Double Play: Ambushed! / High-Caliber Cowboy

“It would be like him losing his sister all over again,” she was saying. “And I couldn’t bear to think I had a brother only to have him snatched away if I’m right and I’m not Jasmine.”

Losing Bernard wouldn’t break anyone’s heart, Cash thought. “You don’t have to see him if you’d rather not.”

Her relief was almost palpable. “It’s not that I don’t want to see him. Later. If I really am Jasmine. Isn’t there some way we can keep this quiet until we know for sure?”

He hated to tell her how impossible that would be in a town the size of Antelope Flats. He had to tell State Investigator John Mathews. But he had no way of reaching him at this hour. Cash couldn’t see what it would hurt to wait. Mathews would do everything he could to keep the story from blowing wide open, but he would want to question Jasmine—and in her state, Cash feared she would take off again.

Cash knew he was just making excuses.

What he needed was time. Before anyone else got involved, he had to be sure in his own mind that she really was the woman he’d spent seven years trying to forget.

“Maybe there is a way to keep it quiet,” he said, watching for her reaction. “I can take your fingerprints and send them to the FBI. They have Jasmine’s on file.”

“How long will it take to get the results?” she asked without even a blink.

He would send them to his friend in the FBI. With luck he would know by tonight, but he didn’t tell her that. “It usually takes a week. Maybe more.”

She seemed relieved rather than upset by that news. He got the feeling that things were happening too fast for her.

“I’ll just stay in a motel out of sight until then.”

“Your brother will be staying at the only motel in town.”

She looked surprised, then worried. “What can we do?”

We? A sliver of doubt embedded itself under his skin. He told himself he was just being a cop. She had come to him, she needed his help. Of course, she would say “we.” So why was he suddenly suspicious of her motives?

Because she’d involved him so slickly into a conspiracy to keep her existence a secret. It worked perfectly into his plan to have her to himself until he could decide if she was really Jasmine—and what she wanted.

But he had to wonder if it also worked perfectly into some plan she had.

“If anyone finds out that I came to you before we know for certain if I’m Jasmine… Can you imagine what would happen if the newspapers got hold of this story?”

He could well imagine. His life had been blown wide open for months after she’d disappeared. But she didn’t need to sell him any further on hiding her. “There might be a way to keep you hidden until we have proof that you’re Jasmine.” He let the words hang in the air for a few moments, not wanting to act too eager. “You can stay with me.”

Her surprise almost seemed genuine. “Oh, I couldn’t.”

“I have a large house. There is plenty of room. It is the only way to stay hidden in a town this size. Unless you’d rather not, under the circumstances.”

She frowned. “Circumstances?”

“The general assumption was that you were abducted by a man at the gas station who is now in prison,” Cash said. “But for several reasons I don’t think that was the case.”

“What reasons?” she asked, sounding more curious than worried.

“First off, the man serving time in prison right now was offered a deal if he told them what he’d done with you. He didn’t take the deal. I don’t think he was the one the station clerk saw get into your car.” He was watching her, not exactly sure what he was looking for, just a feeling that he should be leery of her. Especially if she was Jasmine.

“Secondly,” he continued when her expression didn’t change. “You would never have gotten into your car with a stranger even if he was holding a gun on you. You’d been taught what to do because kidnapping was a real threat given your family’s wealth. The only reason you would leave with the man at the station was because you weren’t afraid of him.”

That last seemed to finally get a reaction out of her. “You think I knew the man who abducted me?”

He nodded slowly. “A man who left you for dead seven years ago.”

“You’re telling me that if I’m Jasmine Wolfe, I’m lucky to be alive.”

“Oh, I think you got very lucky. The problem is, if I’m right, your assailant won’t be happy to hear you’re alive and can identify him.”

“But I can’t! I don’t remember anything about that day.”

“My point exactly. You could be in the room with a killer and not even know it. Until it was too late.”

She bit her lower lip as if considering that she might be in danger. “I guess the safest place I could be now is with the town sheriff,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Right?”

He cleared his throat and met her eyes. “Right.” Unless, of course, she was going home with the prime suspect in Jasmine’s disappearance and attempted murder.

CHAPTER SIX

MOLLY COULDN’T BELIEVE how easy it had been as she watched Cash prepare to take her fingerprints.

She’d come away clean without getting caught with any cards up her sleeves. As Max used to say when he’d fooled someone in the front row of the audience with one of his magic tricks, “I could have gone south with an elephant in front of that guy!”

Not only did the sheriff buy her as Jasmine, he’d also agreed to keep the news quiet—and was taking her home to his house. She couldn’t have asked for a better place to hide out.

There had only been that one surprise. Cash seemed to think Jasmine had known her attacker, that the person was still at large, that her attacker had left her for dead. And now with Jasmine back, Molly’s life was in danger.

It was her karma and the risk that went with stealing a dead woman’s identity, she thought bitterly. Wasn’t it bad enough that she already had two killers after her?

She hoped that Cash was just being cautious. He seemed a cautious man. Of course he could also just be trying to scare her. If he knew she wasn’t Jasmine, what better way than to make her think she was in danger from a killer if she continued this charade.

No, she thought, studying him. He believed she was Jasmine because he wanted to. Maybe he really was worried about her safety. Maybe the man now in prison for abducting those other women really hadn’t picked up Jasmine at that filling station.

Good thing she wasn’t planning to stay in this gig long. And there was always the chance that Cash was wrong. The cases were too similar not to have been the same man—even if the man now in prison hadn’t confessed to Jasmine Wolfe’s abduction.

“Yes?” Cash said. He was looking at her, studying her again as if he saw her struggling with her thoughts.

She shook her head. “Nothing. This must come as a shock to you.” Her prints weren’t on file anywhere. That was one reason she hadn’t been able to get a job at a Vegas casino. Casinos took all employees’ fingerprints as a matter of course. But still, she felt a little anxious to think he was about to send them to the FBI. Did that mean they would be on file from now on? Good thing she was going straight again after this.

He reached for her hand. His fingers were warm and she felt a small thrill ripple over her as he began to take her fingerprints. She mentally kicked herself as he raised a brow at her reaction. Cash McCall didn’t miss much.

“Am I anything like her?” she asked grabbing hold of every magician’s best defense—misdirection and patter. Talk about anything. Just draw the audience away from what you’re really doing. “I mean other than the way I look?”

He took her fingerprints, carefully getting a perfect print from each finger. He didn’t look at her as he worked. “You sound like her and some of your mannerisms remind me of her,” he said after a few moments.

“Were we close?” she asked shyly.

His gaze came up to meet hers. There was heat in it and although it had been a while, she recognized the look for what it was: desire.

“We were engaged, weren’t we?” He looked back down.