Duplicate Daughter

He opened her door and once again she faced the long step down from the truck. Her leg ached at the prospect. “Are there other people here now?” Katie asked hopefully as she slid from her seat. Nick seemed to be prepared for her ungainly exit and caught her in a grip as solid as granite.

“Not in the winter. This time of year it’s just me and Helen, my housekeeper. And Lily, of course.”

“Nick, please talk to me about your father,” she said, gazing up into his eyes, imploring him to stop evading her questions. “Time is passing and my mother is missing.”

“I know,” he said. “But there’s a storm coming and no one will be going anywhere for a while. We almost always lose phone service in weather like this. In short, your problem will keep. I want to see if Lily is still awake.”

“Who’s Lily?”

“My daughter.” He reached past her and retrieved her suitcase, then opened the connecting door to what appeared to be an enclosed porch. A row of hooks held outerwear, a tray underneath caught the drips as snow melted. Baskets lined up on a shelf were filled with mittens, gloves and stocking caps. Nick pulled off his hat and tossed it into a basket; his gloves followed a second later. He unzipped his coat and took it off, carefully hanging it on an empty hook next to a pale yellow coat with a fur collar that was so tiny it had to belong to a child.

Katie took off her own coat and immediately missed its warm, cozy lining even though she wore a thick sweater underneath. Nick took it from her and hung it on a hook before parking himself on a bench and unlacing his boots.

“Are your feet wet?” he asked Katie. He pointed at her suitcase. “Do you have something dry and warm in there or do you need to borrow slippers?”

He was wearing a green flannel shirt that stretched across his shoulders as he moved. He was built splendidly, Katie saw, broad at the shoulder, narrow through the hips, tall and straight, sent from central casting to play the role of handsome, defensive, sexy recluse.

But he was real. Those eyes, that tenderness in his voice when his daughter’s name passed his lips, his single-minded straight-as-an-arrow determination to do things his own way in his own time—all man, all real and, probably, all obstacle.

“My feet are fine,” she said, looking down at her own boots. She’d been traveling the better part of two days to get here. Flights from Oregon to Washington, then on to Anchorage, Alaska. Then the bush-pilot flight to Frostbite. Now she was out here in the middle of nowhere, trying to get a man to talk, a man who obviously didn’t want to talk, and just how was she supposed to ever get home again?

And what about her mother?

As she folded her head scarf and straightened the gray wool sweater she wore over a light blue turtleneck shirt, she admitted that her head pounded, her leg ached, she was cold and hungry and frustrated. “Nick—” she said impatiently.

Once again he cut her off, this time by standing abruptly. He’d slipped on a pair of dry loafers. As he opened the door leading into the house, she picked up her suitcase and followed. What choice did she have?

Aromas of roasting meat and vegetables perfumed the room they entered, a kitchen full of rough wood beams and rich dark tiles. Some kind of fruit pie—apple?—sat cooling on a wooden board. Katie’s stomach growled.

“Mr. Nick,” a woman said, looking up from the sink where she peeled potatoes. She appeared to be in her late fifties, Katie guessed, with long black hair gathered into a low-riding ponytail, silver threads running throughout. She was short and comfortable looking, her skin winter-white, her dark eyes liquid in the subdued light.

“I thought maybe you got stuck at the airport…” the woman began, her voice trailing off as Katie stepped from behind Nick.

The friendly smile wavered.

Katie was blasted with a fresh wave of alarm. Was everyone in Frostbite suspicious of outsiders?

Nick said, “Helen, this is Katie Fields, the woman I went to meet today. Katie, Helen Delaney, the woman who runs things around here.”

Helen raked Katie over with narrowed eyes but addressed her comments to Nick. “I thought you were meeting your father’s stepdaughter. The one who called here. Theresa Mays.”

“Katie is apparently my…father’s…other stepdaughter,” Nick said.

“I’m the one who called you the last time,” Katie explained, sticking out her free hand. “I’m sorry for the confusion.”

Helen dried her hand on her apron and took Katie’s hand, her gaze averted as she mumbled a polite greeting. Katie said the first thing that popped to her mind. “That pie looks delicious.”

“Apple rhubarb,” Helen said. “Mr. Nick’s favorite.” She turned her attention back to Nick and added, “I didn’t know you were bringing anyone back to the house. I didn’t expect company.”

Nick said, “The weather turned. Toby had to get some medicine to Skie.” He ran a hand through his dark blond hair before looking at Katie. “Well, you’re here now and, by the looks of the weather, you aren’t going anywhere for a couple of days. I’ll show you to a guest room in a few moments, but first I need to look in on my daughter.”

“I gave her an early dinner and put her to bed,” Helen said, darting Katie a surreptitious glance. Katie felt distinctly uncomfortable. Helen had seemed cordial enough on the phone, so why the cool welcome? And did Nick have to talk to her as it she was an intruder?

Whoa, reality check. You forced yourself on both of them, an inner voice whispered. No one asked you to come, you just refused to leave.

She rubbed her forehead. She’d packed doctor-prescribed painkillers in her suitcase and the temptation to down half a bottle and sleep the storm out was amazingly strong but she knew she’d settle for a couple of aspirin instead. She needed to stay clear-headed and focused.

“I’ll be right back,” Nick said, glancing down at her.

She grabbed his arm as he turned and felt his muscles tense beneath her grasp. “You have to tell me about your father,” she said vehemently. “I need to understand what’s going on. I have to find my mother. I know you think I’m overreacting—”

He stared at her hand. For a second, she expected him to bat it away, but then he did something even worse. Laying his hand gently over the top of hers he said, “No, I don’t think you’re overreacting.”

“So you do think she’s in danger.”

“If she married my father, I’d be willing to bet on it,” he told her, his eyes intense and serious. “I’m sorry.”

Chapter Three

Nick loved this time of day the best.

Lily, cheeks rosy, fair hair glistening in the subdued bedside light, smelling of soap, eyes sleepy but resolute, small arms anxious to wrap around his neck, voice soft and sweet as she asked him to read her a story.

His Lily, a small carbon copy of her mother except for the color of her eyes, which mirrored his own, and the stubborn streak she’d picked up from his side of the family, as well. Patricia had called Lily the perfect combination of the two of them, and they had spent hours musing over who their future children would look like, be like.

Fate had snatched away the possibility of future children. Fate in the form of his father.

He read Lily a story about a bird that lived on top of a palm tree on the island of Maui. As Lily had been born right here in Frostbite and hadn’t left the state of Alaska once in her three years, he often wondered how she could relate to palm trees and grass skirts, green and yellow birds and brilliant flowers. When she was old enough, he’d recently decided, he’d take her to Hawaii and show her all the things the book promised, from luaus to warm ocean water.

For now, he finished the story by gently tickling her, which was part of the ritual, and then he kissed her warm forehead and held her hand as she drifted off to sleep.

And tried not to think about the redheaded problem in his kitchen.

The wind had come up while he’d been busy with Lily, and he returned to the kitchen to find the lights flickering and Helen absent. He could hear naked limbs scratching against the tin roof and the sound of an unclosed gate from out near the pier.

Had Helen been walking out there earlier today?

After stoking the living-room fireplace, he lit a couple of kerosene lanterns in anticipation of losing the lights. His was the last house connected to Frostbite’s power lines and the first to lose electricity during bad weather. He’d start the generator if it looked like the electricity loss was going to go beyond a few hours.

He found Katie in the kitchen standing at the sink, draining a pot, steam billowing around her flushed face. She looked over her shoulder as he came into the room.

“Where’s Helen?” he said.

“She showed me which bedroom to take then pleaded a headache,” Katie said, turning to face him. She held a pot of boiled potatoes in one hand and the masher in the other. “How do you feel about kitchen duties?”

“No problem,” he said, still puzzling over Helen’s odd behavior. “She just left?”

“She just left.” Katie leaned against the counter as he retrieved butter and milk from the refrigerator and added, “Frankly, I don’t think she likes me.”

He crashed the masher into the pot. He found Katie’s tendency to blurt out exactly what was on her mind a little disconcerting.

“She’s choosy,” he said.

Katie laughed. “Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t take me wrong,” he said, adding butter and seasonings to the pot. “Your coming to Frostbite is a reminder of a lot of things Helen would like to forget, all revolving around my dear old dad. Your coming into this house is like rubbing salt in an old wound.”

“I’ve never even met your father!”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said.

“For heaven’s sake. How about you? You’d like to forget a lot of things about your father, too, right?”

“Like the fact he ever existed? Yeah, you’re right,” he said, whipping in the milk, his mind closing against the pain Katie’s probing caused. “I would.”

Except for the sound of the wind howling outside, dinner was a more or less silent affair. Katie swirled mashed potatoes into her gravy, casting him occasional wary glances as though trying to gauge if she could trust him.

The answer was yes. And no.

It all depended.

She could trust him to put up with her until he could get rid of her, to try to answer a few questions, but she couldn’t trust him to spring into action and solve all her problems. Since Patricia’s death, he had one blinding obligation and that was his daughter. Period.

Besides, his action days were behind him, lost now in the haze of his Army Ranger years, his stealth and manual-combat skills as rusty as his aim though he still maintained a closetful of weapons. Hell, every man, woman and child in Frostbite, Alaska, knew how to shoot a gun. It went with the territory.

All this justification made him uneasy, especially when he glanced at his dinner guest and met her troubled blue gaze. If her mother was half as innocent as her daughter, the poor woman was in for a lot of trouble.

Though he tried to dissuade her, Katie helped him clear the table and wash the dishes. He wasn’t crazy about standing so close to her in the kitchen. The room had always been the warm, comforting heart of the house. Katie brought a level of tension with her that ruined this ambience and he resented her intrusion. The thought flitted through his mind that things were soon going to go from bad to worse. His level of uneasiness began to creep up off the charts.

The electricity went out as he put the last plate on the open shelf.

He stacked more wood on the fire and lit another lantern, which he used to go check on Lily who was sound asleep. He replaced her kicked-off covers. As he walked back down the dark hallway, he noticed a light on under the door of Helen’s room.

He raised his hand to knock to make sure she was okay, to try to cajole her back into the kitchen so she could get herself something to eat. Before his knuckles touched the wood, the door swung open.

Helen faced him, carrying a small backpack in her hand. She’d changed into her snow clothes—thermal, watertight overalls and a blue jacket with a hood. A pair of heavily insulated gloves dangled around her neck on a tether. Her feet were clad in thick socks, awaiting boots, he supposed.

He said, “Helen?”

“I’m going to my sister’s house,” she said.

He stared at her a second. She’d been part of his household for years and to say her current behavior was out of character was like saying if an elephant took a hankering to sit down, he’d need more than one chair.

Nick shook his head.

“I can’t stay here. I can’t bear to hear talk about him. Why did she come here? She’s going to make things worse—”

She stopped abruptly and met his gaze, her large dark eyes swimming in pain. He knew exactly what she was thinking, because he’d been thinking it himself. By coming to this house, Katie Fields had unintentionally brought the past alive. He said, “Is your sister expecting you?”

“None of the phones work.”

“Damn, we lost the phone line already? I’m going to have to break down and get a cell phone one of these days.”

“It doesn’t mater. My sister will be home. I’m sorry, Mr. Nick, to abandon you—”

“I’ll drive you—”

“The snow’s too deep. Even if you got me there, you’d never get back. I’ll take one of the snowmobiles.”

“Helen—”

“It’s not far. And you have Lily to watch.”

She sidled past him and he made no move to stop her, but he didn’t like her going off into a storm by herself. On the other hand, he couldn’t take Lily out into this weather. Well, well, his visitor might come in handy after all. “Wait,” he called, approaching Helen. He spoke fast and low. She shook her head, but he ignored her and went looking for Katie.

This time he found her in the living room, seated in a big red chair pulled up close to the fire, and for a second, his breath caught.

Firelight danced across her face, sparkled in her eyes, glistened in her hair. She sat forward, warming her hands, her trim body taut. She looked so bright and so alive she rivaled the fire itself.

He rubbed his eyes before entering the room and stood with his back to the fire, staring down at her.

“Is everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, fine.” Reluctantly, he added, “I need a favor.”

She immediately nodded. “Of course.”

“Helen is taking a snowmobile into Frostbite to visit her sister. I’m not comfortable with her going out in this alone. Will you keep an eye on Lily while I give Helen a ride? It shouldn’t take more than twenty or thirty minutes and Lily is sound asleep. I doubt she’ll stir.”

“Helen is leaving because of me, isn’t she?”

“It’s her choice. I won’t be long.”

Katie said, “I spent half my youth babysitting. I’d love to watch Lily.”

Helen was sitting on the bench out on the porch, lacing up her boots. He put on his snow gear. In unison, they moved to the garage, where they both pulled on helmets. Nick pushed the larger of the snowmobiles out the door. As he and Helen roared away from the house, he looked back once, reassured by the flickering of the lanterns visible through the falling snow, his home a comfortable island floating on mounds of pristine white.

KATIE WATCHED the retreating lights of the snowmobile disappear, with her hands clenched into fists at her side.

It all came down to time.

Time for stories read to a child, time for Helen to get sulky and distant, to require aid, to retreat.

Time to eat and wash dishes, time to build fires and light lanterns, time for everything and everyone except her mother, the one person to whom every second might mean the difference between life and death.

What was going on? Why was it so hard to get an answer to anything in this house?

She turned away from the window in a huff, frustration demanding movement, movement all but impossible unless it was contained within the log structure. She stomped down the hall until she found an open door with a soft light coming from within. An oversize window covered with lacy curtains took up half of one wall. The bed was positioned in such a way that a person could look outside while lying down. The view must be gorgeous when it was actually possible to see outside.

Nick had left a lantern burning on his daughter’s dresser; its flickering light cast dancing shadows against the walls, but it also bathed a sleeping child’s face. Katie covered her mouth with her hand and stared.

Lily Pierce was an angel on earth. Fine blond hair, long dark lashes, rosebud mouth, rounded cheeks…the whole nine yards. She was the treasure inside the castle, the princess inside the steeple, and all of a sudden, Nick’s fierce determination to see to her needs at any cost made a little more sense.

Katie backed quietly out into the hall, returning to the living room, sitting back down in the red chair, holding her hands toward the fire not so much because she was cold as because the sounds of the storm made her feel cold.

And alone.

Wind rustled in the trees, whistled in the eaves, banged things together, blew snow against the windows. The interior of the house was warm and welcoming in the way a port in a storm always is, but despite the reassuringly thick walls and the beautiful slumbering child a few steps away, the underlying tensions between Nick and herself, to say nothing of Helen’s abrupt departure, eroded the comfort level, letting the cold seep between the logs of polite construction.

Katie settled back in the chair, closing her eyes. Her headache had disappeared with the ingestion of Helen’s excellent meal, but her leg still throbbed and she knew fatigue fueled her distress. For once she was glad Tess couldn’t pick up any telepathic vibes, because the maelstrom inside Katie’s head wouldn’t do anyone any good, especially not Tess. Tess needed to put her energy into healing, not worrying.

Katie should have gotten back on that blasted plane. She’d been here for three hours and nothing had happened except she’d eaten dinner and made an enemy. Why was Helen so determined not to give her a chance?

She opened her eyes and surveyed the surrounding room. The rock fireplace took up most of one wall. A wooden door about two feet square led to a supply of firewood—she’d checked. The wide hearth was two feet off the ground with a few cushions tossed atop, making extra seating. One photo sat on the mantel, framed in heavy wood. A blond woman holding a baby. Nick’s late wife, no doubt, Lily as an infant. The other walls, logs chinked with what appeared to be cement, were covered with watercolors, beautiful paintings of hillsides and wildflowers, snowy peaks and exotic animals. The furniture was big and comfortable, table-tops cluttered with toys and books and camera equipment. Because of the log construction, the windows were deep and dark—

A face suddenly appeared in one of the front windows. Gasping, Katie shot to her feet. A man’s face but not Nick’s. Fuller, unshaved, dark eyes furtive.

And then it was gone—poof!—as though it had never been there.

Katie stood stock-still for several moments, her mind racing. Was the door locked? Were all the doors locked? She moved quickly to the front door and found a chain in place. She started to undo it, to open the door, to peer outside and call out, but her hand stilled at the last moment and she dropped it, leaning back against the door, listening, waiting.

Nothing. No knock. The silence was ominous.

She went through the kitchen to the back door. It, too, was locked. She didn’t know if there were other doors. Spying the phone on the wall, she plucked off the receiver, ready to call 911 and probably make a fool of herself. The line was dead. She dug her cell phone from her pocket. The screen lit at her touch. Still no signal.

She was alone. Well, except for the slumbering child down the hall.

Katie retraced her steps to the living room and the fireplace, sitting back on her red chair, staring toward the window, a black portal buffeted now and again by nothing more sinister than a snow flurry.

“Who are you?” a high-pitched voice said from her elbow.

For the second time that night, Katie gasped as her heart did a little stop-and-start thing in her chest. Lily Pierce stood nearby in pink footy pajamas, tousled fair hair a halo around her head, round cheeks blooming with pink. She held a gray stuffed bunny by one ear.

Hoping the child wouldn’t burst into tears or run from the room, Katie said, “My name is Katie.”

“Where’s Helen? Where’s Daddy?”

“Daddy took Helen to visit her sister—”

“Went to Auntie Joy’s house?”

Sounded reasonable to Katie. She said, “I think so. Daddy will be back very soon. Did something wake you, sweetheart? Did you, uh, see someone?”

The child shook her head. She shuffled a little and Katie started to get up to follow her back to her room and tuck her into bed, but Lily came to stop right in front of Katie.

“You know ’bout the birdie in the palm tree?” she asked.

Katie said, “I don’t think so.”

“I tell you?”

Happy for the company, Katie patted her knee. “Okay.”

The little girl climbed onto Katie’s lap, squirming around until she fit comfortably, her head right under Katie’s nose, her fine hair fluttering when Katie exhaled a breath. She presented a warm, sweet-smelling bundle, totally at ease, one dimpled hand clutching the bunny, the other hand laying idle on Katie’s arm except for a single finger she used to stroke Katie’s watchband.

The wind howled outside and rattled the door. A shiver ran up Katie’s spine and she wrapped her arms around Lily. She wasn’t sure what else to do. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if she’d imagined the man at the window.

“’Bout that birdie—” Lily whispered, launching into a story that Katie tried her best to understand. She could only catch every third word, however, so she nodded a lot and murmured appropriate remarks. She kept her eyes focused on the window, jerking every time a gust of wind made something outside bang or clatter. Her other senses were attuned to Lily. Her clean little-girl smell, her warm weight in Katie’s arms, her soft voice.

Katie liked children—always had, though she’d been raised an only child with no younger cousins to play with. There had been the neighbor kids, though, younger than she, a veritable gold mine of babysitting money. This child took the cake, however. She was not only physically attractive, but she was charming and trusting and her eyes twinkled.

Katie hugged Lily tighter and, instead of resisting, the child relaxed. Her body grew heavier, the string of the story faded into words interspersed with yawns until there were no more words, just soft breathing and a heavy head on Katie’s shoulder.

Katie knew she should carry the child off to her bed, but the temptation to hold her in front of the crackling fire was too great to resist. Besides, she didn’t want to be alone. Where was Nick?

What she wanted was for him to come home and reassure her with something along the lines of: “That face in the window? Not to worry, that’s old man Petrie, a harmless recluse. The old coot likes to wander around in snowstorms looking for aluminum cans.” That would be great. She could handle old man Petrie…

Resting her cheek atop Lily’s spun-gold hair and kissing her forehead, Katie closed her eyes, listening to the storm outside. Both the anxiety concerning the face at the window and worry about her mother’s welfare took a back seat as exhaustion caught up with her, spinning her thoughts into ever-more-distant circles.

She must have fallen asleep, for the next thing Katie knew, a door slammed her back to consciousness. Nick Pierce stood just inside the room, the expression on his face unfathomable.

“What are you doing with my daughter?” he said, striding across the room.