The Substitute Sister

She could make him talk; that was her job. If she could make teenagers open up, she could get the deputy to spill. But she had to admit that she didn’t want to hear the particulars from him. She wanted his boss to tell her. Sheriff Blakeslee was only a voice in the darkness to her, but she felt closer to him than this young man. She’d already shared something with him, the horrible news of her sister’s death.

“How long before we reach the island?” Maybe it was the violent waves that made her think miles of water had passed under the ferry’s jumping hull.

“Not much longer. It’s a two-hour ride total.”

She didn’t know much about boats even though she’d been raised in the Great Lakes state. How many miles did a boat travel in two hours? How many miles from civilization was the island? And why had Nadine chosen to live there? “Does the sheriff live there, too?”

“He divides his time between Whiskey Bay and the island. He bought a place on Sunset years ago when he was still a detective in Detroit.” The wind ruffled the young man’s fine hair as he shook his head, probably unable to understand why someone would have moved from Detroit to the remoteness of the north country.

“Did he retire here?” Although she’d only heard his voice, she doubted he was old enough to be drawing a pension.

The deputy shook his head again. “No, he’s only in his thirties, the youngest sheriff we’ve ever had. But with all his years on the force in Detroit, he’s got more law enforcement experience than any sheriff before him.”

Did he need it? Would he use it on Sunset Island? She peered up at the dark clouds and shivered.

She preferred talking about the sheriff, talking about anything, rather than tormenting herself with regrets over Nadine’s death. She’d had so much living to do yet, had a child to raise.

And now Sasha had that responsibility. Unable to fight the guilt any longer, she found herself asking, “Can you tell me about my sister?”

Like, who had fathered her baby and why wasn’t he around to be guardian for his child?

The young man wouldn’t meet her eyes, glancing out over the rolling waves instead. And in the distance, through the mist rising from the water, a dark shadow formed. The island. “Miss Michaelson, the sheriff can tell you everything. He was really close to your sister.”

How close? Intimate. From the nervous shift of the deputy’s gaze, she suspected as much.

Would the sheriff tell her everything? Or, out of loyalty to Nadine, would he resent her as much as her sister always had? Was it resentment that had kept Nadine from telling her about her niece? Or had it been because Sasha had told her she never wanted to talk to or see her again?

Sasha had never been so angry as she’d been the last time she’d seen Nadine, had never held a grudge the way she had these past five years. Now guilt and grief replaced the anger, threatening more tears. She blinked hard. She couldn’t cry now, not in front of anyone. She’d suffered that humiliation when she’d been left at the altar five years ago; she wouldn’t do it again.

And as for the sheriff, she’d get him to tell her everything about her sister. If she could handle surly teenagers, she could handle a resentful sheriff.

What had Nadine been to him? Lover? If he were half as attractive as he’d sounded on the phone, Nadine would have gone after him.

Sasha wanted to flat-out ask the deputy how involved his boss had been with her sister, but for her answer she’d only get a deeper blush out of him. So she would save that question for the sheriff along with all her others. And she wouldn’t stop asking until she got her answers about Nadine’s life and…death.

The ferry neared the island, where a large dock jutted out of a rocky shore. From that area, a hill rose up, dotted with houses. Small cottages were squeezed in between large, elaborate homes. Here, so far north, the leaves were little more than buds on the trees, and the early-spring gloom hung in low clouds over the island. A chill raced over her skin, the sense of foreboding returning with more force. She shouldn’t have come here. But she’d had to…for Annie. And the chill—it was probably just the cold spring wind.

Late April. She’d had over a month left of the school year, but after the sheriff had called her, she’d called the principal and arranged for a leave.

“We’re lucky the weather’s been so warm,” the deputy remarked with a sigh, probably with relief that he had found a safe subject and that the island…and the sheriff…were near.

“Warm?” she asked, as she huddled inside her winter jacket. Having visited the Upper Peninsula in the spring before, she’d known to wear heavier clothes. With the jacket she wore thick corduroy jeans and a sweater.

“Oh, yeah, we had major snowstorms this time last year. It’s so nice this year. The sheriff, along with some other sheriffs in the surrounding areas, even had their golf outing already.”

“Before or after my sister died?” she asked, frustration sharpening her tone. She wanted answers. The long ferry ride had given her mind time to formulate more questions, the first being why had Nadine chosen to live in such isolation?

The deputy’s cheeks colored again. “It was actually the day your sister—look, we’re here now.”

The ferry pulled to the dock. Sasha’s breath caught over the enormity of the situation. This was where Nadine had lived and where, Sasha assumed, she’d died. This was where Sasha would meet her niece for the first time, where she would pick up the child who was now her responsibility. This poor little motherless girl. Would she be terrified of her aunt, of this woman she’d never met but who looked eerily like her mother?

The deputy hovered at her side as she walked down the gangplank toward the dock. The wind whipped up, tangling her hair around her face. She nearly stumbled, then stopped and turned her attention to the waiting people. The small crowd shifted as she joined them, people staring, some gasping as the deputy had, a general sense of fear emanating from them. She ignored their reactions as best she could but was thankful for the deputy standing beside her as she looked for the sheriff.

“There he is.” The deputy gestured toward a dark-haired man. He didn’t wear a uniform, but he didn’t need it.

His height separated him from everyone else, giving him an air of authority. He had to be well over six feet with shoulders so broad she was tempted to lay her weary head on one and weep the tears burning inside her for her sister’s loss. The temptation surprised her, as did the quick flare of attraction she felt for him. For five years she hadn’t allowed herself either weakness.

Then she saw the child in his arms, the little girl pressed close to his chest. She looked exactly the way Sasha and Nadine had looked as curly-haired toddlers.

Crystal-blue eyes widened as Annie stared at her, then a soft voice called out, “Mommy!”

Little arms reached for her, but Sasha froze, her reaction having nothing to do with the chill wind whipping around the open dock. Fear paralyzed her, holding her feet to the planks. She hadn’t been able to save Nadine from the life she’d chosen, a life that had led to her death. How could she accept the responsibility of raising Nadine’s child? What if she let them both down?

The sheriff walked toward her. His long, jeans-clad legs carrying him to her in a couple of strides. Despite the cold, he wore only a denim shirt with his faded jeans, the cuffs rolled to his elbows. His forearms, thick with muscle, cradled the little girl with no effort. His jaw, lightly stubbled with hair as dark as that brushing the collar of his shirt, was hard and clenched as he stared down at her. The gloom of the dark clouds shadowed his eyes, but the green gleamed vividly.

She shivered, not from the cold but from the awareness tingling across her skin. Last night his voice had rasped along her nerves, but today his stare was so intense, so intimate, it weakened her knees.

Despite the howl of the wind whipping up and the resumed conversation of the small, milling crowd, she caught the emotional rumble of his deep voice as he whispered, “Nadine?”

Chills chased away the nerves. Nadine? Although he stared at her, she wasn’t the woman he very obviously wanted to see.

Nadine.

He must have loved her sister.

She had come to Sunset Island to collect Annie, to serve as her niece’s substitute mother. And that was the only substitute she would ever serve for her sister. As much as she lacked confidence in her parenting abilities, she lacked even more in the bedroom. She knew she could never replace her sister there.

Chapter Two

He had known she was dead even before the crime-scene techs had verified that nobody could live with that much blood loss, which could have only been caused by the severing of a main artery. With DNA testing they had also verified that the blood was Nadine’s.

The woman standing before him now didn’t bear a single scratch that he could see, but he was tempted to pull back her collar to check. She was pale, her eyes the same vivid crystal blue of Annie’s, the only color in her face. The wind tousled her long, black hair, swirling it in an ebony cloud around the shoulders of her blue jacket.

God, she was beautiful. He sucked in a quick breath of crisp air.

And she wasn’t just a sister. She was Nadine’s identical twin. “Sasha Michaelson.”

She nodded. “Yes, and you’re Sheriff Blakeslee? And this is Annie?”

The little girl reached for her, again calling out, “Mommy.”

The woman didn’t extend her arms to the child. Didn’t she have any compassion? How could a woman this cold nurture a baby? “You look exactly like your sister.” Beautiful and unapproachable. “She’s confused.”

“Annie, I’m your aunt. Your Aunt Sasha,” she said to the child, her voice soft as she tried to explain.

Annie snuggled her head into his shoulder again; she must have recognized the difference. Despite identical faces, they didn’t sound alike. Sasha’s voice wasn’t as husky as her sister’s.

Reed patted the little girl’s back, trying to soothe her the way he would a distraught crime victim, which in a way Annie was. Her mother’s murder had affected her, too. It didn’t matter how much this woman looked like Nadine, to Annie she was still a stranger. How could he turn the child over to her? “Ms. Michaelson—”

“Did I—should I have let her think…” Her voice cracked, and she shivered.

“Come on, let’s get out of the wind,” he said, leading her away from the dock. When his deputy moved to follow, he turned back toward him. “Tommy, I’ve got it from here. You can take the ferry back to Whiskey Bay. I need you to help Bruce at the office.”

“But, Sheriff Blakeslee…”

The kid wanted to be where the excitement was. The biggest thing to have ever happened in the far-reaching area that was Reed’s jurisdiction was Nadine’s murder. But it was so much more to Reed, so much more personal. Maybe he’d thought he’d been acting as her friend by not digging into her past, but she might be alive if he had. And now, because she was dead, he had to dig. “I need you there.”

“Yes…yes, sir,” the young man stammered. While he didn’t immediately head back to the ferry, he didn’t follow when Reed started walking again.

Sasha Michaelson glanced back toward the deputy, probably wishing she could take the next ferry away from Sunset Island, too. “There are no cars?”

“Nope. We could take a horse-drawn carriage, but my house isn’t far from here.”

“House?”

“I don’t have an office on the island. Nothing’s ever really happened here.” Until now. “A drunken brawl or two at one of the bars. And then I take them to the jail and office on the mainland.”

“By ferry?”

“There’s a sheriff’s boat.” He could have sent it for her, but he’d wanted it close…in case of emergency.

From the dock a cobblestone lane headed into the little town where the shops, restaurants and inns were. Reed led her the opposite direction, down a gravel path toward the houses. His cottage wasn’t much closer than the Scott Mansion, but he wasn’t ready to take her, or Annie, to the big house where Nadine had been savagely murdered, where her blood still stained the foyer.

Annie hadn’t been home when her mother was killed. The nanny had taken her for a walk, so she hadn’t seen anything. For that, but not much else, Reed could be grateful.

The problem was no one else had seen anything, either. No witnesses and no body made Nadine’s murder tough to solve. But he would. He owed both Nadine and her daughter justice. He would find the killer, whether he’d left the island or still lived among them.

He touched Sasha Michaelson’s back, turning her down the path toward his small, fieldstone cottage. She wasn’t very tall, her head barely as high as his shoulder. And despite the bulky jacket and heavy pants, he could tell her frame was delicate. Like Nadine’s.

He’d felt protective of Nadine and Annie. And it tore him apart that he hadn’t been able to protect Nadine from death or Annie from the loss of her mother.

But he didn’t feel protective of Sasha Michaelson. It was something else that flared inside him, something he hadn’t felt in so long that he barely recognized it as the hot sting of desire.

“Nice,” she murmured as she passed through the door he held open for her.

His ex-wife had hated the place for being too cramped, too primitive. A fire still burned in the grate, casting a warm glow over the hardwood floor. Sasha walked toward it, her hands out. “I forgot gloves,” she said. “I thought I’d thought of everything, but I forgot gloves.”

Reed caught the rising note of hysteria in her voice. Maybe she wasn’t cold and unemotional. Maybe she was just scared. He glanced down at Annie’s face. The child had fallen asleep in his arms, not a surprise after her restless night. He shouldered open the door to the spare bedroom and laid her on the mattress on the floor. Because of the chill in the room, he didn’t bother removing her coat and just pulled the comforter over her legs.

When he rose to his feet, he found Sasha in the doorway, watching him and her niece. “She’s so little,” she said in a hushed whisper. “Just a baby, isn’t she?”

“She’d argue that if she was awake,” he said with a short chuckle. The little girl knew many words other than Mommy, had even gotten good at stringing some into basic sentences. She was at the age of wonder and development, and her mother would miss it all. If only Nadine had trusted him enough to tell him what had been troubling her…

“She talks?”

“She’s very smart,” he said, not bothering to disguise his pride in the child.

Sasha must have caught it because her eyes narrowed. Then she shivered again. He brushed past her, resisting the urge to slide an arm around her, as he walked back into the living room, his boots clunking against the floor. He didn’t worry about Annie waking, Nadine had always said she was a sound sleeper. He worried about his reaction to Annie’s aunt, about his urge to touch her.

Sasha stood in the doorway another minute, staring at her sleeping niece before she turned to him. “Does she know her mother’s dead?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You haven’t told her?”

“It’s not my place.” Nadine had had a legal document drawn up stating that fact, but in Reed’s heart, he knew it was very much his place…as Annie’s was with him.

“I have to tell her?”

“That’s up to you, Miss Michaelson.” And he did try to curb his bitterness. She didn’t deserve it.

She lifted her hands, then let them drop back to her sides. “I don’t know what to do….”

“You’re in shock.” He saw that now, as well as the fear that widened her crystal-blue eyes. More guilt plagued him for his lack of sensitivity.

Pride lifted her chin as she made a visible effort to pull herself together. “I’m just worried about her, about Annie. Losing her mother…”

“Yeah.” He couldn’t say any more, emotion choked his voice. A small kitchen was hidden behind the fireplace. He ducked around to splash coffee into two mugs. “Here, this’ll warm up your hands.”

And maybe Annie would warm her heart. She kept glancing toward the bedroom, alert to any murmur the child uttered in her sleep. She accepted the mug, barely distracted from her vigilance over her niece.

Still looking toward the bedroom, she asked, “How did my sister die?”

He didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to reveal the gory details. “In her home,” he said instead. Nadine should have been safe there, should have been safe on Sunset Island. But since her murder, Reed couldn’t see the island as a sanctuary. Until Nadine’s killer was caught, an aura of danger would engulf the island like the fog that wrapped around it every night.

She glanced toward him, irritation flashing in her blue eyes. “I didn’t ask where. I asked how.”

She was good at pulling herself together, her voice strong now. Maybe she could handle the truth. And even if she couldn’t, she had a right to know some of it. “She was murdered.”

She didn’t even flinch.

“You’re not surprised.”

“If it had been an accident, you would have said on the phone. You didn’t. I expected the worst.”

“Sounds like everyone always expected the worst of Nadine.” Himself included. The things he’d found in her past, while some criminal, hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought, nothing that should have cost her Annie or her life.

Sasha flinched, then squeezed her eyes shut. “That’s not fair.”

“Hell, no,” he said, anger eating at him. But he wasn’t angry with her. “None of it’s fair. It’s not fair that Nadine won’t be alive to watch her child grow up, and it’s not fair that Annie’s lost her mother.”

A tear slipped from under Sasha’s thick lashes and slid down her cheek. His gut clenched. God, he hated tears. He’d rather face an armed suspect than a weeping woman. His ex had learned that fast and used it against him. Hell, even Annie knew how to play the waterworks. Was that the reason for Sasha’s silent tears? Manipulation?

To get what she wanted? But what did she want? Sympathy? Forgiveness? He doubted he was the person she wanted it from. No, that person was dead and had died with whatever had kept the sisters from speaking for so many years still between them. He could see the guilt in her eyes, in her refusal to meet his gaze. He recognized guilt because he carried his own share of it, over his failure to protect Nadine from whatever or whomever she’d feared.

Did Sasha carry the guilt for whatever had caused their rift? Or was it guilt that she had carried a grudge over whatever her sister had done to her? Either way, the burden was just as heavy on her thin shoulders.

He gripped his mug harder so he wouldn’t reach for her, so he wouldn’t pull her into his arms to offer comfort…or more. Desire gripped his gut, knotting the muscles. God, she was beautiful. And that wasn’t fair, either…not to a man who’d been alone too damned long.

“Do you know who? Have you arrested anyone?” she asked, blinking back the rest of her tears.

Would she shed them later, when she was alone? Would they be as silent as those that had escaped down her face here, or would she let loose wrenching sobs? And would there be anyone to hold her while she cried?

She had come alone to the island and had answered the phone last night. She still bore her maiden name, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have a significant other, that she wouldn’t provide Annie with the father he’d tried so hard to be.

“What?” he asked, shaking off his thoughts with a concentrated effort.

“Do you know who killed my sister?”

“Not yet.” But he damn well would. He might not be able to raise Annie, but he could give her justice for her mother.

“Your deputy said something that made me think you weren’t here when it happened.”

“No, I wasn’t. I’m not on the island that much. I divide my time between here, the town of Whiskey Bay and the surrounding areas. Sunset Island is only part of my jurisdiction.” But he hadn’t been at work that day, anywhere.

He’d been playing a damned game of golf with some of his law enforcement friends. “I was with a sheriff from Winter Falls, over by Traverse City, and some others.” He might not ever forgive himself for not being on duty when Nadine had needed him, and from the disapproval tightening Sasha’s lips, he figured she wouldn’t, either.

“So I guess that gives you an alibi,” she said, her soft voice as hard as it could probably get.

He laughed without humor at her attempted interrogation. “Yeah, I guess it does. So everybody’s a suspect?”

“You tell me.”

Hell, yes, but she didn’t need to know that. “It’s a police investigation.”

“So you’re not going to tell me anything else?”

He didn’t really know anything else…yet. He didn’t know how much Sasha knew of Nadine’s past. Was she aware of the bad checks, the shoplifting? If she didn’t already know, he didn’t think she needed to. But who was he protecting, Nadine or Sasha? “It’s for the best.”

“Whose best? Mine or yours?” she asked, anger tightening the curve of her lips. Would a kiss soften that hard line?

“You’ve got a lot of things to deal with. Focus on them.” And he had a great many other things to focus on other than her mouth, on wondering how soft it would feel, how sweet it would taste.

“Of course.” She lifted her chin even though her eyes watered up again. “I have to plan a funeral for my sister. Where’s her body?”

God, he wished he knew. Had the bastard taken her body as a trophy or hidden it to further complicate the case? Only the killer knew. “Ms. Michaelson…”

“Sasha,” she corrected him as she set the mug of untouched coffee onto a scarred wooden end table. Then she unzipped her jacket and shrugged out of it. Under it she wore a sweater in a soft pink, nearly the same shade as her flushed cheeks. Was it the heat of the dying fire or embarrassment that had caused that? She needn’t be concerned about not immediately planning her sister’s funeral. She had no body to bury.

“Sasha,” he said, liking the sensation of her name on his lips. Exotic…like the combination of her black hair and almond-shaped, blue eyes.

“What is it?” she asked, dread knitting her forehead into furrows.

“We haven’t found her body yet.”

She blew out a ragged breath. “Then she’s not dead. She can’t be dead. Why did you do this? Why did you call and scare me like that?” Anger flushed her face now, and she stepped closer to him, hitting his arm with her clenched fist.

Even though he hardly felt the blow, he caught her by the elbows, holding her tight. “She’s dead. The crime lab verified it was her blood, and there was too much of it.” Blood everywhere. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the spray pattern on the walls, the pool on the floor… “She can’t be alive.”

“But she’s missing…”

“She’s dead, Sasha. She’s really dead.”

She dipped her head, pressing her forehead against his chest, and her body trembled in his loose embrace. “She can’t be dead. She shouldn’t be dead.”

“No, she shouldn’t. And I will find out who did this, Sasha. I promise you that.” And he made few promises. His ex had taught him that the more promises a person made, the less she was likely to keep. “I’ll worry about catching the killer. You worry about Annie.”

She lifted her gaze, her blue eyes wide with fear again.

He found himself touching her, sliding a fingertip along her smooth cheek. “What are you afraid of, Sasha? You’ve had nothing to do with your sister in years. You can’t be in any danger from her killer.”

A little cry warbled from the bedroom as Annie murmured in her sleep.

“That’s who I’m afraid of, Sheriff,” Sasha said, her voice only a soft, quavering whisper. “That poor little girl. That’s who I fear.”

WHAT MUST HE THINK of her? Sasha wondered as Reed went to check on the child. That she was a coward or, worse, crazy? Scared of a little girl? It was ridiculous. She felt ridiculous. But she was so scared of hurting the child. Of failing her.