The Invitation

by Jude Deveraux

  Immediately he too vividly remembered the night he’d come home to find an ambulance outside the apartment building in Paris where he and his wife and their new babies were living. Inside the ambulance was the broken and lifeless body of his beloved wife. Kane had been away on an overnight business trip and she’d been awake with the boys all the night before. In the late afternoon she’d sat down on the windowsill, sipping a cup of tea, and waiting for her husband to arrive. Quite simply, she must have fallen asleep, lost her balance, and fallen from the window.

  Now Kane didn’t bother with a horse, but went tearing down the hillside, stumbling over rocks and trees, sinking into piles of dry oak leaves, skidding down a shale slide in his attempt to intercept the truck before it reached the turnoff.

  He leaped the last few feet, to land on all fours just a few yards in front of the truck. In an explosion of gravel, the driver slammed on the brakes, sending the truck into a skid that turned it sharply to one side as the driver fought to control it and straighten the wheels. Before the truck came to a full stop, the door flew open and out jumped Kane’s brother Michael.

  “What the hell are you trying to do? I could have killed you!” Mike shouted at his brother, not bothering to help him stand up.

  Slowly Kane got up, brushing gravel and dirt from his clothes and hands. “What’s wrong? Why are you here in Colorado?”

  As though every muscle in his body ached, Mike leaned back against the hood of the car while Kane looked at him.

  The two men were identical twins, as alike as two humans could be: exactly the same height, size, eye and hair color. All their lives they had been close, so close that they often communicated without talking. Many times they’d had the same ideas and thoughts independently of one another, and it was commonplace for them to buy the same shirt unknowingly and wear it on the same occasion. There had never been a secret between them, and when one had news, he always went first to his twin brother.

  “Congratulations,” Kane said softly, because he knew without being told that his brother’s wife had just been delivered of twins. For a long moment the brothers hugged each other in a fierce bond of love and understanding. Then they broke apart, both of them grinning.

  “So?” Kane said, aware that his brother would know what his first question would be: Why did he leave New York?

  Mike wiped his hand over his eyes in a gesture of tiredness and exasperation. “It was harrowing. At the first pain Samantha decided she wanted the babies to be born in Chandler, Colorado, that she wanted Mom there. No one could reason with her, and then…well, she started to cry, so Blair and I loaded her and your boys into the jet and took off. Sam was calm throughout the trip but Blair and I were frantic. What if the kids were born during the flight and they needed something we didn’t have? Sam kept saying that we shouldn’t worry, that the boys were going to wait until they could see their grandmother. Dad and Mom were waiting at the airport with an ambulance. As soon as we got to the hospital, Sam’s water broke and the kids popped out like champagne corks.”

  Mike paused and grinned. “You would think that the birth of my children would be a private time, but Mom, Dad, Jilly, Blair, and I plus two nurses were all in the delivery room. I expected someone to pass a tray of canapés.”

  Kane wasn’t fooled by his brother’s tone. Mike was more than pleased that his sons had been born into the arms of his parents; he was pleased that his family loved Samantha as much as he did. “Sam’s okay? Kids okay?”

  “Yeah, great. Everyone’s fine, but—”

  “But what?”

  “It’s a madhouse at the hospital. Relatives I’ve never heard of are showing up there.”

  Mike didn’t have to explain to Kane that he wanted his wife and his sons to himself, that he wanted to be alone with them, because Kane knew how he felt. For two weeks after his sons were born, his wife’s family had hovered about them until he felt suffocated. His mother-in-law was one of those women who believed men shouldn’t change diapers, so Kane had rarely been allowed to touch his tiny sons. It wasn’t until after she left that he was able to pull his wife and his children into his arms and feel them, touch them, hold them.

  Now, looking at his brother, he knew the frustration Mike was feeling and the jealousy that was eating at him. He could picture Mike standing in the hospital room doorway watching one relative after another peer down at his newborn sons and thinking that they had spent more time with the children than he had. Kane used to worry that one of the babies would give his first smile to someone other than him.

  Companionably, Kane put his arm around Mike’s shoulders. “You know what I’d like more than anything in the world? I’d like to get my boys and bring them out here. This group is just women, and I’m sure they’d spoil them to death.”

  “Yeah?” Mike said gloomily. “Want me to bring them back here?”

  “I was thinking that maybe I’d go to Chandler and get them.”

  Mike was so involved in his own misery that at first he didn’t understand. “Wait a minute. You want me to stay here while you go back?”

  “Twenty-four hours, that’s all. And, besides, I want to see my new nephews. Are they as ugly as you?”

  It was an old joke between them that never failed to produce a smile. “How would I know what they look like?” Mike said with a sigh. “The relatives won’t let me near them.”

  “Why should they?” Kane asked. “You did your job, and they don’t need you anymore.” Laughing at his brother’s expression of gloom, Kane moved away. “I’m serious. I need…a break from this.”

  “A break? You’ve only been around those women for a few days.” Mike quirked an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”

  Kane gave his version of the past few days, telling Mike how lovely Ruth was and how flaky the duo was.

  “How about the mystery writer? Sam loves her books and wants to meet her.”

  After a moment of silence Kane nearly exploded in a barrage of invective as he told about her nearly shooting his foot off, running under an enraged horse’s hooves, and being an all around pain in the neck. “Everywhere I look, there she is. She spies on me when I’m with Ruth, calls me Cowboy Taggert, and asks if I count by pawing the earth.”

  Mike had to bite his lips to keep from laughing.

  “It’s not funny. The woman is insane,” he said, then told Mike about Cale’s fit after she’d killed the snake. “They’re healed now, but I had three scratches down the side of my face where she clawed me.”

  “Couldn’t have been too deep if they’ve healed so quickly.”

  Mike and Kane rarely disagreed. Their mother said it would be like having a fight with your shadow, so now, at Kane’s look, Mike backed off. Twenty-four hours wasn’t long, and the way things were now, Sam wouldn’t know he wasn’t there. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea for him to be away for a whole day. “You’re on,” Mike said. “We’ll meet you in Eternity tomorrow evening.”

  Chapter Eight

  When morning came, I was glad this was going to be my last day on the trail ride. I hated being a failure, but I hated being hated more. For a few minutes I lay in my sleeping bag and thought about the entertaining stories I’d tell my editor when I got back to New York. I’d get my revenge by making an entire publishing house laugh at my escapade in the wilds of Colorado. Better yet, I’d write a book that would make the world laugh at the big cowboy and his lust for the two-faced woman.

  Feeling a great deal better about myself and about life in general, I got out of the hated sleeping bag, tugged at my jeans—is there anything worse than sleeping in your clothes?—picked up my kit of toiletries, and headed for the stream to see if I could scour some of the grunge off my face. With the way my luck was running, I’d probably pick up a fungus from the clear mountain water and die a terrible death.

  I’d just finished scrubbing when I heard heavy footsteps behind me. It was either our fearless leader or the last remaining dinosaur.

  As usual he st
opped near me, no doubt glaring down at me, just waiting to tell me I was doing something wrong. I ignored him as long as I could, then turned to look up at him, but was surprised to find standing there a man I’d never seen before.

  “Oh!” I said, startled. “I thought you were someone else.”

  This seemed to surprise the man. They sure grow them dumb in Colorado, I thought. Big, beautiful, built, but definitely dumb.

  “Who did you think I was?” he asked.

  I stood up and looked at him. “I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you look a bit like our…our guide.”

  The man grinned at me as though I’d said something he’d waited all his life to hear, and I thought, This is great. I couldn’t say or do anything to please one man, but this one seemed to be pleased by even a casual comment. Of course, being compared in looks to our cowboy leader might have seemed flattering to this man.

  He extended his hand to me. “You must be Ruth. I’m Kane’s brother, Mike.”

  I shook his hand, then set him straight. “I am not Ruth. I’m Cale Anderson, and your brother hates me.”

  I don’t know whether it was the “hates me” part or the fact that I wasn’t the beauteous Ruth, whom he’d obviously heard a lot about, but something seemed to bother him. He stood there opening and closing his mouth so that it looked like a pumping human heart on one of those PBS programs.

  “But Ruth is—Ruth and Kane—I thought—”

  Wow, I thought, a real intellectual here.

  As though he could read my mind, he stopped flailing about and smiled at me, and he kept holding my hand even when I tugged on it.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry about the mistake. Kane told me that he and Ruth were an item, so when you didn’t know who I was, I assumed you were Ruth.”

  Now everything was clear. Now everything made sense. If I meet a man I’ve never seen before, then I must be Ruth Edwards. Of course. That made perfect sense to me.

  Mike laughed, released my hand, and we sat down. He began to tell me a long-winded story about how he and his brother were identical twins. Yeah, right, and I’m Kathleen Turner’s twin. I guess he could see my skepticism, but I started to laugh when he said that for the next twenty-four hours he was going to pretend to be Kane. This made as much sense as my saying I was going to impersonate O. J. Simpson.

  I listened to his whole story, told him congratulations on his new babies, and even asked after Kane’s sons, but I still thought he was crazy if he believed anyone was going to mistake him for his brother.

  When he got through, he laughed at my expression and reassured me that he could pull it off. By the way, he said very seriously, “Who’s better looking, me or my brother?”

  I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but the truth is, Kane is in a whole different class of men when it comes to looks. As tactfully as I could, I said, “It’s not that you aren’t a very handsome man, Mike, but Kane—” I didn’t finish my sentence because Mike laughed out loud, then kissed both my cheeks soundly. I don’t know what had pleased him, but something had.

  Since he insisted that he could indeed impersonate his brother, we spent about half an hour by the stream discussing how he was to treat each person on the trail ride. I told him about Winnie-Maggie, and when he laughed at my jokes, I knew I had an audience, so I began to pour it on. At first I was cautious about saying anything about Ruth, but Mike’s laughter and his grin—the more he laughed at my jokes, the better looking he got—encouraged me. He encouraged me so much that I ended up doing a little impromptu parody of Kane and Ruth that sent Mike falling to the ground laughing.

  “By the way,” I said, while he was still laughing, “I was telling the truth when I said that Kane hates my guts.”

  He tried to look shocked, but I could see a little flicker in his eyes that told me Kane had warned him about me. Mike had thought I was the “good” one; therefore I must be Ruth.

  “Why does he hate you?”

  When he spoke, his tone told me that he couldn’t believe that anyone could possibly hate me. It was very gratifying, very, very gratifying, and I smiled at him with nothing short of love. “You may not be as good looking or as sexy as your brother, but I think I like you better. Why don’t you stay for the whole trip?” Somehow, that seemed to please him again, and when he got up, he offered his hands to help me up.

  You know, I wish someone could explain sexual attraction to me. Why is it that you can put two equally good-looking men side by side and one will turn you on and the other won’t? Here I was, alone in the woods with a dream of a man, a man who laughed at my jokes and obviously liked me very much. But I felt only sisterly toward him. Sure, he had a wife and a couple of brand-new kids, but since when has marriage prevented attraction? On the other hand, Kane Taggert did nothing but frown at me at best, shout at worst. He hated me; I hated him. But too often my thoughts wandered to questions about whether his skin was that lovely golden color all over or was his stomach the color of a frog’s belly?

  Mike and I walked back to camp arm in arm while he told me how much his wife loved my books. When Sandy’s campfire was in sight, we separated, and I stood back to watch him make a fool of himself as he pretended to be Kane.

  It’s difficult to describe how I felt when I heard those people refer to Mike as Kane. Even Sandy grumbled that Kane had been in the woods too long and wasn’t helping. I nearly giggled when Mike winked at me conspiratorially. It was heaven to be the one who was liked!

  Everything went smoothly as the two men saddled the horses and all of us prepared to move out. Mike came over to check my stirrup, which was fine, and asked me how Ruth’s horse’s neck came to be burned. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t. Too many years of elementary school with kids chanting, “Tattletale, tattletale,” made me keep my mouth shut. I said that I had no idea, but my face turned red, and Mike snorted. “Somebody ought to give you some lessons in lying,” he said.

  It felt good to be vindicated.

  We rode for a couple of hours, and Mike gave all his attention to Ruth. We’d reached the wide section of an old road so he could ride next to her. Behind them were her handmaidens, both of them holding the pommels of their saddles as though they were going to fall off. Sandy and I brought up the rear, neither of us talking much and both of us watching Ruth and Mike.

  By late afternoon my early happiness had worn off. I shouldn’t have been jealous, but I was. It looked as though Ruth had made yet another conquest. Mike was smiling at her, laughing softly over things she said, and in general adoring her.

  We reached the falling-down town of Eternity at sundown. There were several buildings of weathered gray boards with a few signs falling off the buildings. One that said “Paris in the Desert” made me smile. Silently we rode down the wide main street, tumbleweeds blowing around us, heading toward a big house at the edge of town where Sandy said we’d camp.

  Tired and aching, I dismounted when we reached the house, then looked up to see Mike coming toward me, Ruth’s saddle across his arms.

  “Ruth is everything you said she was,” he said just to me as he walked past.

  I cheered up immediately. Cheered up and got a spurt of new energy.

  An hour later I’d helped Sandy and Mike cook up hamburgers. It was at dinner that I blew it. “Would you hand me the mustard, Mike?” I asked.

  Of course everyone stopped and looked at me, so I gave a little laugh and said that Kane reminded me of someone I knew who was named Mike so I’d mixed up the names. The women paid no attention to me, but I was sure that Sandy knew what was up. I felt bad for messing up Mike’s secret and wanted very much to apologize.

  After dinner I helped clean up, but I couldn’t get Mike alone—Ruth seemed to be permanently attached to his left side—so I went for a walk.

  I’m a good walker, and I find that hiking helps me think, so I guess I walked some miles down an old weed-infested road before I reached what had once been a pretty little house. It was set a
ll by itself in what was once a lovely garden. A couple of roses were still blooming beside the porch.

  “An ancestor of mine used to live here.”

  Mike spoke softly, but still I jumped.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you wanted to be alone, but I didn’t want to lose you.”

  I smiled at him. In the moonlight he was almost as handsome as his brother. “About this evening…” I began, but Mike just laughed and said Sandy was used to twin tricks, and he was fine once Mike had explained.

  “I brought a lantern. You want to look around?”

  Mike was heavenly company. He told me about his ancestors who’d lived in the house, including one who was an actor so good he was called the Great Templeton. Being a lover of stories, I was thrilled with the house with the faded wallpaper covered with fat roses.

  “Cale,” Mike said when we’d finished the tour, “whatever you do, don’t tell Kane you know we switched places.”

  I had no idea why it would matter, but I laughed.

  “I’m very serious about this,” he said. “Don’t make a mistake and say ‘Mike said,’ or ‘Mike did.’ It’s important, Cale.”

  “All right. Scout’s honor.” All this cloak-and-dagger stuff was like my books.

  “I have to go now and meet Kane’s truck. The next time you see me, I’ll be someone else.”

  I guess that was twin humor. I reached out to shake his hand, but he gave me a sisterly hug and kissed my cheeks and made me promise to visit him and his family. Then he was gone, and I felt as though I’d just lost someone who could have been a lifelong friend.

  I had no desire to leave the house. It had a good feeling to it, as though the people who’d lived in it so long ago had had a lot of love and laughter inside them.

  Holding the lantern Mike had left behind, I wandered around the rooms on the ground floor, climbed into the loft, then back down again. I knew it was getting late and I should start the long walk back to that lovely group of women, but I was postponing leaving.