by B. J Daniels
“I’ll just stay in a motel out of sight until then.”
“Your brother will be staying at the only motel in town.”
She looked surprised, then worried. “What can we do?”
We? A sliver of doubt embedded itself under his skin. He told himself he was just being a cop. She had come to him, she needed his help. Of course, she would say “we.” So why was he suddenly suspicious of her motives?
Because she’d involved him so slickly into a conspiracy to keep her existence a secret. It worked perfectly into his plan to have her to himself until he could decide if she was really Jasmine—and what she wanted.
But he had to wonder if it also worked perfectly into some plan she had.
“If anyone finds out that I came to you before we know for certain if I’m Jasmine… Can you imagine what would happen if the newspapers got hold of this story?”
He could well imagine. His life had been blown wide open for months after she’d disappeared. But she didn’t need to sell him any further on hiding her. “There might be a way to keep you hidden until we have proof that you’re Jasmine.” He let the words hang in the air for a few moments, not wanting to act too eager. “You can stay with me.”
Her surprise almost seemed genuine. “Oh, I couldn’t.”
“I have a large house. There is plenty of room. It is the only way to stay hidden in a town this size. Unless you’d rather not, under the circumstances.”
She frowned. “Circumstances?”
“The general assumption was that you were abducted by a man at the gas station who is now in prison,” Cash said. “But for several reasons I don’t think that was the case.”
“What reasons?” she asked, sounding more curious than worried.
“First off, the man serving time in prison right now was offered a deal if he told them what he’d done with you. He didn’t take the deal. I don’t think he was the one the station clerk saw get into your car.” He was watching her, not exactly sure what he was looking for, just a feeling that he should be leery of her. Especially if she was Jasmine.
“Secondly,” he continued when her expression didn’t change. “You would never have gotten into your car with a stranger even if he was holding a gun on you. You’d been taught what to do because kidnapping was a real threat given your family’s wealth. The only reason you would leave with the man at the station was because you weren’t afraid of him.”
That last seemed to finally get a reaction out of her. “You think I knew the man who abducted me?”
He nodded slowly. “A man who left you for dead seven years ago.”
“You’re telling me that if I’m Jasmine Wolfe, I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Oh, I think you got very lucky. The problem is, if I’m right, your assailant won’t be happy to hear you’re alive and can identify him.”
“But I can’t! I don’t remember anything about that day.”
“My point exactly. You could be in the room with a killer and not even know it. Until it was too late.”
She bit her lower lip as if considering that she might be in danger. “I guess the safest place I could be now is with the town sheriff,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Right?”
He cleared his throat and met her eyes. “Right.” Unless, of course, she was going home with the prime suspect in Jasmine’s disappearance and attempted murder.
Chapter Six
Molly couldn’t believe how easy it had been as she watched Cash prepare to take her fingerprints.
She’d come away clean without getting caught with any cards up her sleeves. As Max used to say when he’d fooled someone in the front row of the audience with one of his magic tricks, “I could have gone south with an elephant in front of that guy!”
Not only did the sheriff buy her as Jasmine, he’d also agreed to keep the news quiet—and was taking her home to his house. She couldn’t have asked for a better place to hide out.
There had only been that one surprise. Cash seemed to think Jasmine had known her attacker, that the person was still at large, that her attacker had left her for dead. And now with Jasmine back, Molly’s life was in danger.
It was her karma and the risk that went with stealing a dead woman’s identity, she thought bitterly. Wasn’t it bad enough that she already had two killers after her?
She hoped that Cash was just being cautious. He seemed a cautious man. Of course he could also just be trying to scare her. If he knew she wasn’t Jasmine, what better way than to make her think she was in danger from a killer if she continued this charade.
No, she thought, studying him. He believed she was Jasmine because he wanted to. Maybe he really was worried about her safety. Maybe the man now in prison for abducting those other women really hadn’t picked up Jasmine at that filling station.
Good thing she wasn’t planning to stay in this gig long. And there was always the chance that Cash was wrong. The cases were too similar not to have been the same man—even if the man now in prison hadn’t confessed to Jasmine Wolfe’s abduction.
“Yes?” Cash said. He was looking at her, studying her again as if he saw her struggling with her thoughts.
She shook her head. “Nothing. This must come as a shock to you.” Her prints weren’t on file anywhere. That was one reason she hadn’t been able to get a job at a Vegas casino. Casinos took all employees’ fingerprints as a matter of course. But still, she felt a little anxious to think he was about to send them to the FBI. Did that mean they would be on file from now on? Good thing she was going straight again after this.
He reached for her hand. His fingers were warm and she felt a small thrill ripple over her as he began to take her fingerprints. She mentally kicked herself as he raised a brow at her reaction. Cash McCall didn’t miss much.
“Am I anything like her?” she asked grabbing hold of every magician’s best defense—misdirection and patter. Talk about anything. Just draw the audience away from what you’re really doing. “I mean other than the way I look?”
He took her fingerprints, carefully getting a perfect print from each finger. He didn’t look at her as he worked. “You sound like her and some of your mannerisms remind me of her,” he said after a few moments.
“Were we close?” she asked shyly.
His gaze came up to meet hers. There was heat in it and although it had been a while, she recognized the look for what it was: desire.
“We were engaged, weren’t we?” He looked back down.
“I know this must be hard on you,” she said. “I’m sorry I don’t remember…us.”
He finished taking the rest of her prints before he looked up again. “Here, you can clean the ink off with this,” he said, handing her a towelette.
“Thank you.” She scrubbed at the ink, still watching him out of the corner of her eye. When she’d asked about their relationship, he’d grown quiet, almost pensive. There was something he didn’t want to tell her.
“I’ll send these in,” he said, getting up, turning his back to her.
“I’m sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry about?” he asked over his shoulder as if surprised.
“All these questions. But I don’t know much about Jasmine. Just what I’ve read in the papers….” She pretended to hesitate. “And there are so many questions that only you can answer.”
He took a breath and let it out slowly as he finished taking care of the prints. “What do you want to know?”
She shrugged. “Anything you can tell me. How did you meet?”
He took his chair behind his desk, giving her his full attention. “I was teaching a class in criminology at Montana State University in Bozeman. We ran into each other in the hall.” He shrugged. “The next day you were waiting for me outside my classroom.”
Jasmine hadn’t been a shrinking violet, had she?
“How long did we…you date?”
“Not long. The engagement was kind of…sudden.” He smiled a little as if embarrassed and me
t her eyes. “I’d never met anyone like…you.”
And she’d thought he was a cautious man. Probably was. Except when it came to women. Or at least one woman. She felt a prick of jealousy and wondered what kind of lover he’d been. And Jasmine?
Cash was smiling. “You had another question?”
She really had to watch herself. He seemed to be reading every expression. “I was wondering about…our relationship, that is, yours and Jasmine’s.”
He laughed. It was a wonderful sound. “You want to know if we were…intimate?”
The word was so old-fashioned. Like Cash. She suspected he followed some Code of the West. “It’s just if I’m going to stay with you…” She wasn’t really blushing, was she?
“Are you worried about your virtue?” he asked.
There was an edge to his voice that surprised her. Had her question upset him because it was so personal? Or was it something to do with Jasmine?
“I know it’s none of my business,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t have—”
“We never slept together.”
She tried not to look surprised by that—or the flash of anger she’d seen in his expression. Obviously their not sleeping together hadn’t been his idea.
“Oh” was all she could think to say. She was no authority on relationships, since she never stayed long enough in one place to have anything long-term. And her idea of a short-term relationship was a dinner or a movie date. At almost thirty, she had never even been in love.
But any woman who wouldn’t want to go to bed with Cash McCall needed her head examined. Her gaze fell on his hands, and desire stirred within at just the thought of those hands on bare skin.
“Her loss,” she added ruefully and then could have bit her tongue.
He cocked his head at her as if taken aback by her comment. Not half as much as she was. The idea was to distract the audience during a trick—not shoot yourself in the foot.
An awkward silence fell between them, which she didn’t dare try to fill. Who knew what she’d say?
“We should see about getting you to the house. I thought you could drive your car and follow me. It’s only two blocks. We can put your car in my garage.”
She glanced toward the open back door of the office. She could smell the sweet scent of pine coming from the growing darkness. “You’re sure it won’t be an imposition?”
“Having second thoughts?” He smiled but this time it didn’t reach his eyes.
He’s angry at Jasmine and he thinks I’m her. “Are you sure you’re all right with this?” She wasn’t sure she was.
His gaze flickered as if he hadn’t expected any concern from her—and it touched him. “Don’t worry about me. I can’t promise that I can keep you a secret for long. But I will try until we get the fingerprint results.”
“Would you mind calling me Molly?”
He nodded slowly.
“It’s just that…”
“You don’t have to explain,” he said. “You’re still not comfortable with the idea of being Jasmine.”
She nodded. And it wasn’t something she intended to get comfortable with. All she’d done was buy herself a little time. “Thank you. For everything. I appreciate you letting me stay at your house.”
“Have you had dinner yet?”
She shook her head.
“I haven’t been to the grocery store but I do have some leftover pot roast with vegetables from my garden.”
She laughed. The man had a garden and he cooked. Unbelievable. “I love pot roast,” she said, relaxing a little. There was nothing to worry about. He didn’t suspect anything. She had to quit questioning her luck. Obviously, it had changed for the better.
But when she looked at him, he was frowning. “What is it?” she asked, realizing that she’d done something wrong.
He shook his head, quickly replacing the frown with a smile as if she’d caught him. “Nothing. It’s just your…laugh. I’d forgotten…how much I’ve missed it.”
She felt her stomach churn, but she forced herself to smile. Fear reverberated through her.
He had just lied to her.
And a few moments ago she would have bet anything that he wasn’t the lying type.
Maybe she was wrong about him. Maybe she hadn’t fooled him. With a shudder, she realized that she’d talked her way into staying at his house, alone with him, her car hidden in his garage. And he was the only person in town who even knew she existed.
Suddenly, that nagging feeling—that she would regret this—was back again, stronger than ever.
“Ready?” he asked from the doorway.
She started toward the door.
“Just follow me,” he said. “It’s the last house at the edge of town.”
Of course it was.
“You can’t get lost,” he added.
She’d been lost her whole life. Right now she just wanted to run. Running was easy, she realized. That was probably why Max had been so good at it.
Cash looked at her as if he sensed her thoughts and had no intention of letting her out of his sight. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out together.”
She walked to her car, unlocked it and climbed in. There were a few more pickups parked down Main Street in front of the Longhorn Café but other than that, the town was dead. As she inserted the key and started her car, he got into the patrol car. If she took off, he would come after her. Now how stupid would that be on her part?
He backed up and she followed him the two blocks to where he parked the patrol car in front of a large old house surrounded on three sides by huge pine trees. The house was at the edge of town, just as he’d said, no other house close by.
She pulled into the driveway in front of the separate garage and looked up at the monstrous place in the fading light. She’d never liked old houses. They were cold and rambling, smelling of age, often haunted with the lives of those who had lived there before, those hard lives worn into the steps, carved like scars into the walls, their lives still echoing in the high-ceilinged rooms.
She sat in her car and watched him get out of his and open the garage door. Now or never. She started to reach for the key when he appeared at her side window and motioned her to pull into the now open garage. She hesitated, but only a moment and drove inside. She turned off the engine, she pulled the key out and opened her door.
He smiled as if to reassure her.
She tried to smile, but realized she was ridiculously nervous. Max must be rolling over in his grave. She’d played it just right. She’d gotten what she wanted. What she needed. But if she didn’t get control of herself she would blow it.
“What do you think of the house?” Cash asked. “I bought it for you as an engagement present. It was a surprise. Unfortunately, you never got to see it.”
She didn’t know what to say. He bought a rich woman an old house?
He was studying her, expecting a reaction. She could only nod at him and blink as if fighting tears.
He got her suitcase from the back seat and led the way up the steps. She braced herself as he opened the door and stepped aside for her to enter.
“THIS IS IT,” CASH SAID as he reached in and turned on a light. Over the years, he’d thought about remodeling the house. He’d thought more about selling it. The house stood as a constant reminder of Jasmine and he guessed that’s why he’d kept it. He never wanted to forget.
In the end, he’d done nothing. He’d been locked in a holding pattern, unable to move on with his life, unable to decide what to do with the white elephant, no desire anymore to fix it up.
He watched her come through the door wavering between his conviction that she was Jasmine and a nagging feeling that things weren’t as they seemed. What had really brought her here? Not him. He was almost certain she’d come for something else. Whatever it was, he was determined to find out.
He was no fool. He’d seen the way she’d gotten him to invite her to stay here at the house. Well, she was here. Now what?
“It needs a little work,” he said as he watched her take in the worn hardwood floors, the faded walls, the paint-chipped stair railing.
Her green eyes widened as she looked around. “It’s…it’s…”
He watched her struggling to find the words as he fought the urge to laugh. She hated it. He could see it on her face. She was horrified. Any doubts he had that she might not be Jasmine went out the window.
“I bought the house planning to restore it but I just haven’t gotten around to it,” he said. “I thought you, that is Jasmine and I would do it together.”
“Oh? Well, it has all kinds of possibilities,” she said, moving from the foyer to the bottom of the stairs.
“You think?” he said behind her.
“Definitely. It will be a lot of work but…” She turned and met his gaze, nodding. “Definite possibilities.”
“I was hoping you would like it,” he said and waited.
“Oh, I do. I’m sure Jasmine would have loved it, too.”
He smiled at that.
“Buying her a house… Why, that’s so…romantic,” she said as if she needed to fill the silence.
“Romantic?” He couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
She seemed surprised at first, as if not sure how to react, then she laughed with him. “I’m sorry, I just can’t imagine anyone buying me a house.”
He stopped laughing and looked at her. “I don’t remember you being such a romantic.”
“I’m sure I’ve changed,” she said.
Boy howdy, he thought.
She looked so unsure of herself, he stepped to her, thinking only of comforting her, taking away that frightened, confused look in those green eyes. He cupped her face in his hands and felt the reassuring throb of her pulse, telling himself not to question this. Jasmine was alive—and he was off the hook.
She didn’t pull away, her eyes locking with his and he felt himself diving into all that warm tropical sea-green. He leaned toward her, wanting to feel his mouth on hers, to taste her, to reassure himself.
But he caught a whiff of fragrance, something expensive and rare. The memory wasn’t a pleasant one and not of Jasmine directly, but it was enough to make him jerk back, suddenly queasy.
