Sally Carleen - A Bride In Waiting

Sara sucked in her breath, fighting fear and confusion. She wanted to bolt away from these two people who called her by the name of a doll, from this man who shouldn’t be touching her so familiarly and from her own unexpected pleasure at that touch.

“You kids get on to the church now, you hear?”

“We will, Mrs. Wilson.” Lucas’s voice was strangely subdued, the anger and exasperation in his dark eyes replaced by confusion as he spoke to Mrs. Wilson but looked directly at Sara.

“How did you get this thing attached so good?” he asked as Mrs. Wilson walked away.

“What thing? My hair?”

He continued to hold the braid with one hand. “It can’t be your hair. Yesterday your hair was only shoulder length.”

Sara swallowed hard and gripped the pepper spray tighter. Just in case. “I’m not your Analise,” she said, the words coming out barely above a whisper. “I came to town this morning. I’m looking for...relatives. If your Analise looks so much like me, maybe she’s my... relative.”

Lucas said nothing, but his narrowed gaze and raised eyebrow showed his skepticism.

“Turn loose of my braid,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll take it down and show you how long my hair is. It comes to my waist. It’s never been cut, never been shoulder length.”

He didn’t turn it loose. Instead, he pulled the band from the end and began to unwind the strands. She held her breath as he ran his fingers through the heavy mass of her hair, plunging them into its depths, over her scalp and down again.

Somehow the action seemed far too intimate for two strangers standing on a public street in the middle of the day.

No, she realized, not the action, but her reaction. Lucas’s touch exploded her nerve endings, sending delectable sensations washing over her, making her wish he’d never stop.

She jerked away from him, her hair swirling about her, out of his reach. “You see?” she asked breathlessly. “I’m not Analise.”

Lucas blinked against the sunlight as if suddenly awakened, one hand still outstretched to the space where her hair had been. His hand fell to his side. “No, you’re not.” His voice had a dusky quality that matched the look in his dark eyes. “You have her skin, her eyes, her lips...”

She stepped back before he could touch her again, before he could stir those sensations she didn’t want stirred.. “I need to go.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to herself or why she felt it necessary to say the words. He wasn’t restraining her.

“Except for the way you wear your hair, you could be her twin, but you’re not her.”

“Her twin? I could be her twin?” Sara’s mind whirled. Was that possible? Could her real mother have given birth to twins, and her adoptive mother only took one of the girls? Did she have a sister, a twin she’d never met who’d been adopted by someone here in Briar Creek?

She’d named her favorite doll Analise and pretended it was her sister. Had that been more then wishing? Twins were supposed to have that kind of sixth sense about each other, even when separated at birth.

“Is Analise your fiancée? Can I meet her? Please. It’s very important.”

He stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment, then ran his fingers through his own hair, shook his head and laughed without humor.

“Yeah, she’s my fiancée and, no, you can’t meet her. I don’t know where she is.”

“You don’t know where your fiancée is?”

He looked up and down the street as if checking to see if anyone was watching, then shrugged and pulled a folded piece of pink paper from his pants pocket. “This was delivered to my house a few minutes ago, just as I was leaving to go to our wedding rehearsal.”

Sara returned her pepper spray to her purse and examined the paper. “A flyer for twenty percent off on treating your lawn for grubworms?” Maybe the man was crazy after all.

“The other side.” He reached across and flipped the paper over. The words leaped off the page, scrawled in a hasty, flowing script.

I have to leave town for a few days! Tell Mom and Dad I’ll call them this evening! When I come back, I’ll have some really big news! I know you’ll understand that I absolutely had to go because you’re my best friend in the whole world and you always understand me!

Hugs—Analise

P.S. By the way, you might want to postpone the wedding rehearsal for a few days!

Sara’s heart sank. This couldn’t be her sister, this person who wrote so exuberantly and ended every sentence with an exclamation point. This irresponsible person who deserted her fiancé on the day of their wedding rehearsal.

“I’m sorry,” she said, handing the note back to him.

He shrugged. “That’s Analise.”

“You mean she’s done things like this before?”

“Not quite this bad. And not since we decided to get married. Her parents and I thought marriage might make her a little more dependable, but it looks like we were wrong.” He stuffed the paper back into his pocket. “I apologize for the mistake. You really do look like her.”

“Like her twin.”

“Yeah. Like her twin. Well.” He shifted from one foot to the other, a nervous action at odds with his urbane appearance. “I guess I might as well get on over to the church and face the music. So I’ll leave you to whatever you were doing before I came along and interrupted.”

“Yes. Okay.”

He made no move to leave and neither did she. Sara felt oddly reluctant to part from Lucas. A natural reluctance since she desperately wanted to find out more about the missing Analise. It wasn’t even partly because of the way Lucas had touched her hair or the way he was looking at her, as if he wanted to touch her again.

“Maybe you could tell me—”

“I have an idea—”

They both spoke at the same time.

He smiled. “Go ahead. You first.”

“I just got to town a little while ago, and I’m trying to find some information about...missing members of my family. I don’t know where to start.”

His eyes narrowed. “You think because Analise looks like you, she may be a relative.”

“Maybe.” She saw no reason to tell him everything.

He nodded slowly, assessingly. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do my best to help you find your relatives if you’ll help me for just a couple of hours.”

Sara gulped and fumbled for her pepper spray. “What do you want me to do?”

“Analise will be back in a few days with some story of a new discovery, some new kind of a butterfly they’ve identified over in Dallas or something equally ridiculous.”

Sara’s mouth went dry. “A new species of butterfly? She’s interested in butterflies?”

“Bugs. All kinds of bugs. She’s a zoology major.”

“I wanted to major in zoology with a specialty in entomology! That’s insects,” she explained at Lucas’s startled look.

“I know what it is. That’s Analise’s field, too.”

“Oh!” She told herself she shouldn’t become too excited; that could only lead to disappointment. Nevertheless the evidence was mounting. The evidence plus that odd feeling she’d always had about having a sister. Her mother had told her that was normal for only children, but she’d never quite believed her on that one.

“Be glad you didn’t,” he said, and for a moment Sara thought she must have spoken aloud, but he was responding to her comment about her frustrated desire to major in zoology. “Analise hasn’t had much luck finding a job in that field. Anyway, she’ll be back in a few days and everybody will laugh and shake their heads because everybody loves her in spite of her flaky ways. But today her parents, who are wonderful people, are going to be very worried about her.”