Linda Warren - The Wrong Woman

“Yes.”

Serena swallowed. “Is my mother dead or alive?” She’d been afraid to ask that, but now she couldn’t avoid it.

“She’s dead,” Ethan answered. “Jasmine died from the injuries she received in that car crash the night before your birth—just like your grandmother told you.”

She bit her lip. “Somehow…I guess…I hoped she was alive.”

Ethan had grown very still beside her and she knew there was more. “What is it?”

“Your grandmother didn’t tell you the whole truth. I searched a little deeper and found…”

“What?”

“Jasmine Farrell gave birth to twin girls.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in, and then she leaped to her feet. Twin girls. Around and around the words went in her head until she had to accept them. “That means the stripper’s my sister. My twin. My double!”

Dear Reader,

Has anyone ever claimed to have seen someone who looks like you? How did you—or would you—react? Would you shrug it off? Laugh? Or would you think about it constantly?

That’s what happens to Serena Farrell in The Wrong Woman. She hears about a woman who’s a dead ringer for her. She can’t stop thinking about the other woman and is finally driven to hire a private investigator to find her.

Ethan Ramsey, the P.I., appeared in two of my other books, Straight from the Heart and Emily’s Daughter. Now he faces a case that intrigues him—as does the blue-eyed, red-haired Serena. If there are two women like this, he has to see them!

Serena’s and Ethan’s lives become entangled in ways they don’t expect. I hope you enjoy their quest to find the woman who looks like Serena. (And if someone sees a person who looks like you—laugh about it. That’s the best reaction.) Thanks for reading my books.

Linda Warren

P.S. You can reach me at LW1508@aol.com,

www.superauthors.com, www.lindawarren.net or you can write me at P.O. Box 5182, Bryan, TX 77805. Your letters will always be answered.

To Diannia Dudake Landry, my cousin, my sister, my best friend all rolled into one. I pray that in the years ahead, we’ll be as close as in years past. Thanks for just being you and always being there for me. And hopefully, one of us will always remember the way home.

A special thanks to Joe and Joanna Johnston and Jim Gatewood for sharing their expert knowledge and for being so nice. And to Laurie Fay for continuing to answer my many questions with such patience. Any errors are strictly mine.

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

EPILOGUE

“WOW, ETHAN, take a look at her.”

Ethan Ramsey didn’t raise his head. He twisted the beer in his hand, felt the coolness of the glass against his fingers and wondered what would happen if he took a swallow. Would he want another? Then another?

Travis glanced at his brother and noticed his preoccupation with the beer. “Why’d you order the damn thing? You know you’re not gonna drink it.”

“A test, I suppose,” he answered solemnly.

“Damn, Ethan, you beat anything I’ve ever seen. You have the strongest willpower of anyone I know. You went through a bad spell with liquor, but you had good reason. Under the circumstances, any man would’ve lost it.”

Ethan didn’t answer. He kept twisting the glass, trying to decide if any man had a good enough reason to obliterate the world from his mind.

“Check out the stripper, Ethan. You won’t regret it.”

Ethan wasn’t interested in the stripper. He was more interested in getting Travis out of the strip club. He didn’t want to be here in the first place and would never have come on his own. Unfortunately he’d allowed his younger brother to make their evening plans and—

“Ethan!” Travis called above all the jeers and yells.

Ethan turned toward the girl. She was beautiful, stunning, actually, with long legs, a tiny waist, full breasts, creamy skin and hair the color of rich copper. It hung down her back and she tossed it around her in seductive movements. She was taking off the few clothes she had on and the men were going wild. Ethan focused on her face and the blue of her eyes. They were blank, desolate, a look he’d seen many times in the course of his career. He’d been an FBI agent until he was injured in the line of duty. Victims, especially the abused, had that look. The girl hated being on stage in front of all these men. She was being forced to strip. He knew that without a doubt, and anger surged through him.

He told himself it was none of his business. But that didn’t work. He kept staring at the girl’s face and realized he had to get out of there or he’d do something stupid.

He stood abruptly. “Let’s go.”

Travis’s head jerked toward him. “What? We’ve only been here thirty minutes.”

“Let’s go,” Ethan repeated in a voice Travis clearly recognized. Moodily he followed Ethan outside to the truck.

Ethan got behind the wheel and Travis crawled into the passenger side. “You have a way of ruining my whole day,” Travis complained. “I forgot that annoying little habit of yours.”

“It’s two in the morning,” Ethan reminded him as he backed out and pulled into traffic.

“So what?”

“So you’re thirty-eight years old and still going to strip joints. When the hell are you gonna grow up?”

“Whenever I damn well please,” Travis returned, leaning his head back. “I’m not like you and Pop. I don’t want a life that’s so structured you’re old before your time. I have to be myself.”

Ethan rolled his eyes at the tiresome cliché. “Fine,” he muttered, “but that also comes with a price.”

“Oh, God,” Travis groaned. “Don’t preach to me.”

Ethan didn’t say anything else because he knew they’d get into a full-blown argument. That was the last thing he wanted, especially when Travis had had too much to drink. Not only that, Ethan couldn’t shake his feeling about the stripper. It still bothered him, and he was taking it out on Travis. His brother could make his own decisions—even if he didn’t like them—and Ethan had to respect that.

As they drove up to Travis’s apartment, Ethan couldn’t resist asking, “Did you notice the redhead’s eyes?”

Travis sat up straight. “The stripper?”

“Yeah.”

Travis laughed. “Her eyes? No, I wasn’t looking at her eyes and if you were, you’re getting as stodgy as Pop.”

Ethan turned off the engine, letting that last remark slide. “Someone’s forcing her to strip.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you see how scared she was and how she hated the men yelling and leering at her?”

“No, I didn’t see any of that. Shut off your FBI radar. You’re imagining things.”

Was he? He didn’t think so, but he had to forget it. He wasn’t an agent anymore. He was a rancher; he did P.I. work on the side, but only when people asked for his help, and the only people who needed his help right now were his family. He’d spent years working all over the country; that time away had come with personal casualties—a divorce, not being home when his mom died, a bullet to his hip and…the loss of a son. Even now, he had to stop before he’d let himself think those words. That pain would never leave him. Sometimes… He stopped his thoughts and glanced at Travis, who was lounging in the seat, head nodding. These days, family was his top priority. He had to find a way to talk to Travis without arguing.