Fugitive Bride

It was Peggy who had spoken, however. Geoff’s wife. Once everyone’e eyes were upon her, she went on.

‘I used to go to school with identical twins. They were the dead spit of each other, and liked to play awful jokes on everyone, swapping places all the time. But then one of them had an accident in the playground, running into another boy and chipping his front tooth. After that, we could always tell them apart. Perhaps, young man, you have some physical defect that your brother didn’t have? That way this nice young lady could be sure. I can understand her reluctance to trust your word alone, if your brother is such a bad egg.’

Peggy’s suggestion had clearly pole-axed him, his shoulders stiffening with instant tension.

Leah’s stomach turned over when she saw that tell-tale muscle twitch along his jawline. Gerard did that all the time when put into an awkward or unpalatable position. His jaw muscle had twitched just like that when she’d told him she was bored that morning at breakfast, and also at a dinner party one night, when a Brisbane alderman had told him he would never pass a development Gerard had submitted to council.

That alderman had not been voted in at the upcoming election, when a sex scandal had erupted around him.

Her heart began to beat faster. So she’d been right all along. He was Gerard.

Everyone was staring at him now, staring and waiting. An electric tension filled the air.

‘There must be something, man,’ Alan grated out.

‘There is a scar,’ he said, startling Leah, since Gerard did not have a single flaw on his beautiful male body.

‘But, frankly, it’s a bit embarrassing to show, given its position. I’ll give you a look, Alan, and you can tell Leah about it.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘THAT’S not good enough!’ was Leah’s instant reaction, and everyone’s eyes swung round to glare at her.

Their obvious exasperation with her ongoing attitude met with a defiantly lifting chin. ‘Scars can be faked. I want to see it for myself. I think I have that right.’

Alan rolled his eyes, but the object of her scepticism merely shrugged. ‘If you insist.’

‘Geez, Leah,’ Alan muttered. ‘If it was anyone else…’ He shook his head at her. ‘All right. Take him below and set your stubborn mind at rest. But let that be an end to this bloody nonsense! Meanwhile, I’ll get the old girl going. But don’t be too long, madam. I want you up on deck once we’re properly under way, complete with refreshment trays.’

His utter faith in Gareth’s identity unnerved Leah. Was she making a complete fool of herself here?

Probably. But how could she blindly trust what this man was telling her? It had been her blind trust which had landed her in trouble in the first place. No! She had to see this scar for herself, and judge if it was real or not.

Her heart began thudding behind her ribs as she made her way along the deck towards the cabin. She didn’t look over her shoulder to check if she was being followed. She could hear him right behind her. She could even smell him.

He smelt just like Gerard, she realised once they’d stepped into the confinement of the cabin. His body had that same scent which had always clung to Gerard’s skin. Her husband used to shower morning and night, after which he’d spray this very expensive cologne over his body. It was called East Meets West, and had an exotic, musky fragrance.

Leah had grown to love that smell, had learnt to associate it with a naked Gerard sliding into the sheets beside her at night. It had primed her senses for what was to come without his having to say a word, or even touch her body. Every nerve-ending would be instantly on alert, clamouring for release.

No way could she mistake that scent for another. The odds of Gerard’s long-lost twin using the same exclusive and expensive cologne were so remote as to be not worth considering.

This new situation threw Leah totally, because despite her other doubts she’d been half convinced by Alan’s logical arguments. But the cologne was much more conclusive evidence than a twitching jaw muscle. That could have been put down to similar body language. Her own brothers had some identical physical habits and they weren’t even identical twins.

But this… this could not be explained away so easily, neither could her ongoing physical reaction to the man. Why, even now, without looking at him, she felt her skin prickling, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. It wasn’t just his scent. It was his whole being. His sexual aura.

She could feel her own flesh, that finely tuned Gerard-programmed flesh, responding as it always had when he was near. Her pulse-rate picked up its beat. Her skin temperature rose. Her nipples hardened.

To have him witness this unwilling arousal would be the highest of humiliations! Shame forced her to pull herself together, then to turn and try to face him with apparent composure.

Leah experienced a deep satisfaction in her surprising ability to appear in total control. Gerard wasn’t the only one who could pretend, she realised.

It was to be thanked, however, that her colourful shorts and T-shirt were of the modern baggy variety. Anything clinging would have been a disaster.

‘Well?’ she said coolly. ‘Let’s see this scar. Or are you going to admit now, Gerard, that there isn’t one?’

He frowned at her for a moment, before lifting his hands abruptly to the waistband of his shorts. When he pulled open the securing stud and shot down the zipper, Leah gulped.

Just who was calling whose bluff here?

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he said.

Leah’s throat thickened when he dropped his shorts to his ankles, lifted his T-shirt, then yanked the narrow band of his white underpants downwards.

Her gasp reverberated with shock. But not the shock she’d been fearing. He didn’t expose himself. Not quite. What he did expose, however, was the largest, nastiest scar she’d ever seen. It zig-zagged its ugly way from his right hip down across his lower abdomen, ending in his groin: a lightning-strike of stark horror against his deeply tanned skin.

It was obviously not faked, or new. New scars were red, or pink, or even purple. Not white.

Gareth was also tanned all over. Gerard had never had the time for such frivolities as an all-over tan.

‘Touch it,’ he ordered curtly. ‘I think you’ll find it’s real enough.’

Leah shrank from doing any such thing.

‘Go on,’ he insisted. ‘I want you to be sure.’

Leah swallowed before reaching out with a tentative trembling hand. It wasn’t revulsion which made her hesitant, but a fear of touching him. Anywhere.

Suddenly it wasn’t the scar which was drawing her eyes but the rest of him, especially that which was being ineffectually contained by his briefs. Clearly he was an impressively equipped man, as impressive as his brother. But of course he would be, wouldn’t he? They were identical twins.

Leah’s gaze skittered back to the scar, her fingertip quivering as it made tentative contact with the puckered skin. When he flinched at her touch her hand immediately dropped away, her eyes jerking up to his.

‘H… how did it happen?’ she asked, appalled by her breathless state, plus the wild hammering of her heart.

‘A car accident some time back,’ came the curt reply. He bent abruptly and dragged his shorts back up to his waist. ‘A truck smashed into me at an intersection.’

Leah struggled with her feelings. Clearly the man standing before her wasn’t Gerard, yet he could still stir her sexually. Which said what of her feelings for her husband? Not much except that they must be very superficial, and shallow. Easily transferred from one twin to another.

She shook her head in confusion. That didn’t feel right, didn’t feel right at all. She’d loved Gerard. She still loved him. She was sure of it.

‘You still don’t believe me?’

She frowned up at her husband’s twin brother, and found excuses for his being able to turn her on. He did carry identical genes to Gerard, after all. When she looked at him, her brain automatically registered her husband’s face and body. It didn’t mean anything. It was simply an instinctive response which would fade in a few minutes.

‘No, I do believe you. It’s just hard, that’s all. I had no idea Gerard had a brother, let alone a twin. I’m still a bit shell-shocked. You have no idea how much you look like him.’

‘Oh, yes, I have,’ he said ruefully as he snapped the waistband of his shorts shut and pulled his T-shirt back down. ‘But looks are only skin-deep, Leah. Don’t judge me on them.’

‘I… I’ll try not to,’ she said, though she could not help feasting her eyes on his face and body. Slightly thinner than Gerard he might be, but he was still extremely attractive to her.

‘That’s good, because I’d like to speak to you further at some later date. I have to admit to being more than curious about you and my brother. For now, however, perhaps you’d better get back to doing your job before your boss loses his cool.’

All of a sudden the man himself popped his head through the cabin door, his long blond hair swinging around his bare shoulders. ‘You two sorted everything out?’

‘Perfectly,’ Gareth answered for them both, in the same decisive way Gerard had when dealing with people.

Leah groaned silently. She supposed there were going to be a lot of disturbing similarities about the two brothers. She was as curious about Gareth as he was about her, but the thought of spending more time with him sent her into a spin.

‘In that case, shake a leg with the food and drinks, Leah,’ Alan advised brusquely. ‘Perhaps Gareth can help you.’

‘Yes, I’d like that,’ he agreed, before Leah could say a word. ‘As long as my newly found sister-in-law doesn’t mind,’ he added, a sudden smile quite blowing Leah away. Smiling, he was as devastatingly handsome and charming as Gerard had been.

‘She won’t, if she knows what’s good for her,’ Alan grated out before abruptly disappearing.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Gareth asked, his eyes searching hers.

‘No. Not really. It’s just that…’

‘That what?’

That I can’t look at you without wanting to touch you again, came the awful secret admission. Without wanting you…

Leah tried to keep the shock from showing on her face.

It was only natural, she reasoned in desperation. He looked so much like Gerard. Smelt like him. Spoke like him. It was perfectly but perversely natural that her body, long starved of sexual satisfaction, would crave it from this man who so resembled the man she loved.

But, dear God, it was difficult to cope with.

‘I… I get upset when I look at you,’ she said quite truthfully.

His blue eyes clouded. ‘You hate Gerard that much?’

‘Yes,’ she said. It was the truth too. She loved him and hated him.

‘I see,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I’m sorry. The last thing I want is to upset you. But, other than my jumping overboard, I’m afraid you’re condemned to look at me occasionally. Under those circumstances, it’s better I help you serve, don’t you think? That way I’ll be standing beside you and not in front of you.’

She shook her head, a small wry smile playing on her lips. ‘I see you and your brother are more alike than in looks alone. You both have the gift of the gab. Gerard could talk his way out of the gallows, if needs be.’

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