“Sasha…”

She flattened her palms against her ears, trying to shut out the ghostly voice.

“Go away,” Sasha whispered back. “Please, Nadine, leave me alone….” A shudder wracked her body. Had she lost her mind? She was arguing with a ghost. But was Nadine a ghost? Was she really dead? No one had found her body, just the blood.

Suddenly Sasha heard another cry. Annie’s. The storm must have awakened the child.

“Sasha…”

She ignored the whisper as she kicked back the covers. The nanny was closer, but Sasha had to go to the little girl. She needed Annie, needed to hold her to soothe herself. Her bare feet padded against the worn runner as she felt her way down the hall. The nursery door stood open and lightning flashed through the window, illuminating the room where the child slept peacefully again in the crib.

In the corner, the rocker moved to and fro….

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

Spring is in the air and we have a month of fabulous books for you to curl up with as the March winds howl outside:

 Familiar is back on the prowl, in Caroline Burnes’s Familiar Texas. And Rocky Mountain Maneuvers marks the conclusion of Cassie Miles’s COLORADO CRIME CONSULTANTS trilogy.

 Jessica Andersen brings us an exciting medical thriller, Covert M.D.

 Don’t miss the next ECLIPSE title, Lisa Childs’s The Substitute Sister.

 Definitely check out our April lineup. Debra Webb is starting THE ENFORCERS, an exciting new miniseries you won’t want to miss. Also look for a special 3-in-1 story from Rebecca York, Ann Voss Peterson and Patricia Rosemoor called Desert Sons.

Each month, Harlequin Intrigue brings you a variety of heart-stopping romantic suspense and chilling mystery. Don’t miss a single book!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

The Substitute Sister
Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Stacy Boyd—my helpful, insightful editor.

To Kimberly Duffy w/a Lindsey Brookes—

for unwavering friendship and support—love you!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Childs has been writing since she could first form sentences. At eleven she won her first writing award and was interviewed by the local newspaper. That story’s plot revolved around a kidnapping, probably something she wished on any of her six siblings. A Halloween birthday predestined a life of writing intrigue. She enjoys the mix of suspense and romance.

Readers can write to Lisa at P.O. Box 139, Marne, MI 49435 or visit her at her Web site www.lisachilds.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Sasha Michaelson—She’s lost her twin on Sunset Island, but she’s in danger of losing her heart and her life, too.

Reed Blakeslee—The lawman’s determined to protect Sasha, no matter the risk…physically or emotionally.

Nadine Michaelson—She’s always resented her twin—enough to lure her to danger?

Charles Norder—Sasha’s ex-fiancé had left her for her sister. How obsessed had he remained?

Albert Jorgen—The lawyer handled all of Nadine’s personal affairs.

Roger Scott—How resentful was he that Nadine had stolen his inheritance?

Mrs. Arnold—The housekeeper served herself first.

Jerry—Does the gardener know where all the secrets are buried?

Barbie—The young nanny resents her new employer as much as her missing one.

Annie—The toddler now calls her aunt Mommy, but will she lose this one, too?

The Scott Mansion—The old Victorian house is alive with hatred and ghosts.

Contents

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 One

Sasha stepped before the long oval mirror, peering at her reflection to adjust her veil. The gauzy lace hindered her sight that day, her wedding day; foolish trust blinded her every other day. Frustration jangled her nerves, so that when she lifted the veil, her shaking fingers rent the fabric, leaving it in tatters across her face.

But it wasn’t her face staring back at her through the suddenly fogging glass. It was her twin standing there, shiny black hair flowing around the shoulders of the lacy white gown, the tattered veil mingling with her thick lashes and bright-blue eyes. It was Nadine’s laughter that rang out, shattering the silence of the night and pulling Sasha from her dream.

Instead of the bright sunshine of the back room of the chapel in her dream, Sasha opened her eyes to thick darkness. But the enveloping night didn’t slow her racing heart or soothe her raw nerves. She hadn’t had that dream in years. Had the stress of her crazy day working at the high school inspired it? Counseling teens had always stressed her out. Why have the dream now?

And why did her twin’s laughter still ring in her ears?

No, not Nadine’s laughter. The phone. With shaking hands, Sasha fumbled for the receiver, knocked it onto the floor, then used the cord to reel it up to her ear. “Hello…” she stammered.

“Ms. Michaelson?” a man asked. The deep rumble of his voice rasped along her oversensitive nerve endings.

“Yes?” She wasn’t sure of her identity herself. Not after that dream.

She squinted at the illuminated face of the alarm clock on the bedside table. After midnight? Nobody called her after midnight. Her heart rate accelerated, and her hand trembled on the phone. “Who is this?”

“Sheriff Blakeslee.”

A sheriff? Sasha wrestled with the covers to sit up against the hard oak headboard, trying to clear the sleep and the awful dream from her mind. Had something happened to her parents? Had one of the kids she counseled gotten into trouble?

“What? Why…” she sputtered.

“Maybe I should have sent an officer over, but I felt I needed to tell you myself.”

“Tell me what?” Her heart hammered so hard now, she pressed a fist against it. Something bad had happened. A sheriff wouldn’t call after midnight for any other reason.

“About your sister, Ms. Michaelson.” The man’s voice vibrated with emotion. Sadness? Regret?

Sasha had her share of those feelings when it came to Nadine. She shivered, drawing the flannel comforter back around the shoulders of the faded football jersey she wore as a nightgown. Even in spring, the nights were cold in Michigan. The dream and the call had her shivering despite the warmth of the blankets.

“This is about Nadine?” She was the only sister Sasha had. Her twin. “What’s happened?”

What had Nadine done? What kind of trouble was she in this time? Sasha hadn’t heard from or about her twin in years, hadn’t even thought about her much…until tonight…until that dream….

“Ms. Michaelson, there’s…well, we believe your sister’s dead. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Her loss? She’d lost her sister ten years ago when as a high school senior, Nadine had run away from home. “Uh, umm…” Shock numbed her brain, slowing her thought processes. “Nadine’s dead?”

No, she couldn’t accept that. It wasn’t possible. Nadine’s laughter still hung in the night.

“You’re wrong,” she told the sheriff, angry with him, with Nadine, with herself for all the lost years between them. “It can’t be her.”

“I waited until the DNA evidence confirmed—”

“No!” God, no, not Nadine. She was too young, much too young to die.

“I know this is devastating, and you’re probably concerned about Annie. But she’s all right. She hasn’t been harmed.”

“Annie?” Who was he talking about?

The deep voice roughened. “Annie is Nadine’s daughter, your niece.”

“My niece?” God, she hadn’t known. She and Nadine hadn’t talked in five years. Her eyes burned as tears swam to the surface, blurring the shadows of her dark bedroom. They would never be able to talk again, never have a chance to form the sisterly relationship they should have had as twins.

The sheriff’s voice rumbled in her ear again, “Your sister has—had—a two-year-old daughter.”

Sasha’s breath caught in her lungs, pressing against her heart. A two-year-old? A baby, really. And she’d lost her mother. “She’s all right?”

“Yes, she is,” he said, relief apparent in his soft sigh. Then he asked, “You didn’t know about Annie?”

Maybe it was the anonymity of a voice in the darkness, like a priest in a dimly lit confessional, that brought out her admission to a stranger. “I don’t know anything about my sister. I don’t even know where she’s been living, where you’re calling from.” The last place she’d seen Nadine had been in her dream. “We haven’t talked in years.”

Five years after Nadine had first run away from home, Sasha had tracked down her sister to make sure she would come to her wedding. A wedding that hadn’t taken place because Sasha had found Nadine.

“Yet in the event of anything happening to her, she named you as guardian of her daughter.” The sheriff’s voice held a trace of bitterness.

“Wh-what about the child’s father?” Was Sasha’s former fiancé Annie’s daddy? No, she doubted he and Nadine had lasted that long. Her sister had only taken him away to hurt and humiliate Sasha. Nadine had used him like she’d once bragged that she’d often used men.

Had the sheriff been involved with Nadine? From the emotion roughening his voice, she suspected he had.

“Your sister was a single mother.”

“But the little girl’s father…” Would have more right to the child than she would. Not that Sasha didn’t want Annie, this child she hadn’t known existed. Nadine’s child.

“Annie’s birth certificate says father unknown.”

So many questions burned in Sasha’s mind, the most important being, why had Nadine named her guardian of her daughter? Nadine had always resented her. Despite being twins, they’d shared nothing but the same face.

“Sheriff, I need to know—”

“You need to come to Sunset Island,” the sheriff prompted, “for Annie.”

The child was most important; the questions could wait.

“I’ll tell you everything I know when you get here,” the sheriff added.

Even if he had been involved with Nadine, how much would he know about her life? Nadine had never been the type to share, not even with her twin.

How had she died? The sheriff might know that, but would he know the rest? Would he know any of the reasons why Nadine had done the things she’d done? Why she’d run away from her family in the first place?

Now she was lost to them forever.

Poor Nadine.

Poor Annie.

Sasha flipped on the light by the bed and frantically hunted down a piece of paper and a pen as she blinked back her tears. She didn’t have time for them now; she needed to be strong for her motherless niece. “How do I get to Sunset Island? Where is it?”

“In Lake Michigan. You can take a flight into Escanaba. I’ll have a deputy meet you at the airport and drive you to the ferry that’ll bring you to the island.”

“I’ll take the first flight there.” Although Sasha had always believed they lived in different worlds, her sister had stayed in the same state, barely, on an island. She couldn’t imagine Nadine living anywhere but a bustling, exciting city. Now she wasn’t living at all.

“You’re sure…Nadine’s really dead?”

He said just one last thing before hanging up. “Yes.” The single word held a wealth of emotion, regret, guilt, sadness….

Her sister had meant something to the sheriff with the deep, rumbly voice. And as grief and guilt rushed in, lying heavy on her aching heart, Sasha realized that the angry words spoken between her sister and her, the grudge she’d harbored these past five years—none of it mattered now. Nothing mattered but that Nadine was really gone this time.

It didn’t matter that the only vow Sasha had made on what should have been her wedding day was that she would never let Nadine hurt her again. That vow had been broken, along with Sasha’s heart, with the loss of her twin.

And the last traces of Nadine’s laughter died away in the darkness…leaving only the jarring sound of Sasha’s sobs.

REED STARED AT THE PHONE he’d just put back on the charger. Her sister hadn’t exactly broken down over Nadine’s death. In fact she’d seemed more shocked to learn that she was an aunt.

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, over the stubble he hadn’t had time to shave off. God, he wasn’t being fair. Everybody handled loss in their own way. But she had admitted that she’d known nothing about Nadine’s life. And Nadine had never mentioned her.

Then why give her Annie?

He strode across the small living room to the open door of the spare bedroom. Light spilled into the room, falling across the face of the child sleeping on the mattress he’d pulled onto the floor. He didn’t have a crib, didn’t even know if she’d still sleep in one at two years old. Because of his ex, he’d never learned the things he’d wanted to learn about kids. Never had any of his own.

But in his heart Annie was his. He’d brought her into the world. He had been the first to touch her soft, tear-damp cheek. The first person who had met her crystal-blue gaze. And Nadine, grateful for his help delivering her child when they’d been snowed in on the island, had asked him to be Annie’s godfather.

So, why not her guardian?

He eased down onto the floor next to the mattress, the bare wood boards hard and cold beneath his worn-denim-covered legs. Even in spring the temperature still dropped below freezing at night on the island. Reaching across the mattress, he tugged a soft blanket up over the comforter. Then he tucked the baby-blue satin edge under her chin.

Annie’s security blanket. The kid would need that blanket more than ever. How much security would she have now that her mother was dead and she would be turned over to a stranger?

His gut twisted, anger and regret churning inside him. He’d known something was going on with Nadine, but despite sharing the birth of her child, they hadn’t shared much else. Nadine’s secrets had died with her.

Violently.

During his years as a Detroit Homicide detective, he’d seen a lot of gruesome things. But the blood pooled on the marble floor and dripping from the walls of the foyer of Nadine’s house had affected him strongly because it had spilled from a woman he’d known…personally. Maybe would have known more personally if the timing had been different.

Even now, more than two years later, bitterness over his divorce burned in him. And Nadine’s heart had been heavy with the secrets she carried and refused to share. But because of his role as Annie’s godfather, they’d been friends.

And now she was gone.

Where the hell had the sick bastard hidden her body? Reed hadn’t found it yet. So Nadine’s survivors would have nothing to bury but memories.

He brushed the tangle of black curls back from the little girl’s face, then stroked his finger over her soft cheek. A shaky little breath sighed out of her rosebud lips. Would Annie even remember her mother? She was so young.

If her aunt took her away, would the child remember him?

Perhaps the woman would stay on Sunset Island? Not damned likely. Not even with the inheritance of the old Scott mansion would a young woman willingly endure the isolation of a mostly undeveloped island where motor vehicles weren’t even allowed.

So why had Nadine? After she’d inherited the mansion from her former employer, why hadn’t she sold it and left for the brighter attractions of a city? What had she been hiding, or from whom?

And why in the hell hadn’t he pushed harder to find out?

If he had, she might be alive. But he’d been afraid, for Annie’s sake, of what he might find. Even though he’d found no evidence to support some of the rumors whispered around the small, gossipy community about Nadine, he could have dug deeper into her past. But then he might have found something to take her away from Annie. Now someone else had.

And now that it was too late to save her, he’d started the deep digging in the hopes of uncovering the identity of her killer. That was one of the reasons he’d given up Homicide and moved to a small rural department where the most violent thing that had ever happened was a bar fight. He’d gotten sick of being called when it was too late, when he couldn’t save the victim anymore…like he should have saved Nadine.

He lifted his gaze toward the window, not that he could see anything outside the dark glass. Fog and the blackness of a starless night wrapped around the small cottage. As soon as the sun had dropped from the sky, thick moisture had risen from the cold surface of the lake and drifted across the island, seeming to isolate it from the mainland even more than the miles of water surrounding it.

No, Sasha Michaelson wouldn’t be staying.

His ex-wife hadn’t even liked to visit when he’d bought the cottage on the island years ago, although like many other things, she hadn’t admitted her displeasure until their divorce. She would never have given up the bustle of Detroit for the backwardness of Sunset Island. She’d pointed out that few women would, that he’d never have the family he wanted if he moved there.

Fudge shops were the main retail store. For any other shopping or entertainment, an islander had to take a ferry to the Upper Peninsula and from there another hour’s drive to a city. The isolation was so extreme few people stayed year-round, but Nadine had. He had delivered Annie because Nadine had been determined to have her child on the island…and there had been no one else around.

Before Nadine’s murder, he’d considered the isolation of the island the perfect atmosphere to raise children, safe from all the dangers of the world. He’d seen those dangers up close and personal while he’d been a homicide detective. He hadn’t ever thought that kind of danger would visit Sunset Island. But it had.

That was why, despite the nanny at the mansion, Reed hadn’t taken Annie back there. He wanted to keep her close and safe…until he had to hand her over to a stranger.

THE CHOPPY WAVES jerked the ferry up and down. In addition to the rooster spray shooting out of the rear of the boat, a fine mist rose from the lake. Damp and cold, Sasha huddled inside her coat, shivering. Maybe she should have gone below, as the deputy suggested, but she’d been drawn to the deck, to the anger of the water and the closeness of the low-hanging dark clouds that suited her mood.

She hadn’t slept since the sheriff’s call despite the wait she’d had before the first flight available between Grand Rapids and Escanaba. Packing had only taken her a short while. The rest of the time she’d spent looking through the family albums her parents had entrusted to her while they RV’d across America in their retirement.

Old-fashioned and on a fixed income, they’d refused to get a cell phone, so she had no way of contacting them to let them know about their other daughter.

That she was dead.

They would call her on Sunday night, as always. She’d left a message on her machine for them to call her cell. And then she’d have to break the news as the sheriff had broken it to her…over the phone.

How was she going to tell them? “Nadine’s dead.” That simply? But nothing was simple about this. She didn’t even know how her sister had died. Their parents would want to know that.

Nadine was their biggest regret. Instead of supporting her through her difficulties, they’d threatened and punished her. The bad grades hadn’t been Nadine’s fault; she’d been dyslexic. But their parents hadn’t understood that. If she’d tried harder, they’d argued, she could have gotten grades as good as Sasha’s. After all, they were twins.

But so very, very different. Never more so than now that one of them lived and one had died.

Maybe Nadine had been right all along. Everything bad always happened to her. But was it, as their parents claimed, because of the choices she’d made?

Somehow, despite their long separation, Sasha was sure if given the choice, Nadine would have chosen life. If not for herself…then for her daughter. Wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t the responsibility of a child have caused her wild sister to settle down?

Nadine had a daughter.

That was the other thing she had to tell her parents. “I’m an aunt. You’re grandparents.”

Nadine’s running away had aged them. Could they handle these shocks?

God, she hoped so…because she needed someone to talk to. The sheriff’s deputy had barely said two words to her since picking her up at the airport. His first reaction had been an audible gasp, then she had explained that she was—had been—Nadine’s twin.

A dark shadow fell across the deck, and Sasha lifted her gaze toward the sky. The thick clouds had shifted even lower, an impenetrable layer blocking out the sun. A sense of foreboding chilled her soul, and she shivered. She was being silly, letting the deputy’s reaction affect her. She wasn’t her sister’s ghost, she was her niece’s guardian.

From his end of the bench seat on the ferry, the deputy kept shooting her furtive glances. When she caught him, red flooded his pitted cheeks. He reminded her of the teenagers she counseled at the high school; heck, he probably wasn’t much older.

Today, Sasha felt a lot older. It had nothing to do with sleep loss and everything to do with Nadine’s loss. Despite that vow she’d made, she’d always had a little hope in her heart that they’d be able to make amends someday. That they’d be able to form that almost sacred relationship that twins were supposed to have.

Now Sasha felt no hope. Although she was used to counseling teens, she knew nothing about babies. At two, wasn’t Annie still a baby? Could she talk? Did she know her mother was dead?

Was she devastated? As devastated as Sasha?

Fear gripped Sasha, clenching her already knotted stomach muscles. As her sister, as her twin, she’d failed Nadine. She should have been there for her, should have stopped her from running away all those years ago. Would she fail Nadine’s daughter, too?

Tired of the thoughts running through her head, she turned toward the deputy. “Can you tell me how my sister died?”

The sheriff hadn’t given her any details, hadn’t given her much of anything but a sense of disapproval. Not all siblings were close. She shouldn’t feel guilty for knowing nothing about Nadine’s life, but she did. The guilt gnawed at her, leaving her feeling hollow inside.

The deputy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard then shook his head. “No, Miss Michaelson.”

“You don’t know?” Or he didn’t want to tell her? Maybe it had been suicide? No, Nadine wouldn’t have done that. She’d always been so independent, so strong. But if it had been an accident, surely the sheriff would have said.

“Sheriff Blakeslee said he’d tell you everything when we meet him on the island, ma’am.” And from his diffident tone, the young deputy was too in awe of the sheriff to ever consider disobeying a command from the man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nadine.

He must have loved her sister.

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

Chapter Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“But, Sheriff Blakeslee…”

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

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

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

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

“House?”

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

“By ferry?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She talks?”

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

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

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

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

“You haven’t told her?”

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

“I have to tell her?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She didn’t even flinch.

“You’re not surprised.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you know who killed my sister?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You tell me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We haven’t found her body yet.”

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

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

“But she’s missing…”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Annie did.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No. I mean you’re her sole heir.”

But why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mrs. Scott?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Angel.”

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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