by Cara Summers
Maddie was more worried about Jordan than she was about herself. But Cash was due back from the cattle drive in another few days, she told herself. She could call him and tell him to look out for Jordan.
Suddenly, nerves tightened in her stomach. Was she really thinking of switching places with her sister?
“Is there anyone at the ranch who can fill me in on what I have to do?”
“Cash and my foreman can when they get back from the cattle drive.”
Jordan narrowed her gaze on her sister. “This Cash—are you and he…seeing each other?”
Maddie shook her head. “No. We grew up together. He runs the ranch next to mine. My father and his father had this idea that someday we might fall in love and join the two ranches. But it hasn’t happened. Cash and I are just friends.”
“Good. Do you think I could fool him into thinking I’m you if he shows up at the ranch?”
Maddie studied Jordan. “You’re really getting into the idea of masquerading as me.”
“It’s a practical approach. I won’t have to explain to everyone about the will and switching places. Do you think your cowboy neighbor will buy it?”
Maddie considered, then shook her head. “He’s pretty astute.”
Jordan grinned at her. “Really? I love a challenge. We’ll have to write things up for each other, and we’ll keep in touch by phone. That’s what the girls did in The Parent Trap, and they were only half our age.”
“You saw that movie?”
“Only about fifteen times. When I was little I remember watching it with Mom.”
“There’s one big difference between us and The Parent Trap girls. They switched so that they could get to know the parent they were separated from. We’re not going to be able to do that.”
“No.” Jordan sat down next to Maddie again and took her hands. “We’re not. I wish with all my heart that there was a way for you to meet our mother.”
The understanding she saw in her sister’s eyes helped ease the tightness in Maddie’s throat. “Same goes about our father.”
“Maybe switching places is the only way we have left to get to know them. We can do this.”
Maddie searched her sister’s face. “I don’t understand. Why do you want to? And why would you want to share your inheritance with me?”
Jordan stared at her. “Because you’re my sister, and because our mother wanted it this way. However late it is, she must have had some regrets about separating us, and this is her way of making sure we get to know one another.”
“There are other ways for us to get to know one another.”
“Maddie, you heard the terms of the will. If we don’t change places for three weeks, Eva Ware Designs will be sold. I can’t stand by and let that happen. Our mother worked her whole life to create it, and I can’t let it be destroyed. I want her legacy to live on. No matter what it takes, we have to fulfill the terms of the will. Please say you’ll do it.”
Maddie wasn’t an impulsive person—at least she didn’t think of herself that way. But she could sympathize with what Jordan was trying to do. It was the same thing that made her want to hold on to the ranch and keep it going so that her father’s legacy would live on.
And Jordan was right. If she did switch places and step into Jordan’s job at Eva Ware Designs, it would provide her with the only opportunity she might ever have to learn more about the woman she so admired. The woman she’d never met. And it was just possible that she could find out why their parents had decided to separate them. Hadn’t that been one of the primary questions on her mind since she’d accepted the truth of what Edward Fitzwalter III had told her during that phone call?
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
“You will?”
Maddie nodded.
“Thanks.” Jordan gave her sister a quick hug. “Okay. Now for the practical matters. You can live in my apartment, of course. I have a roommate, Jase Campbell. He was a few years ahead of me in college and we shared an apartment there. He moved into my place when he came to New York and started up his security firm. The arrangement has become sort of permanent.”
“Are the two of you involved?”
“No, we’re strictly pals. He’s like a big brother to me. But you probably won’t even run into him. He’s off on some mysterious job in South America. I can’t even reach him by cell. I haven’t been able to even tell him about…”
When Jordan suddenly stopped talking, Maddie took her hands.
“I don’t think it’s totally sunk in yet that she’s gone,” Jordan said.
Maddie handed Jordan her wine. “How could it? You had to identify the body.” Fitzwalter had told her about that. “Then there were the funeral arrangements and to top it off you find out you have a sister you never knew about.”
Jordan met her sister’s eyes. “When you lost your father, how long did it take for you to accept it?”
Maddie sighed. “I think I’m still trying to adjust.” She raised a hand to her sister’s cheek. “But I think that visiting the ranch may help you. There’s a kind of serenity there.”
“I’m glad I have you, Maddie Farrell.”
“Ditto.”
“Well.” Jordan drew in a deep breath and let it out. “We only have about seventy hours left. We’d better get started.”
Maddie blinked as Jordan rose, strode to a desk and pulled out her laptop.
“There’s a lot we have to learn before we switch lives.”
2
IT WAS nearly midnight when Jase Campbell descended the steps of a small private jet at LaGuardia Airport. After nearly a month in the bowels of the steamy Amazon jungle, he welcomed the stiff breeze that had made their landing a little rough. New York City’s humidity level couldn’t even begin to compete with what he’d been experiencing.
The Cessna was the third plane he’d been on in the last twenty-four hours and the only one that had provided any amenities. Thanks to Federman Corporation, the company that had hired him as a consultant in their efforts to free three hostages, he’d been able to shower, shave and even change his clothes—luxuries that he’d sorely missed.
The one thing he hadn’t been able to do was catch much sleep. The last days of the mission were still too fresh in his mind. It had only been partially successful—one of the men hadn’t made it out of the jungle. Each time he closed his eyes, his mind would run through the other options he might have used, other tacks he might have taken with the captors.
He needed sleep, Jase told himself as he strode up the steps of the terminal building. Thank heavens his apartment was only a thirty-minute cab ride. And at this hour of the night, Jordan would be sound asleep. That would save him from being cross-examined on what he’d been doing for the last three and a half weeks.
Jordan and he had been friends since they’d been undergraduates together at Wharton. His lips curved as he recalled exactly how they’d met. He’d been a senior and she a freshman. Off-campus housing had been at a premium, and they’d arrived to view an apartment at the same time. They’d each wanted to sign a lease, so the landlord had suggested they flip a coin. Jordan had flatly refused, claiming that her luck was abominable. Instead, she’d suggested that they share the place and split expenses.
For Jase it had been an ideal solution. Unlike a lot of the trust-fund students, he’d come to Wharton on a scholarship. Jordan had drawn up a set of rules to follow so that they kept out of each other’s way. The list with its bullets and highlighted passages had been Jase’s introduction to the highly organized world of Jordan Ware.
And though she was a very attractive woman, their relationship had never progressed down a more intimate path. Instead, she’d become like a sister to him, competing against him for grades, nagging him when he’d gotten so wrapped up in a project that he’d forgotten to keep in touch with his family and even criticizing his selection of dates. In Jordan’s opinion, Jase had a tendency to attract what she’d termed “psycho babes.”
Jase’s l
ips curved at the memory. The first thing he’d done when he’d left the navy and decided to set up a security business in New York City was to call Jordan. His goal had been to enlist her help in finding an apartment. Instead, she’d suggested he move in with her. If it didn’t work out, he’d at least have more time to find a place of his own. That had been a year ago, and so far everything had gone very smoothly. Jordan, who’d worked for her mother’s jewelry design studio since she’d gotten her master’s degree, had put him in touch with a few clients, and he’d even done some work for Eva Ware Designs. In fact, there was a job he’d left hanging when he’d taken on the hostage-negotiation project.
Once he entered the terminal, Jase glanced around, spotted a secluded niche and headed toward it. Before he caught a cab, he needed some privacy to check in at his office. He’d been out of contact for far too long, and his patchwork of odd flights home hadn’t allowed any calls. Even at this hour, there’d be someone at Campbell and Angelis Security picking up the phone. With any luck, it might even be Dino Angelis, his partner of six months.
Sure enough, someone answered on the second ring.
“Campbell and Angelis Security.”
Jase frowned as he tried to place the familiar voice. Not Dino. His partner’s voice was much deeper and he didn’t speak with a drawl. But it couldn’t be who he thought it was. His brother D.C. was currently serving with the military police on a second tour of duty in Baghdad.
“D.C.?” Jase asked.
“At your service. Where are you? Dino and I were getting worried.”
“I’m at La Guardia. What are you doing in my office?”
“Since I got here two days ago, I’ve been holding down the fort and helping Dino out. Got my leg busted up a little, and the army decided that I should take some leave time while I got it back in shape.”
Jase frowned. “How bad is the leg?”
“Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“Does Mom know?”
“I spent a week in Baltimore and let her pamper me. I gained at least five pounds while I checked out Darcy’s latest boyfriend.”
Some of Jase’s tension eased. If his brother had the time and energy to torment their kid sister, then he must be on the mend.
“Are you going to tell me how bad the leg is?”
“You’re as bad as Mom. It’s going to be fine. With any luck I’ll be back in Iraq by Christmas.”
Jase didn’t see that as lucky. But he knew he’d gotten as much out of D.C. on the subject of his injury as he was going to. “Let’s go back to my first question. What exactly are you doing in my office? And where’s Dino?”
“I came to pay you a surprise visit and Dino offered me a temporary job. Right now I believe he’s at his fiancée’s apartment.”
It was thanks to Dino’s pretty fiancée Cat McGuire that Jase had been able to persuade Dino, his old navy buddy, to become his partner last December.
“Where are you staying?”
“Dino fixed me up temporarily with an empty apartment in their building. Not that I get to spend much time there.”
“Business is good, I take it?” Jase asked.
“So good that you’ve been missed, bro.”
More of Jase’s tension eased. If Campbell and Angelis had to take on some extra help, Dino couldn’t have found a more perfect person than D.C. His brother had a sharp and inventive mind and the kind of intuition that made for an excellent cop. Unable to stop himself, he yawned hugely. What he needed even more than a good night’s sleep was work. One lesson he’d learned when he’d been working special ops was that the best way to dim the images from the previous operation was to immerse yourself totally in a new one.
“By the way, your roommate, Jordan Ware, has been trying to contact you. Mom told me that the two of you are sharing an apartment again.”
“When? What did she want?”
“About a week ago. She talked to Dino and asked him to pass on a message to contact her if you called in.”
Once again, Jase frowned. Jordan never called him at work. Then he pushed the small worry aside. No doubt she’d called the office because his cell phone had been worthless where he’d been for the last few weeks. At any rate, he’d see her sometime tomorrow.
“Hold down the fort. If Dino calls in, tell him I’ll be in the office tomorrow afternoon.” Once Dino brought him up to speed on all their active files, he knew exactly which case he would start on. He’d promised Eva Ware that he’d look further into that break-in and robbery at her Madison Avenue jewelry store. In his opinion, it had to have been an inside job, and that worried him a bit.
“Right now, my aim is to crash for at least twelve hours,” Jase said, then added, “Thanks for covering.”
“I live to serve.”
A BIT DIZZY from sleep deprivation and jet lag, Maddie let herself into Jordan’s Soho apartment. During the last few days, she’d managed to lose all sense of time. The only reason she knew that it was shortly after midnight was because she’d asked the cab driver who’d driven her from JFK.
According to her estimate, she’d spent nearly eighteen of the last forty-eight hours on an airplane. Severe thunderstorms in the midwest had delayed her flights both to and back from Santa Fe. She’d barely been at the ranch long enough to pack what she thought she’d need for a three-week stay in New York. Jordan, the lucky girl, had only had to make one flight.
In the very short time they’d spent together before Jordan had insisted she immediately fly back to the ranch and set things in order for the switch, Maddie had learned that her sister was a ruthlessly organized woman who gathered data, made lists, assembled files and was quite used to having her “suggestions” followed. Had Eva Ware been like that? Maddie wondered. Would she ever know? She hoped that Jordan was right and that by switching lives each of them would come to know the other parent better. But she was beginning to feel a sense of loss that she would never have a chance to talk to Eva about her design process.
And Jordan would never hear Mike Farrell’s laugh.
Not that her sister wouldn’t discover as much as she could about the ranch and their father. The woman was meticulous. She couldn’t think of one thing that had escaped Jordan’s attention. Jordan had even suggested that since Maddie possessed very few outfits appropriate for the city and Jordan experienced the same lack of wardrobe for ranch life, they could borrow clothes from one another and cut down on what they needed to pack. Maddie figured that was Jordan’s subtle way of letting her know not to appear at Eva Ware Designs in her jeans and boots.
Yawning hugely, she muscled her suitcase through the door, then sagged against it for a moment, nearly paralyzed with exhaustion.
“Just a few more minutes,” she muttered. “You can do it.”
She groped blindly along the wall until she located a switch. The muted light from a Tiffany-style lamp allowed her only a shadowy impression of the living room—stained-glass-fronted bookcases flanking a brick fireplace, an antique desk, a comfy-looking leather couch and a flat-screen TV. The furnishings with their mix of the feminine and the masculine suddenly reminded her about Jordan’s roommate—Jase Campbell.
The man’s image slipped instantly into her mind. Jordan had provided her with photos of everyone she might possibly meet during her three weeks in New York, and she’d been reviewing them one by one on the long flight from Santa Fe. From the moment she’d glanced at Jase’s picture, she hadn’t quite been able to get him out of her mind.
Maddie recalled Jordan describing Jase as a big brother. They’d been friends ever since they’d roomed off-campus together in college, and when he’d left the navy to start up his own security firm here in New York, he and Jordan had hooked up as roommates again. Jordan’s description of her relationship with Jase Campbell could have fit her own relationship with her neighbor, Cash.
However, as Maddie had studied Jase’s photo, her response to him had been anything but sisterly. He had a strong face, lean with sharply d
efined bones. And though he wore a jacket and a tie, he didn’t look quite…tamed. Perhaps it was the longish, windblown hair that hinted at a streak of recklessness. Or maybe it was the eyes. She was baffled by the fact that every single time she’d closed her own eyes and tried to sleep on the plane, she’d thought of those angled cheekbones, the strong jawline and firm lips.
And each time his image had popped into her mind, her palms had tingled with the desire to touch his face. When she’d imagined herself doing just that, a heat had begun to build inside her. She’d even foolishly given into an impulse to run her fingertips over the image in the photo—touching first his mouth, then the rest of those sharp features.
When the heat simmering inside her had rushed to her face, she’d glanced nervously around to see if anyone had witnessed what she’d done. To her great relief, everyone within sight had been sleeping. Something she herself should have been doing. But instead of slipping the photo back into the file, she’d glanced down at it again.
And traced her fingertips over it once more. Her desire to touch the image, to touch him was baffling…and unprecedented. She’d experienced a purely chemical reaction to a man before. But no man’s photo had ever affected her in such a physical way.
Perhaps it was because she hadn’t had any sex in a while. During the past year, between the plans she had to expand her jewelry design business and the extra work she’d had to take on at the ranch, she simply hadn’t had the time. Or the desire.
Yawning again, Maddie struggled against a huge wave of exhaustion as she turned and dragged her suitcase down a narrow hallway. The effort of placing one foot in front of the other almost defeated her.
Probably her whole odd reaction to Jase Campbell’s photo was due to sleep deprivation and the emotional whirlwind she’d been caught up in during the past few days. When she met him, she’d find him a pleasant man, and her unusual and highly sensual response to his photo would turn out to be much ado about nothing.