He took a step closer to Jenna, smelling the sweetness of her. He couldn’t explain what had coursed through his body when she’d put her arms around him, slid her fingers up into his hair. When her mouth had grazed his. But he sure as hell hadn’t wanted to offer the poor widow comfort. Hell, after that episode, he was the one who needed comfort.
Mitch squared his shoulders, making her look up at him with uncertainty in those haunted gray eyes. Just to increase that uncertainty, he let his gaze drop to the mouth he’d almost kissed. That one innocent touch, though, had rocked him more than any hot lovemaking, more than anything he’d ever experienced. He waited for her to squirm before looking at her eyes again. This had to stop, whatever burned between them.
He moved closer, hating the way he admired her for not backing off. “Jenna, I’m not going to be Paul’s proxy. I may look like him, but inside I’m nothing like him. Get past it, because I’m sure as hell not going to play his part in your bed.”
Her face paled, jaw tightened. “Get away from me.”
He grabbed her arms, holding her to the spot before she could move. “You’re connected to Paul in some way I can’t understand. I don’t need to understand. What I do know is you can tell me what happened the night our parents died. You hold the answers.”
“Let me go.”
He couldn’t let her go yet. He had to impress upon her how important it was for the truth to be known. Mitch had too much at stake. “Our parents were butchered in their beds while they slept.”
“My God.” Her eyes shadowed. “What does that have to do with the truth? And me?”
“Paul might have been the one who killed them.”
Those words stilled Jenna as though he’d produced the knife himself. Her eyes widened, jaw slackened. She overcame her shock quickly, though, shaking her head. “Paul didn’t do anything. He was gentle, kind.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “He cried when his dog was hit by a car. He bawled like a baby. He wouldn’t do anything so horrible!”
“I don’t know that he did it, Jenna. But I have to find out. Let me tell you what happened that night. You tell me if anything comes to mind.” He took the breath he needed to push the words out. “Paul and I were eighteen that summer. He was involved with a girl our parents didn’t approve of — Becky White.” At those last words, he’d watched Jenna’s face carefully. She’d washed away all expression. “He was really stressed out about it, because he was really in love with the girl, and our parents were putting a lot of pressure on him to end it.”
“I don’t want to hear anymore,” she said, trying to back away.
He held onto her, pulling her closer yet. “You have to hear it, Jenna. Usually I took up his fights for him. He never was good at fighting. But I agreed with dad on this. I figured Becky for a gold digger, but Paul wouldn’t listen. He’d just walk away from me. He was set on marrying her.
“Paul and our dad had an all-out stampede of words the night my parents died. I tried to butt in, but dad told me to go clean stalls if I was so interested in other people’s sh — well, anyway, I went riding and when I got back, the storm was over. I could hear Becky crying in Paul’s bedroom, and I figured Paul caved in and broke up with her. I went to sleep, and when I woke up, Betzi was screaming for help. She found them.”
Mitch shuddered, wishing he’d found them instead. “Paul and I were the first to come under suspicion, of course, because we had the most to gain by … their dying. Believe me, the sheriff wanted to nail us, but he didn’t have any evidence. Paul even had an alibi. He had been at Becky’s house all night, or so they claimed. Even her father corroborated the story, and they weren’t exactly buddies.
“But that never made sense, not if Paul had broken up with her. I didn’t tell anyone about that. Paul denied she’d been crying. He said they left after the argument, but I didn’t hear them leave. I wanted to believe him, but it didn’t feel right.” Mitch reached out and wrapped his fingers around her arm. “It felt like a lie. The last time I saw Paul, he tried to block me out. I reached out like I just did to you, and I hated what I felt: remorse and guilt. Probably the same thing you felt. And then he disappeared, which told me he was running from something.”
Mitch stared at the intricate carvings in the post, remembering. “The window in my parents’ suite had been jimmied open, and a bunch of their jewelry had been taken, so eventually the sheriff chalked it up to a burglary gone bad. I kept hoping Paul would come back with some good reason for taking off, but he didn’t. He didn’t write or call or nothing. What was he running away from? Guilt?”
She shook her head again, sending her hair flying. “I know him. He wouldn’t.”
He hadn’t let go of her arms, and now he could feel the blood pulsing through her veins. Blood pumped by Paul’s heart. “Jenna, you didn’t even know where he came from. He was a lie.”
“Not with me, he wasn’t.”
Tears were flowing down her cheeks now, though her eyes were still red from her last crying jag. But these tears cut into him, because he’d caused them. But he had to know the truth. It would set him free, he hoped, and maybe it would set her free, too.
She crumpled onto the bed, bending over her knees. “He protected me; he would have never hurt me.”
Like he was hurting her, Mitch heard the unspoken words. He felt the overpowering urge to protect her, too, to take her into his arms and make it all go away. It was Paul, somehow communicating his love for Jenna to him. But Mitch couldn’t love Jenna, and at the risk of the truth, he couldn’t protect her either.
She came to her feet suddenly, swiping at her eyes. “I’m sorry that your parents were murdered. I’m sorry you have this overwhelming urge to find the truth. But the truth isn’t going to help you. If Paul did kill your parents — and I know he didn’t — what peace is that going to bring? He’s dead. He can’t go to prison. The truth only hurts. I’m not going to let it hurt me, do you understand? I’ve had enough heartache.”
“If he was so good at protecting you, why did he bring you here? You said it was to make peace with me. Maybe he wanted to confess, through you.”
“Maybe he just wanted to say goodbye. I’m saying it, for him and for me. Goodbye.” She pushed by him and disappeared around the corner.
He wanted to tell her about the connection between Becky’s death and Paul’s accident. The words died in his throat, though. He didn’t trust himself to follow her. Now it was Mitch’s turn to slump down onto the bed. She couldn’t understand what peace the truth would bring, and he wasn’t sure he could make her, by shaking her or by kissing her. She’d misunderstood the reason Mitch wanted to find out if Paul killed their parents. It wasn’t to get some kind of justice. It went much deeper than that.
Jenna threw her things back into her bag, grabbed her purse and keys, and nearly ran down the main staircase. The foyer was lit only by the flashes of the television, but it was enough light to get the door unlocked. The alarm pad next to the door blinked, but she didn’t care if the thing went off. All she wanted was to escape. As soon as she got inside her rental car, she locked the doors and started the engine.
Paul hadn’t killed his parents! It was insanity to even think it. He hadn’t brought her here for a confession. The anguish she’d felt was Paul’s grief, not guilt. This whole trip would be pushed far from her mind, relegated to the place nightmares were.
She half-expected Mitch to come racing out after her, but he didn’t. She had never felt so relieved when she turned onto the highway and left Bluebonnet Manor behind in the darkness.
But another feeling hovered above her relief. It was the sense of having fled the house in the dark of night before in the same kind of panic.
As she drove through the hours of the night, two things would not be put to rest: the coincidence that Paul had seriously dated Becky White, the woman who had died the same day Paul had and in the same area. Worse than that, something else haunted her. The feeling of being in Mitch’s arms again, the way it mad
e her body feel, the way she’d felt safe and loved. Apparently she’d become a better liar than she’d thought; Mitch had bought the biggest one yet. Unfortunately, she hadn’t mastered lying to herself.
She knew exactly whose arms she’d been in, and whose mouth she’d wanted to kiss. And it wasn’t Paul’s.
“Oh, you are so messed up.” She punched the buttons on the radio, trying to find something to distract her. “But you’re going to put it all behind you, aren’t you, Jenna? Because there is no way on this earth you’re going to see that man again or think about him. He’s T-R-O-U-B-L-E,” she said after hearing a country singer spell out the same word. “As long as you never see him again, you can forget all this happened, forget how he felt, and remember what you’re supposed to be remembering: your husband, the man you loved. The only man you’re ever going to love.”
Mitch watched her go, fighting a war inside him as he stood by the French doors in Paul’s old room. His muscles tensed as the battle waged — let her go, or bring her back?
In the end, he let her go. He’d worked with enough wild horses to know when one was spooked beyond reasoning. Holding her down by force wasn’t going to get him anywhere with Jenna.
He hadn’t even had enough time to sort through the jumble of thoughts and feelings before he heard Betzi’s slippers snapping down the hallway. “In here,” he said in a deadpan voice he hardly recognized as his own.
He blinked when Betzi turned on the light. “She left?” Betzi’s eyes said, You chased her away?
“Yeah, I chased her away,” he answered.
“What in blazes did you do that for? You don’t really think she’s here to try and wrangle money out of you, do you?”
Mitch stared at the place by the bed where they’d almost kissed. “No,” he said, though he’d wanted to say yes, that’s why he’d pushed her to leave. He leaned back against the door, feeling the mullions bite into his bare back. “No, she doesn’t want money. She wants to have my baby.”
Betzi’s blue robe fell open as her arms dropped to her side, revealing her old-fashioned white gown. “What?“
“Let me rephrase that,” he said, hating the other bite he felt, the bite of jealousy. “She wants me to donate sperm so she can pretend it’s Paul’s baby. No strings attached.”
For the first time he could remember, Betzi was speechless. Her mouth worked, but nothing came out. Finally she said, “Is that what I felt between you two in the kitchen? The storm brewing?”
He shook his head. “She hadn’t asked me yet. And there’s nothing between us. Nothing.”
The authority he’d wanted to strengthen his voice with failed him. Betzi merely gave him a shake of her head. Heaven help him, she’d slipped into her motherly mode.
“Don’t you be fibbing, Mitchell James Elliot. Have I ever been wrong about a storm brewing?” He had to admit she hadn’t, though grudgingly. “Let me tell you, there’s a hell of a storm brewing between you two, though I’m not sure why.”
“It’s because she has Paul’s heart. You remember how connected we were, like the time when I left the baseball game and raced home on my bike because I knew — felt — something had happened to Paul? He’d fallen down the stairs. That’s all it is.”
Betzi gave him a clearly skeptical look. “What are you going to do about her?”
His body knew what it wanted to do with her, but he stopped his thoughts from straying down that trail. “She’s the closest thing I’ve had to finding out the truth. The connection, the fact that Paul led her here …” He pushed away from the door. “She can tell me what happened that night. But she’s not talking.”
“She loved Paul, still does, I imagine. Would you want to know some sordid truth about the man you love?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I loved Paul, too. We were a part of each other. I can’t go on without knowing if he was behind our parents’ murders. I can’t let Jenna go, not when I’m closer to finding the truth than I’ve ever been.”
“That’s why she left, isn’t it?”
That was only part of it, but he simply nodded. He could still see the startled look on her face when she realized what she’d been doing with him. Hell, he’d probably looked just as startled. “Somehow I’ve got to get her to help me find the truth —”
“And not fall in love with her in the process,” Betzi added, finishing his thought and knowing it.
“You know that’s not going to happen.”
Betzi crossed her arms over her chest, bunching up the ruffles on her nightgown. “But Paul’s dead.”
“No, he’s not,” Mitch quickly said. “Part of him lives in her.” He couldn’t tell Betzi about the love he’d felt — Paul’s love — when he’d touched Jenna. “He loved her, and she still loves him. Loving Jenna would be wrong, period. Besides,” he found himself saying in a lower voice. “She’d always see Paul when she looked at me.” He shook his head, wishing he could take those last words back. “All I want from her is the truth. And I’m going to get it, somehow, some way.”
“Don’t be a bully.”
She didn’t realize that being a bully was a lot easier than being gentle. Gentle lead to the kind of thing that had happened right there in Paul’s old room and by the photo gallery. Striking a balance was going to be about as easy as convincing the mares to foal during the day instead of the middle of the night.
“I’ll try.” He walked past her into the hallway. “G’night, Betz.”
She regarded him thoughtfully, but said nothing more than “Goodnight, Mitch.”
He heard her walk downstairs and through the door that led to her apartment over the garage. The moment the door closed, emptiness descended on him. The television was still on, but he couldn’t hear even a murmur. He started to head down the hall, but paused by the collage of photographs.
“You didn’t deserve her,” he said to one of Paul’s photos. “But you knew that, didn’t you?” He stood there for a few moments, awash in the memories the photographs depicted. All those years he’d had a friend and ally no matter what. “You brought her here. But why?”
Paul’s death certificate was still lying on the table, along with the photographs Jenna had brought. He picked up the piece of paper that seemed to weigh as much as a horse. His throat went dry as he stared at Paul’s name. It was as if he stared at his own death certificate, as though his name were typed there.
When he turned it over, he saw that the blank side was covered with a detailed sketch of interconnected flowers and lines. Jenna. He knew as his finger traced the lines that she had drawn this. This morning he hadn’t known she even existed. Now she flowed through his veins as though she were a part of him. He closed his eyes, now awash in the forbidden memories of holding her. He punished himself with them, over and over again.
He should have pulled away from her, told her that she was confused. His body had wanted to pull her close, kiss that mouth so temptingly close to his.
Instead, he’d settled for somewhere in between, offering comfort, but taking it himself as he let her wake his senses.
He opened his eyes, balled up the death certificate and flung it so hard, he grunted with exertion. It landed without incident on the marble countertop. He looked at the pictures on the table, of Paul standing next to Jenna after they’d said their vows. They were a handsome couple, though Mitch’s eyes were mostly on Jenna. He focused on Paul now, the first time he’d seen his twin since his abrupt departure nine years earlier.
Marrying a woman like Jenna should have made him the happiest man on earth, but Mitch could see something was missing. The spark, he realized. Paul had no spark, no life in his eyes. It was as if he’d lost his soul when he’d left Bluebonnet Manor. With a swipe of his hand, the photos flew several feet away.
The usual night restlessness galloped through him at hyper speed. What was he going to do about her? Betzi’s question echoed through his mind as he got dressed and went over to the stables to take a late-night ride. Midnight Blue
wasn’t too happy about being roused for an impromptu run, but the stinker cooperated about as much as she always did.
Mitch took the long, winding trail that soon disappeared into a forest of pines. Midnight knew the way, and Mitch leaned close to the horse and relished the familiar rush of becoming one with the powerful animal.
By the time he returned to the stables, hot and damp from the humid night air, Mitch knew exactly what he was going to do about Jenna.
Chapter 6
“You think I’m loony tunes, don’t you?”
Jenna waited for Dr. Sharidon’s reply, though he seemed too busy taking her blood pressure and checking his chart to have heard her. Or maybe he was trying to come up with a nice way to say, “Yes.”
“You’ve been taking your medication?” he asked at last.
She let out an exasperated sigh, but answered in civil tones, “Religiously. I exercise every night, feel great, energetic.”
When she had last asked the doctor about her strange cravings, she’d been willing to take his word about it being part of the mourning process. But not this time. After all she had gone through, she needed answers. A visit to the library had gleaned at least some information.
“You know, other transplant recipients have experienced strange sensations. What I’m feeling isn’t entirely unusual. Claire Sylvia wrote a book about her experiences, how she got these cravings and dreamed about her donor without knowing a thing about him. She was right, even down to his name.”
Dr. Sharidon gave her a patronizing smile, looking at her over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses. “Yes, I’m familiar with her. Recipients have reported … occurrences. You have a part of someone else’s body inside you. Naturally a recipient is curious, and fantasizes about their donor.”
Jenna slipped off the table and followed the doctor to the counter along the wall. “But she knew his name. And what he looked like. And that he liked chicken nuggets.”
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