Duplicate Daughter

by Alice Sharpe

  Out of the question with this woman. He said, “Snowmobiles probably.”

  “Did you hear a motor start up after you carried your father back to the house?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. I heard some kind of four-stroke engine and I’m assuming that’s what it was. Why else do you think I allowed you to go outside with me to search for your mother?”

  “You allowed me?”

  “Anyway,” he said, “what’s your point?”

  “Wouldn’t they have to wear snowshoes or some thing, to get from their machines to your house? It’s hard work slogging through the snow. So where are their snowshoes? And there would have to be two vehicles, right? I mean, they certainly didn’t come together. Why didn’t we find the one your father used?”

  “Maybe my father got here before the storm,” he said, remembering the sound of the swinging gate out by the boathouse. He’d noticed it right after tucking Lily into bed and had assumed Helen had been walking on the pier. Could his father have arrived in Frostbite hours earlier; could he have hidden out in the boathouse; could his have been the face Katie saw in the window?

  “We have to leave here as soon as it’s light,” he added. “We won’t wait for the roads to be cleared. We’ll take the snowmobile to the airport.”

  “What about your father—”

  “I have a sled I can tow with the bigger machine.”

  “But can your plane take off in the snow?”

  “If the sky is clear, I can take off. Don’t worry about it. We can’t sit here and wait for another attack. It’s too dangerous.”

  “I don’t know if your father can survive—”

  “My father needs a real doctor. It may be his best chance for survival and, as you remind me every other moment, your mother’s chances rely on his chances.”

  She sat back in the chair. “I don’t know—”

  Now he popped to his feet. “You don’t need to know,” he said firmly. “I know. This is my house, my child. I will not gamble on her well-being. Don’t go getting some crazy idea in your head that my father showing up changes anything. My one and only priority is Lily. I’m not going to rush to anyone’s rescue if it means Lily is put in danger.”

  Katie was back on her feet. “You are the most egotistical man I’ve ever met. I don’t need you.”

  “Good.”

  “I assumed you were a man of honor—”

  “Don’t talk to me about honor,” he said, his voice low.

  She took a deep breath. “I understand your need to protect your daughter, Nick, I do,” she said. “But don’t you understand my need to save my mother? She’s an innocent victim in this, too, you know.”

  He stared at her for a moment, his irritation fading quickly as she once again stood close enough to touch. “Yes, I know,” he said, his hands moving without his permission, landing on her shoulders. “The battlefield is always littered with innocent victims,” he said softly as he momentarily lost himself in her blue eyes.

  She smiled slowly. “Nick?” she said. “Just kiss me, okay?”

  Had some trick made it sound as though she’d invited him to—

  “Just do it.”

  “I…I don’t want to kiss you,” he mumbled, suddenly intensely embarrassed. It was bad enough to have these feelings simmering on the back burner of his mind; having her acknowledge them was terrible. “We’re in the middle of an argument,” he snapped.

  “I know we are. But maybe if we just kiss, then we can get past wanting to and then we won’t argue.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said, and standing on her tiptoes, put her arms around his neck and forced his head down toward hers.

  “Give it your best shot,” she whispered with a wicked smile.

  “This is a bad idea,” he muttered, though he couldn’t hear his own words over the drumming of his heart.

  Her lips moved. He had no idea what she said, just that her grip didn’t relax.

  The past few hours of irritation, surging adrenaline and time out of place all collided in that moment. And now this bewitching redhead with the nerves of steel and the brashness of a sailor was making him feel things he’d sworn he’d never feel again.

  And so he gave in to temptation and kissed her just as he’d wanted to do for hours. Her lips were as sweet as he’d suspected they would be, the longing to kiss her again as strong as he’d feared.

  “Now you’ve started something,” he said against her cheek, trailing kisses up to her eyes and across her forehead, his fingers tenderly caressing her neck and jaw. It was as though he’d never touched a woman before, his fingertips registered the silken feel of her skin as a new experience.

  She released her hold on him and moved a step away. “My intention was to stop something,” she said, her eyes wide. He was oddly pleased to find that she no longer looked so damn smug.

  “It didn’t work,” he said. “More like dousing fire with kerosene.”

  “We need to go to bed,” she said. When he smiled, she added, “We need actual sleep, not what you’re thinking. I don’t even know you, and besides, we’re kind of related.”

  “Like hell we are.”

  She glanced at her watch. “How are you going to fly a plane if you’re so tired you can’t see straight?”

  Thanks to her proximity, he wasn’t tired at all, which, when he thought about it, alarmed him. He moved a few steps away, throwing discreet glances at every dark corner of the room in an effort to find his reflection anywhere else but in her eyes. He’d been flirting with her, he admitted to himself, acting playful. Maybe he was tired. Maybe that’s what was wrong with him.

  “Go to bed,” he said without meeting her eyes. “I’ll stay out here to make sure the bad guys don’t kill us in our sleep.”

  In the end, she did as he suggested and took a lantern down the hall. He settled in on one of the red chairs, a book open on his lap, his eyes flitting over strings of words that made no sense, because his mind was racing with the events of the past few hours.

  Then again, very little made sense right then.

  However, it wasn’t long before the day’s activities began to catch up with him and he found himself yawning. His father’s even breathing, thanks probably to the morphine, didn’t help. Nick got up at last and heated water for instant coffee and then he went down the hall to check on Lily.

  But Lily wasn’t alone in her bed. Katie had fallen asleep next to his daughter, fully clothed, red hair spilled across his daughter’s extra pillow, the spare down blanket covering her body.

  For one blinding instant he was furious with Katie for—intruding. That was it. She’d taken far too many liberties. But the moment of ire was as brief as it was intense, and his next emotion caught him in a strangle-hold.

  They looked so right lying there together. A woman with a big heart and strong convictions and a child with her mother’s face and zest for life, a child without a mother whose hand lay curled in Katie’s relaxed palm.

  Katie was worming her way into his house, his heart, his child’s life. The feel of her lips still burned on his, the ache for her that he’d glossed over with humor still lingered like a battle wound that wouldn’t heal.

  He had to put a stop to this. He couldn’t be the hero Katie wanted, the hero she needed. He couldn’t take a chance of leaving Lily alone in the world, he couldn’t risk…

  Risk. That’s what it amounted to.

  Terrible risk.

  He left the room with a heavy heart. When Katie woke up he’d have to be firm; he’d have to make her understand. He’d get her and his dad to safety. That’s all.

  Beyond that, he could do no more.

  Chapter Seven

  “Who’s that?”

  Nick opened his eyes quickly, sitting up in his chair, blinking. The room was still dark, though the faint light coming in the front window suggested the nine-o’clock sunrise was well on its way.

/>   Two green eyes stared right into his. Lily whispered, “Daddy? Who’s that man?”

  Nick gathered his daughter in his arms as he stood. “That’s just a man,” he said.

  “Where’d he come from?” she insisted, squirming in his arms to look over his shoulder.

  Nick turned her to face his father, holding her close as though she was teetering on the edge of a high diving board. “From the snow,” he said.

  Her little mouth formed a perfect O as she whispered, “He’s a real live snowman?”

  “Who’s a snowman?” This from Katie, who had come into the living room dressed as she’d gone to sleep—in jeans and sweater—her red hair mussed and utterly beguiling. He met her gaze.

  “The man on the couch,” Nick said, pleading with his eyes for Katie not to say the word Grandpa.

  She apparently understood. “Is the…snowman…is he any better?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t had a chance to check,” he said. Katie walked up to Lily and, opening her arms, said, “Come on, little one. Let’s make breakfast. Something warm, okay?”

  “Hot chocolate?” Lily said, launching herself into Katie’s arms.

  They left the room together, their voices intermingled, their laughter private.

  Nick shook his head. Not the way he’d intended on starting the morning. His goal for the day was to get rid of his two houseguests, not to have Katie insert herself any more prominently into anyone’s heart.

  He knelt down beside his father, whose breathing seemed shallow and whose forehead felt warm to the touch. He’d developed a fever since the last time Nick had checked on him.

  In a sudden motion that jarred Nick with its intensity, the older man grabbed Nick’s wrist. His eyes flicked open. Green eyes, like Nick’s, like Lily’s. “Where—” he said, his lips dry, his speech slurred.

  Nick withdrew his hand from his father’s grasp and retrieved a glass of water. He held the glass to his father’s lips and watched as the older man swallowed. His eyes drifted shut again as he mumbled, “Where am I?”

  “You’re at…my house,” Nick said uneasily. How could he call himself this man’s son? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  “Caroline,” his father whispered. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know,” Nick said. “Don’t you?”

  A meager tear appeared at the corner of his father’s eye, hovered on his cheekbone.

  “And Carson?”

  “Who’s Carson?”

  “Frank Carson. Was it…him? Did he…did he shoot me?”

  “Probably. I don’t know who Carson is. Why did he or someone else try to kill you?”

  His old man grabbed his arm again. “I have to find Carson. I have to go…”

  “You can’t leave in your condition. Just talk to me. Did this Carson take Caroline?”

  Bill shook his head and the tear rolled down the deep crease in his cheek.

  “Did Carson—did he kidnap Caroline?” Nick insisted. “If so, where did he take her? Why did he take her?”

  “I don’t know,” his father cried, tears rolling feely now.

  Nick sat back on his heels. Why did he get the feeling his old man was lying?

  “Where were you when she was abducted?”

  Nick was suddenly aware that Katie had entered the room and was, in fact, standing nearby, eyes huge, body tense. He said to his father, “You have to give us a place to start looking for her. Someplace the police—”

  The word police galvanized his father as nothing else had. His eyes took on a manic, feverish glow, and his hand on Nick’s arm trembled. He seemed to age fifteen years in the blink of an eye. “No police. They’ll kill her. Promise. No police.”

  Frustration, disbelief, fear, anger—a veritable witches’ brew of emotions roiled in Nick’s gut. This problem wasn’t going to go away. If Katie’s mother was in jeopardy and it was his father’s fault, then where did Nick’s responsibility begin and end? It had all seemed so clear-cut in the dead of the night. But now…

  He couldn’t turn his back on Katie or her mother, not if his father’s behavior had caused their predicament, and not if his father knew more than he was saying. Nor could he jeopardize Lily’s welfare.

  He looked back in time to see his father’s eyes close again, and this time there was a permanency to the action that convinced Nick there would be no further information for a while. He contemplated dispensing aspirin for the fever, deciding against it because of its blood-thinning properties. The wound no doubt needed rebandaging, but he wasn’t sure. The little bits and pieces of medical training he’d received over the years had come and gone.

  Lily toddled up to him, a vision in pink, and handed him a sloppy half-full cup of tepid hot chocolate. “For Mr. Snowman,” she whispered.

  He looked at his precious daughter as she unknowingly stared at her grandfather. He yearned to whisk her away, to turn back the clock a few days, a few years, to wrap her in cotton and put her somewhere safe.

  Like where? Where was life safe?

  And where was Katie?

  He scanned the room and found her backed against the wall, her eyes glistening. For the first time in the short while he’d known her, she looked terrified. Their eyes met and, almost as though following an invisible line strung between them, she crossed the room, coming to a halt right before him.

  He patted the chair seat and she sat down on the edge of the cushion.

  He took her hands in his. “Katie?”

  Impatient, Lily said, “Daddy? Mr. Snowman wants his hot chocolate. Wake him up!”

  “Mr. Snowman is too sick for hot chocolate,” Katie said softly. “Maybe your daddy would like it.”

  Lily produced a fetching grin. “Daddy can have it,” she said, setting it down beside Nick before running back to the kitchen.

  Nick glanced up at Katie. “I take it you heard—”

  “I’m not sure what we should do,” she said.

  “For the time being at least, we don’t call the police. But we have to get the snowman to a doctor.”

  “Could you fly your plane to another town and get a doctor to come back here with you? Your dad looks too sick to make a trip—”

  Nick shook his head. “I’m not leaving the three of you in this house by yourselves. The old man is burning up. He’s either got an infection or I did something wrong when I dug out that bullet. I don’t know if he’ll make it until I get back here, and if another storm closes in and he dies or the man who shot him comes back—” He stopped talking. Katie looked a little green again.

  “We’ll leave together,” he told her. “It’s the only way. Get some food into Lily and yourself.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’ll eat later. Pack some of Lily’s clothes, will you? I’ll go make sure the snowmobiles are gassed up. Damn, we can’t call the airport to see if the runway is clear. We’ll have to take our chances.”

  “Snowmobiles? Nick, I’ve never driven a snowmobile in my life. I’ve never even ridden on one.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” Nick said. He looked at her for another moment before throwing caution to the wind, leaning forward and briefly kissing her lips.

  He wasn’t used to treating caution in such a cavalier way, wasn’t used to acting on his feelings, and it made him squirm inside. “You’re having an amazing effect on me,” he said.

  “I am?”

  “I’ve never felt so confused in my life.”

  Looking directly into his eyes, she said, “Is that good or bad?”

  “I don’t honestly know. I thought I did. But now I don’t.”

  “Good.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll snap out of it. Someone has to keep a cool head, right? Might as well be me.”

  “Might as well,” she agreed. “If it’s not you, it’s me and if it’s me, my mom is doomed.”

  “Trust me, we’ll find her,” he said.

  “But you—”

  “Trust me,” he said. He
ran his fingers over her cheek and added, “We need to be ready to go as soon as possible.”

  “What about the man who shot your father? What if he’s still out there?”

  “We didn’t get shot at when we looked for your mother, did we?”

  “No, but that was hours ago. He’s had time to go get his buddies and patch up the bullet hole you put in him. He might be cranky.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Nick said.

  THERE WAS A LOT to do. For Katie the time raced by as she packed clothes for Lily and food for everyone. How she longed for a phone so she could call Tess.

  A more immediate concern, however, was the fact that Nick couldn’t call the airport to check weather conditions. She tried to adopt his cool acceptance of the situation, marveling at the competent way he went about doing his tasks with a minimum of fuss. On the other hand, he’d left the care of his daughter—who turned out to have a very strong will when it came to what she would and would not wear—to Katie.

  Sure, it was easy to be calm, cool and collected with an inanimate object like a gas can. But with a three-year-old who couldn’t find her bunny?

  Nick’s father, pale, incoherent and still feverish, cried out as they rolled him onto a makeshift stretcher made out of canvas and carried him into the garage, where Nick had hooked a sled to the back of the biggest snowmobile. Nick gave him another shot of morphine and he quieted down, but the cost of that pain-free place for his father was several more hours of silence.

  Inside Katie’s head, questions circled like vultures over a rotting carcass: Who had kidnapped her mother? Where had they taken her? What did they want?

  And why had Nick’s father come to Nick for help? Surely he knew what kind of welcome awaited him here. And who was Carson and why was he shooting at Bill?

  And why had Bill Thurman changed his name to Swope after Nick’s wife died in an accident and before he wooed and married her mother?

  Why, why, why?

  After finally finding the bunny and zipping Lily into a yellow snowsuit with white fur trim around her face, Katie found Nick in the hall in the process of opening the gun safe. He put the handgun he’d recovered the night before in the safe along with the bullet he’d dug out of his father’s shoulder. “In case this ever goes to trial,” he told Katie, and then retrieved two different handguns, loaded them, made sure Katie understood about the safety, and helped her put on an over-the-shoulder holster.