Sally Carleen - A Bride In Waiting

He pulled the folded paper from his pocket again and regarded it balefully. “There’s no way we can reschedule the rehearsal. We made the wedding plans in a bit of a hurry. Analise couldn’t make up her mind until the last minute. Now the wedding’s set for next Saturday afternoon, squeezed in between one in the morning and another one in the late afternoon, and this is the only time we could get the church for rehearsal between now and then. This whole thing started out a mess, and it’s getting worse.” He looked directly into her eyes, his gaze so powerful, Sara felt her legs could turn to rubber and he’d still be able to hold her erect. “Unless you come to that rehearsal with me and pretend to be her.”

“What? Pretend to be somebody else? I couldn’t do that!”

“Sure you could. This is a rehearsal. All you have to do is whatever the coordinator tells you. I’ll pay you. Fifty dollars an hour. A hundred dollars an hour.”

She stared up at him, shocked and dismayed by the offer of money. In spite of her misgivings about pretending to be someone else, she’d wanted to agree until then, wanted to find out about this woman who looked so much like her.

But how many times had her mother warned her not to trust anyone with money? And illogical as she now knew such warnings, they were too deeply ingrained in her to ignore.

She shook her head slowly, a part of her still wanting to go with him, to take a chance for once in her life, to explore a path that might lead to a new identity for herself...to her real mother...or maybe, just possibly, to a sister.

“I’ll help you find whatever information you need, and when Analise comes back, I’ll make sure you get to meet her first thing.”

He’d moved closer to her or she to him, so close she could smell his expensive cologne, a scent that didn’t quite mask his own rugged, masculine essence.

“No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

His features softened and his hand lifted to her cheek, pushing her hair back from her face. Above her his lips moved, forming the word please, and she could almost feel those lips on hers.

Wicked! her mother would have said. Dangerous!

“Yes,” Sara said.

Chapter Two

Sara clutched the steering wheel with one hand and the door handle with the other as she drove across town with Lucas in the car beside her, guiding her along the unfamiliar streets.

What on earth was she doing, going somewhere with a strange man, entering a strange world, pretending to be another woman? Was it possible this strange man could even turn out to be the kidnapper her mother had always feared?

The last notion was another holdover from her mother’s paranoia, she tried to reassure herself. A kidnapper didn’t approach his victim and ask her to pretend to be his bride.

Nevertheless, she was infinitely relieved when Lucas directed her into the parking lot of a huge stone church. Surely a kidnapper wouldn’t take his victim to church first.

“Park over there,” he said, indicating a far comer of the lot, “so nobody will notice you’re not driving Analise’s car.”

Sara’s gaze swept the assortment of luxury automobiles directly in front of the church. Her ten-year-old midsize sedan would certainly stand out in that company. “What kind of car does Analise have?”

He sighed and turned to her with a rueful grin. “A fast one. A small, red sports car that enables our local police force to write their quota of speeding tickets every month.”

A car that matched the handwriting on the note from Analise.

“I’ve never knowingly exceeded the speed limit in my life,” Sara mused. “Where does she get the money to pay all those tickets if she can’t find a job?”

“Her parents have big bucks. Her father, Ralph Brewster, is a doctor and her mother’s family founded this town.”

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

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

To prove to herself that she could do this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey!”

She stopped again, one foot on the front step.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Analise, can’t you ever be on time?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What was it with these people and her dress?