Twin Seduction

“Ah,” D.C. said. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?”

THROUGH THE WINDOW, Cash watched as Jordan went in to Pete Blackthorn’s room. Lea had come while they were still in the cafeteria to tell Jordan that the old man wanted to speak to her alone. As soon as Jordan finished with Pete, he was going to take her back to the ranch.

D.C.’s news had been a lot to absorb. He imagined Maddie must be struggling with it, too. But Dorothy and Adam Ware were strangers to her. To Jordan, they’d been part of a family she’d known all her life. And because of the two of them, her mother was dead.When they’d left the cafeteria, D.C. and Shay were making plans to return to his office and contact Jase’s friend Detective Stanton directly for the latest update on the investigation there. And Shay intended to get an arrest warrant for Daniel Pearson.

Cash tucked his hands in his pockets and tried to relax. They were in the home stretch. As soon as Shay and D.C. nailed down a motive and a definite connection and between Dorothy Ware and Pearson, the threat to Jordan should be over.

Right?

According to D.C., Dorothy Ware had denied orchestrating the attempted hit on Maddie. Instead, she’d tried to run her down with the same car that she’d used to run down Eva Ware—a car that ironically belonged to Jordan’s mother.

If Dorothy Ware preferred to handle things by herself, who had hired the man who’d tried to run them off the road yesterday? Or the sniper who’d taken a shot at Maddie?

Something—the same feeling that he often got on cattle drives when he sensed an unseen danger to his herd—told him that it wasn’t time to relax his guard yet. Not until they had all the dots connected.

He watched Jordan pull up a chair to Pete Blackthorn’s bedside. She was frightened. Cash had felt it in the way she’d gripped his hand on the ride up in the elevator. What that wild ride down the hill yesterday hadn’t accomplished, a meeting with an old man had. And it wasn’t merely that she was going to ask him about an untapped vein of turquoise. If he was up to answering, she was going to ask him what he knew about her parents’ marriage and why they’d separated. And why they’d decided to separate their two daughters.

He wanted those answers, too, he realized. He glanced at the door to Pete’s room, which was opened just a crack. He wasn’t above eavesdropping to get them. He also wanted to know why Eva had decided to bring her two daughters together only after her own death. He thought he understood why she’d asked them to change places. It was a quick way to force them to get to know one another. And if she had the kind of tunnel vision Jordan had described when it came to her business, she would have wanted Maddie to experience what it would be like to work at Eva Ware Designs.

But had she given even one thought to the fact that she might be putting them in mortal danger with the terms of that will?

He moved closer to the door where he could still keep Jordan in view through the window. He wanted to go to her. He couldn’t. All he could do was stand in the background and try to provide what support he could. Her shoulders were just as tense as they’d been when she’d been setting up the display of Maddie’s jewelry earlier in the day. But she was just as ready to face what Pete might tell her as she’d been to meet the dealers at the show.

He thought of what she’d been through since she’d changed places with her sister. Jordan Ware was amazing.

PETE’S EYES were closed, so Jordan sat there in silence, not wanting to disturb him. His hands were bandaged and an IV was still attached to one of his arms. He looked even more fragile and vulnerable than he had when she’d sat beside him on that ledge.

Her head was still spinning from the news that D.C. had relayed to them in the cafeteria.Aunt Dorothy had murdered her mother. And she’d tried twice to kill Maddie. Every time Jordan tried to reconcile those acts with the controlled and sophisticated society matron she’d known all of her life, she began to get a headache. Dorothy Ware was a woman who seemed to have everything she wanted. She was married to a very rich man. She led a prominent social life, one that frequently got her mentioned in the society pages. She served on prestigious cultural and charity boards, and she lived in a mansion.

If it was hard for her to imagine Dorothy as a killer, it was a lot less difficult for her to believe that her cousin, Adam, had developed a gambling problem and decided to turn to a loan shark for help. But that he’d actually had the guts to rob Eva Ware Designs to pay off his debts? That was a shocker.

Secrets, Jordan thought. They seemed to run in her family. Jordan wondered if she’d ever really known any of her relatives—including her mother.

When she saw Pete’s eyes flutter open, nerves and excitement began to dance in her stomach. Maybe he would be able to expose some of them.

“Ah, you’re here.” His voice was surprisingly strong for a man who’d gone through what he had in the past two days. “Wondered if I’d ever get to see you again.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Jordan hastened to say. “The doctors—”

“My granddaughter has filled me in on my prognosis,” Pete interrupted. “Even though there’s nothing wrong with my hearing. Dr. Salinas explained that with time I should recover eight-five percent use of both hands. I got it.”

Jordan bit back a smile at the cranky tone.

“Need to tell you some things,” he said. He jerked his head at the IV drip “—and there’s no telling when the stuff they’re pumping into me will have me falling asleep again.”

“I’m listening,” Jordan said. “And if you doze off, I’ll wait right here until you wake up again.”

“Good.” Pete narrowed his eyes on her. “First, tell me where Maddie is.”

Jordan had to work to keep her mouth from dropping open. What she read in his eyes sent any thought of continuing with her masquerade flying. “She’s in Manhattan. How did you know I wasn’t Maddie?”

A trace of a smile flickered briefly on his face. “Wish I could tell you I recognized you. But I stopped by the ranch a few days ago, and your sister left notes by the phone. Wanted to tell her something. Your name was there on a pad by the phone along with a reservation number for a flight to New York. When I came to on the cliff and noticed your hair was different, I figured you for Jordan.”

Jordan felt her stomach take a little tumble. “You knew about me, then?”

“Held you in my arms when you were a baby. Your sister, too. Your grandfather and I were close friends. He let me prospect anywhere I wanted to on his land. When he passed on, your dad was in his twenties. I took to stopping by to see how he was doing. Not that he needed anyone to keep tabs on him. Mike Farrell was born to be a rancher. And occasionally, he could even beat me at chess.”

“So you knew my mother?”

“Yes. Surprised me that she decided to put the two of you in contact after all these years.”

Jordan moistened suddenly dry lips. “Why did they separate us? Do you know?”

He frowned then. “Your mother didn’t tell you?”

Jordan shook her head. “She can’t. She’s dead.” Then she gave Pete the Reader’s Digest version of the terms of her mother’s will and what had happened so far.

When she finished, he shook his head. “Hard on the two of you. I never did agree with what Mike did. Advised him against it. But he loved her. I’m not suggesting that she didn’t love your father. She did. But to my way of thinking, he loved her more. And when he realized he had to let her go, you were the one gift he insisted on giving her.”

“What?”

“He gave her you.”

“I don’t understand.”

Pete shook his head sadly. “Neither did I. Eva was just out of college when she came out to Santa Fe. There was a job her family wanted her to take back on Long Island, but she didn’t want it. What she wanted was for them to finance her so that she could start her own business as a jewelry designer. But when her brother and her father ganged up against her, she took what money she had and ran away to follow her dream. She came to Santa Fe because she wanted to study the Native American designers and work with turquoise. She and Mike met one day, and it was love at first sight. The kind you read about in books. You understand?”

Jordan nodded. A ripple of fear moved through her because she thought she did.

“Everything was fine—just like the fairy tales. Three weeks to the day after they met, they got married.”

“Three weeks?”

“Twenty-one days. Mike crossed them off on a calendar. He’d wanted to tie the knot on day two, but she’d insisted they wait. In three weeks they’d be more certain of what they wanted. After the wedding, Mike built her a studio so that she could design jewelry to her heart’s content. Then she got pregnant. Mike was ecstatic. She wasn’t. Morning sickness kept her from her work. And when it passed, she buried herself in her studio as if she was racing against the clock.”

Knowing her mother, Jordan thought she understood. “Eva was a very focused person. She was probably worried that becoming a mother would interfere with her goal of becoming a top designer.”