by Alice Sharpe
“I didn’t,” Cody said. He pulled on his hat and turned. Behind him, he heard the door open and close. Banner was gone.
The guy was calling the cops? This Laura Green had to be some other woman, someone else who stole Cassie’s identity in a more subtle way than using her credit cards and flashing her driver’s license. And that meant Cassie’s fate was still unknown.
He took a deep breath, unsure what to do now. Go home? Wait for the cops to arrive and see if they knew something? Cassie’s fingerprints would be in the house if she’d been here…
Across the street and down at the corner, he caught sight of a woman in the process of turning away from him. Because of all the cars parked on the street, all he could see of her was from the shoulders up, but there was something about what he saw that spoke directly to him. Maybe it was the glisten of her gold hair in the weak autumn light. Maybe it was a glimpse of her profile his conscious mind had barely registered. Something.
He hurried down the stairs and the driveway, then had to wait for a line of cars to pass by on the street. By the time he got to the point on the opposite sidewalk where he’d seen the woman, she was gone.
He began walking in the direction he thought she’d taken. What had she been wearing? What color? He closed his eyes as he walked, trying to picture—
Blue. She’d been wearing something blue, up by her face, at least. A scarf, a collar, a jacket…
He was traversing a residential neighborhood filled with stately homes set back from the sidewalk. The leaves were turning, asters and dahlias were blooming. There were cars here and there, but few people.
After a very long block, the road hit an intersection and he was given a choice of three directions. He peered down each street. Two old people walked a poodle down one, the other was empty, and on the third a figure walked away from him at a pretty good pace.
He went in that direction. It was a woman, he could tell that much, and there might be something blue around her neck. He wasn’t sure how she’d managed to get that far ahead of him.
What was he doing? Why would Cassie have come back to that house after the accusations that must have been thrown right in her face? Banner said she went to the bus station. The chances the woman up ahead was actually Cassie were astronomical and yet he kept walking, forcing himself not to rush her, knowing such an action would spook any woman no matter who she was. And the only thing he knew for sure was he had to know the identity of this woman.
She turned left at the next corner. He waited until he was sure she couldn’t turn and see him, then ran to make it to the corner before she disappeared.
Too late. She was gone.
He walked fast now, looking closely at each house in turn. Still, he almost missed the door closing at the top of a flight of stairs that led to what appeared to be an apartment built over a detached garage. As he stood there, the drapes closed over a window.
The house that occupied the same property had an Apartment for Rent sign in its window. He walked up the path and knocked. The door was opened almost at once by an older man carrying a stack of books and a big set of keys.
“I’m here about the rental,” Cody said.
The man handed him the keys as he stepped outside. “My hands are full, so help me out. Take the blue one off the loop and give yourself a tour, okay? It’s the back unit I’m renting. You get a real nice view of the alley. I rented the front one to a little gal yesterday. You’re welcome to look at the place, only don’t bother my new tenant. When you’re done, slip the key in the mail slot here by my door. If you’re interested, my number is on the sign, call me this afternoon. No, wait, today it’s my turn to work at the library until closing time. Better call me tomorrow or drop by the library if you want. Ask for Stew. I’m running late.”
This was all said as Cody worked the blue key free. “Thanks,” he said, handing back the other keys.
“No problem.” The man hit the electronic button on his ring and the garage door rolled up. The garage itself looked huge, split into two sections. One side was laid out as a woodworking shop with a lot of nice equipment, a long workbench along the outside wall, and a heater for the cold winter months. The other side sheltered a vehicle. The man threw the books into the backseat of a vintage 1957 Chevy and took off, the garage door rolling closed after him.
Cody had no intention of touring the back apartment. He found the mail slot and slipped the key through the opening where it clinked as it landed inside the house.
He’d intended to show the homeowner Cassie’s photo, but it had all happened too fast; the fact that a lone woman had rented the place the day before fit. There was only one way to make sure, of course, so taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for another heaping dose of disappointment and walked toward the garage.
The stairs were pretty steep and ran against the side of the garage up to a landing. At the top of the stairs, you could either stop at the door of the front unit, or keep moving away from the street toward the unit in the back.
There was no peephole in the door, which meant whoever lived here had no way of knowing who was knocking. He rapped a few times and all but stopped breathing.
And as he waited he thought of the accusations Emerson Banner had leveled at Cassie. Lying, manipulating, stealing, murder. It was absolutely impossible to imagine Cassie doing any of that.
So, if the woman he hoped was his wife was actually someone else, was he about to come face to face with a murderer? And if it was Cassie? Had she changed so much she was capable of these terrible things?
His heart jammed in his throat as he heard footsteps sound inside. “Who is it?” a woman’s voice called. Im possible to tell whose voice, but the underlying tension rang out clear.
He mumbled, “Landlord,” and in that moment a jolt of doubt hit him so hard it was all he could do not to reach out and grab something for support.
What was he doing here? Why had he pursued her? She’d obviously left him behind, and yet he’d moved a piece of heaven and a whole lot of earth to find her while all the while she’d known exactly where he was. She could have come home if that was what she’d wanted.
Or could she have? Had he slammed the door that firmly in her face?
The door opened, catching on a chain after two inches, and he didn’t know who he hoped would peer out and see him. A stranger or his wife or maybe a murderer. Or maybe a woman who had managed to become all three?
The chain slid away and the door opened wider.
For one interminable moment, he stared into Cassie’s startled sky-blue eyes and couldn’t have felt more winded if a runaway horse had tossed him to the ground and landed on top of him. All these months he’d anticipated this moment.
But in the end, nothing had prepared him for the almost physical punch in his heart that came with the first glimpse of her face. The creamy skin, the gently arched brows, the too-wide mouth and slightly long nose, attributes that saved her from cuteness and transported her to true beauty.
And then his gaze dipped lower and everything changed forever.
The simple gold band he’d given her three years before still circled her ring finger.
What was new was the bulging belly beneath where her hand rested. She was pregnant.
And not just a little bit.
Chapter Three
“Cody,” Cassie said softly.
Her heart had been beating fast when she heard the knock: for the past twenty-four hours, she’d been expecting the police.
Instead, Cody.
There wasn’t a thing about him she didn’t know by heart. Not the way one eyebrow tended to lift when he spoke, not the exact shape of his lips or the dark brown of his eyes.
And not the shock that flashed in those eyes as he took in her changed appearance and began processing what it meant.
This was the moment she had tried so hard to avoid, the moment she’d had nightmares about. The moment when he saw her condition and undoubtedly leapt to one conclusion.
>
She cleared her throat. “How did you find me?”
“I saw you across the street from the Priestly house,” he said after a moment. “I…I followed you.”
She looked behind him toward the street. “Did anyone else see me?”
“I don’t think so. You didn’t call Emma Kruger when you said you would. She got worried.” His gaze once again dipped to Cassie’s protruding belly and the silence between them stretched tight. “Cassie? Can I come in?”
Cassie. Not Laura, not anymore. “Yes, of course,” she said. As she stepped aside, she once again scanned the empty street before hastily closing the door and turning back into the room. And then her gaze met Cody’s again.
She’d wondered, of course. How would she feel when she saw him again? Would the magic between them be gone, a victim of their fight? She folded her fingers into her palm as she steeled herself for what came next.
But why, why hadn’t she dressed nicer that morning? Why hadn’t she washed her hair or stuck on some lipstick? For something to do, she took the blue scarf from around her neck and looped it through the strap on her oversized hobo bag, her fingers trembling.
He finally cleared his throat. “When is the baby due?”
“A little over a month.”
His voice grew hesitant. “Is it…mine?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about it when you left?”
“You mean did I know I was pregnant when I told you it was time we start our family? No, I didn’t know.”
He swore softly, took off his hat and looked around the apartment. She knew what he saw. The place was a furnished dump, there were no two ways about it, but she’d arrived the day before in a panic and all she’d wanted was a refuge, no questions asked, four walls and a locked door.
“I don’t even know where to start,” he said, turning his steady gaze on her again.
How many times over the past few months had she scanned the faces of strangers, looking for him, wondering if he’d followed her, half-hoping he hadn’t, half-hoping he had? No one else looked like Cody Westin, though, not even his brothers, Adam and Pierce. There were family resemblances, to be sure, but Cody was the one a woman’s eyes strayed to. The perfectly balanced strong body, wide shoulders and clear-cut features all added up to a great-looking package, but it was something else, too, some sense of reserve and privacy about him that made a lot of women, women like her, melt inside.
Face it; he was so masculine it confused her. In fact at times during their marriage they had seemed like foreigners thrown together on the stagecoach of life, seeing each other, touching, but not speaking the same language.
“Do you know the police are looking for you?” Cody asked.
Her heartbeat doubled as her hands clenched at her sides. “I wasn’t sure. I guess it doesn’t surprise me. How do you know?”
“I spoke with Emerson Banner.”
Her heart leaped into her throat. “Did you tell him your name? Did you tell him mine?”
“Just our first names. He claims you had something to do with his mother-in-law’s death.”
Talking about Emerson Banner made the hairs rise on Cassie’s arms. “He’s a greedy, nasty man,” she said with a shudder. Those cold eyes of his had drilled into hers too many times for comfort. “His wife isn’t any better. They know I wouldn’t harm Mrs. Priestly. She was so kind to me. Did he tell you how worried she was the last few days of her life? Maybe I should have done things differently, I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure it out.”
The tears that welled in her eyes were unwelcome reminders of the stress that had been building since that night when Mrs. Priestly had sent Cassie to check out the garden. It had culminated two days later when she went to awaken the elderly woman and found her window open, a pillow over her face and signs of a weak struggle before she lost her life. The monitor had been disabled. Cassie had slept ten feet away in the adjoining room while Mrs. Priestly died.
“Banner also told me they caught you trying to steal jewelry,” he added.
She raised her gaze to his. “You believe him?”
“Hell, no, I don’t believe him. Of course I don’t.”
“What else did he tell you?”
“Nothing good.”
She had the distinct impression he was holding something back. “Just say it,” she coaxed. “I can take it.”
“Vera Priestly changed her will the day she died. She added you to her list of beneficiaries. You’re going to be a wealthy woman.”
Cassie inhaled dry air. “Why would she do that? Who told you this?”
“Her son-in-law, and who knows why she’d do it, but it sure provides a hell of a good motive for murder, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” she whispered. Yes, if she cared about money, which she didn’t. Still, to all the people in Cherrydell, especially the Banners, she must appear a penniless pregnant woman living in the shadows and desperate for every penny.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on,” Cody demanded. “Explain why a woman who didn’t know you that well left you a fourth of her estate.”
His tone of voice cut through her anxiety. “Wait just a second,” she said. “You don’t understand what’s been happening here, and I’m not going to stand by while you speak to me like I’m a stubborn idiot.”
Cody pulled his hat back on in a way always guaranteed to start a slow throb in her groin. “Pack up your stuff. It’s only a couple of hours back to Wyoming. We’ll call Sheriff Inkwell when we get home.” He dropped his hands and turned to the door. “I’ll go get the truck—”
“Cody, stop,” she said.
He turned back to her.
“Just stop. You can’t just throw me in the back of your truck. I’m not a stray heifer. We’re going to have to have an actual conversation about this, unless you want to continue to ignore it.”
“I’m not ignoring it,” he said, “I’m trying to prioritize. We have to get you away from here. If I’m going to have a child, I’d rather it wasn’t born in prison.”
“If? Listen, Cody Westin, there is no if.”
“I’m not the one who ran away.”
“Have you forgotten why I left?”
“No, I haven’t forgotten. But things are obviously different now.”
“Because having a baby is no longer an academic question? It’s a done deal so you’re going to step up to the plate, right?”
He narrowed his eyes.
She sighed deeply. They were right back where they started, except now another human being was involved. “We reached an impasse, Cody, you know that as well as I do. I wanted a family. You wanted to wait. Indefinitely. You asked me if I wanted a divorce and I said I’d think about it.”
“And you ran away instead.”
“No, I left to think about it. I packed a bag and drove away. What choice did I have? It was your ranch, your family—”
“Yours, too, Cassie.”
She took another deep breath. “I know. But that wasn’t enough for me, and you knew it when we got married.”
“But then you didn’t come back. You didn’t tell me where you were. You just disappeared.”
“That wasn’t the original plan,” she said, pacing because she couldn’t bear to stand still. “I just needed a few days to think and make some kind of decision. But then I discovered I was pregnant, and after our argument I didn’t know how to go home.”
“You could have driven down our road. That would have been a start.”
“And presented you with the one thing you made it clear you didn’t want?”
“I can’t believe this. I am not your father. I am not the kind of man who turns his back when things don’t go his way. You know that.” He narrowed his eyes again. “You didn’t think I could change, did you?”
She stared at him a second, then she nodded. “That’s not exactly true. I just knew if I came back pregnant you’d have to change, so I couldn’t trust that the change would be real.”
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br /> He rubbed his jaw as he stared at her, another gesture imprinted on her heart. “I seem to be in a no-win situation. All I really know for sure is you should have talked to me. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead.”
“I’m sorry about that, I truly am. I took the chicken way out.”
“When my detective reported someone else was using your car and identification, what was I supposed—”
He continued on but she couldn’t hear him over the roar in her ears. He’d hired a detective to find her? Of course—how else would he have found out about Emma Kruger? The news that he hadn’t sat on his pride ’til hell froze over as his father would have done came as a shock, and on top of all the other shocks of the week she felt her knees buckle.
And then his hands were under her elbows, supporting her, and his eyes showed concern. “Maybe you should sit down—”
“Maybe you should leave,” she said, stepping away from him, holding on to the back of a chair, unwilling to sit.
The silence stretched on until he took a deep, shuddering breath. “Come home with me now, Cassie. Let me help you through the next couple of months.”
“I know you want to help, but don’t you understand? I don’t want to raise a family with someone who resents me. I don’t want this baby to be my mistake and your burden. He or she deserves so much more.”
She turned away from him to give her eyes a rest. Looking at him was agony. To love him, to want him, and yet to know he didn’t really want the very center of her heart, the essence of her life…
Had she always wanted things Cody couldn’t give? Had she always been blinded by her own feelings?
“I don’t know what else to say,” he murmured.
“You’ve already said everything,” she said, turning back to face him. “It’s funny, I guess. I dreamed of the moment you would find me so many times. That you would hold me in your arms and beg me to come back, thrilled I was carrying your child. But you aren’t asking me to come back to you; you’re telling me I’m an obligation. You want me to come back so you’ll feel better, not because it’s what’s best for us.”