The Sheriff And The Impostor Bride

As had become an incessant habit over the last thirty-six hours, Rachel stared at the telephone affixed to the kitchen wall and mentally willed it to ring. Then, when mental willpower wasn’t enough, she closed her eyes and started in on the customary verbal mantra that always followed.

“Ring, you stupid telephone,” she whispered through gritted teeth. “Ring.”

She had repeated the command four times when the telephone rang and scared the bejeebers out of her. “Hello!” she shouted into the receiver as she snatched it up, her entire body shaking.

“Rachel? Is that you?”

Rachel felt as if someone had come up behind her and hit her hard enough to drive the air right out of her lungs. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. Then she gave her brain a good mental shove and cried, “Sabrina! Honey...where are you?”

“Thank goodness you’re there,” her sister began. Her voice sounded so distant, so faint and so scared that Rachel wanted to cry. “I tried you at your apartment first,” Sabrina added, “and when you didn’t answer, I hoped I could catch you at the trailer. And I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you where I am.”

“Of course you can tell me where you are,” Rachel countered, knowing it was pointless. Although Sabrina had called her from time to time over the last few months, she’d never told Rachel where she was. Not until the other night, anyway. “I’m your sister for gosh sakes,” she reminded her twin. “I’ve been worried out of my mind about you, and I don’t know how much longer I can put off telling Daddy that you’re in trouble.”

“I can’t tell you where I am,” Sabrina repeated. “Because I’m only going to be here long enough to make this call. Then I have another bus to catch.”

“Another bus?” Rachel echoed. “Sabrina...” For a moment, she let herself be overcome by the worry, the concern, the fear that had plagued her for months. “Sabrina, what on earth have you gotten yourself into?” she demanded. “All this secretiveness is making me crazy. When are you going to come home? Max said you used his address for mail for a bit, but that you never stayed there. So where have you been?”

There was a brief hesitation on the other end of the line, then Sabrina said, “I was in Mason’s Grove for a little while, but I couldn’t stay there.”

“Where’s Mason’s Grove?”

“Between Tulsa and Stillwater. It’s a real nice place, Rachel. You oughta visit there sometime. You’d like it.”

They always did this. Started a conversation one way, branched it off to something else, then wound around to something else again. And somehow, they always kept track. Today, however, Rachel didn’t feel like branching. Today, she wanted to stay on the topic at hand.

“Why didn’t you call me or Daddy to tell us you were there?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Why?” Rachel repeated before expelling an exasperated sound. “Sabrina...honey, you’ve got to tell me what’s going on. I mean it now.”

“I wish I could tell you more,” she replied, sounding as anxious as Rachel felt, “but it’s just so complicated, and I’m not sure I know all the details myself, and I don’t want to pull you into it, because it might be dangerous, and there’s just not enough time, and...” She expelled an exasperated sound of her own. “Look, I just wanted to see if you were still at the trailer, and if you were, to tell you I’m not coming back, and you should leave. Do you hear me, Rachel? Leave. I don’t think it’s safe there.”

“Oh, please,” Rachel said. “What are you talking about? Not safe? This town is the most boring place I’ve ever been in my life. What could possibly be not safe here?”

She heard her sister sigh on the other end of the line. Then, in the background, a faint, disembodied voice dispassionately announced the departure of a bus to Lincoln, Nebraska.

“Is that yours?” Rachel asked. “Are you headed for Nebraska?”

“No. I’m going—” Whatever Sabrina had been about to say, she seemed to think better of it. “I can’t tell you,” she repeated.

“Why not? I’ll meet you there. I’ll call Daddy, and we can both meet you there. We can help you.”

“Rachel, honey, there’s something you need to know.”

“Well, no doody, Sabrina.” Momentarily, Rachel gave in to her frustration. “I think there’s more than one thing I need to know. Like what exactly are you running from? Who the heck is the baby’s father and why isn’t he with you? Are you seeing a doctor? Are you eating right? Have you been taking your prenatal vitamins? Have I left anything out?”

Sabrina ignored her sarcasm. “All I can tell you is that I’m fine, and yes, I’ve seen a doctor—more than one, in fact—and everything is going perfectly according to schedule.” After a clear hesitation, and with obvious reluctance, she added, “All I can tell you about the baby’s father is that he comes from a very prominent Oklahoma family with a lot of money, a lot of power and a lot of influence, and...” There was another sigh, this one long and melancholy, followed by a softly uttered, “And...oh, Rachel. I think his family wants to take the baby away from me.”

Rachel actually removed the receiver from her ear long enough to gape at it. Then she replaced it and exclaimed, “They want to what?”

“There’s some guy following me,” Sabrina continued in a rush. “I don’t know who he is or what he wants, but he’s giving me the creeps. I think he might be working for Ja...for the baby’s father’s family, but whatever he’s up to, it’s no good.”

“How do you know? Maybe he wants to help you.”

“Trust me, honey. This guy isn’t the helpful kind. He makes my skin crawl.” After a brief hesitation, she added, “Someone broke into my apartment, Rachel, and tried to run me off the road. I think it’s a safe bet that he was responsible for both. He’s dangerous. And I won’t risk having you and Daddy exposed to him.”

“What?”

“Oh, I shouldn’t have told you that,” Sabrina said. “Look, I’m fine now. I’m safe. But I think I should keep moving.”

“And I think you need to be with your family,” Rachel countered. Shoot, Sabrina was going to give her a heart attack with all this woman-in-jeopardy stuff. “Sabrina, just tell me where you are, where you’re going,” Rachel pleaded. “I can meet you somewhere. It’ll be okay with two of us. Even better, if I call Daddy, too. For heaven’s sake, you’re seven months pregnant! You need somebody with you!”

“No.” Sabrina’s tone of voice punctuated her adamant stance. “I’m fine. I knew the minute I hung up the phone the other night that it was wrong for me to call you in Oklahoma City. I was just feeling scared and alone, but I’m over it now. There’s no reason to pull you into this, too. I’m on my own now. It’ll be better that way. Go home, Rachel. Where it’s safe. I’ll call you when I can.”

“But, Sabrina—” She stopped when another tinny-sounding departure announcement rang out in the background on the other end of the line. But the sound was muffled before Rachel could hear what it was, and she knew Sabrina had deliberately covered the mouthpiece of the phone.

When her sister came back on the line, it was to say quickly, “I have to go. Listen, just promise me you’ll get out of there. And that you’ll be careful.”

“I’ll be careful?” she repeated. “I’m not the one who’s pregnant and on the run here—you are. You be careful. I can take care of myself.”

Sabrina actually laughed at that. “Oh, yeah. Right. That’s a good one, Rachel.”

Rachel made a face at the phone. “Just tell me one last—”

“I have to go,” Sabrina repeated. “I love you, Rachel. Tell Daddy I love him, too. I’ll call you at your apartment when I can.”

And then the buzz of a disconnected line hummed in Rachel’s ear.

She stood there for a long time with the phone still pressed urgently to the side of her head, somehow feeling a little closer to her sister by doing so. Then an electronic female voice told her very politely that if she wished to make another call, to please hang up and try again. With a sigh, Rachel dropped the receiver back into its cradle, feeling worse now than she had when she’d first arrived at the rented mobile home in Wallace Canyon.

“Well, shoot,” she muttered out loud. For good measure, she kicked the side of the kitchen counter with the toe of her heavy hiking boot.

There was no reason for her to stay here any longer. Sabrina had made it clear that she wasn’t coming back, and whoever was following her was doubtless long gone from here, too. Rachel might as well just do as her sister had told her and go back home to Oklahoma City, where she could wait for Sabrina’s next call. If there was a next call.

But something about going home rankled. Rachel didn’t like feeling helpless, especially where her sister was concerned. There had been a time in the twins’ lives when they’d been inseparable. Where one had gone, the other had followed, as if they’d been joined physically, as well as spiritually and emotionally. And although the leader had always been Sabrina—except, of course, for when the trail had led to trouble—Rachel had followed not out of obligation, but out of trust, out of love.

Sabrina had bailed her out of more tricky situations than Rachel could shake a stick at, and she’d never had the opportunity to return the favor. She owed her sister—big time. Now that Sabrina was the one in need of bailing out, the least Rachel could do was try to figure out some way to help. And sitting in her apartment back in Oklahoma City waiting for the phone to ring just wasn’t going to cut it.

She leaned back against the wall, crossed her arms over the big, baggy, forest green sweater that hung nearly down to her denim-clad knees, cupped her chin resolutely in her palm, and wondered how on earth she was going to help Sabrina out when she didn’t even know where her sister was headed. For long moments, she pondered her dilemma, until a brisk rap of a fist on the front door roused her from her thoughts.

Rachel snapped her head up at the intrusive sound, and riveted her gaze on the frosted glass of the aluminum door barely ten feet opposite her. Beyond it, she saw the silhouette of a big cowboy hat and little else. Something drew tight in her belly, and all her senses went on alert. She straightened, inhaled a few deep, fortifying breaths, and crossed to greet her—or rather, Sabrina’s—visitor.

She gripped the doorknob carefully, inhaled again, then twisted and pushed slowly. But a gust of brutal winter wind snatched the door from her hand and sent it crashing outward, giving neither Rachel, nor her guest, a chance to ease slowly into things.

“Whoa,” the cowboy hat said in response to the clatter of metal slapping against metal.

“Wow,” Rachel gasped at the same time. Not because the wind had surprised her so, but because the cowboy hat tipped backward, and she got a good look at what was underneath.

More brown. But not ugly, dead-looking brown this time. Warm, animated, bittersweet chocolate brown, in the form of laughing eyes that gazed upon her with more than a little interest.

“Ma’am,” the owner of those eyes said as he lifted two gloved fingers to the brim of his hat. “You okay?”

Rachel’s mouth fell open, but no sound emerged. Instead, pretty much oblivious to the cold wind that bit through her sweater and tangled with her hair, she could only stare at the man on the other side of the door. Stare down at him, at that, because after knocking, he had retreated to the ground below the two metal stairs that extended from the side entrance of the mobile home.

His sunken position, however, did absolutely nothing to diminish him. He was easily six feet. And although his big, sheepskin coat hid the particulars of his physique, Rachel got the definite impression of solidity and strength. He was slim, sure, but no doubt every muscle he had, he made count.

Automatically, her gaze fell to the fourth finger of his left hand. It was a bartender’s gesture she always performed, because men always flirted with female bartenders—even though they were often married when they did. This man’s hands, however, were covered with rawhide gloves, so she couldn’t be sure whether he wore a wedding band or not. Somehow, she found herself hoping he didn’t. Then she shook her mind free of the thought and returned her gaze to his face.

Beautiful jumped into her head. He’d no doubt balk at being referred to in such a way, but that was the only word Rachel could come up with to describe him. His dark brown eyes were made darker still by the length of black hair that fell from beneath his Stetson, and by the two slashes of black eyebrows above and a ring of sooty lashes around each. His skin, too, was brown, a deep, smooth umber that was obviously a part of his heritage. His cheekbones were high and well-defined, his nose was straight and elegant, and they were complemented by a sensuously full lower lip that just begged to be tasted.

Oh, yeah. Definitely beautiful.

Great. Just what she needed. Rachel felt that old familiar falling sensation and knew that if she didn’t pull back right now, she’d land in a puddle of ruined womanhood right at the man’s feet. Nothing like falling completely in love with a man you’ve exchanged exactly one word with, she thought wryly. Nevertheless, she knew that was precisely what was happening to her now, because that was what always happened to her whenever she met an attractive man. So she commanded herself to knock it off, to rein herself in, to remember her sister and the fact that Sabrina had told her to be careful. And somehow, she managed to keep from throwing herself—body and soul—right into the beautiful man’s clutches.

“Miss Jensen?” he said, sending a rush of heat right through her.

Shoot, heat was the last thing she needed, in spite of the frigid air buffeting her from all sides. When the man’s voice finally registered in her muddled brain, she sensed by its tone that he must have uttered those two words several times without receiving an answer. Rachel shook her head hard again, to clear it of the muzziness that filled it, then forced herself to meet his gaze.

“Yes?” she replied, proud of herself for forming even that one-word in response.

“Sabrina Jensen?”

A faint alarm bell sounded in the back of Rachel’s head, and for a moment, she felt like the proverbial deer trapped in the headlights of an oncoming semi. It certainly wasn’t the first time someone had thought she was Sabrina, nor would it be the last. That was something identical twins just had to live with—mistaken identity. Normally, a brief, “Oh, no, I’m Sabrina’s twin sister, Rachel,” put a quick and painless end to the error.

But then, normally, Sabrina’s questionable safety and bizarre recent behavior weren’t at issue. Suddenly, with the up-in-the-air quality that Sabrina’s life had adopted, Rachel’s answer to the man’s supposition now took on new importance.

She realized then that she had two choices. One, she could correct him, as she invariably did when one of her sister’s friends or acquaintances mistook her for her twin, and then she and the cowboy hat could share a chuckle. Afterward, he could be on his merry way, and Rachel could go back to Oklahoma City, wait for Sabrina’s call, and pray to God every night that her sister was safe and sound.

That, of course, was assuming that this man was a friend or acquaintance, which he probably wasn’t, if he were asking her if she was Sabrina Jensen. If Sabrina had met this particular cowboy hat during her brief stint in Wallace Canyon, he’d realize right off the bat that there was something different about Rachel. Namely, the fact that she clearly wasn’t seven months pregnant. In a word, duh.

So if this cowboy, however beautiful, wasn’t a friend or acquaintance of Sabrina’s, well then he might just be anybody. And anybody could be somebody who wanted to do Sabrina harm. After all, Sabrina had just told Rachel that Wallace Canyon wasn’t safe. That someone was after her. That the someone in question had tried to hurt Sabrina and might potentially be trying to take her unborn child. Who knew who that someone might be? And he might not be working alone. It might just be a beautiful man with bittersweet chocolate eyes and a luscious lower lip.

Which brought Rachel to choice number two where mistaken identity was concerned.

She straightened, squared her shoulders and met those gorgeous brown eyes one-on-one. Then she told the man evenly, “Yes. I’m Sabrina Jensen. What can I do for you?”

Two

Riley Hunter had seen a lot of beautiful women in his time, but never one with eyes as clear and green and compelling as Sabrina Jensen’s. A man could get lost in eyes like those, could gladly drown and never regret a second of his life. For a moment, he couldn’t do anything more than gaze into those eyes and feel the world fall away from beneath him. Then the cold winter wind slapped him from the side, reminding him that he had a job to do.

“Forgive me, ma’am,” he said, “but would it be all right if I came inside? It’s fearsome cold out here today.”

In response, Sabrina Jensen only stared at him in silence for a moment, as if she hadn’t heard him, and he wondered if there was something wrong with her hearing. He’d had to ask her three times if she was Miss Jensen before she’d finally answered him. He was about to beg entry into the trailer again when, at last, she seemed to remember herself.

“Uh. no offense,” she said, crossing her arms over her torso and tucking her hands under them in what had to be a totally pointless effort to ward off the cold. “But I’d just as soon we had our conversation right here.”

He nodded, finally remembering that he had yet to introduce himself. Naturally, a woman wouldn’t invite a strange man into her home. Deftly, he reached inside his coat and withdrew his identification. Unfolding the leather case, he held it up for her inspection. Her eyes widened at the sight of the silver star pinned to one side, then she reached out a tentative hand to pluck the entire case from his fingers.

She took her time reading over the laminated card that verified he was Sheriff Riley Hunter, Wallace Canyon PD, but even then, she evidently wasn’t quite satisfied. She glanced first up at him, then back down at the photo, then up at his face again, then down at the photo. Sheesh. Talk about suspicious.

Riley wasn’t used to having his identity or position in the community questioned, much less given this kind of scrutiny. Of course, even after only six months in residence, every single one of Wallace Canyon’s 415 citizens knew him by name. He reminded himself that this woman was new to the community and living here alone, not to mention a woman who’d been reported missing—and a pregnant woman, at that. So he supposed she wasn’t exactly in the position to be trusting. Still, it bugged the hell out of him to have his position, his very integrity, doubted.

As she studied his ID, his gaze involuntarily fell to her belly, which, even under her baggy sweater, offered absolutely no indication that there was a life growing inside her. She must be at the very earliest stages of her pregnancy, he thought. Although, like many men, Riley didn’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies, even he suspected that a woman didn’t go much beyond a few months before there was some sign of her condition. Miss Sabrina Jensen probably wasn’t even out of her first—what did they call that thing again?—her first trimester. Yeah, that was it.

Even after she finished inspecting his ID and returned it, she studied his face for some time before she finally stepped aside to allow him entry. Immediately after Riley climbed the steps and crossed the threshold, she closed the door behind him. Then she wrapped her arms around herself again, as if closing the door on the wintry wind outside had done nothing to alleviate the fact that it was goll-danged cold. She didn’t move away from the door, however, and somehow he decided that was because she wanted to be able to make a clean break of it, should he try anything funny.

Women. Man, they just couldn’t trust anybody. And evidently, pregnant women were even worse. In an effort to assuage her fears, Riley took a few steps backward, until the opposite wall bumping into his fanny stopped him. Then, always the gentleman, he removed his Stetson, cradling it easily in one hand.

“Miss Jensen,” he began again, raking his gloved fingers through his shoulder-length tresses to dispel any lingering effects of hat hair. Hey, a guy didn’t want to look foolish when he was interrogating a beautiful woman, after all. “We received a report down at the station that identifies you as a missing person.”

Two bright spots of color suddenly stained her cheeks, and Riley, whose instincts had always been right on the mark, immediately knew that she was guilty of either one of two things: either she was hiding something from him at the moment, or else she intended to hide something from him within the next few minutes.

But instead of calling her on it, he only waited to see what she would do. If there was one thing he’d learned as a law enforcement officer, it was that, nine times out of ten, if left to their own devices, people would do more damage to their own credibility than the police could ever hope to do. So Riley waited, feeding her all the rope she could possibly use in one lifetime to hang herself.

“A missing person?” she echoed, her voice more than a little tremulous.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But...but how could I be missing?” She scrunched up her shoulders and let them drop in a gesture that was way too quick and way too nervous even to be considered a member of the shrug family. “I’m right here.”

Riley certainly couldn’t argue with her logic. Nonetheless, he said, “Well, yes, ma’am, but you’re missing from Freemont Springs, where an APB concerning your whereabouts originated.”

“Now, how could I be missing from Freemont Springs?” she asked. “I’ve never even been there. I live in Oklahoma City and have for years.”

“You’re not living in Oklahoma City right now,” he observed.

Again, that stain of color flooded her face. “Well...um, uh...actually...” Her voice trailed off, but her gaze never wavered from his. “Of course I’m living here now,” she began again. “But until very recently, I was living in Oklahoma City.”

Riley nodded. He didn’t believe for a moment that she wasn’t hiding something, but he nodded anyway. “And just what is it, pray tell, that brings you to our bustling little community?”

She swallowed visibly. “I, um...I needed to get away for a while. A, uh, a friend of mine who passed through here a while back told me what a great place this is, so I had to come and see for myself.”

Oh, well, now he knew she was lying. “A friend told you Wallace Canyon was great?”

She nodded quickly, anxiously.

“That’s like in that movie Casablanca, when Humphrey Bogart says he came to Casablanca for the waters, and then Claude Rains reminds him that Casablanca is in the middle of a desert, and it doesn’t have any waters.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Yeah. So. What’s your point?”

His point was that she wasn’t being truthful, but he checked himself before blurting that out. There were all kinds of things you could learn from a liar, after all. He’d seen that for himself. So aloud, he only said, “Well, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, ma’am, you were misinformed.”

She cleared her throat indelicately. “That doesn’t change the fact that I needed to get away for a bit,” she said.

Again, her response seemed unlikely, and he didn’t bother to hide his disbelief. “You needed to get away now?” he asked dubiously. “Right before Christmas?”

Still blushing, she nodded again, way too quickly for Riley’s comfort. But she said nothing.

“Excuse me for doubting your word, ma’am, but seems to me this is the time of year when most folks want to be close to their loved ones, not get away from it all.”

She lifted her chin a defensive fraction of an inch. “Yes, well, I think that probably depends on one’s relationship with one’s loved ones, doesn’t it?”

He studied her in silence for a minute, unsure whether to believe her or not on that particular score. So he dropped that line of questioning and returned to his first. “That still doesn’t explain why you’ve been reported missing. If not from Freemont Springs, then from Oklahoma City.”