A Bride In Waiting

That information didn’t do anything to soothe Sara’s nerves. “I’m not sure I can do this, pretend to be someone so different.”

Lucas’s dark eyes scrutinized her face. He shook his head and for one moment Sara feared he was going to agree with her. In that moment she realized how desperately she wanted to do this, to find out more about Analise, the woman who looked so much like her.

To prove to herself that she could do this.

“Different?” he said. “I can’t get over how much you two look alike. It’s uncanny. If I didn’t know better... well, trust me, you won’t have any problems. All you have to do is listen to the wedding coordinator. She’ll tell you everything in a voice you couldn’t miss if you were in the next county. Let’s hurry. We’re late.”

They got out of the car and started across the lot toward the church. If the situation wasn’t bad enough, that church made it worse. It loomed ahead, big, old, solid and intimidating. The stained-glass windows seemed to watch her approach, daring such an inconsequential person as her to enter. She didn’t belong in any place so grand. The church knew it and all the people inside would notice immediately.

“Wait a minute.” Lucas’s words stopped her. She whirled back toward him, irrational fear flooding her for just a moment. Surely a kidnapper wouldn’t kidnap in a church parking lot. “We have to do something about your hair.”

He reached around her for the braid she’d redone and tucked it into the collar of her dress.

“Your skin’s cold,” he said softly, his fingers lingering deliciously on the bare flesh of her neck.

She laughed nervously. “It’s at least ninety degrees. I can’t be cold.” Though judging from the relative warmth of his touch, she knew she must be.

He jerked his hand away as though she had suddenly burned him. “Your skin’s clammy,” he said, his tone brisk and businesslike. “A typical reaction to stress. You’re really nervous about this, aren’t you?”

“I’m okay. Let’s get this over with.” She walked defiantly toward the church.

“Hey!”

She stopped again, one foot on the front step.

“I don’t know your name or anything about you.”

“Sara Martin. I’m a librarian. I’m from Deauxville, Missouri.”

He smiled, and Sara’s fears somehow vanished in that flash of white teeth against tanned skin, of his dark eyes lighting from within. “Hi, Sara Martin. I’m Lucas Daniels, and I’m a doctor from Briar Creek who’s greatly in your debt.”

He took her hand and they went into the church, into the hushed atmosphere of a huge auditorium with burgundy carpet that sank beneath Sara’s feet. Pews upholstered in velvet fabric of the same color sat in quiet, orderly rows. The place even smelled like burgundy velvet...rich and dignified and established.

The intimidating hush was shattered in the next second by a chaotic crowd of people bustling and shouting.

“Thank goodness you’re here! We were getting worried.”

“Analise, can’t you ever be on time?”

“Analise, my dress hasn’t come in yet!”

“Will everyone please settle down so we can get started here.”

Sara took an instinctive step backward and felt Lucas’s strong hands on her shoulders, supporting her and urging her forward.

“It’s all right,” he murmured, his voice deep and reassuring in her ear.

“The bride and her attendants stay at the back. I need the groom and his attendants here,” a slim, elegant woman standing to one side up front directed, and Lucas left Sara.

Three laughing, confident young women converged on her instead, and Sara shrank inside.

“Cool hair,” a brown-eyed blonde said. “Makes you look sophisticated. Kind of like a real wife.”

“Cool dress, too,” a short brunette added. “Wish I could carry off that look. On me, it’d just be dowdy.”

What was it with these people and her dress?

“Quiet, everyone,” the authoritative woman ordered. Obviously she was the coordinator Lucas had mentioned. “The minister, the groom and his attendants will enter from the front and stand looking to the back, waiting for the bride.”

As the men, including Lucas, moved solemnly into their places, the whole thing took on a dreamlike quality.

“Marilyn sings the solo, then as soon as the organist begins to play, Judy starts down the aisle. When she’s halfway, Kathy starts, then Linda. Okay, pretend the solo’s just finished. Nancy, begin the music.” Strains of organ music floated through the auditorium. “Judy, start down the aisle. As soon as you get to the front, turn and face the back, all attention focusing on the bride. Stop giggling, Judy, and, for goodness’ sake, don’t be chewing gum during the actual wedding.”

One by one, the three women moved down the aisle, leaving Sara alone with everyone staring at her.

Lucas had been wrong. She’d been wrong. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t pull off something so daring as masquerading as another woman. The most daring thing she’d ever done before was...well, the only daring thing she’d ever done was sell everything after her mother’s death and come to Briar Creek, Texas. And right now she regretted that, big time.

She half turned to run from the church, get in her car and go back to Deauxville, forget all about finding her real mother or this unlikely possibility of a twin sister.

But a tall, portly man moved up beside her and, smiling down at her, took her arm, and she was mesmerized by the total acceptance and love in his eyes. The organist broke into the strains of the wedding march.

“Okay, bride, you’re on. This is your show. Take it slow and graceful. Do not run down the aisle.”

The tall man winked. “My baby girl went straight from crawling to running. What makes that woman think you’re going to change now?”

Analise’s father.

The love that emanated from him was for his daughter, not for her.

But it was so hard not to luxuriate in the paternal adoration, something she’d never experienced before.

In a daze she walked down the aisle beside Analise’s devoted father, moving toward Lucas, Analise’s beaming groom. It was hard to fight the urge to become lost in the pretense, to believe she really was Analise Brewster, beloved daughter and fiancée, the person who belonged in this church, in this community, in this wedding.

“Who gives this woman in marriage?”

“Her mother and I.”

The older man placed her hand in Lucas’s. He gave her a conspiratorial smile, and she could no longer resist becoming hopelessly lost in the wedding fantasy.

“The minister reads the vows. You each answer ‘I do’ and exchange rings.”

“I do,” Sara whispered, holding her hand out for Lucas to slip on the invisible ring, then doing the same for him.

“Then you kiss the bride, turn to face the congregation, and the minister introduces you as Mr. and Mrs. Lucas Daniels.”

Lucas’s dark gaze held hers for an instant then dropped to her lips. As if in slow motion, his face lowered toward hers, his lips touching hers gently, possessively, lighting unexpected fires inside her while promising a lifetime of love and belonging. For that brief moment she almost believed that promise was for her.

“Now you walk down the aisle together.”

The voice of the wedding coordinator yanked Sara back to reality.

What on earth was the matter with her? Had she lost her mind? She’d agreed to this charade in exchange for promised assistance in her quest. Losing herself in a game of make-believe wasn’t part of that quest.

She was not Analise. This was not her wedding, the older man was not her father and Lucas was not her fiance.

She pushed against Lucas’s chest.

His heart pounding furiously, Lucas released Sara.

Around them the wedding party buzzed while the loudmouthed, pushy coordinator tried to get them quiet for another run-through or even two. They needed to have it down pat, she said, since it would be an entire week before the wedding, a lot of time to forget.

That was the last thing Lucas needed—to have to pretend to marry Sara again, to kiss her again.

Not that the kiss was a requisite part of the rehearsal. No, that had been entirely his idea. Actually, it hadn’t even been his idea. His body, his lips had taken control, demanding to touch this woman who looked so much like his fiancée but affected him in a way Analise never had.

That was how he’d known for certain she wasn’t Analise. Heaven help him, Analise had never set his hormones to boiling the way this woman did, and certainly never made him want to take care of her and protect her from the world.

Heck, the world needed protecting from Analise, he thought fondly. But Sara was a different story altogether. And he damn sure shouldn’t be feeling this way about another woman a week before his wedding.

Nerves, he told himself. That’s all it was. Because of Analise’s disappearance, he was hyped, his adrenaline pumping. He’d get away from here, do some deep breathing and get back to normal.

A tiny blond woman pushed through the crowd. “I can’t believe my baby’s getting married!” Clare Brewster exclaimed, reaching upward to embrace Sara. Lucas held his breath. Did Sara look enough like Analise to fool her own mother? He needed to get her out of there fast...to protect her identity as well as to protect his out-of-kilter libido.

Sara leaned stiffly to accept Clare’s embrace.

“Oh, good grief, Clare, don’t start already,” Analise’s father admonished.

“Hush, Ralph. Go remove an appendix or lift a face or something. Do you feel all right, Analise? You look a little pale.” She squinted upward, and Lucas repressed a smile at his future mother-in-law’s vain reluctance to wear glasses. “You need some lipstick, sweetheart, and a little blusher. I’m not sure I like that new hairstyle. It makes you look so old, so grown-up. And where did you get that dress? Oh, I know, that look is trendy. It’s just that it’s so...so—”

Lucas placed-a hand on Sara’s shoulder. “Analise isn’t feeling very good today. Why don’t you all do another run-through of the wedding without us? We know our parts.”

“You don’t feel well, baby? What’s the matter?”

“She’s a little queasy, that’s all. Prewedding jitters.” Lucas wanted to bite his tongue as soon as he said it. Would anybody believe a mere wedding could make Analise jittery? “Or maybe a bug of some kind,” he hastily added.

“We can’t do this without the bride and groom,” the coordinator protested.

“You certainly can,” Clare said. “I’m taking my baby home. I’ll have Annie make some of that potato soup you like, and you’ll be all better by the rehearsal dinner tonight.”

“No!” Sara and Lucas exclaimed in unison.

He’d forgotten about that stupid dinner and hadn’t even considered the possibility that Clare might drag Sara home with her.

Ignoring them both, Clare clutched Sara’s arm and tugged her toward the door.

Lucas flinched, expecting the worst. His future mother-in-law didn’t know she was dragging off an ersatz daughter who was skilled in the art of self-defense.

When Sara merely gave him a panicked look over her shoulder rather than mauling Clare the way she’d done him, he sent up a short prayer of thanks.

He grabbed her other arm. “She needs to go with me,” he said. He’d bargained with Sara for a couple of hours of her time, not an afternoon trapped by Analise’s demanding parents who’d be sure to figure out immediately that Sara was not their headstrong daughter. For everybody’s sake, he had to get her out of there. “We have some, uh, wedding arrangements to take care of.”

“Nothing that can’t wait,” Clare argued. “My little girl’s sick. She’s coming home with me. You’re not married to her yet.” Clare was taking full advantage of her “daughter’s” unaccustomed weakness.

“They’re really important,” Sara said in a strangled voice, “those arrangements Lucas and I need to take care of.”

Clare patted Sara’s cheek and smiled softly. “Can’t it wait for one more day, sweetheart? Can’t you be my little girl and let me take care of you one last time?”

A glazed expression came over Sara’s face as she looked down at Clare and, to Lucas’s astonishment, she nodded slowly.

“Then I’m coming with her,” he said. “After all, I’m a doctor.” It was the best he could come up with on such short notice.

Clare frowned at him. “So is her father.”

“And two doctors are better than one.”

Right now he needed a doctor of a different sort, one to figure out why he’d ever thought this crazy idea would work in the first place. Unlike Analise, he wasn’t given to doing impulsive things, and his first attempt was turning into a major disaster.

The three of them headed out of the church with Clare clucking and fussing over Sara’s health.

Lucas caught a fleeting glimpse of Ralph’s confused expression as Analise’s father followed behind them. He knew something wasn’t right with his daughter. Rather, the girl he thought was his daughter.

Somehow Lucas’s attempt to keep the situation smooth had resulted in a sticky mess.

“Lucas, where’s your car?” Clare asked as they exited the church.

“On Main Street,” he answered truthfully. “It overheated.”

“How did you get here?”

“I borrowed that car.” He pointed to Sara’s white sedan.

“Well, take it back and we’ll see you at the house later.”

“Analise has the keys.”

“Give him the keys, baby.”

Sara gave him another panic-stricken look as she handed him the car keys. He took them and Clare guided her into their Cadillac. Lucas gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring. “I’ll be right behind you,” he called.

Oh, boy, he thought as he trotted over to Sara’s car.

Not only did he have to figure out some way to get Sara out of that house, but he’d forgotten about that damn dinner tonight.

He’d bridged a stream only to have a chasm open at his feet. He couldn’t possibly ask Sara to pose as Analise again. All he’d done was delay the town’s and her parents’ knowledge of her defection. Ralph would be disappointed at Lucas’s failure to bring stability to Analise’s life. Clare would be a basket case. They were good people. He didn’t want to see either of them upset.

And, since his acceptance in Briar Creek hinged on Ralph’s acceptance of him, if Ralph’s daughter rejected him, all the old talk would start again.

He pulled onto the street behind Ralph’s car.

Maybe if he begged Sara...

Maybe if he let her attack him again, she’d feel guilty again and agree to this second favor.

In spite of the remembered pain, he had to smile at the way she’d defended herself. For someone so timid, she certainly knew her self-defense techniques and wasn’t afraid to use them.

Sara Martin was an enigma, a tantalizing enigma, one he’d be tempted to explore if he weren’t marrying Analise.

He frowned at his own thoughts.

He was engaged to Analise. He shouldn’t be having thoughts like that about another woman. He never had before, and this was certainly no time to start.

So what if Analise and he didn’t have that crazy, can’t-live-without-each-other passion that the world insisted on writing songs about. He’d seen what that grand passion had done for his parents...ruined both their lives.

Analise was his friend, someone who would never make him lose control of his life or bring him pain. In spite of the fact that Analise was untamed and passionate, their relationship with each other was sane and safe.

Thank goodness he was marrying Analise and couldn’t go chasing after tantalizing enigmas.

Chapter Three

Analise’s house was every bit as intimidating as the church, Sara thought as they drove through the security gate and up the hill. Huge live oak, pecan and magnolia trees lined the entry and spread around the big, white Colonial structure. A smaller edifice would be hidden, but the Brewster house sat in regal splendor on top of the hill overlooking its domain. Bright roses twined in orderly fashion over trellises on each side of the front porch.

Lucas pulled in behind them and parked in the driveway in front of the large detached garage, then the four of them followed the sidewalk that wound to the front porch. Clare continued to talk, but Sara didn’t hear anything she said. She looked down at the pebbled walk, at the velvety green lawn and called herself all kinds of an idiot. She’d always been so sedate, so sensible, so aware of the real world. She’d never indulged in daydreaming about things she couldn’t have.

Until today.

She’d almost escaped until Analise’s mother had reached up and touched her so gently and asked her to be her little girl one last time. She’d been determined she would get away from Analise’s parents, from the church, from Lucas...but suddenly she’d slipped into that blasted fantasy again just the way she had while walking down the aisle. Without warning, an intense, aching loneliness had overwhelmed her, a longing to be cared for by a mother like Clare.

Her own mother—her adoptive mother—had loved her in her own way. June Martin had been a strict disciplinarian and she hadn’t been a demonstrative person, but Sara could scarcely lament the lack of something she’d never had.

And she wasn’t feeling that lack today, she assured herself. She was just getting caught up in the pretense, the way an actress sometimes got caught up in the role she was playing.

Which rationalization didn’t help her situation. All she wanted to do right now was blurt out the truth and. get away from these people, this house, this town. Go back to her dull little life and forget about finding her real mother who hadn’t wanted her anyway so why was she so determined to find her?

Lucas’s hand at the small of her back urged her up the steps of the porch and into the tiled entryway of the big house.

A crystal chandelier sparkled overhead and a wide, curving staircase loomed before her.

“Go on upstairs to your room, and I’ll have Annie make you that soup,” Clare instructed.

Lucas guided her toward the stairs. The enduring scents of old wood and lemon oil wrapped around her, speaking of a permanence she’d never known. She laid a tentative hand on the smooth, cool surface of the banister.

“Don’t even think of sliding down that thing again,” Ralph called.

She looked back to see him grinning at her, but his gaze was intent...assessing. He knew something was wrong.

She gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

Lucas hustled her up the stairs and into Analise’s room.

As soon as he closed the door behind them, she sank to the floor, drawing in huge gulps of air and expelling them in something between sobs and hysterical laughter. Lucas squatted beside her.

“I’m sorry, Sara. I thought this would be simple. I had no idea this was going to happen.”

“What about the rehearsal dinner? You failed to mention that!”

Lucas ran his fingers through his hair, mussing his immaculate style. “I forgot. I was so upset about everything else, I forgot about that damn dinner. I don’t suppose...” -

“No! Absolutely not. This is making a nervous wreck out of me. I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“That’s okay. I shouldn’t have asked. Look, if you can just eat some soup and then say you feel better, I’ll get you out of here. That would be typical Analise behavior. She’s always charging off somewhere, doing something bizarre. Like she did today.”

“She goes off like that without telling her parents?” Sara asked incredulously. “I couldn’t even go out in the yard without asking my mother.”

“Analise always tells them, but it’s usually after the fact, when it’s too late for them to stop her. In this case, she told me, and I’m to tell her parents. She’s kind of impulsive.”

“Sounds like it.” Flaky and irresponsible, Sara would have said, though she found herself liking the absent Analise and wondering what it must be like to be so confident and so daring.

She leaned back against the door, pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “When I left Missouri, I was determined to change my life, but I didn’t have quite this drastic a change in mind.”

“You’re doing great,” he assured her. “You’re totally safe as long as Clare doesn’t put on her glasses... and she’s so vain, I’ve never seen her wear them.”

“No, I’m not doing great. Her father suspects. Does she really slide down the banister?”

“That she does.” He leaned back against the door beside her, one knee upraised with his hand resting on it. “Analise is, um, high-spirited.”

“You must love her a lot.” What a stupid thing to say, she chastised herself. He was marrying the woman. Of course he loved her.

“Love Analise? Well, sure. Yeah. We’ve been best friends since I moved back here to go into practice with her father six years ago.”

“He must be a very successful doctor.” She looked around at all the opulence.

“He is,” Lucas agreed. “Successful and competent and a great guy. But this house belonged to Clare’s family.”

And Lucas was marrying the impulsive daughter of this prominent family.

Sara got to her feet shakily and walked across the room. What on earth was she doing here? What made her think Analise Brewster would want to claim her as a sister, even if that far-fetched possibility should be true?

“This room is as big as some of the places where my mother and I lived.”

“It used to be two rooms. Ralph and Clare had the wall knocked out when Analise was just a baby because she had too many toys for one room. Analise is an only child, and her parents overindulge her sometimes.” He grinned. “Most times.”

Sara stood for a moment studying the room with its plush white carpet, accented by colorful throw rugs. A red phone and a computer peeked from disorderly piles of paper on a rolltop desk. A white telephone—did Analise even have a private phone line?—sat on a nightstand next to a large bed with a white-eyelet spread almost hidden by bright throw pillows and stuffed animals. On one wall a large television stood guard over videotapes scattered casually around it. An elaborate stereo with compact discs in shining disarray occupied a corner, while an entire wall of built-in shelves was filled with books, photographs and assorted music boxes. In one corner, as if occupying a place of honor, a battered doll with remnants of red hair reclined in a doll carriage.

It was a comfortable room, one where Sara immediately and irrationally felt at home though she’d never lived in, or even visualized living in, such a room. Maybe it was the music boxes, something she’d have loved to collect if she’d had the money, or maybe—

“That doll looks a little like Analise,” she said, more to herself than to Lucas.

“Not really. Analise is much taller and has more hair,” Lucas teased.

Sara laughed. “I meant, she looks like a doll I used to have, a doll named Analise.”

“Really? That’s odd. I mean, it’s an unusual name. What an odd coincidence that you named your doll Analise when you look so much like her.”

“Yes, I guess it is.” She picked up the doll and studied it curiously. “I have no idea where I heard the name. I saw that doll in the store and decided her name was Analise and I absolutely had to have her. Probably because she had red hair like me.” Or because she reminded me of a twin sister I remembered only on a subconscious level? “We never had much money and we moved a lot, so I didn’t get many toys. I understood and usually didn’t complain, but this time I kept after my mother until she bought me that doll. Then I hung on to her until we moved to Iowa when I was nine. Somehow she got lost in that move, and I felt as though I’d lost my best friend.”

She returned the doll to its carriage and smoothed its dress then turned back to Lucas.

He stood in front of the door like a sentinel, arms crossed over his chest, feet braced wide apart. “Seems pretty normal you’d feel that way if you moved around a lot. Making new friends is hard.” He looked and sounded as if he knew from personal experience, and she recalled that he’d mentioned he’d moved back to town six years ago. But he didn’t pursue the topic. Instead he inclined his head toward the shelves. “There’s a picture of Analise—” he grinned “—the real one, not your doll.”