She’d taken far too many liberties.

But the moment of ire was brief.

Katie and his little girl looked so right lying there together. A woman with a big heart and strong convictions and a child who had lost her mother.

Katie was worming her way into his house, his heart, his child’s life.

He had to put a stop to this. He couldn’t be the hero Katie wanted, the hero she needed. He couldn’t take a chance of leaving his child alone in the world, he couldn’t risk…

Risk. That’s what it amounted to. Terrible risk.

He left the room with a heavy heart. When Katie woke up he’d have to be firm, he’d have to make her understand. He’d get her to safety and that’s all.

For now, he’d be her protector. Beyond that, he could do no more.

Duplicate Daughter
Alice Sharpe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Katherine Jones, Hayden Jones

and Carmen Sharpe, with everlasting love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice Sharpe met her husband-to-be on a cold, foggy beach in Northern California. One year later they were married. Their union has survived the rearing of two children, a handful of earthquakes registering over 6.5, numerous cats and a few special dogs, the latest of which is a yellow Lab named Annie Rose. Alice and her husband now live in a small rural town in Oregon, where she devotes the majority of her time to pursuing her second love, writing.

Alice loves to hear from readers. You can write her at P.O. Box 755, Brownsville, OR 97327. A SASE for reply is appreciated.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Katie Fields—This Jill-of-all-trades newly discovered twin sister is injured, and their honeymooning mother is missing. Can Katie reclaim her family before it’s too late?

Nick Pierce—A widower whose three-year-old daughter is his sole priority. Can Katie convince him he’s her mother’s only hope?

Lily Pierce—A three-year-old enchantress whose mother died tragically. It doesn’t take Katie long to realize why Nick will go to the ends of the earth to protect Lily.

Caroline Mays-Swope—Katie’s missing mother. She’s made some difficult decisions in her life. Have they now come back to haunt her?

Bill Thurman (aka Bill Swope)—Nick’s father and Caroline’s new husband. Trouble follows this man.

Helen Delaney—Nick’s housekeeper and Lily’s babysitter. She’s sworn to do whatever it takes to keep Lily safe.

Frank Carson—This cop gone bad brags that he always gets his man. What else is he searching for?

Benito Mutzi—A mob boss who wants back what was once his. He isn’t finicky about how he goes about it.

Doc—An old army buddy of Nick’s. It helps to know a doctor who won’t ask tricky questions about gunshot wounds.

FBI agent Loni Boone—Is she as good as her word or does she have her own agenda?

Tess Mays—Katie’s twin sister, injured while helping Katie, depending now on Katie to help her.

Ryan Hill—The Oregon cop who loves Tess.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Prologue

She awoke in the dark, head throbbing, throat dry. For a second, she didn’t have the slightest idea where she was or what had happened to her.

First things first. Get to your feet. Find out where you are.

Struggling to her knees, she reached forward until her hands touched a rough, damp dirt wall. Leveraging her body, she attempted to stand. Her head hit the ceiling while she was still crouching and she cried out, her voice a muffled squeak. Wherever she was, there was no standing room and she sank back down to the dirt floor, a geyser of hopelessness welling up inside her chest.

Into the cold, dank air she whispered, “My name is Caroline. I have a daughter named Tess.”

This last thought made her wince. Thoughts of her beloved Tess always made her wince. Not because of Tess herself, but because of Katie, frozen forever in her mind as a six-month-old baby, born in the spring when the roses bloomed…

Flowers! White roses. Yellow freesias.

Of course…a wedding…her wedding…

Bill!

Visions of men with masks, men with guns. Bill crumpled on the motel floor…

Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks as the past few days came back in total clarity.

Bill.

Where was Bill?

Chapter One

Nick Pierce stood on the tarmac gazing upward, though he knew from experience the high mountain air of Frostbite, Alaska, meant he’d hear the single-engine plane before he actually saw it.

He was anxious to get this over with. He was anxious to get back home. There was nothing he could tell the woman flying out of her way to talk to him. He would have made that clear when she called, but like an ostrich hiding its head in the sand, he’d figured if he ignored her she’d go away, and he’d never actually taken one of her calls himself.

It hadn’t worked. Hell, that approach to problems never worked, but he always seemed compelled to give it a try anyway.

To top it off, the weather was changing. He could feel the cold bite of an approaching storm on his face, sweeping over the inlet, up the Panhandle, bringing snow and ice. Winter days were short this far north and at two-thirty in the afternoon, there was only about an hour of daylight left. Oh, face it—he was sorely tempted to drive away and forgo the meeting before he got stuck at the airport.

And then he heard a drone overhead and realized the time to leave had come and gone. A few minutes later, Toby Macleod’s aqua DeHavilland Otter came to a stop a few yards away from Nick’s four-wheel-drive truck, the wheel skis making slide marks in the accumulating snow. Nick stamped his feet to get his circulation moving, waiting for Toby to turn off the big turbo engine, then walked around to the far side of the plane, waving at Toby as he did so.

The sole passenger making the long climb out of the plane was bundled up to her ears in black boots, jeans and an olive-green parka, her head wrapped securely in a pale blue wool scarf. When she looked around to survey her surroundings, flaming red tendrils escaped the folds of wool, snapping like scarlet ribbons against the increasingly white environment. Reaching up and taking her ungloved hand, he helped her step down.

She stumbled as her right foot touched the ground, immediately straightening herself. Her head barely came level with his shoulder. She struck him as small, delicate, and out of place as she shoved her hands in her pockets and shivered.

“You’re Nicolas Pierce,” she said through clattering teeth, looking up at him with eyes as deep and blue as a fjord. She was extremely pretty and extremely young, at least to his world-weary eyes. He’d be thirty-eight in a few months and this woman looked about eighteen, though he guessed she was actually in her early twenties.

Taking her arm, he ushered her around the plane toward his truck.

“Call me Nick,” he said, the weather clock ticking in his head. “And you’re Tess Mays,” he added.

He felt her flinch through her padded coat. “No, my name is Katie Fields.”

“I don’t understand,” he snapped, suddenly suspicious. Helen, his housekeeper, had said his father’s new stepdaughter had called a few times, the last to announce the fact she was on her way. The stepdaughter’s name was Tess. He turned to look down at the woman beside him. “Who?” he snapped.

“Katie Fields. I’m Tess’s sister.” She glanced up for a second, her breath a cloud of icy vapor, a few sparkling ice crystals sticking to her cheeks and brow.

“I don’t understand,” he repeated, but he resumed ushering her forward as she appeared about ready to freeze in place. The limp grew more pronounced as she hurried beside him.

“It’s a little complicated,” she told him as he opened the truck door for her, struggling for a second as the heavy metal met the resistance of the quickening wind.

Gripping her shoulders, he leaned down to talk close to her ear so she could hear him. “It’s too cold to stand around discussing things. Stay inside where it’s warm while I talk to Toby. I’ll be right back.”

With his help, she made the high step up into the cab of his truck, hunkering down in the leather seat with a sigh of relief, covering her lower face with her bare hands, breathing into them in an effort to defrost her nose and lips and fingers, too. He’d done the same thing a million times since relocating here from southern California.

“Turn up the heater,” he told her as the wind finally won the tug-of-war with the door and slammed it back into place. He nodded reassuringly through the window at her alarmed expression, then went back to the plane.

At his approach, Toby opened a little window by the pilot’s seat and poked his face cautiously through. Snowflakes immediately stuck to his beard and bushy red eyebrows.

“Hey, Nick,” Toby called. “How’s Lily?”

“Growing like a weed. How about Chris?”

“Two more weeks before the baby comes. She’s about ready to explode.” He grinned. Apparently, the thought of becoming a father for the fifth time pleased him. “Say, the weather is deteriorating quick,” Toby added. “I’ve got medicine aboard for the Lambert woman in Skie. I’ve got to get it to her, which means I have to be able to take off from here. You’ve got five minutes with the lady, tops.”

“It won’t take even that long,” Nick said.

He retraced his steps to the truck and climbed aboard, struggling with the door again.

Now he faced Katie Fields, who had warmed to the point that she’d unwrapped her hair and unzipped her parka. He could have saved her the trouble. Five minutes wasn’t long enough for anyone to get cozy.

As he pulled off his gloves, he took a good look at her face, trying to see something of her mother in her, but he’d never actually met the woman, just seen a wedding photograph sent north by Tess Mays. As he’d torn it in half the moment he figured out what it was, there was nothing left but a vague impression of a middle-aged woman with wispy, graying blond hair.

There was nothing, however, wispy about her daughter. Katie Fields might be small, but passion burned in her eyes like twin fireballs. Her red hair heightened this perception. Her golden eyebrows suggested she was actually a natural blonde, like Patricia, and with the thought of his late wife, his heart seized for an interminable moment.

“Like I said, I’m Tess’s sister,” Katie said, jerking him back to the present. “She didn’t know about me until recently—”

He shook his head as he pulled off his black wool cap. Straight strands of sandy hair fell into his eyes and he brushed them out of the way. “We don’t have time for details,” he told her. “You’ve made this trip for nothing and I’m sorry about that, but I don’t have anything to tell you. If I’d taken your call I could have saved you the expense of this trip.”

“But you were never around to take the call,” she said, and he got the distinct impression she knew perfectly well that he’d avoided this discussion like the plague. He shrugged.

“Your father—”

“As far as I’m concerned,” he interrupted, “my father was the perfectly ordinary man who married my mother when I was eight years old. His name was Jim Pierce. He adopted me and undertook the task of raising me. He owned a shoe store in San Diego. He played golf and told bad jokes. He died ten years ago. He was a great guy and I still miss him.”

She looked confused. Stuttering, she muttered, “But I thought…Tess said…your father…”

“Your mother’s new husband is my biological father. I’m sorry your family got mixed up with him. But again, I haven’t seen the man in over two years and if my luck holds, I’ll never see Bill Thurman again.”

“My mother married a man named Bill Swope.”

“Seems as though Dad got himself a brand-new name.”

“Why would he do that?”

More memories of Patricia invaded his head, but this time her own blood soaked her blond hair. Looking over Katie’s shoulder, Nick pulled on his gloves. “Toby is gesturing like crazy, the weather is about to close in, you have a plane to catch,” he said in a clipped voice.

Avoiding her gaze, he tugged on his hat and pushed open the door. The weather had further deteriorated in the few short minutes he’d been inside and the blast of cold air streaming into the truck had his visitor shivering again. He darted around and opened her door, anxious to get this woman into Toby’s plane before it was too late. She sat in the seat looking down at him, her scarf still in her lap, her pretty face puzzled.

“Come on,” he said, reaching up for her. Time was up.

She bit her bottom lip, then shook her head. “No.”

The wind was howling; he must have heard her wrong. He glanced at the plane. Toby had rubbed a clear space on the inside of the windshield and could be seen holding up one finger.

“I’m not leaving,” she yelled. “You have to help me.”

“I told you—”

“Listen,” she said, her voice still loud but her tone somber. “I get it. You don’t like your bio dad. I couldn’t care less what your problem with him is, all I know is he’s disappeared with my mother, a woman I haven’t seen since I was a few months old. My sister is lying in a hospital with a gunshot wound, worrying herself sick. My mother and your father never showed up in Seattle where they had reservations at a downtown hotel. I’m going to find our mother and take her to my sister, and if that means I have to stay in this frozen wasteland till the blasted daises pop through the snow, then so be it.”

He stared at her with disbelieving eyes. She couldn’t be serious. On the other hand, there was something about the stubborn tilt of her chin that suggested otherwise and it came to him with a jolt: Katie Fields wasn’t bluffing. Or budging.

He slammed her door and approached the DeHavilland, gesturing with his arm for Toby to take off. Toby disappeared for a moment and then opened the door and threw out a small brown suitcase that landed with a thud. After Nick retrieved the bag, he stood there in the freezing snow as Toby started the engine and taxied down the runway, gaining momentum, lifting to the sky and almost instantly disappearing. Being a pilot himself, he knew Toby would make it to Skie within an hour, and that Skie’s weather was never as bad as Frostbite’s.

Then he turned to look back at his truck and the woman sitting inside.

He’d have to take her home with him.

As he labored through the gathering snow, Katie Fields’s suitcase clenched under his arm, Nick swore at his father, wherever he was, and at the woman trusting enough to fall for his lies and marry him.

Bill Swope?

What was going on? Just exactly what had his father roped Katie Fields’s mother into?

Hopefully she wouldn’t pay for her naiveté with her life.

Chapter Two

Judging distances in the blizzard surrounding the truck was almost impossible for Katie, though there did seem to be some distant mountains looming ahead. She’d spent her life on the Oregon coast, where it seldom snowed; this experience was like being immersed in one of those bleak Christmas cards that are supposed to look cheery.

No one could accuse Nick Pierce, however, of looking cheery.

She wrapped her cold hands in the folds of her scarf and wished she’d thought to swallow a couple of aspirin before debarking the plane. The coma she’d recently suffered still left her with headaches, and her injured leg throbbed despite the fact the doctor said it was mending well.

She sneaked a peek at Nick, who gripped the steering wheel with both hands, brow furrowed in concentration as he expertly handled the big truck. She could feel tension emanating from him like the warm blasts shooting out of the heater. She doubted his stress had anything to do with the driving and everything to do with her presence in his life.

Truth was, she was almost as perplexed by her behavior as he seemed to be. Sure, she was tenacious. Anyone who knew her knew that. But she was also driving in a snowstorm with a stranger. Once back in the truck, he’d announced she had no choice but to accompany him and he was headed home before he got snowed in at the airport. He didn’t equivocate or wait for her permission. It was as though she’d abandoned all free will the moment she let the plane leave the ground without her, and though she understood now that was exactly what she’d done, it didn’t make swallowing it less alarming.

Still, she’d do it again in a flash. This man knew things about his biological father that she needed to know, and one way or another, she was determined to worm them out of him.

She couldn’t explain why she was so sure something was wrong; like she’d told Nick, she hadn’t actually seen her mother in twenty-six-and-a-half years. Maybe it was her newly discovered twin sister’s certainty that their mother was in danger that had communicated itself to Katie, planted itself deep in her subconscious, making Tess’s distress as real as her own. After all, Tess had grown up with their mother and knew the woman as well as Katie had known their father.

That thought jolted her. Her father had led a secret life that had damn near gotten both his daughters killed. Known him? How well does a child really know a parent? How much is an illusion?

But she did know, or was getting to know, Tess. She could sense her sister’s moods and thoughts in a mysterious way that felt totally natural. She knew Tess didn’t understand this dimension of their relationship. They’d talked as long and as much as Tess’s precarious condition allowed before Katie flew north, and Tess admitted she’d never had an inkling she wasn’t an only child before the call that Katie had been injured came from the New Harbor police.

On the other hand, Katie had always felt half-complete. She’d spent her life looking for something. Now she realized she’d been looking for someone. She’d been looking for Tess. She took her new cell phone out of her pocket and punched it on. The old one had been seized by the Oregon police as evidence.

No signal.

“We’re almost there,” Nick said, turning off what appeared to be a main highway though they’d not met a single car for a mile or two, since the buildings had stopped and Katie had all but given up hope Nick lived in the middle of a nice, bustling community. She peered through the window but all she saw were pristine white flakes, illuminated by the headlights and falling steadily all around them.

“I’ll take your word for it,” she said, repocketing the useless phone and turning in her seat to look at him. He appeared to be in his mid-thirties, a tall man who seemed strong and healthy. He had a way of walking that suggested that beneath all those layers of clothes there was an extremely fit man who knew exactly where he was going and where he’d been, as though he plotted and planned his every move and hadn’t made a spontaneous decision in his whole life.

His self-confidence suddenly goaded her into a small explosion. “Why do you hate your biological father so much?” she demanded. “What do you think he’s done with my mother? Is he dangerous? Should I call the FBI?”

He deflected her outburst with a single question. “Haven’t you contacted the police already?”

“Sure we contacted them. First my sister’s fiancé called, then I did. They said to give her a while, that a middle-aged woman on her honeymoon might choose not to stay in touch. The fact their hotel reservation was canceled tells the police they just changed their mind about their destination.”

“They canceled the reservation?”

She said, “Don’t dodge my question. Why is your father so…I don’t know, so loathsome to you? Do you think he purposely hurt my mother?”

Nick glanced at her briefly before turning back to study the road. In that glance, Katie felt the full impact of his eyes. They were as green as palm trees, and thickly lashed, and why she hadn’t been knocked overboard long before this by the sheer clarity and intensity of his gaze made her wonder if her libido had frozen along with her fingers and nose.

He had a very strong profile, all clean lines and determined thrust of chin, a man to be reckoned with. Maybe a man who figured everyone who wasn’t with him was against him.

She’d have to make sure she got him on her side. No trouble, right? She was a people person, a bartender for years, a Jill of all trades.

Did she have dreams? Of course. What would life be like without dreams? But she’d learned to put her dreams on a back burner. Money was, and had always been, tight and she’d kept her dreams close to her heart, guarding them against the reality of barely making ends meet. What little she had saved she’d used up financing the search for the truth concerning her father’s death. She wouldn’t have been able to afford this trip, for instance, if her veterinarian sister hadn’t put it on her credit card.

Katie couldn’t think about her father right now. It was still too painful. She’d get Nick to come around. She had to. All she needed was time, and judging from the weather, time was just what she had working on her side.

What about her mother? Did Caroline have time or was it already too late?

“Maybe we could share what information we have,” she said, attempting to calm herself down. The truck bounced through a gulley and she gritted her teeth as her leg throbbed anew.

“Let’s just get home first,” he said, driving over a small bridge.

At last the dark shadows of the mountains grew closer and the contours of a log house, glowing with light, smoke rising from its chimney, caught her attention. It was built on the edge of a small, iced-over lake complete with a short pier. A light mounted high on a pole beside the pier illuminated the falling snow. There were also a number of smaller cabins clustered near the main house, as well as a long building set off by itself. Every structure boasted steeply pitched green metal roofs, set in among a million trees, a setting so peaceful it should have calmed Katie’s nerves.

But in fact, the beauty and serenity just made her more antsy. What could they possibly get done out here? She’d jumped out of a frying pan into a fire—or out of an ice chest into a freezer—pick a metaphor, any one would do. And it was her own damn, impulsive fault.

“We’re here,” Nick said, slowing the truck.

“You own all this?”

“Yes.”

“It’s huge.”

“It was built by a painter back in 1950. He used to open it up in the summer for aspiring artists with enough cash to fly in and spend several weeks under his tutelage. I bought it from him four or five years ago.”

“Are you an artist too?” she asked.

He replied immediately. “No. My wife was.”

“Your wife—”

He stilled her with a swift, intense green glance. “She died two years ago,” he said, his voice as bleak as his expression.

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” He pressed a button on the visor above his head and the door to a large garage rolled up and out of the way. Nick pulled inside, his headlights illuminating a couple of snowmobiles and a blue van. A door opposite suggested covered passage to the house. The door was closing and Nick was out of the truck before Katie could untangle her hands from her scarf. He flipped on an overhead light and the details of winter equipment like snowblowers, boots, sleds and snowshoes came into sharp focus.

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.

A sudden stab of guilt made Katie flinch. She should have put the little girl back in her bed, but honestly, was it really such a big deal?

Katie said, “I—”

He leaned over and picked Lily up, shifting her in his arms, his embrace of his sleeping child as tender as it was protective.

“What’s your problem?” she snapped, her voice a sharp whisper. “Your child needed comforting and so I—”

“Lily is—”

“Your daughter. I got that. This place is a nuthouse! How she turned out so endearing—”

“No one asked you to come here,” he said, his expression so intense it would probably start a blaze if directed on one spot long enough.

“You’re right,” she said, standing. “And trust me, as soon as I can figure out a way to leave, I’ll be out of your hair. You don’t know anything about your father, do you? I bet you don’t know anything about anyone, especially not yourself!”

“What the hell does that mean?” He kept his voice as low in volume as Katie did.

She glowered at him in response.

“I’m going to put Lily back in her bed. You stay here.”

As though she had anywhere else to go!

Chapter Four

Nick tucked Lily into her bed, kissed her cheek and closed the door, leaving it open just a crack in case she called out. Then he stood in the hall and ran his hand through his hair.

That blasted woman! Coming into his house, scaring away his housekeeper, waking his kid, acting as though she owned the place, as though she had rights, as though she was an invited guest and not an interloper and a troublemaker and a major pain in the neck.

He had to get rid of her.

Oh, hell, he knew in the back of his mind that Lily sometimes woke up during storms and wandered out to see if anything interesting was going on without her. He should be grateful that Katie was there to comfort his baby, that Lily had felt comfortable enough to go to her, to sit on her lap, to fall asleep in her arms, but he wasn’t grateful. He didn’t know for sure what he felt, but it wasn’t gratitude.

Taking a deep breath, he went back to the living room. Katie was still in the red chair. She looked up when he entered. “Your phone is dead,” she said.

“I know. I should have told you it went down early in the storm. Listen, what do you want to know?” he asked, claiming a matching chair to the left of hers. It was time to get this over with.

“There’s nothing you can tell me,” she said without looking at him. There were dark circles beneath her eyes, and snippets of things she’d said about herself over the past few hours suddenly came back to him. She hadn’t known her mother until recently? Her sister was in the hospital with a gunshot wound? And her limp. Why did she limp?

“Listen, let’s start over again,” he said.

She darted him a quick glance. “What’s the point? You resent my being here. You’re right, I foisted myself on you and your family. I don’t know what I was thinking. I’ve made everything worse instead of better and now I’m stuck.”

He chuckled. “You’re pretty good,” he said.

This earned him a longer look. “What do you mean?”

“Anger hasn’t worked. Buttering me up with a poignant little vignette featuring my kid didn’t do it. Now you’re going to try humility.”

He expected her to jump to her feet and strike out at him. Face it, it was the reaction he hoped for. Caring feelings toward this woman were impossible to entertain. She was trouble. Or to be more fair, she would bring trouble to his life and his family if given half a chance, so reason said push her far away using any method available.

He couldn’t throw her out of the house, because she’d freeze to death. With the county roads in their current snowed-in condition and with no one to watch Lily, he couldn’t even drive her back into Frostbite’s lone hotel though, now that he thought of it, why hadn’t he deposited her there instead of bringing her out here? He couldn’t call her a cab or send her off on a snowmobile. Physically, he was stuck with Katie Fields, so the only method to get rid of her was to anger her beyond reason so she’d stalk off to the guest room and leave him in peace.

But she didn’t jump up or turn nasty. “You really hate your father, don’t you?”

He stared right into her blue eyes and smiled. “I really do.”

She sighed. “First things first. Did you stand outside and look through that window over there a few minutes ago? Fifteen maybe, a half hour tops?”

“Absolutely not,” he said quickly.

“I didn’t think so.”

“You saw someone?”

“Yes. He looked right through the window but by the time I blinked he was gone. Then Lily showed up so I kept her in here with me. I’d like to say it was for her sake, but truthfully, I just didn’t want to be alone and she was so damn sweet and trusting—”

He held up a conciliatory hand. “I’ve fallen under her spell a time or two myself. Let’s get back to the man at the window. What did he look like?”

“He had dark eyes and a haggard, unshaven look. That’s all I could see. I think he was wearing a hood of some kind. He looked—intense, I guess. I went over to the door to check the chain and listen, but I couldn’t hear anything.”

Nick had walked to the door as Katie spoke. She was right behind him. Taking a lantern from the table, he unhooked the chain and pulled open the door, letting in a blast of cold air and a few snowflakes. He shone the light out into the dark, cold night.

It was still snowing. Four or five new inches had accumulated on the porch railing. The grounds were blanketed in white, broken by the tall shapes of waving trees and long lines of fences all obscured by the storm. The eight guest cabins hovered off to the left, dark and silent and empty.

“Tell me where you saw him,” he said, gesturing for Katie to join him on the porch.

She stepped outside, shivering, hugging herself. “The second window on the right,” she said through chattering teeth. The covered porch stopped shy of the window a foot or so and they stood at the edge, looking down into the snow below the window, searching for some sign a man had walked to the window, had stood below it and looked inside.

There was nothing to be seen, however. The area was littered with rocks and the branches of dormant plants that formed natural pockets and rifts. If someone had created footprints that evening, it was already too late to tell.

Nick peered through the snow. From what he could see, everything looked about the same as usual.

“Are you sure you saw someone?” he said.

She looked up at him, preoccupied. “I thought I did. Maybe the storm spooked me.”

“Let’s go back inside.”

He closed the door behind them, securing it once again with the chain. Katie immediately moved toward the fire, standing as close to the blaze as she could.

Nick didn’t know what to make of Katie’s story. The nearest neighbor was over a mile away and they were off in Florida for the winter. It was another mile to the Booths’ place and then another half mile to the Stewart cabin.

Katie struck him as a woman with a very active imagination. He could see no covert reason for her to make up such a story, so undoubtedly she’d seen something, just not a man. Snow, a branch blowing by, a shadow. Trying to get things back on an even keel, he said, “Tell me a little more about you and your sister and why you’re so sure there’s a problem with your mother and my father.”

She moved back to her chair, settling herself on the edge of the cushion, hands folded in her lap. “As you know, my mother married your father after knowing him only three weeks. My sister assures me this was very out of character for her. Was it out of character for him, too?”

“How would I know?”

“Nick, please, try.”

“Let me give you a little background,” he said warily. “My very young mother married an alcoholic. She stuck with him for several years until she developed breast cancer. He took off like a shot never to be seen again, well at least not for umpteen years. Mom got better, married the shoe salesman, raised me. Let’s see. I went into the Army. Fought in the Gulf War. Came home, stepdad died. I married Patricia, moved to Alaska, had Lily. Dad came for a heartwarming reunion, I turned him away, Patricia welcomed him with open arms. She died, he took off again—noticing a pattern?”

“So if something has happened to my mother—”

“He probably ran out and left her high-and-dry. Like I said, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

He was immediately sorry he said it. Katie’s pretty face literally collapsed as tears rolled down her cheeks. He stared into her huge blurry eyes for a second, not sure what to do, hoping she’d pull herself together, but if anything, the tears got worse. He got up from his chair and handed her the tissue box. Within a few moments, Katie dabbed at her eyes and took a few deep breaths. He poured them both a stiff brandy, handed her a snifter and sat back down, twirling the amber liquid in his glass, wishing he could float away on its fumes.

“Listen, Katie, I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I haven’t been very tactful. I’m rusty, I guess. Until tonight, Helen pretty much took care of herself, and Lily is still in the kiss-it-and-make-it-better stage. Everything just seems to be suddenly falling apart.”

“And you blame me,” she said.

True, but this time he stayed quiet.

Katie took a sip of the liquor and set the glass on the hearth. “You have to know something about him that will help,” she persisted. “Something. If you don’t, I have no place to start. I have nothing to take back to Tess. We’ll never know why our parents separated us, why they lied to us. My sister was shot a couple of weeks ago trying to help me clear our father’s name. It’s my fault she’s lying in a hospital. Her mother—our mother—is missing, last seen with your father. I just need to know if there’s anything in his past that would put my mother in jeopardy. For instance, when did he change his name to Swope? Why?”

“I don’t know, Katie. He was using his real name when he was here,” Nick said. “He said he was on an extended vacation. He seemed a little nervous. I told him to get lost, but Patricia fell for his story. He was reformed, he claimed. No more drinking. No more shenanigans. All he wanted was to get to know his long-lost son. Me. And Patricia and Lily, of course. Patricia’s mother had died the year before and she was anxious for more family. She invited him to stay in one of the guest cottages. He moved right in and made himself at home.”

“How did you handle it?”

“I ignored him most of the time. It was summer and we had a bunch of people here. I was in and out. Busy.”

“Your wife taught art during the summers?”

“Patricia? No. Patricia didn’t teach art. We bought the place because I’m a pilot. The people who come here during the summer come because of me. I fly them over wilderness areas and they shoot wildlife. Photo shoot, I mean. Patricia’s art was personal, not commercial. She wouldn’t sell any of her work.”

“They’re all over your walls, aren’t they?”

He looked around him. “Yes.”

“They’re beautiful.”

“She was good. Now the paintings belong to Lily. Anyway, that summer after Lily was born, Patricia discovered gardening. She grew cabbages big as a barbeque, broccoli, carrots—this area of Alaska has long, cool summer days, up to twenty hours long, perfect for certain vegetables. Patricia was dedicated to gardening. She could dig in the dirt forever, Lily napping nearby on a blanket. She hummed when she gardened. Off-key.”

He sighed deeply before adding, “I was away much of the time my father was here. He started helping Patricia with Lily—Helen only worked a few hours a day helping out with the daily cabin cleanings and things like that back then. Patricia got to depending on my father. I even started to think he might have changed.”

He chanced a look at Katie. She regarded him closely, her blue eyes sparkling with reflections of the lanterns around her. She said, “What happened, Nick?”

He shrugged. His throat closed for a second and he stared into the fire. Could he see this through?

He said, “Patricia was walking down Frostbite’s main street with my father one afternoon. A car went out of control right in front of the grocery store. Patricia was seriously injured. Dad walked away without a scratch. The driver of the car recovered and took off like a shot. Thank goodness Lily was here with Helen and not in her mother’s arms. Patricia died twelve hours later without ever regaining consciousness.”

“So you blame your father for living through the accident?” she murmured.

He cut her a quick look. “Of course not. I blame my father for leaving town while my wife was still lying on the pavement. I blame him for leaving her alone to die.”

She nodded, tears glistening in her eyes and he used the act of tending the fire to regain his composure.

“So, next thing I know I get a wedding invitation from your mother,” he said, turning back to face her. “Helen tried to hide it from me, but I found it anyway. A few weeks after that, your sister sent me a picture of the happy couple.”

She sat forward eagerly. “Do you still have it? I haven’t seen her—”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I tore it in half the minute I realized what it was.”

“And now he’s changed his name and gotten another woman to believe in him,” Katie said, coming to stand beside Nick as he replaced the poker.

The firelight shimmering in her red hair made it glow like rubies. Her skin was white and soft looking, her eyes big and blue. A tingling sensation ran through Nick’s hands. It had been over two years since he’d touched a woman’s face, since he’d come close to even thinking about touching a woman’s face. The urge to do so now was almost unbearable.

But why this woman?

He said, “Why do you limp?”

“I was in a hit-and-run accident. It had to do with my trying to figure out what happened to my father.”

“And did you figure it out?”

She rolled her head a little as though her neck hurt. “No, my sister figured it out for me. She came from out of the blue and probably saved my life.”

“Does your neck hurt?”

“Yes. Another leftover from the accident.”

He gently turned her around until her back was to him and began rubbing her shoulders with strong hands.

“That feels wonderful,” she whispered.

He realized at once he’d attempted to satisfy his desire to touch her by approaching her in this no-nonsense, impersonal manner. Lots of layers of clothes under his fingers, no eye contact. He said, “What do you mean when you say your sister came from out of the blue?” But, dear God, her hair was soft as it brushed against the back of his hands. And the supple warmth of her neck.

“I’m warning you, it’s a soap opera,” she said softly, leaning into his hands.

“Try me.”

“Okay, but like I said, it’s a soap opera. My parents divorced when Tess and I were barely six months old. Mom took Tess. Dad took me. Neither told us we even had an identical twin sister only a day or two days’ drive away. We didn’t even know we had another parent. Dad told me my mother died giving birth and Mom told Tess she’d never even known Tess’s father’s last name. Then my father, a cop, died in a fire he was blamed for starting. I had to vindicate him. I found a letter from my dad telling me about my sister’s existence. When I was hurt, she was contacted. She found me in a coma and took up my investigation. Now she’s been shot and she’s in the hospital and we’ve only really known each other for a few days.”

“She helped you with your father and now you’re determined to help her with her mother.”

“Our father, our mother. My sister, myself. Yes.”

He stopped massaging her neck and turned her back around to face him. Again, the urges, but this time it went beyond touching. This time he wanted to kiss her.

This is why he’d been annoyed with her from the moment he set eyes on her at the airport. He was afraid of her and not just because she threatened to bring the past crashing down on his home, but also because she’d so effortlessly cracked open doors long ago slammed shut.

“I have a feeling,” she said softly, and it was all he could do to take his gaze from her lips.

He said, “Yes?”

“I have a feeling that your father’s past is catching up with him and that my mother is in the way.”

He caught his hands sliding down her arms and let go of her. She didn’t seem to notice. He said, “You may be right.”

“I’m sorry I came here. I should have kept nagging the Washington police. I’ll go home as soon as I figure out how to get back to Anchorage.”

“I’ll fly you back,” he said, still under her spell, wishing things were different, wishing he could ask her to stay, to forget about her mother and his father, just stay for a while and…

And what?

He said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you, Katie Fields.”

For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes. Nick had no idea what Katie was thinking. He just knew his own thoughts were jumping from pillar to post. Hopefully a good night’s sleep would get him back to normal. It sounded as though the storm was abating a bit; his salvation would lie in the weather clearing so he could fly Katie away from Frostbite.

“I—” she started to say, but a sound outside caught both their attention and they turned as one to face the door.

“Was that—”

“Gunfire,” he finished for her, quickly drawing her away from the fireplace into the deeper recesses of the house. “Yes.”

“Nearby?”

“Yes.” He tore open a closet and shone a flashlight inside. The gun safe was back there and he twirled the combination.

“You any good with a firearm?” he asked over his shoulder.

In a shaking voice, she said, “I’ve shot off a few rounds with my dad.”

He emerged with a Winchester 30-30 and a 20-gauge automatic shotgun. He inserted ammunition into each weapon before pushing the shotgun toward Katie.

She took the shotgun with trembling hands. She looked scared to death but reassuringly resolute. “What’s the plan?” she asked.

“The plan? I go outside and see what’s going on. You stay here and lock the door behind me. That’s the plan.”

“I know how to shoot—”

“Katie? Someone has to stay inside and protect Lily.” He said this while retrieving his jacket and shrugging it on, zipping the front, pulling on his knit cap.

“You’re not going out there by yourself!”

She wanted to go with him? Startled by this realization, he half smiled. He said, “Someone has to go out in that storm and find out who’s shooting at who. I believe I may be the more qualified. Please, Katie, keep Lily safe.”

Before he could consider the wisdom of his action, he brushed her forehead with his lips. “Lock the door behind me,” he whispered, turning off the lantern and sliding the dead bolt back. “Don’t let anyone but me back inside the house.”

And then he was gone.

Chapter Five

As Nick blended into the shadows, Katie heard a new volley of shots, muffled by the snow. She stepped over the threshold into the night. She had a shotgun, she could probably hit something—or someone—and it seemed wrong for Nick to be out there alone with heaven knows what. Or whom.

But his parting words, his overriding need to protect Lily, stopped her mid-step. Another shot, a voice, someone crashing through the brush…

She stepped back inside, stumbling as haste made her clumsy. Pain shot up her leg as she pushed the dead bolt home.

What in the world had she gotten herself into by coming to this house? There had been a man at the window—it was too much of a coincidence to believe that a stranger had peered inside the house just an hour before shots were fired outside. What did she know of Nick’s personal life? Maybe there was a jealous husband out there or someone connected to Helen.

She tried to find comfort in the totally effortless way Nick handled weapons, but comfort was elusive when it came to Nick.

How about the way he looked at you, the way he kissed your forehead, the way your heart battered against your ribs when his lips touched your skin, when his hands clenched your arms, brushed your neck?

No comfort. This place was a nuthouse. And she was turning out to be the biggest nut of all.

Katie limped down the hall to check on Lily and found the child asleep, her pink lips pursed in some dream, her breathing slow and regular. Katie sat down on the foot of Lily’s bed, the shotgun across her knees, straining to hear gunshots over the raucous sounds of the storm.

To her horror, her movement awoke the child, who sat up whimpering, eyes closed.

Katie immediately laid the gun aside and scooted closer to Lily, who held out her arms. Katie wrapped Lily in a warm embrace and smoothed her hair, whispering nonsensical murmurs to comfort her, rocking her in her arms. Within minutes, Lily’s heavy head signified she’d fallen back asleep without actually waking up, and Katie gently laid her head back on her pillow, covering her shoulders, not even trying to resist the urge to kiss her forehead and smooth her hair away from her face.

What a darling, sweet child. Nothing must happen to her.

Or to her father.

Standing, Katie retrieved the shotgun and moved out of the bedroom, closing the door. She went back through the house, turning off many of the flickering lanterns, bathing the house in darkness except for the fireplace, which filled the living room with leaping shadows. She stood by the front door and listened. When had she heard the last shot? How long should she wait before going outside and looking for Nick? What if he’d been wounded or…or worse.

Her hand rested on the doorknob as she pressed her head against the wood. What should she do? Indecision was a new sensation for her. Usually, she reacted first and celebrated—or regretted—later. But never before had she been even marginally responsible for someone else. Someone innocent. Someone like Lily. And so far on this endless day, she’d done the impulsive—and wrong—thing almost one-hundred percent of the time.

Except she hadn’t thrown herself into Nick’s arms when he’d looked at her that way; she hadn’t even let him know she wanted to. She’d been mature and reasonable when he massaged her shoulder, when he turned her to face him, when he said her name and it sounded like the beginning of a song. She hadn’t allowed a single emotion to bubble to the surface.

And maybe that was the biggest mistake of the night.

Her headache was back with a vengeance.

NICK STAYED CLOSE to buildings and snow-covered vegetation as he crept toward the sound of gunfire. There were two weapons at play; one sounded like a single-fire revolver, the other an automatic of some kind.

So, who in the world would be conducting a gunfight outside his house in the middle of the night during a snowstorm? And what were the chances this nocturnal shoot-out wasn’t connected directly or indirectly to Katie Fields’s arrival in Frostbite?

Was she in danger? Had she put Lily in danger?

He shoved thoughts of Katie and Lily aside. It was imperative he put a stop to whatever was going on out here before it erupted into his house. Keeping his head down, he waited until more shots rang out before moving across a patch of exposed snow, zigzagging as he’d been taught so many years before, catching his breath as he found a tree to hide behind. He heard one man yell, another swear. The labored sound of heavy breathing seemed very close by and he chanced another look.

Two men stood a hundred feet to his right, facing each other. They fired at the same time. One bullet hit its mark and the man closest to Nick fell to the snow. The other gunman turned and, slogging through the snow, ran back into the shadows.

Nick’s fingers were so cold they were stiff as they clutched the rifle. He should have put on gloves. He was stunned that he’d forgotten such a basic necessity. These thoughts zipped through his mind as he stared at the fallen man.

Taking a roundabout approach, he made his way to the dark shape lying in the snow. As he came within a few feet, he heard more rapid fire. He was under attack! As bullets whizzed behind him, he tumbled forward in the snow, the rifle held out at the side, scrambling to his knees to take cover behind the wounded man, shooting into the brush near the dock from where the shots came.

The injured man groaned. Nick couldn’t risk even the smallest of flashlights to check for wounds. He used his frozen hands and felt something warm and sticky on the man’s chest.

Time was critical. Did he have an injured good guy, an injured bad guy or what?

He shook the victim’s shoulder and got more groans. Obviously, the wound was too extensive to make this man much of a threat. Nick would get him into the house; to leave him out here would be to leave him to die from exposure.

He rose to a stooped position. In the moment of stillness that followed, he heard the crunch of someone approaching through snow. Breathing suspended, he searched the landscape.

Another shot and a bullet sliced through his jacket sleeve. Nick returned fire and a dark shape detached itself and fell forward from a bank of trees.

Nick stood slowly, shakily. It had been well over ten years since he’d fired a gun at another human being. He used the small flashlight he always carried in his pocket to examine the fallen man in front of him. Blood seeped through his jacket. His face was covered with fallen snow.

Nick then moved to the other man, rifle ready. This guy was lying on his face. A 9mm Glock had fallen beside his hand and Nick picked it up carefully, thumbing on the safety, dropping it into the deep pocket of his down jacket.

He could feel no pulse, but his hands were so cold it was hard to know for sure. Since his sympathies at this point favored the first wounded man, who at least hadn’t shot at him, Nick retraced his steps, shining his flashlight. The injured man flung up an arm in a defensive gesture—a good sign. Nick stooped to help him stand, supporting most of his weight. Helping the victim manage the deepening snow quickly became an arduous chore made more difficult as the poor guy lost consciousness.

When Nick finally gained the front porch, he pounded on the door. There wasn’t time for finesse. He yelled, “Katie? Let me in.”

She had apparently been hovering against the door, for the moment his hand hit the solid wood, it flew inward. She seemed to size up the situation in a heartbeat. Throwing her shoulder under the man’s other arm, she helped Nick get him inside and onto a leather sofa. For a small woman, she was strong, though Nick did notice her limp was back.

Sweeping a lap blanket off one of the chairs, he gave it to Katie with the instructions, “Apply pressure to his chest. There’s another injured man outside. I’ve got to get to him before he freezes.”

His gaze followed hers as it dropped to his arm. A rent in the sleeve leaked white down.

“Nick, what’s going on?”

“Gunfight at the OK corral,” he said. Seeing the bewilderment in her eyes, he added, “Two men are trying to kill each other. And me. I’ll be right back.” He turned when he reached the door to find Katie leaning over the man on the couch, pressing the blanket against his chest. Her complexion had turned a pea-soup green.

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