The Substitute Sister Page 7

  She shrugged off his hand and stepped back into the nursery, maybe because she’d taken his words as a warning. And maybe she was smart to do that.

  “I should leave,” she said. “I should take Annie and leave today.”

  Reed glanced to the window, to the wind-driven rain lashing against the leaded panes rattling in the century-old frames. “The ferry won’t come today. The water’s too rough.”

  The rain fell too hard, and the wind hurled it around, obliterating visibility. He could imagine how much worse it would be on the lake.

  “You could take us on your boat.”

  “You’re too smart to ask me to take that risk with Annie.” And her.

  Her breath shuddered out. “You’re right.”

  Chapter Five

  She was too smart. Too smart to risk developing feelings for another man who really preferred her sister. So when Sasha caught herself staring out the rain-streaked window, looking toward the path Reed had used to walk away from her that morning, she stopped herself. Maybe it wasn’t him she missed but her freedom. The pane of glass could have been bars—Sasha felt that imprisoned, trapped in her sister’s house, in her sister’s life. Had the voice in her head been mocking her? Or had it not been in her head? She couldn’t consider the alternative; it was safer to think about Reed.

  He was busy. Doing his job. Finding her sister’s killer. Would he go back to Charles? Would he interrogate him? She tightened her arms around the child who’d fallen asleep there. She wanted the truth about her sister’s death, wanted to know who was responsible and where he’d put her body. But she didn’t want to risk custody of Annie in the process.

  And she didn’t want to relive the past. She’d suffered enough humiliation five years ago.

  “You gave her a bath already,” the nanny accused as she strode through the doorway in which she’d been lurking. The young woman was always lurking. She’d hovered on the other side of the kitchen door when the lawyer had stopped by earlier, just after Reed had left.

  She’d been tempted. Tempted to just sign away Nadine’s estate, let the lawyer deal with the mess and beg a ride to the mainland on his boat. She’d opened her mouth with the intention of doing just that. But then she’d remembered the risk Reed had mentioned.

  If it were just her, she would have taken it. But now she had Annie to think about. So instead of a ride, she’d asked for more time before making any decisions about Nadine’s estate. He hadn’t forced the issue, but said he’d remain on the island, due to the weather as well as her indecision.

  “Yes, I gave her a bath already. She barely took a nap today. She’s tired.” And now she nestled securely in Sasha’s arms. Safe.

  For now.

  “That’s my job.” Barbie’s voice rose to an even higher octave. “Your sister—”

  “I’m not my sister.” Sasha rose from the rocking chair where she’d rocked the child to sleep and laid her in the crib. Her gaze went to the window again. An eerie light cast a greenish glow from the still-hovering clouds. The rain had stopped although it threatened to resume. And the sun, hidden somewhere inside those clouds, was about to set.

  She’d wanted to talk to Mr. Scott today, but after last night and seeing him standing below this window, she’d hesitated. Fear that he might react as resentfully as the others had, or worse, had held her back from initiating a meeting.

  “Are you going to stay here?” Barbie asked.

  Sasha shrugged. “I really don’t know yet.”

  “What will you do about…the house?”

  “And its staff?” Sasha added, her patience worn thin by the constant battle she’d fought inside these old walls. “I don’t know that, either.”

  “Your sister—”

  She sighed, weary from more than her sleepless night. “I already told you that I am not Nadine. I am nothing like my sister.”

  Staring at the girl, hoping to get her message across, she noticed what the nanny wore. A white cashmere sweater, not exactly sensible for working around a toddler. But it wasn’t that that drew Sasha’s attention. She knew the sweater with its fringed turtleneck. She’d last seen it when Nadine had visited her five years ago. When Nadine had disappeared again, so had the sweater…as well as Sasha’s bridegroom.

  “She wouldn’t have given you that sweater,” Sasha said. “You’ve been through her closet.”

  The young girl’s face flushed, and her gaze shifted away. “This is mine.”

  “No, it’s not. I know my sister had that.” But like a lot of things that Nadine had claimed as hers, it had belonged to someone else first. Like Charles. Like the house.

  “She’s dead.”

  “But I’m not. And she left everything to me.” Why? Why had Nadine done that?

  The young woman huffed. “Fine. I’ll take off the sweater.” Barbie whirled toward the doorway.

  “You’re lucky,” Sasha added, sick of the treatment to which the staff had subjected her.

  The nanny turned back. “What?”

  “You’re lucky that I don’t want to disrupt Annie’s life any more than it already has been.”

  “What are you saying? That if it wasn’t for Annie, you’d fire me?”

  Maybe the girl wasn’t as stupid as Sasha had thought. “If it wasn’t for Annie, I wouldn’t need you. And if I see you mistreating her in any way—”

  The nanny gasped. “I would never.”

  Sasha believed her. The child was healthy and happy, and she wouldn’t be so if the girl didn’t take good care of her. Or had it all been Nadine?

  “Return anything else of hers that you’ve taken,” she advised.

  Hatred filled the girl’s brown eyes. “You’re more like her than you think.”

  Sasha hoped not.

  “And you’d be smart to remember what happened to her,” the girl added as she flounced out of the room.

  Nadine had been murdered.

  Had the nanny just threatened that the same thing might happen to Sasha?

  FROM HIS COTTAGE WINDOW Reed could see the lights of the Scott Mansion. They shone dimly through the fog and the mist of the last of the rain. He hoped it was the last. Today’s storm had interrupted his search for Nadine’s body. Instead he’d spent his time investigating suspects…and thinking about Sasha. About how she’d felt in his arms, about the silk of her hair and the softness of her skin beneath his palm…

  And her tears. Shed for Annie or for her ex-fiancé?

  He wanted to know that. He could tell himself his curiosity was for Annie’s sake, but like before, he knew he was lying.

  Why did she fascinate him so much? She looked exactly like Nadine, for whom he’d had none of these feelings.

  Why Sasha?

  “Reed?” the voice rose from the phone pressed to his ear.

  “Sorry, what were you saying, Dylan?” Dylan was a fellow sheriff of a small town in northern Lower Michigan as well as a friend.

  “You’ve gotta get some sleep, man. You’re losing it.”

  Tell me about it. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’ll get some sleep.”

  “I can’t believe it. You admitted I was right. You must be troubled.”

  “You know how it is.” To get distracted over a woman. Dylan Matthews was one lucky son of a bitch. He had it all. Gorgeous wife, sweet kid, the respect of the town he protected…

  What did Reed have? An unsolved murder where he couldn’t even find the body.

  “Yeah, we thought we left this kind of senseless violence behind in the big city, but it manages to find us wherever we go. I feel for you, Reed. You know I’m here for you. Anything else you need?”

  Dylan had already done a lot by putting Reed in contact with his FBI resources so that the DNA results were rushed and he had proof that Nadine was dead. “You checked out Norder. I appreciate that.”

  “Medical resident. Except for leaving his fiancée at the altar five years ago, he’s done nothing to suggest an unstable personality. But you know what that m
eans.”

  With his free hand, Reed rubbed the nape of his neck. “Absolutely nothing. Some people can hide crazy very well.”

  Dylan’s gusty sigh carried through the phone. “Too damned well. Be careful, man.”

  Reed appreciated his friend’s concern. They hadn’t been close while he’d been a detective in Detroit and Dylan a narcotics officer. But Dylan’s move north, as much as Reed’s divorce, had prompted his move to Sunset Island. If an ambitious guy like Dylan could be happy away from the city, Reed had thought he could be, too.

  But he hadn’t been happy in a long time.

  His gaze was drawn to the window again, to the Scott Mansion where Annie was. The little girl had made him happy, but she wasn’t his. He would have to let her go when Sasha left.

  And Sasha would leave.

  The way Charles Norder had left her at the altar. Yeah, Reed should have slugged him.

  “I’m always careful,” Reed said, and this time he lied to a friend.

  Because he hadn’t been careful that morning when he’d taken Sasha into his arms. He’d meant to offer comfort but instead he’d raised things to a new level between them, a level that had nothing to do with comfort and everything to do with the attraction between them…an attraction he was sure neither of them intended to act upon.

  Dylan’s chuckle echoed from the phone. “Famous last words, man. Why do I suddenly have a feeling there’s a woman involved? Maybe this aunt, the guardian of the little girl?”

  Damn, his friend was too astute. “It’s late. I better get that sleep you recommended.” He clicked off the phone, interrupting his friend’s laughter.

  But Reed didn’t head toward his bedroom. He stayed by the living room window, staring up at the Scott Mansion. An eerie feeling gripped him, but he shook it off. He was letting desire skew his judgment. Sasha couldn’t be in any danger. She hadn’t talked to her sister in five years. Whatever had motivated Nadine’s murder had nothing to do with her.

  The phone rang, startling him as he still gripped it in his hand. He lifted it toward his ear, clicking it on. “How can I get any sleep if you keep calling me?” he razzed.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Sasha?” He hadn’t expected her to call. Why had she? “I thought you were someone else. Is there anything wrong?”

  “Wrong?” Her voice trembled. “I…I—”

  “Is Annie all right?”

  “Yes, she’s fine. She’s sleeping. She fell asleep so early this evening I doubt she’ll sleep through the night, but that’s…”

  “That’s not why you called.” Though he was damned glad she had. He loved the softness of her voice, whispering in his ear, raising goose bumps along his skin. He wanted her breath on him, on his neck as her lips slid down his throat…

  God, he had to pull it together. Get a grip…and not on her.

  “No, it’s not,” she admitted. “I…I wondered if you learned anything today?”

  That he shouldn’t have touched her again. Yeah, he’d learned that. “Sasha…”

  “I need to know who killed my sister, Reed.”

  That was the first time she’d called him anything but Sheriff. God, he wished she were with him. Instead she was up the hill, at the mansion. Even though only yards separated them physically, much more separated them emotionally. He had to stop thinking about her and focus on finding her sister’s killer…so she could leave.

  And take Annie with her.

  His heart clenched, aching in his chest. “I’ll find out who killed your sister, Sasha.”

  “I know you promised…”

  But like in his experience, promises made to her had been broken…before the vows were even taken.

  “I’m sorry about Norder.”

  “Yeah, you should have told me he was here,” she said, her voice crisp with the last trace of her anger.

  “No, I meant…”

  She sighed. “He actually admitted to leaving me at the altar in front of two hundred wedding guests and running off with my sister?”

  No, he hadn’t. And Dylan hadn’t told him that part of it. “God, Sasha, I’m sorry…”

  And he wanted her in his arms again to offer comfort and more.

  “That was a long time ago. I’m over it.”

  And she sounded about as over it as he was over his divorce. All the good feelings of whatever had attracted them to that other person had faded, leaving only bitterness and regret and self-recrimination. “He’s a bastard.”

  “Yeah, but what I really want to know is if he’s Nadine’s killer? Was my judgment that far off?”

  Norder had destroyed her trust, not only in him, but in herself. Reed hated the self-doubt he heard in her voice that he knew was eating away at her.

  “Sasha…”

  She sniffed hard, sucking up her tears. Even those she’d shed that morning had fought their way free of her rapidly blinking eyes. She didn’t use tears as his ex had. She hadn’t wanted to cry in front of him. And he knew she didn’t want to cry now. She’d undoubtedly shed enough tears over that bastard, Norder.

  “I want to know if he’s Annie’s father. If he has any claim to her. Do you know that yet?”

  He hadn’t been able to find Norder after he’d left the Scott Mansion. But with the turbulent waters, he was sure the man hadn’t left the island. “I had him checked out.”

  “But you don’t know.”

  “No. I will find out, though.”

  Her breath shuddered out and into his ear. “Maybe it would be better if I didn’t know…”

  “I’m sorry, Sasha.”

  “And you haven’t found her body, either.”

  She hadn’t asked a question and he didn’t answer her. “It’s getting late, Sasha.”

  But she didn’t hang up. He could hope she was as reluctant to break their connection as he was. But he had to let her go. So he offered her the same advice his friend had given him, knowing from the dark circles under her blue eyes that morning that she needed it as much as he did. “You need to get some sleep.”

  The line clicked dead before she could reply. And as thunder rumbled, the lights flickered out in Reed’s small cottage, and farther up the hill darkness swallowed the Scott Mansion and it disappeared from his sight.

  SASHA HAD NEVER BEEN AFRAID of the dark. Not even as a child…because then she’d never been alone. She’d always had Nadine, lying beside her in the bed they’d been forced to share in that small bungalow.

  They’d complained about sharing that bed, but Sasha really hadn’t minded. She had liked having her sister close. Then…when they were kids.

  What about now?

  Even though Nadine was dead, Sasha could feel her presence. When she held her sister’s little girl, rocking her in the chair where Nadine must have rocked her so many times….

  When she wore Nadine’s nightgown, the silk cool against her skin. And when, like last night, Nadine whispered her name in the dark.

  “Sasha…”

  It was the wind. It had to be the wind. It howled outside, rattling the old leaded-glass windows. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed.

  And none of it sounded like Nadine. Except for that husky voice that whispered Sasha’s name.

  She huddled under the covers, curled up, her arms wrapped around her shaking shoulders. But she found no comfort there. She needed Reed, needed his big hand running up and down her back to soothe her.

  But he hadn’t soothed her that morning…when she’d cried out her fear that Charles might have come to the island to claim his daughter. Instead of calming her fears, Reed’s touch had inspired more.

  How could she be so drawn to a stranger, to a man who had loved her sister even if he hadn’t fathered Nadine’s child?

  No, Reed’s touch hadn’t soothed; it had excited.

  From the rapid beat of his heart, she knew she wasn’t the only one who’d been affected by their closeness. And from the worried look in his green eyes, she knew she wasn’t the only one
who wanted no part of their attraction.

  He had no time for her. He had to find her sister’s killer. And she had no time for him. She had to settle her sister’s estate and then build a life for her sister’s daughter.

  But she wanted him now. And not because she felt safe in his arms.

  She just wanted him.

  She closed her eyes against the desire, battling it from her traitorous body. Is that why she’d called him? He’d wanted to know why she had, and so did she.

  Was it because she was scared and feeling as alone as she’d felt at only one other time in her life? When her father had started her down the aisle before realizing her groom wasn’t standing at the altar, she’d felt desperately alone even though hundreds of her friends and family had sat in that church watching her. Instead of gasps of awe at how she looked in her white wedding gown and veil, they’d murmured their shock and sympathy.

  And pity.

  She’d really hated the pity. And so she hadn’t admitted to Reed how scared and alone she felt. Instead she’d demanded answers that it wasn’t reasonable for him to have yet. Nadine had only been dead a matter of days, and the storm had to have stopped or at least slowed his search for her body.

  And as for the killer…if the person had been clever enough to fool Nadine, they were clever, maybe too clever, to ever be caught.

  But had she wanted answers about Nadine’s murder? Or had she simply wanted to hear the sheriff’s deep voice rumble in her ear, to remember the strength of his arms around her, the solidness of his muscled chest beneath her cheek?

  And she had remembered all those things and more when she’d called him. Maybe it was a good thing the line had gone dead in the storm. Otherwise she might have made a fool of herself.

  She might have betrayed her attraction to him.

  Or worse, she might have admitted that she heard a voice in the night, that she heard her dead twin calling her name.

  “Sasha…”

  She flattened her palms against her ears, trying to shut out the ghostly voice.

  “No, go away,” she whispered back, willing sleep to claim her. “Please, Nadine, leave me alone…”