Undercover Christmas

by BJ Daniels

  The sound stopped as abruptly as it had begun. With a shiver, Marni stepped away from the window to lock the hallway door. A hot bath. That’s what she needed. Something to get her mind off El, Chase, his family, this house—

  As she entered the bathroom, Marni stopped, shocked by what she was doing. Waddling. She was taking this whole pregnancy thing way too seriously.

  She started filling the tub, splashed in a generous amount of the vanilla-scented bubble bath she found on a shelf at the foot of the tub and hurriedly undressed, anxious to get the maternity form off and end this ridiculous charade at least for a few hours.

  But as she slipped into the tub sans Sam and let the bubbles caress her nakedness, she felt a stab of regret that took her a moment even to recognize. She missed Sam.

  With a groan she sank under the water. What was wrong with her? She’d never even thought about children of her own and now she was getting attached to a maternity form? No, not a maternity form, she thought as she surfaced. A pretend child named Sam. Chase Calloway’s son. Geez.

  She heard a soft knock at her hallway door and started to call that she was in the tub but stopped herself. The last thing she wanted was another confrontation with someone else in this family—especially right now, naked in the tub, with her bubbles dissolving and her body unpregnant.

  Whoever it was knocked again. Softly. As if they didn’t want the rest of the house to know they’d come to see her? Chase? Surprised, she listened as the person tried the knob. Please let it be locked. The knob started to turn. And stopped. Locked. Footfalls retreated down the hall. Marni let out the breath she’d been holding.

  Relieved, she leaned back in the tub and closed her eyes, doing her best not even to think about Chase Calloway. But her thoughts went to him as swiftly as an arrow shot from a bow. What was his story? And more to the point, how could Elise have fallen for such a disagreeable man?

  The water began to cool and Marni climbed out and quickly dried herself, curious to know who her earlier visitor had been. Would her caller have come in if the door hadn’t been locked? It appeared so. She doubted it was Chase. It seemed odd that he’d use the hallway door instead of their adjoining one. It seemed even odder anyone would try the door when she didn’t answer the knock.

  Whoever it was might return, she thought, realizing she’d have to put the maternity form back on. She didn’t relish the idea, but it was better than getting caught unpregnant by Chase Calloway. No amount of explaining would get that man to believe her.

  But at least she could get comfortable. After putting the form back on, she wandered into the bedroom, picked up the loaned shirt from the bed and pulled it on over the maternity form. It was large enough that the soft fabric covered her to her knees.

  Her earlier tiredness came back suddenly and she couldn’t wait to climb between the flannel sheets of the massive bed. That’s when she remembered she hadn’t locked the door between her room and Chase’s. Buttoning the shirt on her way, she waddled to the door and reached for the knob. The door must not have been closed soundly. The moment she touched the knob, the door creaked open and a deep, angry voice bellowed, “What the hell do you want?”

  Marni jumped at the sound of Chase’s voice. “I—” She grimaced as she heard him limping across the floor toward her, the crutches beating a path to her.

  The door banged open and Chase filled the space between their rooms. “Look, woman—” His gaze dropped from her face to her chest. She caught the smell of brandy on his warm breath as he leaned toward her. “Is that one of my shirts? What the hell are you doing in my shirt?”

  “Someone left it for me,” Marni said defensively. “The way your mother acted, I just assumed it was Jabe’s.” Her chin went up to show him she wasn’t afraid, but her traitorous feet stumbled back a step from the fury in his eyes.

  “My mother?” His gaze narrowed. “That proves how little you know about me. Vanessa’s not my mother.”

  Marni stared at him. Well, that explained a lot. Did Elise know anything about this man? “Dayton and Hayes are your…”

  “Half brothers.” Chase hobbled toward her, forcing her into a corner. “How can you pretend we were lovers and his is my baby, when you know nothing about me?” he demanded.

  Marni felt the hellfire of his gaze and wanted to proclaim her honesty but it was hard to do, all things considered. She lifted her chin again and met his blue eyes, frantically trying to imagine what Elise would say in answer to his very reasonable question. She had no idea, having never met a man like Chase Calloway. All she knew was that he made her nervous. Self-conscious. Unsure of herself.

  “I thought I heard a baby crying,” Marni said, motioning toward the heat vent, belatedly realizing he’d see right through her clumsy attempt to change the subject.

  “A baby? There is no baby in this house.” His gaze dropped to her swollen form. “Yet.”

  No baby? But she’d heard a baby crying. Or had she? Her eyes widened. No, it couldn’t be. This pretend pregnancy made her waddle, even vulnerable to emotions she couldn’t remember ever having before. But surely it didn’t make her imagine crying babies?

  She realized Chase was waiting for an answer to his original question. She felt at a loss as to how to reply.

  He gave her an impatient look and she knew she’d have to say something. She took a deep breath and, closing her eyes, concentrated. She imagined she was Elise and that this man standing in front of her was her lover. Her eyes flew open; she felt the flushed heat of embarrassment rush to her cheeks as the sudden, crystal-clear image of the two of them unclothed branded itself on her brain.

  “Admittedly,” Marni said shakily as she sidestepped away from him, “there is a lot I don’t know about you and your family.” Practically nothing. “All I can tell you is the…truth.” She almost choked on the word.

  “The truth?” Chase asked, sounding skeptical.

  She nodded as she turned to face him, suddenly reminded of the disastrous results the other times she’d pretended to be her twin. “The truth is…” She tried for that slight catch in her throat El had when she talked about Chase. It came out more like a croak. “I’m in…in love with you.”

  For a moment, she thought he’d laugh in her face. Instead, he let out an animal growl and thumped over to her, slamming any and everything in his path out of the way with his crutches. He stopped, towering over her, his eyes hard as ice chips.

  “Don’t you see how dangerous this game is you’re playing?” he demanded, his voice reverberating through her.

  She commanded her feet to stand their ground. He couldn’t scare her, she assured herself with only a slight tremble.

  “Cut your losses and give up this charade,” he said, dropping his voice to a menacing softness as he leaned closer. “You are no more pregnant with my child than you are in love with me.”

  She couldn’t argue that. Not that he gave her a chance.

  Before she could move, he took her face in his hands. She felt his calloused hands, warm and strong, on her cheeks. The hands of a man who did an honest day’s work. That picture didn’t quite fit with the one she’d already painted of him. But she didn’t have time to worry about that now. In the depths of his gaze, she saw what he planned to do. Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to react before he took her mouth as he’d probably no doubt taken her sister’s body, with an intensity that stunned her. And for those few moments, she was El. And she knew the power this man had over her twin.

  Abruptly he broke off the kiss and shoved himself away from her. “You and I have never kissed before,” he said, his voice as rough as his hands. “Believe me, if we had, I would have remembered.” He limped a few feet away on his crutches and turned to glare at her.

  Marni fought the urge to cry out. In frustration. Her body ached, reminding her how long it had been since a man had kissed her. Had one ever kissed her like that?

  Worse yet, he’d been testing her and she’d failed miserably. Failed to pull off he
r fraud. And failed El. She already felt like a traitor to her sister for just letting the man kiss her.

  “Let me give you some advice, Miss McCumber,” he said, his voice sending a shiver through her. “You picked the wrong man to fool with. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but if you’re smart, you’ll get away from here as fast as you can. You and your baby aren’t safe in this house.”

  He left, the threat hanging in the air as he slammed the door between their rooms.

  Chapter Four

  Long after Chase left, Marni lay on the big log bed, her arm protectively around Sam as she stared up at the ceiling and mentally kicked herself. What had she hoped to accomplish by coming here? When was she going to learn that she couldn’t solve everyone’s problems?

  As for the kiss…

  She tried to excuse it. It was only a test and a test kiss didn’t amount to anything. She shouldn’t feel guilty. Really, if she was going to pretend to be Elise, these things were bound to happen. Men kissed El unexpectedly, passionately, soundly.

  Not that Marni would let it happen again. One test kiss per sister’s boyfriend, thank you. But if it should—

  Marni groaned. Why was she agonizing over one silly little kiss? Instead she should be worrying about how El was going to take the bad news. She’d tried to call her sister before climbing into bed but the phone line was dead. Probably the storm.

  She stopped a moment to listen, almost sure she’d heard footsteps out in the hallway again. As she drew the covers up around her shoulders, she assured herself the house didn’t feel exceptionally imposing or hostile and that all those grunts and groans, creaks and crackings were just from the storm outside. This was Chase’s doing. Him and his “you and your baby aren’t safe here.”

  Only silence came from the adjoining room. Chase had no doubt gone to bed and was sound asleep by now. So much for his guilty conscience keeping him awake.

  She’d really believed that once she had him alone, she could get him to admit his part in Elise’s pregnancy. At least she would have accomplished that much. Not that he planned to do anything about it. But instead, he wouldn’t even consider she might be part of his lost memory. If indeed he suffered from such a convenient affliction.

  Marni squeezed her eyes closed and searched for sleep, wishing she’d grabbed a book from the library. Nothing could distract her mind faster than a book.

  Her stomach growled. How could she be hungry when she’d devoured such a large meal just hours ago?

  She tried to ignore the hunger pangs and the mental picture that kept flashing in her brain. Cake. A moist white cake, rich with buttery frosting.

  Her stomach rumbled loudly. She opened her eyes. It would be incredibly rude to raid the refrigerator. Not for a woman who was eating for two, she argued, as she slid her legs over the side of the bed.

  The embers had burned down in the fireplace and the storm’s icy chill settled in along with Chase’s warning. He didn’t know her very well if he thought he could scare her that easily.

  She reminded herself that he didn’t know her at all. He knew Elise. And the truth was, Elise probably wouldn’t have budged from her bed until morning.

  Marni opened her bedroom door cautiously and peered out. The hallway was empty. And dark except for a light at the far end beyond the stairs. The house seemed to hunker in silence as if waiting for something. For her, the voice of reason warned. But a piece of cake, rich with frosting, was calling. The cake won. She stepped out and, quietly closing the door behind her, tiptoed down the hall.

  A cold draft crawled over her bare feet. She pulled Chase’s robe around her. The robe was thick and warm and like the shirt, smelled faintly of its owner, a scent that was both disarming and comforting.

  When Marni reached the stairs, she trod down them carefully, her near accident still too fresh in her memory for comfort.

  Someone had left a light on and Marni wondered if she was the only one up raiding the fridge. The thought of running into Vanessa almost changed her mind. Marni tiptoed across the foyer, peeked into the dining room, then headed for what she figured would be the kitchen.

  The kitchen was spacious like the house. But unlike the house, it had a warm, almost homey feel to it. Marni guessed it was probably because Vanessa never set foot in it It was the first room that Marni could say she actually liked. And it was blessedly empty.

  She found the cake without having to raid the fridge, cut herself a large slice and sat down at the table. The cake was delicious. She licked the frosting from her lips as she eyed another piece. Oh, what would it hurt?

  As she was scraping her plate to get the last of the crumbs, she marveled at her increased appetite. Was it just nerves? Or was her body somehow kidding itself into believing she really was eating for two?

  Whatever it was, she had to quit or she’d gain a ton.

  A short while later, she made her way toward the library. The house groaned and moaned around her. Snow piled up at the windows and cold crept along the bare wooden floors like snow snakes.

  Marni had started down the hall when she heard something that made her freeze in midstep.

  Crying. At first she thought it was the baby again. Then realized it wasn’t the same sound she’d heard earlier coming up through the heat vent. The heart-wrenching sobs pulled at her and she found herself trailing the sound past the library toward the back of the house.

  A faint light shone from a far corner of what appeared to be the living room. The thick, dark curtains along the bank of windows were open to the night. The darkness outside blurred in a thick lattice of falling snow.

  Lilly Calloway sat slumped in a large log rocker, in a golden circle of light from a floor lamp beside the chair. She clutched something in her arms and rocked, Marni noticed with a start. Beside the rocker on the floor sat a half-empty wine bottle. The room smelled faintly of gardenias.

  Marni reminded herself again that this was none of her business. She should backtrack and go up to bed. But the woman’s wail tore at her heart.

  “Lilly?” she asked softly, half expecting the woman to rebuff any attempts to console her. After all, Marni was a stranger. And no one in this house had been what she would call friendly.

  Neither the crying nor the rocking stopped.

  Marni stepped around in front of the woman. “’Lilly?”

  Lilly slowly raised her head, her rocking motion slowed. The storm outside lit her pale heart-shaped face and Marni saw what the woman clutched in her arms. A rag doll, its face worn and grayed, its yarn hair matted with age. Lilly glanced down at the doll crushed in her arms. For a moment, she made no sound. Then her eyes swam with tears and great, huge sobs racked her body.

  Marni knelt and opened her arms to the woman. The rag doll tumbled to the floor as Lilly fell into Marni’s embrace. ‘There, there,”’ Marni whispered, sympathizing with the woman’s pain. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like losing a child. “It’s all right.”

  As the crying subsided, Marni heard the scrape of a boot sole on the wooden floor. She looked up with a start, not sure who she expected to see.

  Even in shadow and even if he hadn’t had the crutches, she would have known Chase Calloway. He filled a doorway. Not only with his body but with his anger.

  He stood, watching her, suspicion in every line of his body. She could feel the heat of his gaze on her as surely as she could feel the reproach in that gaze. She glanced down at Lilly, wondering what made Chase so angry with her, that he thought she was pregnant or that he thought she was trying to trap him? When she glanced up again, he was gone.

  Marni didn’t know how long she held Lilly. The crying had stopped, but the slim arms still held her tightly, as if Marni were Lilly’s only anchor in some blizzard far worse than the one outside this room.

  After a while, Marni looked down to find Lilly had dropped off to sleep on her shoulder. Carefully, Marni laid her back into the rocker and covered her with a knitted afghan from the couch. Lilly whimpe
red softly but continued to sleep the sleep of the dead. Or the inebriated.

  Marni switched off the lamp and left her in front of the bank of windows and the storm, hoping Lilly slept off the wine before she attempted the stairs.

  On the way to her room, Marni stopped at the library and quickly found Pride and Prejudice. As she turned out the light and headed for the stairs, she told herself she was ready at last for some sleep of her own.

  But back in bed, Marni lay, listening, waiting for Chase to come storming in to admonish her for interfering in family business. After a while, when she heard no sound, she opened the soft, worn volume to chapter one, realizing it had been years since she’d read this book.

  The first line jumped off the page at her. Marni groaned as she thought of Chase Calloway. Who was this impossible single man in possession of a good fortune her twin had fallen in love with? Certainly not a man in want of a wife—or a baby, as Elise had been led to believe. That was one truth at least Marni acknowledged.

  A few pages into the book, she heard Chase return to his room, heard the clomp of the crutches as he approached the door adjoining their rooms. She held her breath. Then she heard him lock his side of the door. Instead of relief, Marni felt a wave of anger. Did Chase think he had to lock his door to protect himself from her? Did he really think she’d come to his room tonight and throw herself at him? The man couldn’t be that big a fool, could he?

  Tossing the book on the night table, she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed, set on sharing a few choice words with Mr. Chase Calloway, even if it meant through a three-inch-thick door.

  The lights flickered, and before her feet could touch the floor, went out. Marni held her breath, waiting for them to come back on. They didn’t. And she had a feeling they wouldn’t. As Vanessa had reminded her earlier, the electricity often went out during snowstorms in Montana. This far from civilization, it could be out for hours. Even days. Great. And just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse.