Aquamarine (3 page)

She tested her moving parts, checking for damage, and decided she was only bruised, not broken. Her white pants were a dead loss, though, and, dammit, they were brand new. She sighed. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Let me help you.”

Shea grabbed his proffered hand, not realizing until it was too late that the hand didn’t belong to the teenage tank who’d run her down. This hand wasn’t pudgy and
freckled. It was broad and callused and attached to a sinewy brown forearm. Her gaze moved up past bulging biceps to broad shoulder, muscled chest, white tank top. Her heart fluttered like a bird tangled in a net, and all she could think of was, thank goodness she hadn’t set off alone on that dark, deserted path under the pines. As long as there were other people in sight, she still had a chance.

The small, discreet logo on his shirt said
HARRIS LANDSCAPING, LIBERTY, IDAHO.
Obviously, he was a local. Local what, was the question. Local pervert? Local rapist? Local psycho?

He pulled her to her feet in one smooth movement but didn’t release her hand.

Shea tried to tug her fingers free, but the man had a grip like a vise. Her heart rate accelerated. She glanced up to meet his gaze.

A mistake. His expression was implacable, his eyes as hard and gray as the granite of the surrounding mountains. The corners of his mouth were twisted in a sardonic travesty of a smile. “I’ve been waiting for you, Kirsten.”

Her throat went dry. Small hairs prickled along her forearms and the back of her neck.
Kirsten?
That was one of the names on the postcard that had sparked her interest in visiting Liberty:

Shea took a deep, calming breath. “You’re making a mistake. I’m not Kirsten.” Again she tried, unsuccess
fully, to pry his fingers from her hand. The man was second cousin to a pit bull. “My name’s McKenzie. Shea McKenzie.”

“Prove it.”

She lifted her chin. “Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to haul your pretty little hind end down to the sheriff’s office and let you do your explaining to him.” His eyes glittered a warning. He meant what he said.

Shea’s mind raced. Obviously, this was a case of mistaken identity. So the quickest way to get him off her back was to prove who she was. Or who she wasn’t. “You don’t believe me? Fine. Let go of my hand for five seconds and I’ll dig my wallet out of my purse.”

He eyed her warily. “If you’re planning to pull another disappearing act …”

“No tricks,” she promised.

He released her hand and she retrieved her wallet, flipping it open to display her Ohio driver’s license. “See? Shea McKenzie. Says so right there in black and white.”

He frowned. “ID can be faked.”

“It’s not fake. It’s who I am. Ask my parents if you don’t believe me.”

“All right. How do I contact them?”

Shea cleared her throat. “Well, actually, I suppose you can’t. At least not right now. They’re touring Europe this summer.”

He smirked. “How convenient. What about grandparents? Brothers or sisters?”

“Dead. The grandparents, I mean. And I’m an only child. But I have dozens of friends back in Ohio who will vouch for me.”

“I’m sure they will.” He circled her wrist with one hand and drew her a step closer. “You told them your name was Shea McKenzie and they have no reason to doubt it. Whereas both of us know different, don’t we, Kirsten?”

She really had the innocent-bystander act down pat. Teague studied her face. Kirsten’s mouth. Kirsten’s nose. Kirsten’s finely arched brows. And most damning of all, Kirsten’s distinctive aquamarine eyes. Rainey eyes.

Despite her protests, this woman had to be Kirsten. And if her face weren’t enough to convince him, there was the stubborn tilt of her chin, the athletic grace of her stride. Even her voice was Kirsten’s.

He shook his head slowly from side to side. “Nice try, but I’m not buying it. How could I forget this face?” He outlined the contour of her cheek with his forefinger.

She jerked away from his touch. “Don’t,” she said. The pulse at her wrist raced beneath his fingers.

“Don’t what?” He trailed the back of his hand down her throat. “This?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and drew a long, shuddering breath. “Just don’t. Please don’t. I’m not your friend Kirsten.” There was a note of desperation in her voice, panic evident in the taut lines of her face. “You’ve got to believe me!”

A sudden doubt assailed him. What if he was wrong? What if she was exactly who she said she was? Lots of people had doubles. Look at all those celebrity look-alikes. “Oh, hell.” He released her wrist and folded his arms across his chest. “Okay. Convince me. Prove you’re Shea McKenzie, and I won’t bother you anymore.”

Irritation erased the fear shadowing her eyes. “You already saw my driver’s license. What else can I show you?”

“A birth certificate might do it.”

“Oh, sure. I always carry a copy of my birth certificate around with me.” She fell silent, frowning in concentration. Then she gave a sharp exclamation. “Wait! I
do
have something else—pictures.”

“Pictures?” he echoed.

“Right. Photographs.” She flipped through her wallet, then handed him a well-worn print of a studio portrait. “Me with my mom and stepdad,” she announced in triumph. “I was twelve. The picture’s a special one. It was taken the day the adoption was final, the day I gained a father and officially became a McKenzie.” She smiled.

The girl in the picture looked like her, but …

“Photographs can be doctored.”

“That one wasn’t. And neither was this one.” She handed him a snapshot. “My parents and me again. This one was taken at the Toledo airport just before they flew to London.”

Teague compared the snapshot with the family portrait. The adults were older but easily recognizable. She was telling the truth. “I’ll be damned.”

“Probably.”

“You really aren’t Kirsten, are you?”

“No. I’m not.”

At the far end of the carnival grounds, the Tilt-A-Whirl riders screamed in noisy pleasure, their ecstatic squeals punctuated by the staccato bursts of firecrackers in the distance. A chilly little breeze off the lake stirred the pines and raised gooseflesh on Teague’s bare arms.
He swatted at a mosquito buzzing hopefully around his head.

“I’m sorry,” he said at length. Then, aware of the inadequacy of the apology, he dug his own wallet from his jeans pocket, searched for a particular picture, and passed it to her without another word.

It was a print of a slender, dark-haired girl in shorts and bare feet. She stood poised at the end of a dock against a background of sapphire water and emerald pines. She was laughing into the camera as if she had just pulled off the practical joke of the century.

“It’s me,” Shea said. “At least it looks like me. Is this Kirsten?”

He nodded.

“No wonder you were so sure I was lying. I’m a dead ringer for her. How spooky.”

And under the circumstances, how fortuitous. “Look, Ms. McKenzie, I know now I was way out of line. I realize I must have scared you, and I apologize for that, but …” This wasn’t going to be easy. How do you tactfully ask someone to assume a false identity?

“But what?”

Oh, hell.
“I have a proposition for you. It’s a little complicated, though. Why don’t we discuss it over coffee?”

Shea stared at him, astonished at his nerve. The man had threatened her, manhandled her, and in general scared her silly. She didn’t owe him a damn thing.

“I don’t think so.”

“Shea?”

It was the first time he’d spoken her name. The echo
of that single soft syllable seemed to shiver down her spine.

Dammit, she couldn’t let him get to her. She stared at the ground. “No. My mother always warned me about talking to strangers. I don’t even know your name.”

“Harris,” he said, touching the logo on his tank top. “Teague Harris.”

Teague.
It suited him. Two little kids raced past, twirling sparklers. In the distance she heard the
pop
of bottle rockets.

“Shea?” He touched her arm and set off a few fireworks of his own.

Startled, she glanced up.

“Please?” The look of entreaty on his face combined with the distraction of his hand on the bare skin of her forearm was more than she could withstand.

“Okay. I’ll listen.”

He smiled, and Shea’s stomach did a freefall. Oh, brother. What had she let herself in for?

They ended up at the Liberty Lodge Coffee Shop, the only place in town open at that hour. Teague, who’d missed dinner, ordered a cheeseburger and fries. Shea chose the number-three special from the breakfast menu.

“My first impression was right. You are a certifiable nutcase.” She shook a forkful of waffle at him, looking eerily like Kirsten from the sweep of her heavy sable lashes to the tempting fullness of her teasing mouth. He wanted … Oh, hell. What did it matter what he wanted?

He stabbed a fry with more energy than necessary. “What’s so crazy about trying to grant a dying man’s
wish? Jack Rainey has cancer. His time is running out. All he wants is to see his daughter once more before he dies. Where’s the harm in that?”

“Well, for starters, I’m not his daughter. Impersonating an heiress—isn’t that fraud or bunco or something?”

He frowned. “It would be if you were trying to profit by it, grab a big inheritance, but this isn’t about money.”

“No? Then what is it about?”

“I told you. Granting a dying man’s wish.”

She eyed him skeptically. “You’re willing to invest hours in coaching me to impersonate your missing fiancée just to please her father?” She licked whipped cream off the tines of her fork, and the sight of her pink tongue flicking in and out distracted him for a moment.

Kirsten had always picked at her food. Shea ate with obvious enjoyment, so much so that he was about half turned on just watching her. He took a deep breath, trying to remember what they’d been talking about. Oh, yeah. She’d questioned his motivation. Hell, after the way he’d frightened her, the truth was the least he owed her. “When Kirsten disappeared,” he said, “it just about killed her father. He paid the ransom, did everything the kidnappers demanded, but he never saw his daughter again. Afterward, he blamed himself for not calling the FBI in sooner.

“Once his younger daughter was born, he seemed to come to terms with his loss. She looks so much like you—” He stopped. “Like Kirsten, I mean.” He took a sip of his coffee. “But then when this cancer hit, when he realized he didn’t have much time left, Kirsten’s disappearance started to prey on his mind again.”

The way it had on his. Not a day went by that he didn’t think of Kirsten, wonder what had happened to
her, wonder who had been responsible for her disappearance and if things might have turned out differently if he hadn’t lost his temper the day she told him about the baby.

“But you’re right,” Teague continued. “I do have another, more selfish reason for wanting you to masquerade as Kirsten.” He stared at the window, where moths battered themselves against the glass in a futile attempt to reach the light. Not a bad metaphor for his own existence these last seven years. He’d learned all there was to know about futility, frustration, and shattered dreams.

Shea eyed him warily. “What reason?”

“No one collected the ransom.”

She gave him a blank look.

“Don’t you get it? No one collected the ransom because she was never really kidnapped. I mean, what’s the point of snatching an heiress, demanding a huge ransom, then not picking it up?”

“But—”

He ignored her interruption. “What if sending a ransom note was just a cover-up designed to throw the authorities off the track?”

“Okay, granted that’s what happened, what do you think Kirsten’s involvement was? Did she run away? Send the ransom note herself?”

“No.” Kirsten had been frivolous at times, stubborn and willful frequently, but cruel? Never. She wouldn’t have hurt her family by running away. Or him, either. No matter how angry she was.

Murdered.
The ugly word remained unspoken, but Teague watched the realization dawn on Shea.

“You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

He nodded. “It’s what I’ve suspected from the beginning, though I have no proof and no suspect.”

She frowned at the remnants of her waffle. “I still don’t get it,” she said after a pause. “How would my posing as Kirsten help?”

Teague faced her directly. If she agreed to go along with his scheme, she had to know it all. “I want you to help me flush out Kirsten’s murderer. I want him to pay.”

She tried to pick up her water glass, but her hand was shaking too badly. “So I’m what? The bait? I don’t think so.” She clenched her hands together. “Besides, what possible good would it do for me to pose as Kirsten? Her murderer, if there is a murderer, would realize right away I’m a fake.”

“Yes, but it might shake him up. Rattle him enough, and he’s bound to make a mistake.”

Shea’s crooked little half-smile wasn’t meant to be sexy, but that’s how his body interpreted it, responding in a way it hadn’t for a very long time.

She poked a strawberry. “The problem is, I’d be bound to make a mistake too. I may look like Kirsten, but I don’t have her memories. I couldn’t fool anyone, particularly not her family.”

“You fooled me.” He captured her left hand and ran his thumb back and forth across her palm. He felt her shiver slightly in response. “You are Kirsten Rainey down to the last detail.”

“Correction.” She tugged her fingers free. “I am Shea McKenzie down to the last detail. Shea McKenzie who just happens to resemble Kirsten Rainey.”

“To the last detail,” he said.

“Even if it is more than a superficial resemblance, I
still couldn’t get away with it. We’re two different people.”

“Don’t worry. I can fill you in on whatever background information you need to know. Besides, they’ll have no reason to doubt you. They’ll dismiss any mistakes you make as memory lapses. You won’t be around long enough for anyone besides the murderer to get suspicious.”