Jodie Bailey - Mistaken Twin

He inhaled deeply, steadying his nerves. He’d hated approaching situations with no intel ever since his very first domestic call when he was a rookie cop. There’d been five first responders in the small yard, a mix of town and county officers, pinned down by shotgun blasts. While he’d been in numerous firefights during his enlistment in the army, being an untested cop taking fire on home soil had sent him into a tailspin that still echoed in his emotions.

But they couldn’t today. Not if he was going to deal successfully with whatever was behind Jenna’s door. You’re in control, Stephens. You know he’s here. He has no idea you’re waiting. You have the upper hand .

Maybe Jenna had a friend visiting, someone who’d surprised her. Though she’d never mentioned exactly where she’d lived before moving to Mountain Springs, her drawl tilted toward the Deep South.

Maybe to Texas.

Even with the vague hope this was all a misunderstanding, he couldn’t let down his guard. Assumptions could get a man—or a woman—killed.

So could acting too quickly. As much as he wanted to bust in alone to make certain Jenna was safe, smart training told him to wait for backup. He approached the door from the left, where it would open out should anyone leave.

A crash echoed through the alley as the door burst open and a man shoved through a couple of feet from Wyatt’s position.

Wyatt jumped back and took aim but the man was dragging Jenna by the throat and blocked any chance at a clean shot.

Kicking and fighting, Jenna clawed at her assailant’s thick muscled arm. Her wide-eyed gaze scanned the alley before she spotted Wyatt, froze, then renewed her struggle.

The fear in her eyes ripped through him. He had to rescue her.

Busy with Jenna, the other man hadn’t seen Wyatt or his patrol vehicle. Thankfully, the man also didn’t appear to have a weapon out, though one peeked from beneath his jacket at his hip.

Surprise would be the best offense and would keep him from drawing his weapon. As Wyatt prepared to make his presence known, he nodded once at Jenna then holstered his pistol. It was a risky move, but he had a better shot of keeping Jenna safe if he could wrestle the stranger to the ground than if he drew a weapon and instigated a shoot-out with her in the middle.

Sirens sounded in the distance, from the direction of the police station.

The man hesitated and was still facing away from Wyatt. His hold on Jenna relaxed.

Now .

Wyatt dove from his position, crashing into the assailant’s lower back and driving both him and Jenna into the side of the car.

Her cry of pain mingled with a deeper angry curse. The stranger’s grip on Jenna loosened as he whirled toward Wyatt, fists in front of him, prepared to fight.

Wyatt was more than ready. He swung an uppercut to the man’s thick jaw, staggering him backward. “Jenna! Get inside and lock the door!” If she was still within reach, her attacker likely wouldn’t think twice about lunging for her, either for leverage against Wyatt or to attempt an escape.

She didn’t hesitate, disappearing behind Wyatt as he kept a wary eye on his opponent.

With Jenna out of the way, Wyatt reached for his pistol, but the man turned and ran for the entrance to the alley, ducking around the corner as Wyatt took off in pursuit.

The suspect hit the main street before Wyatt and blended into the crowd flowing toward the Fine Arts Center. In the shadowy light from the ancient streetlights, he melted into the small sea of humanity.

Wyatt skidded to a halt. He could give chase, but doing so would risk a shoot-out on a busy street and would leave Jenna unprotected. She had to be priority number one.

Releasing his grip on the pistol in his holster, Wyatt turned and jogged to the alley, speaking into his shoulder radio as he headed to the shop to check on Jenna. “Suspect on foot, headed west on Main Street.” He ran through a quick description of the man, which ended as he reached the heavy metal back door of Jenna’s shop.

He pounded on the door. “Jenna! It’s Wyatt!” A soft shuffling came from inside, and he stepped away so she could better see him through the camera situated above the door.

After a moment, the door swung outward, and Jenna stood silhouetted in the light from the front of the store before she slowly sank to the floor.

Headlights swept through the windshield of Wyatt’s police SUV as a car turned onto Barnett Street and cruised past the light where Jenna and Wyatt were stopped.

She turned her head away from the light, toward Wyatt, away from whoever was driving the car. She’d been spotted tonight. Recognized. If the intruder in her shop had called in reinforcements, it was only a matter of time before she was surrounded and dragged to El Paso and the man she feared, the life she despised.

Logan Cutter had appeared to be everything a girl like Jenna could want. Well, everything a girl like Genevieve Brady—her birth name—could want. After never knowing who her father was and growing up with a mother who tried to live a fantasy before she eventually committed suicide, there had never been a father figure, other than one man, Anthony Reynolds, her mother’s boyfriend when Jenna was seven. He’d treated Jenna and her twin sister, Amy, as his own...until her mother had abruptly booted him from their lives in less than a year.

Desperate to be loved, she’d given Logan everything she had and had accepted his jealousy and anger as the price of being with him. Then she’d discovered evidence of his unfaithfulness, of the levels of his depravity...

One night, in confusion and grief, she had packed a bag and fled. He found her before daybreak. Beat her. Apologized. Held her as she cried.

She stayed.

The second time was worse.

And the third... Jenna glanced at Wyatt and squeezed herself tighter against the seat. She’d nearly died after the third time and still bore scars that sometimes ached in the cold.

That night, Genevieve Brady had disappeared from Del Sol Medical Center with Anthony’s help. Three days later, Jenna Clark became the newest resident of Mountain Springs, North Carolina. Thanks to her mother’s ex—who had built an underground business out of making both the innocent and the guilty disappear—every link to her past was severed and she had the paperwork to lend credence to her new identity. All she had left of her old self was her love of art and a “go bag” hidden in the attic crawlspace at her apartment, insurance in case Jenna Clark ever needed to disappear as well.

The scars on her back ached at the memory, and Jenna clamped her teeth on a whimper she would never let Wyatt Stephens hear. It was bad enough he’d already seen her at her weakest. Her cheeks were still hot with embarrassment in the midst of her fear. He’d likely saved her life tonight, and the minute he’d returned for her, she’d collapsed in a heap like some weak woman in a 1940s melodrama. She was stronger than a fainting starlet.

For the moment, though, embarrassment was probably a whole lot less detrimental to her mental health than fear would be. Thinking about Wyatt having to haul her into his arms and carry her into her office was easier than coming to grips with the truth. Her logical next move was to be gone by sunrise.

The best thing to do was to keep her focus on the man beside her, not on the one who hounded her nightmares.

“You didn’t have to drive me home.” His presence made escape harder. Her apartment was across the street and two blocks away from the shop, above Higher Grounds Coffee Bar, another former town watering hole.

The light turned green, highlighting his face with shadows that deepened the blue of Wyatt’s eyes and sharpened the cut of his jawline. His dark brown hair was tousled from his earlier scuffle. For the briefest of moments, he looked at her almost as though he might feel a bit of compassion, but then he turned away and made the left onto Main Street. “First of all, after what happened tonight, nobody’s letting you walk home by yourself, especially not in the dark.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, where Erin and her fiancé, Jason Barnes, followed in Jason’s pickup. “Second, I’m not interested in the lecture I’d get from Erin if I even dared to suggest you walk home unescorted.” He held up three fingers before resting his hand on the steering wheel. “Third, I have to ask some questions in order to do paperwork. And a bonus fourth thing, you promised me coffee. I don’t turn my back on free coffee. Ever.”