Mistaken Identity

by Merline Lovelace

  The knowledge that she had only this one chance ate like acid on Lauren’s nerves. Watching Joey, willing him with every fiber of her being, to keep gawking at the statues, she pressed the cigarette against the tape.

  She’d never dreamed it could take so long for thin white tape to smolder—or that she wouldn’t even feel the burns when it did. She sat rigid, afraid to draw attention to herself with so much as a blink, as the plastic coating on the tape caught and tiny flames licked at her arms.

  Fearing Becky’s pink cotton sweater might catch, too, Lauren stretched her arms as far behind her as she could. The sickening smell of burning plastic drifted up to compete with the scent of chlorine and flowering vines. Then, suddenly, her hands were free.

  She had only seconds for what came next.

  Bending, she ripped the tape from her ankles. Luckily, it had wrapped around her jeans more than her skin and came off easily. But not soundlessly. The snicker of the tape tearing loose sounded like cannon-fire in her ears. She froze, and threw a glance at Joey.

  He hadn’t heard it!

  Now for Phase Two.

  She couldn’t think about the chances of success. Didn’t dare calculate her odds. All she could do was pray her shaky legs would hold her as she launched herself off the bench, out of the grotto and across the terrace.

  “What the hell…?”

  Joey whirled at the exact instant Lauren barreled into him. Openmouthed with surprise, he flailed his arms madly to keep from toppling into the pool. Lauren ducked under his elbow and ripped the phone from his shirt pocket with one hand. The other she fisted and plowed as hard as she could into his flabby gut.

  He didn’t go down! Dear God, he didn’t go down! Off balance, spewing vile oaths, he reached across his chest for his gun. Frantic, furious, Lauren put everything she had into a huge shove. He fired one wild shot, almost deafening her, then went windmilling off the pool ledge.

  He hadn’t even hit water before she’d spun around and was racing for the house. She heard the splash, heard his curse end in a glub just seconds before she sent the glass doors crashing back on their slides.

  With the stink of cordite and fear thick in her throat, she stabbed frantically at the phone keys as she ran. 911. She had to reach 911. They could relay a message to Marsh. Jamming the phone to her ear, she fumbled for the dead bolt on the front door, panting, praying, pleading for someone to answer.

  “Hello, this is 911. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “I was kidnapped! There’s going to be a murder!” She wrenched open the door. “I have to reach Special Agent Mar—ooopf!”

  “Hello? Hello? Miss, are you all right?”

  Stunned by her full-force collision with a wall of muscle coiled to tensile steel, Lauren reeled back. Hard hands banded her arms with brutal possession.

  “Lauren! Are you all right?”

  “I…I…”

  “Miss! Miss!” The operator’s voice leaped from the phone. “Can you answer me? Are you in imminent danger?”

  Like a fool, she stuttered and sobbed and squeaked out her incredulous relief.

  “Marsh! Oh, God, Marsh!”

  She had one moment of blessed happiness. Three, maybe four seconds of joy. Then Marsh shoved her violently aside. She toppled off the front stoop and landed atop a shrub at the same instant shots split the air.

  She was up on one knee, frantically fighting free of the bush when a horrific boom rattled the mansion’s windows. Only after she’d reassured herself that Marsh still stood, whole and unbloodied, did she notice the billowing cloud of black smoke that rose out of the desert far to the west.

  Chapter 16

  At the sound of heavy footsteps on the scrubbed hospital tiles, Lauren looked up from the unappetizing sight of her as-yet-unbandaged left wrist. Her stomach clenched at the expression on Marsh’s face.

  “Is he dead?”

  “No.” His eyes went to her wrist. A muscle jumped in the side of his jaw. “I wanted him dead. I had my Glock sighted right in the middle of the guy’s forehead.”

  “But you drilled a nice, neat hole right through his shoulder instead,” the physician’s assistant finished, grinning over his shoulder at Marsh.

  “He’s more use to us alive than dead,” Marsh said, keeping his gaze locked on Lauren’s raw, oozing wrist. The muscle in his jaw jumped again as the PA deftly twisted a light gauze bandage around the weeping flesh.

  “There. We don’t want to wrap them too tight. I’ll give you some rolls of gauze to take with you. Spread the antiseptic cream on the burns three times a day and use a sterile wash.”

  “Will they scar?”

  He didn’t dodge Marsh’s tense question. “Probably. She should consult a plastic surgeon when she gets home.”

  “Right now,” Lauren interjected, “all she wants is one of those pain pills the doc prescribed.”

  Marsh was at her side in an instant. “Are you hurting?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  She managed to toss it off lightly, but that was about all she could manage. Her hands shook when she reached for the water glass and pill the PA held out for her.

  His brows slashing, Marsh took the glass and tipped it to her lips. She washed away the raspy taste of cigarette smoke and fear with a wobbly smile.

  “Thanks.”

  “That painkiller is pretty potent,” the PA warned. “You’d better sit here for a while and give it time to kick in before you step outside. Even a slight breeze on those bandages is going to sting.”

  Lauren suspected he’d understated the case considerably. She was more than happy to sit on the exam table for a while, particularly when Marsh stood beside her.

  He looked about as whipped as she felt. The hand he’d raked through his hair while he’d waited for the doc to examine the scuzzball in the next cubicle had left it standing in dark spikes. Blood stained his blue shirt. The blood was hers, Lauren presumed, since he’d taken one look at her scorched wrists, lifted her out of the prickly shrub beside the stoop, and carried her to the black-and-white police cruiser flashing its lights in the drive. Leaving two uniformed officers to tend the wounded Joey, he’d cradled her until the ambulance arrived.

  Still dazed by his arrival on the scene, deafened by the shots fired just inches from her ear and ripped apart inside by the black cloud rising out of the desert, Lauren had waited, watched and wept with frustration when the FBI agent at the scene of the explosion radioed Marsh that he’d brief him in person when he returned to Palm Springs.

  “Have you heard anything?” she asked him now, her worries sharpening as the white hot needles of pain slowly dulled.

  “No.”

  “How’s Becky?”

  “She’s taking it hard.”

  Lauren bit her lip, sharing her sister’s agony. If Marsh had fired a second later—if his bullet hadn’t spun Joey sideways and thrown off his aim—Lauren, too, might be sitting hollow-eyed and desolate with grief.

  Residual fear hiccupped through her. She ached to throw her arms around Marsh and hang on to him for the rest of eternity. Instead, she could only hold her wrists limply crossed and blink back tears.

  “I was so afraid,” she confessed.

  “Me, too.”

  “I knew you’d figure out Mullvane was behind my disappearance. I thought you’d go in Dave’s stead and try to snare him. All I could think about was getting word to you that he wasn’t there, and it was a trap.”

  “All I could think about was you. I didn’t care about Mullvane. I didn’t care about anything except finding you.”

  He lifted a hand to brush a straggle of hair from her cheek. His eyes reflected an aching remorse.

  “I’m sorry, Lauren.”

  “For?”

  “For dragging you into this. For letting those bastards hurt you.” His palm cupped her cheek. “For not telling you that I love you.”

  She cocked her head and blinked up at him. “The painkiller must have kicke
d into high gear. I’m getting woozy. I could have sworn you said you love me.”

  “I did.”

  His thumb did that lip thing again, that slow, maddening stroke that had driven Lauren crazy last night. Or was it the night before? She couldn’t seem to remember. She caught that marauding thumb in a kiss.

  The awful remorse left his eyes, giving way to a rueful glint.

  “I was kind of hoping you weren’t too woozy to respond in kind.”

  “I’m not.” Her smile shook around the edges, but it came from her heart. “And I do. Love you, I mean. Desperately. Passionately. With all my heart and soul and everything. I will even,” she announced with a lopsided grin, “buy some white-lace thong panties to wear under my wedding dress.”

  Marsh’s face lit with laughter.

  “You will, huh? Then I guess we’d better hit the shops as soon as we blow this place.”

  “But…” She shook her head in a futile attempt to clear the fuzzies. “…but what about Mullvane? Don’t you have to go, you know, do your special agent thing?”

  “Mullvane can wait. You, my darling Lauren, can’t.”

  Epilogue

  Marsh stood behind Lauren, shielding her from the December wind that howled down from the San Franciscos and whipped the light dusting of snow into a thousand tiny whirlwinds. The collar of his sheepskin jacket protected his ears. His pulled-down dress black Stetson sat low on his forehead to resist the wind’s tug.

  They’d come home to the Bar-H, he and Lauren. Becky had come with them, along with the sisters’ divorced parents, their aunt Jane and Lauren’s assistant, Josh, all assembled for a belated celebration of the marriage that had taken them all by surprise.

  The Hendersons had all gathered, too. Sam and Molly and Kasey. Reece and Sydney. Evan, wheeling his Harley through the snow that had dropped out of the skies without warning and cursing every mile. Marsh’s mother, Jessica, her dove-gray hair short and sassy and her smile aglow for her newest daughter-in-law.

  Jake had shaken off his grief to welcome them. Even Shad had appeared, all decked out in his best shirt and offering to squire a blushing Aunt Jane on a tour of the barns and stables.

  They were waiting back at the house. All of them.

  But Lauren had wanted this moment alone with Marsh. Her hair whipping around her face, she bent to place a bouquet of winter roses on Ellen’s grave. The wind caught her sigh as she straightened and leaned against her husband. His arms came around her.

  “I wish I’d known her.”

  “You would have liked her.”

  They stood quietly for a moment. Idly, Lauren lifted a hand to tuck the tossing strands of red behind her ear. Marsh’s stomach knotted when he glimpsed the stretch of puckered skin between her sleeve and her glove.

  “I’m glad you took Mullvane down.”

  “So am I,” he said fiercely.

  Even after all these weeks, he couldn’t quite believe how easy it had been. Faced with kidnapping and attempted murder charges, Joey had spilled his guts. Within hours, they’d put together enough to convince a judge to issue warrants. Within days, they’d led the protesting, sputtering Mullvane away in handcuffs. Between the two events, Lauren had comforted her grief-stricken sister and fulfilled her promise to wear a pair of white-lace panties under her ivory satin wedding suit. Marsh still shivered whenever he remembered their wedding night.

  Now they’d come home.

  And now, with Mullvane’s trial only weeks away, Marsh had to tell his wife what he couldn’t tell her before. His hands gentle on her waist, he turned her in his arms.

  “Lauren, Dave Jannisek didn’t die in the explosion.”

  “What!”

  “When we pulled up the drive of that vacant house and I heard the shot, I knew in my gut I’d found you. I had the driver of the cruiser get on the radio. He contacted Dave while I was racing to the house.”

  “What!”

  “Jannisek bailed out of his car just short of the detonation point.”

  Stunned, Lauren gaped up at him. Joy waged a fierce battle with outrage, taking her face from white with cold to an angry red.

  “He was injured by the flying debris,” Marsh told her. “For weeks, we weren’t sure he was going to make it.”

  Remembering his first view of the gaping hole that was once a four-lane interstate, he marveled that Jannisek had survived at all. The murderers who’d tried to take him out had used almost as much explosive as the terrorists who’d blown up the World Trade Center.

  “And you didn’t tell Becky! Or me!”

  “I wanted to, but Dave swore me to silence. He didn’t want…” He stopped and corrected himself. “He doesn’t want to put her in danger again. Until the trial’s over and he disappears for good, there’s still the chance Mullvane will try to take him out.”

  That stopped Lauren’s river of protests. Her jaw shut with a snap. She’d think about that, Marsh knew. Weigh all the ramifications before letting loose with both barrels. Right now her main concern was her sister.

  “Can we tell Becky?”

  “Only if she agrees not to contact Dave in any way before or after the trial.”

  “But…”

  “Those are his conditions, not mine.”

  She didn’t like that. Eyes stormy, she scowled at Marsh as though it was his fault Becky had cried herself to sleep these past weeks.

  That’s what he loved most about this woman who was now his wife. Her fierce loyalty to her sister, and, more recently, to Marsh and his family. She didn’t put limits on her love, which both humbled him and filled him in ways he’d never imagined. He’d never get enough of it—or of her.

  “Do you want to know the kicker?” he asked, his arms and his heart full.

  “I’m not sure I can take any more right now.”

  “Because of Mullvane’s connections in Phoenix, his trial’s been moved to Southern California. Evan’s one of the prosecuting attorneys.”

  “Evan!” She blinked the snow off her lashes. “Isn’t that a conflict of interest or something?”

  “Actually,” he replied, with the beginnings of a grin, “Evan sees it as a reprieve. Now that I’m out of the picture, Reece’s wife, Sydney, has turned her matchmaking eye on him. He needs a long, complicated trial like this to keep him occupied and her off his case. He can’t convince her he’s not ready for marriage.”

  Putting her shock and anger aside for the moment, she leaned back in his arms.

  “Too bad,” she murmured, brushing the snow from his cheeks with a fingertip. “Evan doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  “He’ll find out one of these days. Just as I did.”

  Bending down, he brushed her lips with his. Wintery warm and petal soft, they welcomed him in from the cold.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-5378-4

  MISTAKEN IDENTITY

  Copyright © 2000 by Merline Lovelace

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