Strangers In The Night

Which brought up another question. Where was her boyfriend? “Do you mind telling me what you’re doing here?”

He looked at her like she was crazy. “I live here.”

“Adam Delaney lives here,” she countered, wrapping the sheet around her. Josie recognized the heavy oak bedroom furniture and the African art on the walls and the colorful Persian rug on the beige carpet. Everything was familiar—except him.

“I am Adam Delaney.” He met her gaze. “Don’t you remember calling out my name last night?”

She was in no mood to reminisce. “You are not Adam. Not my Adam, anyway. I think I know my own boyfriend.”

He frowned as he pulled on his boxer shorts, then rose to his feet. The man had a good three inches on her boyfriend and at least thirty pounds. How could she have let this happen? Adam would never believe her. Not in a million years.

“Look, lady,” he said, “I don’t know what your problem is, but I am Adam Delaney. This is my apartment. My bed.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Do I have to show you my identification?” he asked, walking over to the dresser. He retrieved his wallet and pulled out his driver’s license, along with his passport.

His name was there in black and white. Along with his other vital statistics. She stared at his picture, wondering if she was in the midst of some crazy nightmare. Then she spun on her heel and escaped into the living room. Feeling a little dizzy, she plucked her slacks and blouse out of her bag.

He followed her. “Now tell me who you are and how you got into my apartment.”

She tucked the sheet under her chin to cover herself and hastily pulled on her clothes. She had no intention of giving this stranger her name or any other information. He already knew her much too well.

“Something’s not right,” she said, more to herself than to him. “I know this apartment. I know Horatio. I know Adam Delaney—and you’re not him.”

“You can call my mother if you’d like,” he said wryly, leaning against the doorway. “She’ll tell you that’s been my name since the day I was born thirty years ago. She’ll also tell you that I’ve been on a photo shoot in South America for the past four months. I just got back yesterday.”

He had to be lying. Had he done something to her Adam? Hurt him? She finished dressing, then let the satin sheet fall to the floor. Her blouse was buttoned wrong, but she was too upset to care.

He advanced on her. “I think we should start over.”

Her gaze dropped to the sizable bulge in his boxer shorts. What exactly did he mean by start over? Josie didn’t intend to stick around long enough to find out. Whirling, she scooped up her overnight bag with one hand and ran toward the apartment door.

“Hey, wait a minute,” he called after her.

She heard heavy footsteps behind her and almost tripped over the cat. But she reached the front door before he did, slamming it behind her, then she raced for the elevator at the end of the long hallway.

Luckily, the elevator doors slid open as soon as she pressed the button. She stumbled inside, then turned around in time to see him step out of his doorway and into the empty hallway. He still wore his boxer shorts and a befuddled expression on his ruggedly handsome face.

But she was the one who was confused. He claimed to be Adam Delaney. Her Adam Delaney. It just didn’t make sense.

She jabbed several buttons on the elevator panel, not caring where she ended up as long as he didn’t follow her. She wanted to get as far away from this man as possible. To forget last night had ever happened.

But when their gazes locked in the moment before the elevator doors closed, she knew forgetting him wouldn’t be easy. Not when his touch was still branded on her skin and their lovemaking was still burned into her memory.

So she’d just have to settle for never seeing him again.

2

ADAM STARED AT THE ELEVATOR doors long after they had closed. His dream girl was gone. Worse, he realized she must be crazy. He also realized he’d never met her before, at the bar last evening or anywhere else. He’d known that as soon as he’d seen her this morning.

In his business, Adam never forgot a face. Hers was unique, with wide-set green eyes and high, sculpted cheekbones. He wouldn’t describe her as beautiful, though her full lips and the tilt of her nose added an interesting dimension to her face that sparked his interest as a photographer.

The way she’d seduced him last night sparked his interest as a man. He’d wanted to make love to her again this morning, but the gleam of fear he’d seen in her green eyes had held him back. Despite his taste for dangerous pursuits, Adam didn’t chase unwilling women. Or crazy ones.

With a sigh of disappointment, he walked back into his apartment, a dull throb in his head from too many beers the night before. Horatio was waiting by the door, his tail flicking impatiently behind him.

“You should have warned me,” he muttered, moving toward the kitchen. But even as he said the words, he couldn’t regret what had happened between him and his mystery lady. She’d touched his soul as well as his body, something no other woman could claim. Something he hadn’t thought possible.

He reached into the cupboard for the bag of cat food, then froze. The shelves were stocked full. Cans of soup and vegetables. Boxes of cereal and granola bars. Several bags of assorted pasta. His cupboards had been almost bare when he’d left home four months ago.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Horatio replied with a loud meow, pacing beside his empty cat bowl. Adam filled it, then placed the bag back into the cupboard as more questions filled his head. How had his dream girl gotten into his apartment last night? How did she know his cat’s name? How did she know his name?

Ten minutes later, he was fully dressed and ready for some answers. He knocked on the door directly across from his apartment, hoping Mrs. Clanahan was an early riser. His elderly neighbor had offered to feed and care for Horatio while Adam was out of the country. Before he’d left for Rio, he’d stocked up on cat food and kitty litter, then given her a spare key to his apartment.

Maybe Mrs. Clanahan could explain how all that food had magically appeared in his kitchen cupboards. And how that strange woman had magically appeared in his bed.

But when the door opened, it wasn’t Mrs. Clanahan who greeted him but a middle-aged man wearing a torn white T-shirt and a pair of baggy red shorts. An old game show rerun blared on the television behind him and the stench of rotting meat permeated the air.

“Yeah?” the man said, scowling up at him.

“I’m looking for Mrs. Clanahan.”

“She don’t live here no more.”

“Since when?”

“Since she fell down and broke her hip about three months ago. Her daughter lives in Florida, so she carted her down there and sublet this apartment to me.”

Mrs. Clanahan had often talked about how much she missed her daughter. Too bad she’d had to break her hip to spend time with her. He felt a moment’s concern about the sweet old lady’s injury, but he had another matter to deal with.

“And you are?”

“Clyde Buckley,” he replied, growing impatient. He craned his head over his own shoulder trying to watch his television show.

“So tell me, Mr. Buckley, what arrangements did Mrs. Clanahan make about Horatio?”

Buckley scowled as he turned back around. “Who the hell is Horatio?”

Adam hitched his thumb behind him. “The cat in the apartment across the hall. Mrs. Clanahan was supposed to feed him while…”

“Oh, yeah,” Buckley interjected, “that was part of the sublet agreement. But the guy came back early. Lucky thing, cause I’m allergic to cats.”

Apprehension skittered over Adam’s spine. “What guy?”

“The guy who lives there,” Buckley replied, scratching his belly. “Delaney. He picked up the key and even gave me twenty bucks for all my trouble.”

Adam didn’t want to believe the man, but Clyde Buckley seemed incapable of artifice. He seemed barely capable of walking upright. “Did you ask him for some kind of identification?”

“Why should I?” Buckley retorted. “He knew the name of the damn cat. Who are you anyway and why are you here asking all these questions?”

He clenched his jaw. “I’m Adam Delaney. You gave my key to the wrong man.”

Buckley stuck out his jaw. “So where’s your identification?”

For the second time that morning, Adam pulled out his wallet and flashed his driver’s license and passport.

Clyde Buckley leaned in for a closer look. “Okay, so it says your name is Adam Delaney. But you sure don’t look much like him.”

It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet and Adam wanted a drink, but his pounding head nixed that idea. “I think you mean he doesn’t look much like me.”

“Huh?”

Adam took a deep breath, trying not to lose his temper. It wasn’t Buckley’s fault that some jerk was trying to screw up his life. “Tell me what he looks like.”

His gaze drifted to the television set. “Who?”

“Delaney.”

Buckley looked back at him. “I thought you said you’re Delaney.”

“I am,” he snapped. “I mean the man who told you he was me.”

“Oh.” Buckley crinkled his brow. “I can’t really remember—I only saw him once or twice.”

“Try.”

The older man shrugged. “Maybe about six feet. Skinny. Needed a haircut.”

“What else?” Adam asked, wanting specific details. “How about the color of his hair? His eyes? The kind of car he drives? Anything at all you can tell me.”

Buckley snorted. “Hell, I don’t know. I mind my own business around here, you know?”

“Did you ever see him with a woman?”

“Like I said, I mind my own business.” Buckley paused for a moment. “There was a broad who showed up at his door once in a while, but don’t ask me to describe her, ‘cause she sure wasn’t worth remembering.”

Then it couldn’t be his dream girl. Adam mentally kicked himself for letting her go. He’d never find her again in a city of over two million people. She might be the only one who could answer all of his questions.

“I gotta go,” Buckley said. “They’re about to spin the big wheel.”

The door closed in his face before Adam could say another word. He stared at it a moment, tempted to kick it down in frustration. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything except alienating his new neighbor.

He turned around and walked back inside his apartment.

Adam couldn’t deny it any longer. Someone had been impersonating him. But who? And for what reason? To find the answers, he began a thorough search of the apartment, hoping to find some clue to the man’s real identity. He started with the bedroom, but the only thing he found that didn’t belong to him was a lone black sock underneath the drapes.

When he walked into the living room, his gaze fell on the bookshelf. Two books caught his eye. He walked over and pulled them out, noting a sticker on each spine from the Denver Public Library. Books he hadn’t checked out.

“Success at Any Price,” he muttered, reading one title. Then he looked at the other book. “How to Change Your Life Forever.”

His darkroom yielded more evidence. It had been a small bedroom that he’d converted into a darkroom to allow him to develop pictures at home. Several items had been moved and one of his old cameras was missing.

He continued his search, even digging though the trash cans in the bathroom and kitchen. It was clear from the amount of garbage he found that someone had been living here recently. Someone pretending to be him.

Adam strode into his office and opened his file cabinet. All his files were neatly in place, but that didn’t mean the impostor hadn’t combed through his records. They detailed almost everything about his life. Bank accounts and insurance policies. His professional contacts. Even all the names, addresses and telephone numbers of his family and friends in his hometown, Pleasant Valley, Colorado.

Adam had to figure out what the impostor had done with this information. But first, he needed to contact Cole Rafferty, a good friend and local private investigator, to find out just how badly this guy had screwed up his life. Then he’d call his editor at Adventurer magazine and tell him the trip to New Zealand would have to be delayed for a while. Because he wasn’t going anywhere until his life was his again.

ON MONDAY MORNING, Josie rushed into the main branch of the Denver Public Library just before the doors opened to the public. Always punctual and professional, she drew stares from the other employees as she hurried to her desk. No doubt they’d all go into a state of shock if they were to discover Josephine Sinclair had spent Saturday night in the arms of a stranger.

A fact she didn’t plan to divulge to anyone.

But she couldn’t put it behind her, either. She’d spent most of last night tossing and turning in bed, then slept through her alarm this morning. Running late for work had only made her feel more harried, more out of control.

If only she’d never gone through with that surprise midnight seduction. But Josie so often resisted the urge to do something wild and spontaneous that she’d been unable to help herself.

With disastrous results.

After settling in behind her desk, she straightened her nameplate and the electric pencil sharpener, then untangled the telephone cord. She had to put her life in order again. But to do that she needed some answers.

As a reference librarian, she excelled at providing information to patrons on some of the most bizarre subjects imaginable. Now she was the one in need of information. Cold, hard facts about Adam Delaney that would tell her why she’d found a stranger in her boyfriend’s bed.

By late morning, she’d discovered enough to start a folder. Inside, she placed back issues of Adventurer magazine that featured his photographs and added printouts of newspaper articles she’d found on the Web site of his hometown, Pleasant Valley, Colorado.

What she hadn’t found was a picture of him.

Frustrated, Josie sorted through the Pleasant Valley Gazette’s articles once again. A weekly paper, it focused on local news in the small town, and she’d found several feature stories in it about the hometown hero’s adventures, including Adam’s harrowing rescue of a Siamese cat in Egypt.

According to the article, Adam had been raised on an acreage just outside of Pleasant Valley and had always had an affinity for animals. So he’d brought the cat back to Denver with him. Josie already knew all of this—Adam had told her the story himself, modestly downplaying his heroic role in saving Horatio.

But he’d never told her anything about the man she’d found in his bed on Saturday night. Despite her extensive search, she still didn’t know why he was there or what he’d done with Adam. Her Adam.

She’d tried e-mailing her boyfriend, as well as calling him on his cell phone all day yesterday. But for some reason he wasn’t answering.

Or he wasn’t able to answer.

She suppressed a shiver, not wanting to believe the worst. Her boyfriend was safe—he had to be. She couldn’t make love to a man capable of violence, could she? Not only make love to him, but thoroughly enjoy it. She groaned under her breath, then buried her face in her hands.

Josie had never before indulged in one-night stands or anonymous sex. She preferred to play it safe in both her professional and personal life. Despite the erotic allure, sleeping with a stranger was a risk she’d simply never been willing to take.

But no matter how hard she tried to forget, the night she’d spent in her stranger’s arms kept flashing into her mind. The way he’d touched and kissed and tantalized her until she’d become someone she didn’t recognize. Wild and wanton and begging him for sweet release. Heat suffused her cheeks as she closed the file, wondering how she could have acted that way. And how she would ever explain what had happened between them to her boyfriend.

But she had to find him first.

Then Josie looked up and saw the stranger she wanted to forget, the one who claimed he was Adam Delaney, walk through the door.

She grabbed a magazine, almost ripping it in half as she held it open in front of her face, hoping he hadn’t seen her. But her hopes died when she heard footsteps approaching her desk.

“Excuse me.” His familiar, whiskey-smooth voice sent ripples over her skin.

“Yes?” she said behind the magazine. Too late, she realized it was a copy of his magazine. Her gaze moved from a spectacular aerial photograph of the Grand Canyon to a small blurb at the bottom of the page that credited Adam Delaney as the photographer who had taken the picture while skydiving.

“I’m hoping you can help me.”

She slowly lowered the magazine until just her eyes peeked over the top of it. “What do you need?”

He placed two books on the desk. “These were left in my apartment and I need to know who checked them out.”

“Perhaps someone at the front desk can help you,” she replied, relieved that he didn’t recognize her. Of course, the last time he’d seen her she’d been wearing a sheet. Today she wore a light-gray suit and her blond hair pulled back into a neat French braid.

He hesitated, his gaze narrowing. “Have we met?”

She looked up at him, the magazine still concealing half her face. “I don’t think so.”

He stared into her eyes. “You’re her. You’re my dream girl.”

“Hardly,” she said, lowering the magazine and facing the man she’d never wanted to see again. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to ask someone else for assistance.”

But he didn’t take the hint. Instead, he pulled her pink scarf out of his shirt pocket. “Don’t you remember leaving this at my place?”

Mortified, Josie reached out and snatched it from him, all too aware of the stares from some of the staff. “Please lower your voice. This is not the time or the place to cause a scene.”

A wry smile curled up one corner of his mouth. “You call this a scene? I just want to talk to you.”

“Not here,” she insisted.

“Then where? I’m free all day,” he said.

“I’d rather not talk about it at all,” she told him. “We both know it was a huge mistake. So let’s just forget it ever happened.”

“Not an option.” He leaned forward, planting both hands on her desk, a flash of fire in his brown eyes. “Some guy walked into my life and pretended he was me. Now I want to know why and, like it or not, you’re my only connection to him.”

He was so close she could see flecks of gold in his brown eyes and the tiny scar near the corner of his mouth. The same mouth that had tasted her lips. Her breasts. The tender skin inside her thighs. For a moment, Josie found it hard to breathe. “The Adam Delaney that I know would never do anything like that.”

“Prove it.”

She stood up, ready to do battle. This man seemed to bring out the passion in her—a reaction she didn’t like one bit. “I don’t have to prove anything to you!”

“Then I guess you leave me with no option but to go to the police.”

“The police,” she echoed, certain she’d heard him wrong.

He gave a slow nod. “I’d rather not, because they’re going to want to know every detail about what happened between us. How you broke into my apartment in the middle of the night…”

“I had a key,” she protested.

“How you took all your clothes off before climbing into my bed,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “How you even brought a condom with you…”

“All right,” she cried, cutting him off, “I’ll meet with you. Just tell me where and when.”

He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost noon. Why don’t we meet for lunch at Spagli’s on Bannock Street? That’s not too far from here.”

Josie had no appetite, but better to get it over with as soon as possible. “Fine. I’ll see you there.”

He smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Her fists clenched as she watched him leave. How dare he threaten to expose the most embarrassing moment of her life. She hated the fact that he had that kind of power over her—and hated even more that he seemed to enjoy it.

Josie had been tempted to go the police herself when he’d claimed he was Adam Delaney. The only thing that had stopped her was the very reason he’d cited. She’d be forced to tell them everything about the night she’d spent in his arms and she simply couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Besides, she wanted to talk to Adam first. Her Adam. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this mess. Something she had yet to find in her research. She had yet to find her boyfriend, too, and that bothered her.

Josie sat back down at her desk, hating the way that her life was spinning out of control, just like it had when her father had been arrested. Only she’d been a child then, and now she was an adult. Perfectly capable of handling this or any other situation.

She took a deep breath, then another, aware of the quiet whispers of the staff at the front desk. How much had they overheard? Josie had never raised her voice at work before, even when dealing with the most irritating of library patrons. She had always prided herself on her self-control.

Now this man who called himself Adam Delaney had made her lose that control. Not once, but twice. The first time had been Saturday night, when she’d come completely undone in his arms. Then today, when he’d threatened to expose their illicit night together.

Josie didn’t intend to let it happen again.

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