“Thanks to me,” my father points out.
“In spite of you,” Renee fires back.
“I don’t understand!” Indigo yells from where she’s been forgotten. “My father was a Navy soldier who was killed in training exercises.”
The corners of my father’s mouth tilt down as he considers the thought. “Not a bad story, Renee.”
“Thank you,” she says back as though we aren’t losing our minds over this news. “A long time ago, Monty and I had a fling. He was arranged to marry that shrew he’s married to now, but we were in love. I guess life and love finds a way, and you two were conceived. I raised you both at first, but it was too much of a scandal in your father’s eyes. We decided to split you up, one for each of us to raise as we saw fit. Harper, you stayed with your father, and Indie, you came out here with me.”
“But, how did you explain me?” I ask. “If my mother was never pregnant, if she didn’t…” I’m about to crack, I’m sure of it.
“Adoption,” my father says as if it’s second nature to lie about where a baby comes from. “We told everyone you were adopted, but we planned to keep it a secret. Figured it could work in our favor if we ever needed a story for the press. Bleeding hearts unite and all that.”
“This is unreal,” Declan whispers behind me.
“You can’t be serious,” I say.
“Well, you weren’t adopted, Harper,” my father says, “so get over the shock.”
I look at Indigo once more, knowing why we’re interchangeable for the first time. “And you’re my sister?”
Indigo rolls her eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I’m so much prettier than her.”
“You’re identical,” her mother corrects her, but I swear she’s going to cry.
“None of this matters.” My father interrupts her moment. “Harper is coming home.”
Declan takes a step forward to put himself between us. “No, she’s not.”
“You can’t control everything, Montgomery.” Renee takes a step forward to block him. I’ve never seen someone actually look like a formidable match for him, but even as petite as she is, she won’t cower.
“Renee, you’ve never understood how the world works. Not everything can be peace, love, and sunshine every minute! Look at how Indigo turned out.”
“Excuse me?” Indigo wails.
“Mexican prison for drug trafficking?” my father says. “That’s not behavior suitable for a Sutton.”
“I’m a Maxwell!” Indigo yells at him. Clearly, she’s just as thrown as I am.
“Come on, Harper.” My father reaches for me. But I step back and Declan’s arm catches my waist.
“I’m not going. I refuse to be your puppet.”
I’ve never sounded strong, not to him, and even if it’s weak by the world’s standards, it’s my first foothold.
“So, what do I do? I have a groom with no bride. I have a scandal and no answers. What do you suggest, Harper?” He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “We’ve given you every luxury any child could ever desire. The best schools, the best clothes, the best opportunities, and you’d rather stay here? Your husband will become a senator within the year, and it’s only the beginning. You’re willing to give all that up for the mail boy?”
“Hey!” Declan objects, but it’s Indigo who speaks louder.
“You’re crazy, Harper. I’d jump at all that. Marry some rich guy and get spoiled for the rest of your life? Sign me up.”
“I don’t love him,” I say to her. “I love Declan. And I’m not leaving him.”
“Who cares about love, you idiot,” my sister says. “This is about diamonds. Jump whatever hoop you need to for the bling, girlfriend.”
Renee’s hands go up as if to hold us back from clobbering each other. “That’s enough, both of you. Monty, Harper isn’t going. She’s a grown woman. You’re intelligent. I’m sure you’ll come up with an option to right your situation.”
But it’s not him with the wicked idea percolating.
It’s me.
“Indigo, why don’t you go? Marry Reg. Live happily ever after with country clubs and estate parties. I’ll take this life here, permanently.”
“Wait a second,” Renee starts to interject, but Indigo is hot on my heels.
“Could we do it?” Indigo asks with a glint in her eye. The same one she had after I dyed my hair. “Could we actually pull it off?”
“We pulled this off and we didn’t even know what we were doing,” I say.
“It won’t work,” my father says. “We’ve spent a lot of time training Harper and—”
“Oh shut up, Dad,” Indigo throws the title at him with zero respect. “If I’m a Sutton, then there are years of spoiling that I’ve missed out on. Do we get to ride in a private plane?”
Freedom fills my wings again. The horizon spreads before me.
“He has two,” I tell her. “And Reg has one of his own, and a pilot’s license.”
Indigo’s smile broadens. “I think I just fell in love with him. Will he notice I’m not you?”
Not likely, but I shrug instead of voicing it.
“He’ll like you better anyway,” I say.
Our parents are speechless, but Renee smiles her pride in the way only a mother can. “Exactly like when they were babies, chattering away in their own twin language. How about it, Monty, shall we trade?”
For a man who loves control, my father has none. He’s stuttering through his response, trying to come up with some sort of foothold, but Indigo is hammering him with questions, and I doubt she’ll come up for air until she’s inventoried every asset in the Sutton trust. Warmth catches my arm and I give in to the pressure to turn around. Declan’s mouth is pulled into a tight line, but the anger is gone. He bites his lower lip and gives me a gentle smile.
“Hi, my name is Declan Thorpe. Are you new around here?”
“Yeah, a little bit,” I tell him, returning that same smile. “I’m Harper Sutton, but everyone calls me Max.”
Declan takes my extended hand as if he’s going to shake it, but catches it with both of his to give me a tug to pull me closer.
“Good to meet you, Max.” His nod is slight as if he’s weighing the thought. “I’ve fallen in love with you, did you know that?”
Color rises to my cheeks. “It’s awfully quick, but I love you too, Declan.”
A dazed warmth fuzzes up his eyes, as if it’s the best thing he’s ever heard. One more tug and we’re inches apart.
“Ehh, call me Dec,” he whispers before our lips meet.
Caught in an argument with Renee, my real mother, my father has lost his footing. Indigo’s insults piles around them both, but I don’t care. I’m where I’m supposed to be.
“Oh look, sweetheart,” Renee takes a break in their quarrel as she sees us. “Remember when we were that in love?”
My father doesn’t have an answer but a new voice chimes in, “I’ve always thought they were the cutest couple. I’ve been rooting for them since their first date.”
Ashlee, the receptionist.
We’d forgotten her.
She’s heard every word.
But then, I have a feeling she’s known more than most for a while now.
I break the kiss and glance over Declan’s shoulder at the blonde girl. “It’s your lucky day, Ashlee. You’re about to become a very rich girl. Hush money doesn’t come cheap.”
My father groans as he realizes I’m right. Declan’s arms wrap around me. Like a path I’ve searched for my whole life, the future stretches out before us. I only had to climb out one window to get here.
Chapter 30
It’s not an easy transition at first. Indigo leaves with my father that night, but her record is far from expunged. Thankfully, he has the money and connections to clean it up. It takes about six weeks before Reg notices she isn’t me, and even then, I don’t think it actually bothers him.
Indigo does a great job of sobbing to the cameras and lying
through her teeth about the criminals who took her captive in Mexico. I do the exclusive Greg wanted all along, explained what it was like having a look alike go missing and all the drama that followed me when people thought I was Harper Sutton.
The final cap is Indigo’s marriage to Reg. I’ve never been so happy not to be the bride. I watch her fake her “I do’s” with Renee on my right, Declan on my left, and Rory on my lap. Dare I say it, Indigo and Reg are actually happy together.
Getting to know my real mother is certainly a highlight of my time. She’s always been an avid horsewoman and prefers western riding like me. Our first outing is a rodeo in Central California with Rory double fisting cotton candy into her mouth until she’s humming with energy like a power plant.
Renee also worked in advertising. She’d designed the original ads for my father’s company before they parted. Hearing stories about him in his youth has helped to heal much of my animosity towards him. He was as stuck as I was when his parents forced him to marry their choice. Renee understood his obligation and stepped back to allow him the freedom to choose.
I wonder now if he regrets that choice. I think of all the years he was distant from me, and I get it. It was impossible to look at me without wondering about my sister and the woman he’d abandoned for obligation and wealth. Every time he saw my smile, he wondered where Indigo was and what she was doing.
He admitted to me she was the reason he picked Garnet and Associates to do the ad. Desperation to meet my sister drove him to the other side of the country. Yet, as he shook my hand in the conference room, he felt only the familiarity of me, Harper.
Too much wasn’t about choice though, too many moving parts that feel like fate brought our family back together. Jerry’s girlfriend Caraline and her daughter Hazel, who happened to know a girl searching for a look-alike, for instance. What were the chances? What were the chances I’d even get a plane ticket to El Paso in the first place? No, my path was an interwoven tapestry with more diversions than I could count.
The biggest shock came as I tried to change my name. My father insisted we pull the original birth cards with our prints intact. “Just a hunch,” he told my sister and me.
Twins don’t have identical fingerprints. Sure enough, as we compared our prints from the cards to our adult prints, we could see the differences. We’d been swapped.
I was Indigo Maxwell.
She was Harper Sutton.
While my father ran Renee through the mud over her mistake as a young mother, I reveled in the feeling that I was finally right where I’d always belonged. Indigo and Declan had gone to the same college. Upon examining their schedules, I saw that they’d spent hours in the same classes and had never realized it. They had friends in common, went to similar parties, had ample opportunities to meet, and yet never had. Because she wasn’t me. When I arrived in the city, the last puzzle fell into place and the universe was righted once more.
I straighten my veil and look in the mirror.
Perfect.
But the perfection has more to do with the groom waiting at the end of the aisle than my reflection.
“Ready?” Indie asks from the doorway. She’s got little Rory with her. Declan sued for full custody with some help from my father’s lawyers. Samantha happily relinquished custody in exchange for a check. Rory is ours. Next weekend, I’ll adopt her as my own child, and everything will be as it should have been all along.
“Come on, mommy!” she says while reaching her pudgy hand up for mine.
Warmth floods my whole being every time I touch her, like my soul recognizing what I’ve been without. “We don’t want to keep daddy waiting, do we?”
Her giggle is infectious as she pulls me and my twin sister down the halls of the church. Indie scoops her up into her arms as I hear the organ start. “Okay, we’re gonna walk now. Just like we practiced.”
I watch my soon to be daughter toss white rose petals to the aisle, and my heart soars. I’m bursting out of my skin waiting to see Declan. It’s been almost a year for us to get to this point, and I think I was ready since we spent the day on the beach.
“Are you ready, Max?” my father asks.
My arm loops through the crook in his and I take a deep breath. “I think so.”
He’s different now, softened by my sister’s defiant personality. Or maybe it’s having both of us back in his life. Not to mention the looks I’ve seen him shoot Renee. My mother, the one I grew up with, divorced him shortly after Indigo married Reg.
Dad is single.
Renee is single.
I think it’s only a matter of time.
“I’m proud of you,” he whispers and for the first time tears twinkle in his eyes. “You’re the bravest Sutton I’ve ever known. I’m proud that you’re mine.”
I nod because tears won’t let me speak. Finally, I say, “I love you, dad.”
His warm hand cups over mine and the music shifts. People rise for my entrance. It’s not the two thousand plus who came to Indigo’s wedding, but I know every face in the room. Uncle Jerry, who will always be my family even without the bloodline, Caraline, and Hazel, are on the aisle. Caraline’s dabs at her tears with a hot pink hankie, and Hazel is still wearing black. The Garnet team takes up the entire fourth row. My mother, Renee Maxwell, stops me before I take another step so she can place a kiss on my cheek and a wink for my father. Even Marissa, our babysitter, is here. But none are as important as the man waiting for me at the top of the stairs.
“Dec,” I whisper and it’s echoed on his lips.
“Max.”
With a quick kiss, my father joins my mother and takes her hand. Indigo winks at me because she’s thinking the same thing. How different would it have been if my father had followed his heart all those years ago? Would I have found Declan?
All it takes is one look at him to know that my heart would never have stopped looking for him until I did.
Maybe life isn’t made of paved roads and perfect directions. Maybe life is meant to be made up of mazes, searching like a mouse for the cheese. I don’t know either way. All I know is when Declan takes my hand, it’s perfect.
The preacher is talking, and I should be listening, but it’s all I can do to keep from shouting, “I do, now let me kiss him!”
“Do you, Declan Thorpe, take this woman, Indigo Maxwell, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do,” Declan says before he can finish.
“Do you, Indigo Maxwell, take this man, Declan Thorpe, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
“I do,” I say, and my body trembles at the thought.
“Then by the power…”
I’m not listening. I’m counting down the seconds until I am officially his wife.
“You may now kiss the bride,” the preacher says.
“Finally,” Declan whispers before he wraps his arms around me and presses his lips to mine. Cheers erupt around us and I can’t kiss while I’m laughing. Declan’s head drops to my shoulder before he kisses my cheek. “I was a little worried you might go out the window.”
“And miss this?” I ask in a voice only he can hear. “Not for all the money in the world.”
The End.
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© 2019 Nellie K. Neves
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Other Books by the Author
NIGHTWATCH
FALCON
(The sequel to Nightwatch)
The Lindy Johnson Series
Caskets & Conspiracies
Saddles & Sabotage
Sparrows & Sacrifice (Coming 2019)
Pre-Approved Identity Theft © 2019 by Nellie K. Neves. All Rights Reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
Cover designed by Nellie K. Neves
Photo Credit: Terri Cnudde “Pink Shoes:
Photo Credit: Barbara A. Lane “White Bokeh Background
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Nellie K. Neves
Visit my website at www.nellieknevesauthor.com
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing: March 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. While the cities listed in the novel are real places, all companies, people and events are fictitious and products of imagination.
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