Duplicate Daughter

And what?

He said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you, Katie Fields.”

For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes. Nick had no idea what Katie was thinking. He just knew his own thoughts were jumping from pillar to post. Hopefully a good night’s sleep would get him back to normal. It sounded as though the storm was abating a bit; his salvation would lie in the weather clearing so he could fly Katie away from Frostbite.

“I—” she started to say, but a sound outside caught both their attention and they turned as one to face the door.

“Was that—”

“Gunfire,” he finished for her, quickly drawing her away from the fireplace into the deeper recesses of the house. “Yes.”

“Nearby?”

“Yes.” He tore open a closet and shone a flashlight inside. The gun safe was back there and he twirled the combination.

“You any good with a firearm?” he asked over his shoulder.

In a shaking voice, she said, “I’ve shot off a few rounds with my dad.”

He emerged with a Winchester 30-30 and a 20-gauge automatic shotgun. He inserted ammunition into each weapon before pushing the shotgun toward Katie.

She took the shotgun with trembling hands. She looked scared to death but reassuringly resolute. “What’s the plan?” she asked.

“The plan? I go outside and see what’s going on. You stay here and lock the door behind me. That’s the plan.”

“I know how to shoot—”

“Katie? Someone has to stay inside and protect Lily.” He said this while retrieving his jacket and shrugging it on, zipping the front, pulling on his knit cap.

“You’re not going out there by yourself!”

She wanted to go with him? Startled by this realization, he half smiled. He said, “Someone has to go out in that storm and find out who’s shooting at who. I believe I may be the more qualified. Please, Katie, keep Lily safe.”

Before he could consider the wisdom of his action, he brushed her forehead with his lips. “Lock the door behind me,” he whispered, turning off the lantern and sliding the dead bolt back. “Don’t let anyone but me back inside the house.”

And then he was gone.

Chapter Five

As Nick blended into the shadows, Katie heard a new volley of shots, muffled by the snow. She stepped over the threshold into the night. She had a shotgun, she could probably hit something—or someone—and it seemed wrong for Nick to be out there alone with heaven knows what. Or whom.

But his parting words, his overriding need to protect Lily, stopped her mid-step. Another shot, a voice, someone crashing through the brush…

She stepped back inside, stumbling as haste made her clumsy. Pain shot up her leg as she pushed the dead bolt home.

What in the world had she gotten herself into by coming to this house? There had been a man at the window—it was too much of a coincidence to believe that a stranger had peered inside the house just an hour before shots were fired outside. What did she know of Nick’s personal life? Maybe there was a jealous husband out there or someone connected to Helen.

She tried to find comfort in the totally effortless way Nick handled weapons, but comfort was elusive when it came to Nick.

How about the way he looked at you, the way he kissed your forehead, the way your heart battered against your ribs when his lips touched your skin, when his hands clenched your arms, brushed your neck?

No comfort. This place was a nuthouse. And she was turning out to be the biggest nut of all.

Katie limped down the hall to check on Lily and found the child asleep, her pink lips pursed in some dream, her breathing slow and regular. Katie sat down on the foot of Lily’s bed, the shotgun across her knees, straining to hear gunshots over the raucous sounds of the storm.

To her horror, her movement awoke the child, who sat up whimpering, eyes closed.

Katie immediately laid the gun aside and scooted closer to Lily, who held out her arms. Katie wrapped Lily in a warm embrace and smoothed her hair, whispering nonsensical murmurs to comfort her, rocking her in her arms. Within minutes, Lily’s heavy head signified she’d fallen back asleep without actually waking up, and Katie gently laid her head back on her pillow, covering her shoulders, not even trying to resist the urge to kiss her forehead and smooth her hair away from her face.

What a darling, sweet child. Nothing must happen to her.

Or to her father.

Standing, Katie retrieved the shotgun and moved out of the bedroom, closing the door. She went back through the house, turning off many of the flickering lanterns, bathing the house in darkness except for the fireplace, which filled the living room with leaping shadows. She stood by the front door and listened. When had she heard the last shot? How long should she wait before going outside and looking for Nick? What if he’d been wounded or…or worse.

Her hand rested on the doorknob as she pressed her head against the wood. What should she do? Indecision was a new sensation for her. Usually, she reacted first and celebrated—or regretted—later. But never before had she been even marginally responsible for someone else. Someone innocent. Someone like Lily. And so far on this endless day, she’d done the impulsive—and wrong—thing almost one-hundred percent of the time.

Except she hadn’t thrown herself into Nick’s arms when he’d looked at her that way; she hadn’t even let him know she wanted to. She’d been mature and reasonable when he massaged her shoulder, when he turned her to face him, when he said her name and it sounded like the beginning of a song. She hadn’t allowed a single emotion to bubble to the surface.

And maybe that was the biggest mistake of the night.

Her headache was back with a vengeance.

NICK STAYED CLOSE to buildings and snow-covered vegetation as he crept toward the sound of gunfire. There were two weapons at play; one sounded like a single-fire revolver, the other an automatic of some kind.

So, who in the world would be conducting a gunfight outside his house in the middle of the night during a snowstorm? And what were the chances this nocturnal shoot-out wasn’t connected directly or indirectly to Katie Fields’s arrival in Frostbite?

Was she in danger? Had she put Lily in danger?

He shoved thoughts of Katie and Lily aside. It was imperative he put a stop to whatever was going on out here before it erupted into his house. Keeping his head down, he waited until more shots rang out before moving across a patch of exposed snow, zigzagging as he’d been taught so many years before, catching his breath as he found a tree to hide behind. He heard one man yell, another swear. The labored sound of heavy breathing seemed very close by and he chanced another look.

Two men stood a hundred feet to his right, facing each other. They fired at the same time. One bullet hit its mark and the man closest to Nick fell to the snow. The other gunman turned and, slogging through the snow, ran back into the shadows.

Nick’s fingers were so cold they were stiff as they clutched the rifle. He should have put on gloves. He was stunned that he’d forgotten such a basic necessity. These thoughts zipped through his mind as he stared at the fallen man.

Taking a roundabout approach, he made his way to the dark shape lying in the snow. As he came within a few feet, he heard more rapid fire. He was under attack! As bullets whizzed behind him, he tumbled forward in the snow, the rifle held out at the side, scrambling to his knees to take cover behind the wounded man, shooting into the brush near the dock from where the shots came.

The injured man groaned. Nick couldn’t risk even the smallest of flashlights to check for wounds. He used his frozen hands and felt something warm and sticky on the man’s chest.

Time was critical. Did he have an injured good guy, an injured bad guy or what?

He shook the victim’s shoulder and got more groans. Obviously, the wound was too extensive to make this man much of a threat. Nick would get him into the house; to leave him out here would be to leave him to die from exposure.

He rose to a stooped position. In the moment of stillness that followed, he heard the crunch of someone approaching through snow. Breathing suspended, he searched the landscape.

Another shot and a bullet sliced through his jacket sleeve. Nick returned fire and a dark shape detached itself and fell forward from a bank of trees.

Nick stood slowly, shakily. It had been well over ten years since he’d fired a gun at another human being. He used the small flashlight he always carried in his pocket to examine the fallen man in front of him. Blood seeped through his jacket. His face was covered with fallen snow.