The Substitute Sister

What should she do? Pretend to be Nadine, the child’s mother? Or tell the truth and hope Annie understood? Was she old enough to understand that her mother was gone and wouldn’t ever be coming back?

Sasha crossed the small living room to stare out the picture window that faced the lake. It was so close, only a rocky shore separated it from the little cottage. If the frothy waves rose much higher, the lake could swallow the shore. Sasha shivered over her awareness of the island’s vulnerability. Then she caught her wide-eyed reflection in the glass, her face a ghost of a dead woman’s, and she was frighteningly aware of her own vulnerability.

Counseling teenagers was nothing like caring for a small, helpless child and being solely responsible for that child’s care and well-being. Her parents had been good people, but somehow they’d lost Nadine. She’d run away rather than stay with them, with Sasha. Whatever Sasha’d done to put distance between her and Nadine, would she do it again? Would she make the child hate her as Nadine had?

Tears threatened, but she blinked them away. She’d already cried once in front of the sheriff. She would shed the rest of her tears in private. She didn’t need a strong shoulder to cry on. She’d decided long ago, when her fiancé had left her at the altar, that she didn’t need anyone.

But Annie did.

Annie needed her, so she had to pull herself together. The sheriff stepped out of the sparsely furnished bedroom. He hadn’t gotten the little girl back to sleep. She was clutched to his chest, a worn blue blanket trailing over his arm.

“Mommy?” she asked, her voice a broken quaver.

Sasha reached for her. Annie leaned forward, wrapping one little arm around Sasha’s neck while she held tight to the sheriff with the other.

“Mommy…” Annie’s breath sighed out as she snuggled against her.

With her niece stretched between them, Sasha stood very close to Reed, so close that she could discern each gold fleck in his green eyes. And with Annie clutching her so tight, his forearm pressed against Sasha’s midriff, just below her breasts. She would have never considered passing a child from one person to another to be such an intimate gesture. But with Sheriff Blakeslee it was.

Even sharing a cup of coffee with him had been intimate, too intimate. The brush of his fingers against hers when he’d handed her the mug. And later, when she’d punched his strong arm, he’d held her, his strong hands touching her.

And when she’d leaned her head against his wide chest, his heartbeat, strong and steady beneath her ear, had made her want to snuggle into his arms…. It had been much too long since a man had touched her, especially if an innocent gesture of comfort could affect her so much. Plus she didn’t know him, couldn’t trust him.

She’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t trust any man. Not after Charles, her high school and college sweetheart, her best friend, had betrayed her in the most painful, humiliating way…by leaving her for her sister. No, if she couldn’t trust Charles, if she couldn’t trust her sister…she couldn’t trust anyone.

She should be relieved that Annie had awakened. But Annie scared her more than the sheriff. Black curls tickled Sasha’s chin, and she buried her face in the little girl’s hair. Then her breath sighed out, ragged, broken with emotion…

She didn’t know this child. Until last night she hadn’t known about her existence, but she loved her. With all her heart she loved her. And Sasha made a silent vow to her dead sister, “I’ll take care of her, Nadine. I promise you I’ll take good care of her.”

When she opened her eyes and met the sheriff’s intense gaze, she almost believed he’d heard her silent words. Something had softened in him. He didn’t seem as disapproving and suspicious of her.

“When does the next ferry leave for the mainland?” she asked.

The sheriff shook his head. “The one you took already returned. That was it for the day. It’s not tourist season yet.”

“So I can’t leave tonight?” Unless he took her back in the sheriff’s boat, and maybe he would if she asked. She only carried some essentials in her backpack purse. She hadn’t planned on staying long, at least not on the island.

“You can’t leave this evening even if more ferries were running now,” he said, his deep voice a rumble, his breath warm on her face as they stood so close.

Only the child separated them, or held them together…. Is that why she couldn’t leave? Or did he not want her to leave? Her pulse jumped, but she calmed herself with common sense. He didn’t know her. He couldn’t be attracted to her. He’d known Nadine. He missed Nadine.

“Why can’t I leave?” she asked. It wasn’t as if she could be a suspect in her sister’s death. She hadn’t even known where Nadine had been living.

“You’ve also inherited your sister’s estate. There are legal matters to attend to.”

She blinked, confused. “You mean in trust for Annie?”

“No. I mean you’re her sole heir.”

But why?

“That can’t be right. There must be a mistake.” She wanted Annie even though the responsibility scared her more than anything in her life ever had. Annie was her flesh and blood, her last connection to her lost sister. But she didn’t understand why Nadine hadn’t left everything in trust for Annie.

“Her lawyer will explain. He’s waiting at the estate. But I knew you had questions about your sister’s death.” Questions he hadn’t really answered. “I’ll take you there now.” Yet he didn’t seem in a hurry to move. He stayed close to Sasha, with his arm pressed against her and his breath warm against her face with each word he spoke. “And the house can be a little overwhelming.”

Was it safe to go to the house at all? “Annie…”

“Her nanny will be there. She’ll watch her while you and I talk to the lawyer.”

“Nadine had a nanny?” She couldn’t understand any of it. How did Nadine afford an estate? A nanny for her child?

“She kind of came with the estate. She used to be Mrs. Scott’s nurse.”

“Mrs. Scott?”

“Nadine inherited the estate from her a couple of years ago. Some people have disputed Nadine’s inheritance.”

“Could that be why she was murdered?” Sasha asked.

He shook his head. “Someone waited two years to kill her? To accomplish what? You inherited. It doesn’t make sense.”

None of it made sense to Sasha. Besides Annie, there was so much more Sasha had to learn about her sister’s life and death. Her head spun with all the information the sheriff had just thrown at her.

“I don’t understand…” And with him so close, she couldn’t think.

If she’d kept in touch with Nadine, she would have known all about her life. And although she had no proof that her presence in Nadine’s life would have prevented her sister’s murder, guilt nagged at her. So much guilt…

“I’ll let the lawyer explain everything to you.”

He was waiting for her at the house Nadine had left to her. “I don’t want anything from Nadine,” she said because she’d given Nadine nothing, not the forgiveness she should have, not the friendship, love…and possibly the salvation.

“Nothing?” he asked over the little girl’s curly head.

Possessiveness tightened her arms around the child. “Just Annie.”

“Angel.”

“What?”

“That’s what Nadine always called her, her little angel.” Sadness passed through Reed’s green eyes and pulled at his sculpted lips. And finally he released his hold on the child, so that she settled securely into Sasha’s arms. He stepped back. Somehow Sasha knew that step cost him a lot and was quite significant.

She didn’t fool herself into thinking he trusted her to care for the child, especially not after her admission to him. But he was a lawman, and as such he had to respect Nadine’s last wish that Sasha raise her daughter. Not him.

He hadn’t said anything, but she knew he believed he should have been Annie’s guardian. Last night and at their first meeting, she’d felt his resentment that Nadine had named her instead, and now she had witnessed his tenderness with Annie.

He more than cared about this little girl…he loved her.

Sasha found the courage to ask the question that had been burning in her throat since she’d met him and Annie. “Is she yours?”

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