Dead Ringer

“I doubt the twins’ adoptions were recorded anywhere, and with the Cavanaugh woman dying not long after the twins were kidnapped... You haven’t heard anything yet?”

Ledger shook his head. “They said that clues to what happened to some of the babies were found stitched on their baby blankets. But the twins wouldn’t have quilted blankets made for them because of the circumstances.” Pearl Cavanaugh had been led to believe that the twins were in danger, so she would have made very private adoptions for Oakley and Jesse Rose.

“And Boone?”

“He went to check on that horse you were interested in, remember?”

Travers nodded, frowning. Loss of memory was part of the effects of arsenic poisoning. “Maybe I’ll just rest until dinner.”

Ledger watched his father go back up the stairs before he headed for his pickup and the hospital.

* * *

“YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE,” Abby said the moment she opened her eyes and saw Ledger standing at the end of her bed. Her heart had taken off like a wild stallion at just the sight of him. It always did. “Wade could come back at any time.”

Ledger had been her first love. He’d left an ache in her that she’d hoped would fade, if not eventually go away. But if anything, the ache had grown stronger. He’d broken her heart. It was why she’d married Wade. But ever since then, he’d been coming around, confusing her and making being married to Wade even harder. He seemed to think he had to save her from her husband.

It didn’t help that Ledger McGraw had breakfast on the mornings that she waitressed at the Whitehorse Café. She’d done nothing to encourage him, although Wade didn’t believe that.

Fortunately, Wade had only come down to the restaurant one time threatening to kill Ledger. Ledger had called him on it, saying they should step outside and finish it like men.

“Or do you only hit defenseless women?” Ledger had demanded of him.

Wade lost his temper and charged him. Ledger had stepped aside, nailing Wade on the back of his neck as he lumbered past. Abby had screamed as Wade slammed headfirst into a table. He’d missed two weeks’ work because of his neck and threatened to sue the McGraws for his pain and suffering.

She knew his neck wasn’t hurt that badly, but he’d milked it, telling everyone that Ledger had blindsided him.

Wade’s jealousy had gotten worse after that. Even when she’d reminded him again and again, “But you’re the one I married.”

“Only because you couldn’t have McGraw,” he would snap.

Ledger’s name was never spoken in their house—at least not by her. Wade blamed him for everything that was wrong with their marriage—especially the fact that she hadn’t given him a son.

They’d tried to get pregnant when they’d first married. Since he’d joined the sheriff’s department and changed, she’d gone back on the pill in secret, hating that she kept it from him. She told herself that when things changed back to what she thought of as normal, she would go off the pill again.

Now she couldn’t even remember what normal was anymore.

Ledger took a step toward her. He looked both worried and furious. It scared her that he and Wade might get into another altercation because of her.

“I didn’t come until I was sure Wade wasn’t here,” Ledger said as he came around the side of her bed. “When I heard, I had to see you. You fell off a ladder?”

She nodded even though it hurt her head to do so. “Clumsy.” She avoided his gaze because she knew he wouldn’t believe it any more than she did.

“What were you doing on a ladder?”

“Apparently I was getting down some canning jars to put up peach jam.”

Ledger looked at her hard. “Apparently? You don’t remember?”

“I seem to have lost the past twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, Abby.”

She could tell that he thought she was covering for Wade. It almost made her laugh since she’d covered for him enough times. This just wasn’t one of them. She really couldn’t remember anything.

Ledger started to reach for her hand, but must have thought better of it. She tucked her hand under the sheet so he wouldn’t be tempted again. She couldn’t have Wade walking in on that. It would be bad enough Ledger just being here.

“It was a stupid accident. I probably wasn’t paying attention. I’m fine.”

He made a face that said he didn’t believe it as he reached out to brush the dark hair back from her forehead.

She flinched at his touch and he quickly pulled back his fingers. “Sorry,” he said quickly. “Did I hurt you?”

Abby shook her head. His touch had always sparked desire in her, but she wasn’t about to admit that. “My head hurts, is all.”

She looked toward the door, worried that Wade might stop by. When he’d left, she could tell that he hadn’t liked leaving her. Even though he was supposed to be on duty as a sheriff’s deputy, he could swing by if he was worried about her, especially since he was determined to take her home.

Ledger followed her gaze as if he knew what was making her so nervous. “I’ll go,” he said. “But if I find out that Wade had anything to do with this—”

“I fell off a ladder.” She knew it was a lie, and from the look in Ledger’s eyes, he did, too. But she had to at least try to convince him that Wade was innocent. This time. “That’s all it was.”

She met his gaze and felt her heart break as it always did. “Thank you for stopping by,” she said even though there was so much more she wanted to say to him. But she was Wade’s wife. As her mother always said, she’d made her bed and now she had to lie in it for better or worse.

Not that her mother didn’t always remind her that Ledger hadn’t wanted her.

“I’m here for you, Abby. If you ever need me...”

She felt tears burn her eyes. If only that had been true before she’d married Wade. “I can’t.” Her heart broke as she dragged her gaze away from his.

As if resigned, she watched out of the corner of her eye as he put on his Stetson, tipped it to her and walked out.

* * *

ATTORNEY JIM WATERS looked at the young man sitting in the passenger seat of his car as he drove toward the ranch later that evening. Vance Elliot. Here was Waters’s ticket back into the McGraws’ good graces.

He’d bet on the wrong horse, so to speak. Travers’s second wife, Patricia McGraw, had been a good bet at the time. Pretty, sexy, almost twenty years younger than her husband. She’d convinced him Travers wasn’t himself. That she needed a man she could count on. She’d let him believe that he might be living in that big house soon with her because Travers had some incurable ailment that only she and Travers knew about.

He’d bought into it hook, line and sinker. And why wouldn’t he? Travers had been sick—anyone could see that. Also the man had seemed distracted, often forgetful and vague as if he was losing his mind. He’d been convinced that Travers wasn’t long with this world and that Patricia would be taking over the ranch.

Little did he know that she was poisoning her husband.

As it turned out, Patricia was now behind bars awaiting trial. Since he had stupidly sided with her, things had gone downhill from there. He was hanging on to his job with Travers by the skin of his teeth.

But this was going to make it all right again, he told himself. He couldn’t let a paycheck like McGraw get away. His retainer alone would keep him nicely for years to come. He just needed to get Travers’s trust back. He saw a lot more legal work on the horizon for the McGraws. If this young man was Oakley, he would be back in the McGraw fold.

His cell phone rang. Patricia McGraw again. Travers’s young wife wouldn’t quit calling even though he’d told her he wasn’t going to help her, let alone defend her.

Nor did he need to hear any of her threats. Fortunately, no one believed anything she said. Since Travers McGraw was idolized in this county, people saw her as the gold digger who’d married him—and then systematically tried to kill him. She got no sympathy. In fact, he doubted she could get even a fair trial.