Twin Seduction

“Neither have Maddie and I.”

“Until last night,” she shot at him.

“But it turns out that I wasn’t making love to Maddie. I was making love to you. And I want to do it again.”

There was a note of determination in his tone that had Jordan throwing her hands out in front of her. “No way.” She might have been more successful in keeping the panic at bay if she wasn’t right on the same page that he was. And the way he was looking at her, she bet he was reading her like a book.

“You thought you were making love to Maddie, and then you asked her to marry you.

“No, I asked her to get engaged to me.”

“Whatever!” Jordan waved a hand. “The proposal makes this whole situation even worse. I just met my sister a few days ago and since then I’ve slept with the man who wants to get engaged to her. Way to go, Jordan.”

“Where is Maddie?”

“She’s in New York City. We’ve changed places. It’s a long story.”

“I’ve always liked stories.”

When Cash moved as if to get out of bed, Jordan’s panic grew, and she started toward the bedroom door. “You stay right there. I’m going into the kitchen and I’m going to make some coffee. Then you’ll have your story.”

Cash rose from the bed and reached down to scoop up his jeans. “Sounds good.”

Keep your eyes straight ahead. But before she made it out of the room, Jordan caught a good glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye. It was enough to trigger a barrage of sensations. Heat. Lust. Longing.

She could feel him grinning at her as she hot-footed it through the door.

CASH TWISTED the faucets to the off position and reached for a towel. After a ten-minute cold shower, his mind had cleared a bit. While he’d been in the same room with her, fantasies had pushed and then lingered at the edge of his mind. More than once, he’d been sorely tempted to scoop her up and tumble her back into bed.

After hanging up the towel, he pulled on his clothes and shoved his feet into his boots. He’d used the bathroom off what had been Mike Farrell’s room so that he wouldn’t run into her. And so he could think.He had a lot of questions about the things Jordan Ware hadn’t yet told him. Like who exactly she was, why she and Maddie had changed places and why they hadn’t known about each other for twenty-six years.

It surprised him a little that he was leaning toward accepting that she was indeed Maddie’s identical twin. It would certainly explain his response to her, but not once in all the years he’d known Mike and Maddie Farrell had he heard a hint of a sister. The story he’d been told was that her mother had died when she was an infant.

He had to wonder if his parents had known about a twin. His mother had passed on when he was twelve, but he figured she must have been aware of the situation. So must his father. But there’d never been a word spoken.

If Jordan Ware was telling the truth, why all the secrecy? Who had finally revealed the secret and why?

Exiting the bathroom, he heard the faint sound of running water from the direction of Maddie’s bathroom. So he had a short reprieve before he saw her again. Good.

Cash strolled into the large, open space that housed both the living room of the ranch and the kitchen and headed straight for the coffeemaker. The carafe was still half-full, and Jordan had been thoughtful enough to set out a mug for him. Grateful, he filled it to the brim and took a long swallow.

He should have known that she wasn’t Maddie. Why hadn’t the change in hairstyle tipped him off? As long as he’d known her, Maddie had worn her hair long and in a braid. Either that or she’d twist it up into some kind of knot at the back of her head. She didn’t like to fuss much about her appearance, perhaps a result of being raised surrounded by males. No manicures and pedicures for her.

Jordan looked as if she took quite a bit of time with her appearance. Probably had regular appointments for those nails. Had he simply not questioned the differences because of the way that Jordan had blindsided his senses last night?

Maybe. It was hard to be sure because he’d never experienced anything like Jordan Ware before. Her effect on him was baffling. But he was going to figure it out.

At the sound of a door closing, he took another quick swallow of coffee, then turned and leaned his hip against the counter. To brace himself? If he’d had any question about how she’d affect his senses this morning, it was more than answered when she stepped into view and strode toward him. He felt an immediate snap and sizzle in his blood, and a hard tug of desire. Basic. Elemental.

“I tried to phone Maddie, but the phone’s dead.”

For a moment, Cash didn’t answer. He was too caught up in absorbing her. In the sunlight pouring through the windows, he could see more differences between the women. Maddie’s presence was quiet, perhaps more controlled. Jordan radiated a certain energy. And she was wearing makeup. He’d never noticed any on Maddie. Jordan’s was subtle, but she’d done something to make her eyes seem larger, and her mouth was painted a soft shade of rose. Hunger stirred sharply inside of him. When he found his gaze lingering on her lips just a bit too long, he took another swallow of coffee.

“Did you hear what I said?” she asked.

Cash dug for what she’d said. “The phone’s dead. I thought I heard it ringing earlier. It’s what woke me up, in fact.” He shrugged. “Lots of time service is intermittent after a storm. It’s not unusual for it to go on and off for up to twenty-four hours.”

“My cell doesn’t work, either.” She moved to the coffeepot, and her arm nearly brushed against his as she refilled the mug she was carrying.

Her scent was just what he remembered—flowery, exotic—and it rekindled memories of the hot, sweaty sex they’d shared. He was surprised at how much he wanted to reach out and touch just a strand of her hair. He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed when she moved to the other side of the granite-topped island.

Cash drew in a deep breath. Growing up on a ranch, he’d had to learn to adapt and go with the flow. The weather changed, the price of beef varied. So he was just going to have to learn to handle Jordan Ware’s effect on him. Problem was, he just wanted to handle her, period.

JORDAN SIPPED COFFEE and made herself meet Cash Landry’s eyes across the expanse of granite. It had been a mistake to get that close to him. Especially when he looked so good. With that long lean body, that ruggedly handsome face and those intent gray eyes, the man gave the words boy toy new meaning.

And the fact that she was even thinking of him that way shocked her. She’d never been a boy-toy kind of woman, but the idea was becoming very seductive. She thought that she’d pulled herself together while she was showering, but as she refilled her mug, she caught his scent again—pure cowboy, soap and leather and horses—and she’d wanted to jump him.Wasn’t that what had gotten her into this mess?

Very firmly, Jordan reminded herself of the conclusion she’d arrived at while she was showering. She was going to treat this as a business problem—solve it and put it behind her. Boy toys were off the agenda. She and Cash Landry were not going to repeat the little scenario they’d enacted during the night.

“Does your cell work? I need to talk to Maddie.”

Cash regarded her steadily over the rim of his cup. “I’ve never been able to get a signal on the Farrell Ranch. It’s in one of those blackout zones. Why do you need to talk to Maddie?”

“Why?” Setting her mug down, Jordan began to pace. “I need to talk to her about you and me.” She waved a hand. “Us. And what we did last night.”

“Why?”

Jordan paused to glare at him. “Because I just slept with a man who wants to get engaged to her.”

“I can explain that.”

She raised a hand, palm outward. “I don’t want an explanation. I just want my sister to know that I didn’t sleep with you on purpose. I thought you were a dream. I have a weakness for westerns, and I was watching The Big Country—”

“Gregory Peck, Jean Simmons and the feud over the Big Muddy.”

She stared at him. “You know the movie?”

“It was one of Mike’s—your father’s—favorites. Maddie didn’t like westerns, so he roped me into watching it with him a few times.”

“So it was my father who read all those westerns in the library?”

“Whenever he could find the time.”

Something inside of her warmed. Then she refocused. “I want to explain to Maddie that it was because I was watching that movie that I had this dream.”

“About me making love to you.”

She fisted her hands on her hips. “No. I wasn’t dreaming of you. I was dreaming about making love to Gregory Peck.”

“I wasn’t dreaming, Jordan.”

She pointed a finger at him. “No, you believed you were making love to Maddie. And then you proposed to her. I just have to figure out a way to explain it to her.”

“It seems to me that we were both victims of circumstance.”

Jordan’s temper flared. “I don’t know about you, pal, but I don’t like to think of myself as a victim.”