me. Oh, sweetie. Oh, I’m so sorry. Do you need to go back to sleep right now? Or can you—”
“I can tell you,” Paige said. “It’s worse than it looks.”
“You always say that.” Lily had her shoes off, was on the bed, urging Paige back into it. “And it never—”
“Yes, it is,” Paige said. “It was bad last night. Ask Jace. It’s better now. Come sit,” she told him, and he did. He was now officially a man in bed with beautiful blonde identical twins. It wasn’t much like he’d have imagined it.
Paige eyed Lily. “You say I look terrible. How do you think you look?”
Lily gasped. “I look like you. Exactly like you. That’s what Jace said! And I didn’t say you looked—”
“Yes, you did. Or you thought it.” Paige turned to Jace. “Really? Because those are my—”
“Your clothes,” Lily said. “That’s what I said. I don’t think he cares. Really. He doesn’t. OK. Now tell. About the meeting. About Brett Hunter. Everything. If you can.”
It was interesting, was what it was. As a twin observation, it was downright fascinating, and maybe a bit eerie, too. Finishing each others’ sentences, seeming to finish each others’ thoughts. They went through the meeting, through Hunter’s proposal, through Hailey and the broken window and Jace’s stalker, with minimal input needed from him. It was that mirror image in the training room again, and it wasn’t. It was two halves, and it was two wholes.
Lily exclaimed, nodded, frowned, and laughed, as animated as Paige was careful, and Paige? She wasn’t quite as careful now. She was all the way herself.
After a bit, Jace went downstairs and made tea, found a tray—flowered, of course—and brought it up, and the women on the bed barely noticed he’d been gone. Except that Lily must have realized, because she’d changed into a nightdress and dressing gown in his absence, and had found some sort of soft jacket-thing for Paige as well. Lily was curled up on the end of the bed again, though, one hand on Paige’s calf as if she had to be touching her twin. With the baseball cap off, her plaits undone, and in a soft blue dressing gown, the resemblance was more uncanny than ever.
Paige broke off from a description of Jace’s stalker’s fiction efforts—a description that, to be honest, Jace could have done without—and told him, “Thanks for the tea. We should talk about what to do next. How I can keep on being Lily until we match again. Where it’s safest for me to do that. I should have talked about it with you already. I should have made a plan.”
He said, “I have some ideas about that, but it’s nearly two. I’m thinking they’ll keep until morning. Meanwhile, I have a plan, no worries. I’m sleeping on the couch tonight and keeping Tobias beside me as well in case there’s any fallout from our escapade. In the morning, we’ll do something else, and we’ll publicize it.”
Paige said, “But what about your house? You didn’t get it alarmed yet.”
“I told you,” he said. “My house will keep. I’ve got what I need.”
Lily hopped up and said, “The couch folds out. I’ll help you do it, and get you some sheets, too. And thank you. Paige…”
“I already said ‘thank you,’” she said. “You don’t have to remind me.”
She was closing down. Jace could see it, but he couldn’t see why. Why now? The reason was there, hovering just out of reach. He just couldn’t quite grab it. “I didn’t ask you to sleep with me,” he told her. “I said I was sleeping downstairs, and I am. Nothing more than that, but it isn’t negotiable.”
Lily said, “Paige. Sweetie, wait.” She saw it as well, then.
Jace told Paige, “Talk to your sister. Be with your sister. Be whatever you want. I’m going to sleep.”
“And you won’t…” Paige said, then stopped.
Oh, he thought, and then, Really? There was a woman throwing up barriers, and then there was this. He said, “Ah. The penny’s dropped. You’re saying I’m working from my lizard brain here. That it was all about you before, but now that I’ve seen you with your sister, it isn’t.” He took in a slow breath, let it out again, and stood up. “You’ve had a head knock, it’s the middle of the night, and you’re feeling more emotional than you’re comfortable with. That’s why I’m going to turn around and go downstairs and let you think again before you say any more. I don’t need to fold the bed out, Lily. Couch is good.”
Lily was staring at her like she was crazy. Paige knew she wasn’t. “Don’t patronize me,” she told Jace. “I was married. Believe me, he let me know. But he didn’t have to. I’ve heard it all my life. So has Lily. She just doesn’t like to think about it.”
“Which is another topic for tomorrow,” Jace said. “For today, that is. I’m going to take a wild guess that your ex showed you his ugliest side at a time when it hurt the most to hear it. That he told you he’d always thought about being with both of you, and how every man you’d ever know would think about it, too. Planting that seed for later, because hurting you now wasn’t enough. And that identical or not, your sister was hotter than you could ever hope to be, and every man you’d ever know would also think he had the wrong twin. And now you’ve shown me
too much, been too vulnerable. You’re sitting on a bed with your sister, both of you in your pretty nightdresses, so I must be thinking about that. I’m thinking something, yeah. I’m thinking you should ask yourself—why is it occurring to you now?”
Lily made a protesting motion with one hand like she wanted to shut this out. Lily never wanted to believe the hard things. Paige knew that they were worse if you didn’t face them. And that the more you wanted something, the more that realization hurt when it finally came.
“Yes,” she said. Lily looked like she wanted to say, Why? Paige had said it, so she had to live with it. “Identical twins are hot. I get it. It’s not a tricky concept to grasp. I probably shouldn’t have said it. You’re right about that. But I did.” She was trembling a little, because she was too tired. Too stressed. Too… everything. She’d let herself get too comfortable with him, and it… Anyway. What was he, a mind reader?
“And yet,” Jace said, “no. The thought occurred to me, and I let it go.” He offered up the rueful smile that deepened those lines around his eyes and reminded you how much life he’d seen. “Like a butterfly, you could say. Touching down on that flower and flying away again.”
“Oh,” Lily said, “that’s beautiful.”
“He’s a writer,” Paige said. She told Jace. “I’ve read your books, though. I don’t remember any butterflies.”
He wasn’t smiling now. “Because there weren’t any. Because I thought that up just for you. Am I going to be insulting your sister if I say that I know which one you are, and I’ve always known, even when I didn’t? That I’d be willing to bet I’ll always know?”
“It’s easy to see which one I am,” Paige said. “I’m the beaten-up one.”
“Well, that’s true,” he said. “You are. Should I make my push for Lily now, or wait until you’re actually out of the room? You do realize that I see what you’re doing here.”
“You see it,” Lily said, “and I see it, but Paige… Honey, no. Don’t. Not every man goes there.”
Guilty as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 1) Page 28
