He let out something that sounded like a sigh. “Yeah.”
She pushed away from the machine. “Come on up. I’ve got a Lone Star or five.”
His body felt leaden as he climbed off and followed her through the doorway and up the stairs. She wore a cute boxer set, hair loose and swinging with her steps. He didn’t want to talk. Everything tangled up inside him was too complicated to discuss with anyone. So what was he going to Tawny’s room for? To exorcise his demons a different way? To prove to himself that any woman could make him feel whole, and not just Jenna?
Jenna stirred the marshmallows in her cup of cocoa with her cinnamon stick, watching the clouds go round and round. The house was quiet, Betzi having turned off the music. The silence made it that much more obvious that Mitch hadn’t returned.
“Sometimes he takes walks at night,” Betzi said, obviously catching Jenna watching the hallway. They sat at the long island in the kitchen on the horse stools Mitch had picked out.
Jenna nodded, unable to even deny she was waiting for him. “Where does he go?”
Betzi shrugged. “Don’t follow him, of course, but sometimes I see him go out to the stables. Or he just walks around the house.”
Out to Tawny’s? she wanted to ask. That strange jealous feeling swirled through her at the thought of them together. “I don’t know what to say about what you overhead. I … I’m afraid I don’t understand it myself.”
Betzi shook her head, running her fingers through her strands of silver. “I’ve never heard him like that before.”
Jenna had actually been talking about her actions, not Mitch’s. “He’s so different from Paul.”
“They always were different, though their father tried to make them into the quintessential identical twins. Mr. Elliot was thrilled they were having twins. It was something else that made him special. He was a good man, but he wanted to be better and set apart from everyone else. He made Paul learn piano and Mitch the violin, and he’d take them to the city and make them perform at his friends’ parties. Paul hated the attention, hated being in the spotlight. Mitch pretended he couldn’t play well, purposely botching up notes. All they wanted was their own identity, but Mr. Elliot wouldn’t hear of it.”
“It’s amazing how different they are, personality-wise.” Jenna’s gaze went to the wall where Mitch had pinned her. Paul would never have done such a thing, would have never kissed her like that. “Paul was always so quiet, laid back. Mitch is so … full of life.”
Betzi stretched out her legs, crossing her feet at the ankles. “They were always different like that, even as babies. Mitch was the first to break out of the crib and explore the house, the first to get lost on the property, first to talk and walk even. Paul always gave up easily, no matter what the fight was about. Mitch pursued an argument to the bitter end.”
“Paul did give up easily. You know, I never realized that about him, but now that you say it, I can see that. If a project got too complicated, he’d call in the professionals. I can’t tell you how many puzzles I had to finish because he got confuzzled and walked away.” But Paul wasn’t giving up on Jenna finding the truth, that much was evident.
Maybe that wacko doctor was right.”
“Wacko doctor?”
Betzi shook her head. “Mr. Elliot was so frustrated that the boys didn’t fit his image of what twins should be, he took them to this twin expert in Dallas. They say that sometimes one twin will absorb the other one in the womb; a woman might not ever know she was going to have twins. This expert had done umpteen studies on twins, and one of his theories was that if that process didn’t quite complete, one twin would live in the shadow of the other. And he suggested that the shadow twin wasn’t as whole as the other.
“It was ridiculous, of course, but Mr. Elliot thought it might be true. He explained it to the boys in hopes of spurring Paul to break out of his brother’s shadow. What it did was make Mitch more protective of Paul, but it didn’t help him break out, so to speak. What was he like? With you, I mean.”
Jenna thought back over their marriage, from the houses they’d restored together to their lovemaking. “I think the doctor was right. Looking back, Paul seems so shallow. At the time, I had little to compare him with.” She gave Betzi a brief history of her life. “He fulfilled my need to be loved and protected. I didn’t even know I had needs he wasn’t meeting.”
Betzi’s thin mouth quirked. “Like being ravaged on the couch?”
Jenna flushed hot, but she nodded. “I should have left when he told me to, but I didn’t. I don’t know why.”
“Maybe you’re in love with him.”
Jenna blinked. “I can’t be.”
“Why not? I sensed something between you two that first day you came here.”
“But I haven’t known him that long; he’s my husband’s twin. He doesn’t want to get involved with me.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Jenna. I was here, remember?”
Jenna ducked her head. “I remember. But I mean on a permanent basis.”
“Because of the vow.” Betzi took a sip. “But Paul’s dead. And from the look in your eyes when you watch Mitch, I’d say you’re ready to go on with your life. Convincing Mitch, well … he’s stubborn, but he’s only a man. If you stay here much longer, he’s going to see it’s time to put that vow aside.”
Jenna glanced at the hallway again, wondering what her eyes were giving away. “I am ready to go on with my life. How can I continue to mourn a man I didn’t even know? All I feel for him is anger. There is something between Mitch and me, but I don’t know how much of it has to do with my having Paul’s heart. We have the same connection that he and Paul used to have. Okay, not the same exactly,” she added at Betzi’s skeptical look. “But how much of it is the connection?”
“There’s only one way to find out.”
Jenna rolled her eyes. “That only made things more confusing.”
Betzi’s blue eyes twinkled. “What I meant was, let yourself go. Let your feelings take you where they may.”
“I can’t. After what Paul did to me, I don’t want to need anyone like that again. What Mitch cares most about is the truth, even at my expense. What Paul cared most about was hiding the truth, at my expense. You see the parallel? How can I let my feelings take me to a place I’m not sure I want to go? What will happen after we find the truth? Did Paul murder his parents? You see, it’s all so tangled up, me, Paul and Mitch, the truth.” She dropped her forehead into her hands, kneading away the tension. “It’s easier just to hate all of them, including myself for getting into this mess.”
Betzi stood and rinsed out her mug. “All I can tell you is, follow your heart.”
Jenna let out a long breath. “That’s what got me into all this in the first place!”
“Think about this, m’dear: why did Paul bring you here?”
“To find the truth.”
“Why?”
“To make peace with Mitch, peace between him and Paul.”
“Why?”
Jenna blinked. “What more?”
“Think about it. I’m getting some sleep. Goodnight, m’dear.”
Jenna walked over to the broken picture frames they’d stacked after cleaning up the glass. She picked one up, being careful not to cut herself on the shards, and sat down on the couch. Mitch must have had these in his room, and now he must believe that Paul had killed their parents. But he wouldn’t admit that to her, because he didn’t want it to be true. Now it was her he was trying to save, though, not himself.
Paul and Mitch, so alike on the outside, so different inside. Was Paul a shadow twin? Maybe Mitch had gotten most of the personality, the passion. She stared at a picture of Mitch teasing Paul at what looked like a picnic.
“Paul, why did you bring me to Mitch? It couldn’t have been to make peace, because everything we’ve found so far has brought nothing close to peace. He thinks you’re a murderer, and me … I’m not sure anymore. So what was the real reaso
n?”
She waited, tuned to her inner self, to her heart. And then the words came, from somewhere deep inside her. To heal each other.
She wanted to laugh, but the sound that emerged sounded more like a sob. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’ve caused each other more damage than healing so far.”
Find the truth, Jenna. Find the truth.
She thought of the jewelry Paul had hidden away, and led her to find. “Haven’t we already found it, Paul?”
Find the truth. The truth will free us all.
She rested her forehead against the top edge of the frame. “I’m not too fond of the truth these days. But we’ll keep looking. I want to be free, Paul. I want to be free.”
“A little more to the left,” Tawny said in a soft, low voice. “Just a bit more, yeah, right there. Perfect. Drive it in, Mitch. You are just too good to me. And so well-hung.”
Mitch ignored the innuendo and drove the nail into the wall, then hung up the picture he’d spotted leaning against the living room wall. He took a step back. “I hope it was as good for me as it was for you.”
“Hah, hah, hah. All right, you’ve fixed the window, unjammed my toaster, and now hung my picture. But that’s not what you came up here for.”
The apartments over the stable offices were small, only one bedroom and one bath. At the moment, the living room seemed more like a closet to Mitch, and getting smaller with each passing minute. Tawny, still wearing her boxer set, sprawled out on the sofa, and he dropped down in the chair adjacent. Scotty was tucked away in his little racing car bed in the bedroom, leaving the adults to do as they pleased.
“You’re right,” he acknowledged, taking a sip of beer. He wasn’t going to admit that he was buying time. “I’ve been thinking about that guy who’s coming in Thursday to look at Pink Floyd. I want you to do a background on him, make sure his story checks out.”
Restlessness coursed through his body, making him want to jump out of the chair and fix something else. But he couldn’t see anything that needed fixing, so he reigned it in, drumming his fingers instead.
What was he doing here? He and Tawny had been friends for years, the sexual undercurrent mostly ignored on his part. One of his rules was never get sexually involved with an employee, but here he was in her apartment alone late on a Friday night.
Tawny pulled her leggy frame from the couch and walked over to him. Her brown hair spilled over her shoulders as she leaned down in front of him. “Why are you here, Mitch? It’s not to talk about the guy looking at Pink Floyd.”
“Dunno.” He was running away, just like he’d accused Jenna of doing. But it was for their own good. If he was going to break one of his rules, the employee one was the better one to break.
She slid onto the chair with him, straddling his hips with her legs, hands on his arms. “Can I make a suggestion?”
Then she leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips were warm and soft, just the way he remembered them from many years before. He kissed her back, nudging her mouth open and plunging his tongue inside. Her thighs contracted, pinning him tighter. Her hands slid across his chest as she deepened the kiss.
The lesser of two evils, he thought. If he had sex with Tawny, could he kill the wanting inside? If he put his arms around Tawny, would he think only of her and not the way Jenna felt in that same place? Tomorrow would he look at Jenna and not want to love her into oblivion anymore?
Love her. The words shivered through his body, making his fingers tighten on the arms of the chair. He’d used those words before in relation to Jenna. Not have sex, but love her. He’d never used that expression with any of the women he’d been to bed with. Because you’ve never loved a woman before.
“Damn it,” he said, coming to his feet and bringing Tawny up onto hers. He set her apart from him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, arms crossed in front of her.
“Dunno.”
“You don’t know. You come up here half-naked and sit there looking incredibly sexy with that sultry expression on your face, and when it comes to performing, you back off. It’s that stupid rule of yours, isn’t it? Let that go. You’re letting something wonderful slip right through your fingers because of your rule.”
Those words swirled through his insides. He walked to the window and looked out. Through the trees he could see light coming from the family room where he’d pinned Jenna to the wall. “It’s more than just the rule,” he said, thinking not of Tawny at all but of Jenna, his brother’s wife.
“Why’d you come up here tonight?” she asked, walking up beside him. “It’s her, isn’t it? Paul’s wife. She shows up and leaves, you go half-way across the country to bring her back, and suddenly you’re working out in the middle of the night. You’ve got it for your brother’s widow, don’t you?”
“You don’t know anything.”
“You want her and it’s killing you. So you came up here hoping I’d help chase away your demons.” She pulled at his shoulder, trying to make him face her. “Isn’t that right?”
He turned and gave her what she wanted. “Yeah, that’s right. But my demons are too big for you to exorcise.” He started walking to the door. “Goodnight, Tawny.”
“You’re a bastard!”
He paused at the door, then turned back to her. “You got that right, too.”
Facing the truth was a pain in the butt. He walked down the stairs and out into the night air. He’d been ready to deal with the ramifications of finding out Paul was a murderer. He knew he could handle that, even if it meant that he could have those genes, too. He’d been ready for that for nine years.
But he’d never counted on Jenna.
Mitch had always tried to do the right thing, but he was a sinner six ways and counting. He tried and convicted himself before anyone else could do it for him. God help him, but he was in love with his brother’s wife.
Other women had come and gone in his life, and he hadn’t missed them. But the thought of Jenna slipping through his fingers slammed him in the gut.
He walked quietly into the house, ready to clean up the mess he’d made. She was right; he’d heard her crying when he’d brought some extra towels to her room. It hit him then, what he and Paul had done to this woman, this delicate woman who had weathered so much pain in her life. Paul was a murderer, and Mitch had forced Jenna to face that fact. Both twins were slime. He’d gone to his room and taken the pictures kept in the dresser drawer, seeing not two smiling, identical faces but two men who had hurt an undeserving woman. Then he’d sent them flying into the fireplace.
And when he’d seen her standing there, what had he done? Not apologized, but thrown her against the wall and kissed her … threatened her! Bastard, bastard, bastard, he chanted, walking into the family room. The fireplace was clean. Great. She’d even cleaned up the mess for him. Like she was cleaning up his brother’s mess. Just stick the knife in a little deeper, Elliot. Good. Now twist it.
He didn’t know what made him turn around, but he did … to find her lying there on the couch, one of the pictures lying on her stomach. She was asleep, arms crossed over the broken frame, ash-blond hair spread out on the cushion. He couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. He was the devil, and she was an angel, looking beautiful and innocent on his couch.
When he could finally reason himself to leave, he stopped and leaned down over her. She smelled so much better than Tawny, looked so much sexier sprawled out here in that short nightgown that bared her long legs. His curse to fall in love with the wrong woman. He reached out and pushed a strand of her hair from her cheek, letting his finger trace the line of her jaw.
“That’s my girl,” he whispered, so softly his words broke.
His girl, he thought, shaking his head at the words that came so naturally from his mouth. She wasn’t his girl. Could he hate himself any more than he already did?
Jenna woke to the sound of soft-spoken words coming from the kitchen. She opened her eyes and blinked, getting oriented. Sunlight spill
ed in from the windows on either side of the fireplace. It was still early in the morning, and a misty layer of fog hovered just above the ground outside. The smell of coffee filled the air, making Jenna long for a bagel. Was Mitch back? She looked down to find the picture on the couch with her.
Jenna recognized Etta’s voice. “I’m just saying that she makes a lovely picture lying there with her husband’s picture, but she’s too pretty to waste her life away wishing for things that can’t be.”
“You just keep your fingers out of that girl’s life,” Betzi said. “You don’t know nothing about nothing.”
“What are you talking about? I know how to fix up things, you notwithstanding.”
“Leave my life out of this. Don’t you need to pump iron or something?”
“Hmph.”
Jenna sat up, not awake enough to quell the disappointment that Mitch wasn’t there. “Good morning,” she called out, getting to her feet. “Coffee smells great.”
Betzi got a cup for her, shooting a warning look to her mother. “Morning, m’dear. What was it, couch night?”
Jenna fixed her coffee with lots of sugar, then nibbled on a muffin from the platter. “What do you mean?”
“Mitch spent the night on the couch in the gathering room. Not that it’s the first time he’s done that, but it was just funny coming in and finding you both on the couch. Different couches,” she amended quickly.
“I didn’t know he’d even come back. I mean, I don’t know when he came in.” But he had come back. Had he seen her on the couch? Probably not, though she’d had that strange dream that he’d touched her cheek. “Is he up yet?”
“Up and out to the stables,” Etta said, running her fingers through her Rah Rah Red hair. Or was it Cheeky Cherry? “You want me to take you out there? Bet you could meet Dave and all the others.”
“I already met Dave,” she said, taking her coffee in hand. “You know, I got the impression he likes older women. Much older women. Well, got to get dressed.”
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