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“So,” Marni said, trying to figure out exactly what her sister wanted her to do about all this. “You want me to find you a place to live and someone to come in and stay with you until the baby is born?”
Elise shook her head.
“You want to move in with me?”
Elise shook her head.
Marni let out a silent sigh of relief. As much as she loved her twin, she couldn’t imagine the two of them living under the same roof for more than a short visit. They were too…different.
“You want to go live with Mom?”
“Good heavens, no!” Elise cried.
“Maybe you’d better tell me what it is you want me to do.”
“Take me to see him.”
“Who?” she asked, wishing she didn’t know.
“Chase.”
“Did your doctor say you could go?’” Marni asked and saw from El’s expression that he’d said just the opposite.
“I have to talk to Chase,” Elise cried. “He loves me. I know he does. He said he’s always wanted a baby. Something is wrong or he wouldn’t be acting like this now that he knows I’m pregnant. He’s avoiding me because of his family. His father, Jabe Calloway.”
Marni reminded herself of all the times since grade school her twin had involved her in “sticky situations,” but at the same time she and Elise both knew that Marni McCumber was a registered, card-carrying sucker for anyone in trouble. And her twin was in classic trouble.
“Chase said his father rules the family like a dictator,” Elise cried. “Chase wouldn’t deny his own baby unless he was being forced to. I know if I could just talk to him—”
Marni looked at the lump on El’s lap. All the other times, it had just been Elise in some dilemma. Now there was a baby. Marni’s niece or nephew.
“I’ll call this Chase Calloway and talk to him,” she relented. What could that hurt?
Elise hugged her and provided the phone number at the Calloway Ranch. Marni reached for the phone on the night table and punched in the number.
A woman answered on the third ring. Marni asked for Chase.
“May I tell him what this is in regard to?” she inquired.
“Just tell him it’s urgent that I speak with him. My name is Elise McCumber.”
She could hear a man’s voice in the background. “I’m sorry, Chase Calloway isn’t taking calls,” she said and hung up.
“Well?” Elise asked, eyes wide and hopeful.
“He isn’t taking calls.”
“See, I told you.” Elise started tearing up again. “He’s in terrible trouble. I have to go to him.”
”You’re not going anywhere,” Marni reminded her. “You have to do what’s best for the baby and the doctor said bed rest, right?”
“What am I going to do? I’m trapped here, and who knows what’s happening to Chase.”
Marni tried to assure her Chase was fine, but El wouldn’t hear of it. “Surely this can wait until after Christmas.” Maybe she could talk Elise out of pursuing this man by then. Or maybe Chase would have a change of heart over the holidays. Sure.
“Chase is in trouble,” El cried, her hand going to her stomach. “I feel it.”
Marni seriously doubted Chase was in any kind of trouble. The baby, however, was another matter. She knew her sister, she’d never been good at waiting for anything, especially a man. Elise couldn’t sit still for a few days, let alone two months until the baby was born, before she knew what was going on with this Chase character.
“I’ll go talk to him,” Marni heard herself say. The thought of telling Chase Calloway what a lowdown louse he was definitely had its appeal. Maybe the boutique could survive for one afternoon without her being there. “Where’s his ranch?”
El quit crying. “I’m sure you can find it, but you can’t go there like you are.”
“What?” Marni knew she wasn’t going to like this.
“You have to pretend you’re me, like we used to.”
“What? Do I have to remind you how much trouble we got into, pretending to be each other?”
“But this time it’s different,” El cried. “You have to pretend you’re pregnant or Jabe Calloway will take one look at you, think you’re me and that I lied about being pregnant, and not even let you in the door.”
The last thing Marni wanted to be was pregnant, pretend or otherwise. No thanks. “All I have to do is explain that I’m your twin sister,” Marni said reasonably. “You did tell Chase you have an identical twin, right?”
El looked chagrined. “It never came up.” She gave Marni another apologetic glance through her tear-beaded lashes. “You won’t be able to convince Jabe—or Chase—unless they see you like this. Once Chase admits his love for me, you can tell him the truth. He’ll listen then. Oh, Marni, it will work. We look more alike now than we ever have.”
Marni studied her sister. While they were identical twins, Elise had always been the picky eater and the skinnier one; Marni had what she liked to think of as the more well-fed, “rounded” look. Now that Elise was pregnant, grudgingly, Marni had to admit that her sister was right. They did look more alike than ever. Except for El’s protruding stomach.
“Chase will break down when he sees the woman he loves that he thinks is me, pregnant, especially seven months along,” Elise said with such confidence, Marni found herself almost believing it. Almost. And she couldn’t see even an old ogre as awful as this Jabe Calloway sounded turning away a very pregnant woman. Especially right before Christmas.
All Marni needed was a chance to talk to Chase Calloway and decide for herself if he was avoiding Elise on his own—or because of his dictatorial father.
“El, what if I talk to Chase and he doesn’t want a relationship with you or the baby?” she asked gingerly.
“If Chase truly doesn’t love me and doesn’t want me or the baby, I’ll accept it,” Elise said with a dignity her bunny slippers belied. “But I know how he feels about kids. He said finding a woman to share his life with and having children was all he’d ever dreamed of.”
Marni turned away to roll her eyes. Geez, couldn’t El tell a come-on when she heard one? “Okay. I’ll go up there and talk to him. I’ll give him one last chance.”
Elise nodded. “You’ll see. He loves me.” She patted her round belly. “And our baby.”
“I’ll go on one condition,” Marni said. “That you go to Mom’s—at least temporarily.” She expected an argument.
But El readily agreed. Marni stared at her sister. Until that moment, she’d had no idea how much Chase Calloway meant to her twin. Marni cursed the man’s black heart.
* * *
MARNI COULDN’T BELIEVE what she’d volunteered for as she took Dry Creek Road out of town headed for the Horseshoe Hills north of Bozeman. She wound through the snowy foothills that lay in the shadows of the Bridger mountain range. Farmhouses became fewer and farther between, and the road narrowed as she left civilization behind.
Occasionally she’d catch her reflection in the rearview mirror, and do a startled double take at the woman who looked back at her. Elise had insisted on putting a russet rinse on Marni’s normally dark-blond, curly, shoulder-length hair. Marni had drawn the line at chopping it off to look like El’s short wedge.
“He’ll just