Mistaken Identity

by Merline Lovelace

  Her uncompromising rejection bit into his pride. More disconcerting, the fact that he’d lost something he hadn’t known he wanted until that moment started an ache right under his ribs.

  He didn’t understand how she’d gotten to him this way. He couldn’t love her. Hell, he’d known her for all of seventy-two hours. He’d wanted her for seventy-one and a half, sure. What man wouldn’t want a vibrant, seductive woman like Lauren? But mere wanting shouldn’t cause the irreversible need that seemed to have lodged square in the middle of his chest.

  “You’re still holding back,” she said, cutting into his chaotic thoughts. “I want the truth, Marsh. All of it.”

  He nodded. It was time. Past time.

  “All right. I’ll follow you back to the cabin. We’ll talk there.”

  Evan was waiting for them on the front porch. Boot propped on the railing, he observed their silent progress up the path.

  Lauren sailed past him without a word. Marsh followed, hooking his head to indicate that they were taking the discussion inside. The attorney dropped his boot with a thud. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a hostile witness here, Hoss.”

  “She overheard our conversation,” Marsh muttered. “Or parts of it, anyway. I’ve got to try and fill in the missing pieces.”

  “This should be interesting.”

  Marsh narrowed his eyes. Evan was taking entirely too much enjoyment from the situation. And entirely too much interest in Lauren. His eyes gleamed as he surveyed the rigid figure waiting with arms crossed inside the cabin. A soundless whistle whispered from his mouth.

  “I see why you went ahead with your hare-brained scheme even after you snatched the wrong sister. She looks like she’d deliver the same kick as Shad’s hackberry brandy.”

  Marsh’s muscles did a slow coil. The Henderson brothers had never poached on each other’s territory after a claim had been staked. That didn’t mean blood hadn’t flowed a time or two during the process of sorting out who was going to get to the claim office first.

  The idea of smooth, sophisticated Evan making a move on Lauren went a quarter of the way down Marsh’s gullet and stuck there.

  “Just shut up and let me do the talking.”

  Eyes mocking, his brother swept out an arm. “Be my guest.”

  Lauren lifted her chin at their entrance. She’d had time to cool down a little during the brief ride back to the cabin. But only a little. Anger still simmered just below the surface. Hurt still pinged at her.

  Marsh’s gruff declaration that he’d lost himself with her had lessened that hurt considerably. She’d be the most gullible fool in the world to believe a word he said, but she couldn’t deny that her heart had skipped a few beats when he’d bent her back over his arm and threatened to kiss her.

  She had that traitorous organ under control now. Or thought she did. The sight of the two Hendersons lined up side-by-side in front of her caused it to skip again. Marsh on his own could make any woman’s pulse take off. Backed up by a brother with sun-streaked hair, tanned skin and a smile that started slow and finished lazy, the effect was twice as potent and four times more dangerous.

  “Lauren, this is my brother Evan. Evan, Lauren Smith.”

  “Were you part of this scheme, too?” she demanded.

  “No, but I’ll tell you right up front I want the same end he does.”

  The answer was smooth and unruffled, and the unspoken message came through loud and clear. He might not agree with his brother’s tactics, but the Hendersons would always close ranks when one of their own came under attack.

  “Why?” She glanced from one to the other, not understanding what had drawn Evan, as well as Marsh, into this single-minded pursuit. “Why the heck is it so important to you to nail the man who tried to take out David Jannisek?”

  “He didn’t tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Evan shot his brother a quick, disgusted look.

  “No,” Marsh ground out. “I didn’t tell her.”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Why the hell not?”

  A muscle worked on the side of Marsh’s jaw. “I wasn’t ready to admit…”

  “That you’d gone over the line?”

  “What line?” Lauren demanded.

  “If you don’t tell her, I will.”

  “Butt out, counselor. This is between Lauren and me.”

  This three-way conversation was getting nowhere fast. With a grunt of exasperation, Lauren stomped forward, and put herself between the two men.

  “I want to hear this from Marsh.”

  Summarily dismissed by both parties involved, Evan retired from the field. Lauren didn’t even notice when he hauled a kitchen chair around and straddled it. Her whole attention was riveted on the man standing still as a statue before her.

  “What didn’t you tell me?”

  The muscle in his jaw twitched again. “The shots intended for Jannisek missed him.”

  “I know that much. Go on.”

  His eyes went hard and flat, as though he didn’t want her to glimpse the emotion behind them. He wouldn’t, she thought. He wasn’t the kind to let anyone see what he didn’t want seen.

  “The bullets hit someone else. An innocent victim who just happened to drive through the intersection at the same time Jannisek did.”

  Lauren’s stomach sank. The whole idea of a shooting was frightening enough in the abstract. This was hard, cold reality.

  “Who got hit?”

  “Our brother Jake’s wife.”

  “Was she…was she badly hurt?”

  “She was killed instantly.”

  Her anger vanished on a wave of sympathy. “Oh, Marsh. I’m sorry.”

  He didn’t seem to want her whispered condolence. What he wanted, she realized with a jolt, was vengeance. So would she if someone had gunned down Becky.

  “No wonder you turned the hunt for her killers into a personal quest.”

  “We all did,” Evan said quietly.

  Abandoning his chair, he came to stand beside his brother. Once more, the Hendersons closed ranks.

  “I put the pressure on everyone I knew in the Justice Department,” Evan related. “Our youngest brother, Sam, used his military connections to tap into spook channels. Reece took leave from his job at the Bureau of Land Management to hit the streets with Marsh and shake down every snitch and panhandler in southern Arizona. And that was in addition to the small army of FBI agents who muscled in on the Phoenix PD and took charge of the investigation.”

  “With all that, you couldn’t pin down the killers?”

  “The men who fired the shots disappeared within days of the killing,” Marsh recounted. “The word on the street is that they paid big time for missing their intended target.”

  The hairs on Lauren’s arms lifted. Her safe, orderly world seemed a thousand light-years away.

  “After that, the leads dried up. Our last hope was Jannisek.”

  “And to get to him, you had to get to my sister.”

  “Yes.”

  She turned and walked away, finally understanding his motivation, yet hurt that he hadn’t seen fit to share it with her until it was forced on him. Hugging her arms, she stared into the stone fireplace. It was cold with last night’s ashes.

  Marsh joined her after a moment. “I’m not apologizing for coercing you into coming with me. I can’t. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “It was a desperate plan, Lauren, but it was the only one I could come up with.”

  “Maybe…maybe I’ve got a better one.”

  She faced him, her heart thumping with the painful realization that he was right. They couldn’t let whatever was or wasn’t between them interfere with the hunt for this cold-blooded killer.

  “You set a trap, but it seems to me you set it for the wrong prey. If you want the man who engineered your sister’s death, you should go after him, not Jannisek.”

  “I believe he planned to do
just that in Phase Six,” his brother put in dryly.

  “Maybe we can cut out a few steps.”

  “What are you thinking?” Evan asked, moving around Marsh to speak directly to Lauren.

  “I’m thinking we don’t have the luxury of waiting for Jannisek any longer. My main concern is still to protect Becky, but she could pop up anywhere. Or—” She swallowed. “—or the wrong people could find her before we do.”

  “We’ll find her,” Marsh promised grimly. “However long it takes, we’ll find her.”

  “I don’t want to wait. I say we take the offensive.”

  “We?” he echoed, frowning.

  “That’s right, we.” Dragging in a deep breath, she plunged into the idea taking shape in her mind. “We let it leak that Becky knew more about Jannisek’s business associates than anyone realized. That she wants to spill everything in exchange for protection. We put out word that he’s bringing her back to Phoenix to talk to the authorities. I go in her stead….”

  “And certain parties will try to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Evan finished slowly. “It might work.”

  “No!”

  The explosive protest jerked their heads around.

  “Forget it,” Marsh said, flatly. “There’s no way I’m setting Lauren up as a target.”

  She lifted a brow. “Why not? You were eager enough to use me as bait.”

  “Under controlled conditions, in a place only I knew about, where I could ensure your safety. I’m calling the shots here, and I refuse to put you in the line of fire.”

  “I have some say in this, too.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Red slashed across her cheeks. She’d never met anyone who could take her from anger to hurt to sympathy back to anger again as fast as this man could.

  “Let me remind you of a few pertinent facts you seem to have forgotten. One, you dragged me into this. Two, my sister’s in danger for as long as this situation goes unresolved. Three, your precious plan hasn’t snared your prey. Now I suggest you start treating me as an equal partner in this venture, or…”

  A shrill ring swallowed the rest of her angry retort. Evan reached into his shirt pocket for his cell phone. Marsh spun around and grabbed his off the pine table. Both men checked for incoming calls.

  With a swift intake of breath, Marsh punched the talk button and jammed the phone to his ear. “Henderson.”

  His mouth went tight. His gaze cut to Lauren. A moment later, he held out the phone.

  “It’s your sister. She wants to talk to you.”

  Chapter 12

  The ride down the mountain to the Flagstaff airport was the longest trip of Lauren’s life. The road seemed to fold back on itself endlessly. Tall pines blocked any view but the twists ahead. Even the faint scent of vanilla that drifted on the crisp afternoon air failed to distract her for more than a sniff or two. She still hadn’t quite absorbed all the ramifications of the call from Becky…or the astounding news that her sister had tracked down David Jannisek and convinced him to put himself in the hands of the authorities.

  Nor had Marsh. He wheeled the Blazer with grim intent, eyes locked on the road. He wasn’t happy about the fact that Lauren insisted on accompanying him to Palm Springs, where Becky and her lover were holed up. The air in the line shack had heated like a blast furnace while he and Lauren debated that particular detail. What had begun as a terse discussion had quickly degenerated into an argument that went from professional to personal in a hurry.

  When Marsh had couched his concern for her safety in blunt and highly physical terms, Lauren had let fly. Evan, of course, had listened with unabashed interest as she suggested his brother take his kisses, his blasted plan and himself straight to perdition. She was going with him, or she was damned if she’d tell him where Becky and David Jannisek were hiding out.

  Marsh’s response to that outrageous bit of blackmail had been instant and forceful. To his brother’s considerable amusement, he’d hustled her into the bunk room and slammed the door. Lauren’s mouth still tingled from his attempts at more direct persuasion.

  “A team of FBI investigators will meet us in Palm Springs,” he said curtly, breaking the silence inside the Blazer. “And Sergeant Al Ramos is flying in from Phoenix. The feds have jurisdiction on the racketeering case, but the locals want to run with their murder investigation.”

  She nodded, amazed all over again at how her world had taken on such a sinister tint.

  “Our focus is Jannisek,” he warned, “but we’ll want some time with Becky, too.”

  “I won’t interfere, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

  He cut her a sideways glance. “You’re already interfering.”

  “How?”

  “By making me regret I told Pepper to arrange separate rooms for us in Palm Springs, for starters.”

  Lauren’s stomach clenched. She was regretting it, too, but she hadn’t forgotten how Marsh had manipulated her. Or his scathing remarks earlier in the day, for that matter.

  “I thought you said making love to me was a mistake. A stupid, dangerous mistake, if I remember correctly.”

  “It was a mistake…as things stood this morning. The situation’s changed, or it will when we get to Palm Springs.”

  “Then we’ll talk about room arrangements when we get to Palm Springs.”

  They’d talk about more than room arrangements, Marsh vowed. He still hadn’t recovered from his gut-twisting reaction to her suggestion that she set herself up as a target. His palms got sweaty just remembering it. He’d lost a sister-in-law to a cold-blooded killer. No way he was going to lose Lauren.

  He’d promised her that they’d take up where they left off when this was over. He intended to keep that promise. They had too much unfinished business between them. Like the way she flamed in his arms last night, for starters. And the dryness in his throat when she’d walked out of the bunk room a while ago in the same bottom-hugging jeans, stretchy black knit top and hip-skimming linen jacket she’d worn the night she’d climbed out of a cab in Phoenix.

  The diamond unicorn pin winked from her lapel. She’d tamed her hair into a smooth coil that showed off the clean lines of her throat and chin. After several days of seeing her in a baggy sweatshirt—and one long night in nothing at all—Marsh found the switch to this cool, sleek Lauren disconcerting and sexy as all hell.

  For the first time since Ellen’s death, he wanted the hunt for her killer ended for more reasons than the one that had initially driven him. He wanted to take Lauren out of the darkness he’d plunged her into. He wanted to hear her laughter and watch her skin flush with desire when they made love. Which they would, he swore. After Palm Springs.

  His foot pressed down on the accelerator.

  They arrived at the Flagstaff airport a half hour later. Marsh picked up their tickets and escorted her to the security checkpoint. Lauren placed her carryall on the conveyer while Marsh showed his badge to the senior security checker. After a quiet conversation, he was waved around the checkpoint.

  They were halfway down the corridor before she realized he’d been extended more than a professional courtesy. The weapon he’d tucked into its nest at the small of his back would have set off every alarm in the airport. The thought that he might need that lethal automatic in Palm Springs sent a frisson of unease down her spine.

  “I didn’t think you could carry weapons aboard aircraft,” she murmured.

  “You can if you’re a cop and you call ahead to coordinate the matter with the airlines. It’s the pilot’s decision.”

  Evidently this particular pilot had no problems with a gun-toting passenger. The Mesa Airlines flight lifted off a few minutes after Marsh and Lauren boarded and banked into a turn, circling the spectacular San Francisco Peaks. Although she knew it was futile, Lauren searched the tree-covered slopes for a glimpse of the line shack. It was there somewhere, nestled amid those fragrant pines.

  The flight from Flagstaff to the desert watering hole of Palm
Springs, California, took less than an hour. As the small plane circled before landing, Lauren got a bird’s-eye view of sparkling aqua pools in what seemed like every second or third backyard. Surrounding the tile-roofed stucco estates and resorts were more golf courses than she could count.

  How like David Jannisek to hide out in a place like this, she thought cynically. Up to his ears in debt and on the run from would-be killers, he wasn’t about to abandon his luxurious lifestyle. Not for the first time, she wondered why in the world Becky had gone to find him. Lauren had brushed aside her sister’s breathless explanation over the phone. Beck might think she loved him, but the truth was she fell in and out of love as often as most people changed their underwear.

  The thought caused Lauren to squirm in her seat. The first thing she intended to do after a long heart-to-heart with her sister was hit the shops. She’d decided to forswear her usual sensible nylon briefs and bras in favor of something a bit more risqué, but these blasted thongs had to go.

  Resolutely, Lauren kept her eyes on the dazzling scenery below. She wasn’t about to admit that Marsh’s unconditional approval of Becky’s taste in undergarments had influenced her decision to refurbish her own wardrobe. At this point, she wasn’t ready to admit anything concerning Marsh Henderson.

  She’d never met anyone who could rouse her to such equal parts anger and passion. In fact, now that her temper had cooled, she could admit she’d never met anyone like Marsh, period.

  For the first time since she’d agreed to accompany him into protective custody in Becky’s stead, she wanted this whole, awful business over with for reasons that had nothing to do with her sister’s safety. The sooner Marsh completed his quest, the sooner they could figure out just where this undeniable attraction between them was going.

  The hand he rested at the small of her back while they waited to deplane told her this magnetism had to go somewhere. She could feel his touch right through her linen jacket.

  They stepped off the plane into a desert heat that made Lauren long instantly for Arizona’s mountains. Fall hadn’t hit this playground of the rich and famous yet. The tall palms that gave the watering hole its name thrust up against a searing blue sky.