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Anger flushed beneath his tan. “The judge granted us joint custody. Joint! You had no right to run with her.”
She shrank back from his fury, his thunderous words ringing in her head. Joint custody. No right to run with her. Could it be true?
“I’ve spent a fortune to track you down, Camryn. Nice try with the name change, Kate—” he uttered the name with scorn “—but the game is up. I’m taking Arianne.”
“No, no, please,” she whispered, her thoughts in a whirl. What he claimed might be true, or might not be. She knew nothing about him. Not even his last name. She couldn’t let this stranger take the baby—especially not before she’d checked out his story. “Give me time….”
“You’ve had her long enough. It’s my turn now.”
Panic pressed in on her as she realized her own weak legal position. If he was the baby’s father and had been granted custody, she’d have no legal claim on Arianne…or not much of one.
But he’d said that Camryn had the right to joint custody.
And he didn’t know Camryn was dead.
“You can’t just take her like this. She doesn’t know you,” Kate told him, reasoning with a frantic urgency. “She’ll be frightened. She needs me.”
“She’s my daughter, and she doesn’t know me. Whose fault is that?” His eyes blazed; his mouth pulled taut. “I’m taking her. And I’m suing for full custody.”
Kate’s lips parted, but no sound emerged. She shook her head in protest, her vision clouding with a sudden blur. Every maternal instinct in her cried out against handing her sweet baby girl over to this angry stranger. Where would he take her? Why did he want her? Again she remembered Camryn’s claim that he’d been violent. He certainly seemed to be, the way he’d forced his way into her home and manhandled her. She had to think. Think!
She forced words through her clenched throat. “Let me bring her in now for supper. She’ll be hungry.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve packed plenty of provisions for her.”
Her panic escalated. “I’m bringing her in.” She made a move to brush past him.
He caught her by the shoulders. “She’s not there anymore.”
Her eyes widened; her heart slowed. “What do you mean?”
“She’s with…friends. Until I can join them.”
When the news sank in, Kate cried out in pain and beat against his chest with fists to free herself from his grip. “Let me go! I’ve got to stop them. I can’t let them take her like that.”
He caught her fists, forced her arms behind her back and held her against his chest. When her struggles proved fruitless, she closed her eyes and swallowed a hysterical sob. In pained disbelief, she murmured, “You didn’t even let me tell her goodbye.”
“Did you let me tell her goodbye before you ran with her?”
Easing out of his loosened grasp, she refused to feel empathy for him. Camryn obviously had had good reason to run. Violence simmered beneath his surface like a pot about to boil over. She’d felt it in his grip, heard it in his voice, seen it in his gaze. “She isn’t ready to leave home right now. She won’t have any of her clothes or her toys.” At a sudden remembrance, an ache went through her. “She won’t even have her blanket.”
“Her blanket? I have blankets. Plenty of blankets.”
“But you don’t have hers!” she shouted, glaring at him. “You don’t care that she needs it to fall asleep at night, do you.” Her lips trembled. She bit down on them, then added, “She holds it against her cheek and sucks her thumb.” Though she tried to suppress the tears, they seeped from the outside corners of her eyes. She buried her face in her hands and succumbed to quiet sobs.
He shook her and issued a curt order. “That’s enough. Stop the crying.”
She sucked in her breath, sobs and all. Her chin came up, and her bottom lip tightened. The man was heartless. He was tearing a baby away from the only home she’d ever known, without any preparation at all.
“Go get her blanket,” he said.
Stiffly she turned from him, and he followed her to the bedroom she had decorated as a nursery, with yellow walls, bright rainbows and teddy bears. The sight of the nursery now choked her with new tears, but she mastered them. The effort grew more difficult when she found the small patchwork blanket Arianne called her “bankie.” Reverently Kate lifted it from the crib, savoring the softness and the subtle baby scent that clung to it. How could she live without Arianne?
“Here it is.” Kate thrust it at him. “When she cries for her bankie,” she finished on a whisper, “this is what she wants.”
He took it and met her gaze. She saw only cold determination there. “Pack the rest of her things. Anything she might want.”
She’d never met a man as cold and unfeeling. He looked so foreign and invasive in the cozy nursery—huge, hard and forbidding. She sensed a hair-trigger readiness about him, and knew that if she made one wrong move, he’d grab her.
She had to come up with a plan. She couldn’t let this hateful stranger carry her niece off to an unknown future. Yet what could she do? She had no idea where he’d sent Arianne. She had no idea where he lived.
If he disappeared now, she might never find Arianne again.
Should she tell him she wasn’t Camryn—that her twin had died? Perhaps his attitude would soften, and he’d handle the matter with compassion and reason. Then again, he might simply leave, glad to be rid of Camryn once and for all.
She couldn’t let him go until she knew more.
“I’ll have to get a suitcase to pack her things,” Kate told him, stalling for time. She couldn’t very well ask his name or where he lived without alerting him to the fact that she wasn’t Camryn.
“Where do you keep your suitcases?” he asked.
“The hall closet.”
“Lead the way.” He trailed her to the closet and watched as she pulled out a sturdy gray suitcase. “Pack one with Arianne’s things, and another for yourself.”
She glanced at him in surprise as hope surged through her. Had she convinced him that Arianne needed her, at least temporarily? “You’re letting me come?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. In fact, I insist you do. You see, we have a date with a certain judge, you and I.”
“A judge?” She frowned, perplexed. “In court? About…custody?”
He gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Custody will damn sure be on the agenda, along with other issues. Like divorce.”
“Divorce?”
“You left before ours was final. And guess what? Turns out the attorney you hired hadn’t even passed the bar yet. He had no authority to act on your behalf. Nothing he handled was valid.”
Kate stared at him in sick dismay. Camryn hadn’t been divorced. Which meant…oh, God…this man was her husband. And he now believed her to be his wife!
The nightmare just grew worse and worse.
Camryn must have been in a terrible panic to get away from him if she hadn’t even waited for the divorce to be finalized. Foreboding coursed through Kate. Was she placing herself in danger by going with him?
Maybe she’d be wiser to tell him her true identity, and that Camryn was dead. But if she did, he might simply leave, and she’d have a hell of a time finding Arianne. He could easily disappear without ever telling her where he lived, or how to contact him. She might never see her niece again.
She couldn’t allow that! Her sister had run away from this cold, heartless husband of hers. Kate would not willingly relinquish Arianne to him. If that meant impersonating her sister until she came up with a better plan, she’d do it. God help her!
She drew two suitcases from the hall closet.
He nodded curtly toward the nursery. “Go pack.”
In seething silence, Kate carried the suitcases to the nursery and packed one of them full of Arianne’s clothes and toys. He watched her every move. When she’d finished, she moved on to her own bedroom, with her captor following closely. She set the empty suitcase on the bed and opened it, eyeing the telephone on the bedside table.
Even if she could get to the phone, who could she call? If she notified the police, Mitch would probably vanish rather than face possible complications. She had to stay with him at least until she discovered his last name, where he lived and where he’d sent Arianne. A telephone would do her no good now.
“Don’t reach for that phone, Camryn,” he warned, his perceptive gaze on her as he eased his tall form into an armchair near the door.
The threat was only implied, but she didn’t doubt that he’d physically overpower her again. Remembering the awesome strength she’d felt coiled in his muscled body when he’d trapped her against his chest, she knew he’d have no problem brutalizing men much bigger than him—possibly several of them at a time—let alone one weaponless woman.
His stare alone frightened her. It seemed to have a disarming power of its own….
She looked away, pierced with a sudden, uncomfortable awareness of him as a man and the suggestive intimacy of the setting. Her bedroom. He believed her to be his wife—a woman he had once loved. At the very least, in the physical sense.
Flustered, she turned to the dresser drawer she had opened, anxious to finish her packing. Hurriedly she tossed jeans, shorts and tops into her suitcase. She then pulled open another drawer, and paused. Self-conscious warmth seeped beneath her skin. Calling herself a fool, she tried to ignore his infernal presence as she packed her panties and bras.
“Are those yours?”
The surprise in his question drew her glance back to him, then down to the cotton, pastel-hued underwear she’d just placed in the suitcase. The warmth in her face intensified. “Who else’s would they be?”
He lifted one brow. “No black satin or red lace? Your taste in lingerie has, uh, changed.”
“That’s none of your business.”
He almost smiled. “Amen.”
Pursing her mouth, she shoved her underwear beneath the other clothing in her suitcase. She’d never bought the sexy kind of underwear Camryn had favored. Kate preferred the comfort of cotton to lace. Besides, who ever saw her in her underwear, anyway? Her work and her studies—and then Arianne—had dominated her time. She hadn’t had a steady man in her life since her undergrad days.
Though she didn’t care at all what this big rude lug thought of her, his comment had made her feel frumpy. In self-defense—and maybe to extinguish the mild amusement she seemed to have afforded him—she coolly remarked, “I try to please whatever man I’m currently involved with.”
“Since when?”
She raised her brow at the chiding retort. He apparently didn’t believe that Camryn had tried to please him. Kate was glad her sister hadn’t wasted her time. She doubted there would have been much reward in the venture—other than, perhaps, in a strictly physical sense. That thought, however, brought to mind the possible physical rewards a man as blatantly virile as Mitch might confer upon a women…a subject she certainly didn’t want to think about.
Abruptly she averted her gaze from him and continued packing.
“I hope whatever fool you’re dating is the patient type, for his sake,” Mitch said in a pleasant tone. “You’re going to be gone for a while.”
Kate halted in her work and frowned. “How long of a while?”
“A week or two…possibly longer, depending on what the judge decides.”
Her stomach tightened with anxiety. Mitch clearly had every confidence that the court proceedings would go his way. “Where exactly are we going?”
“To the judge who married us, finalized our separation and granted us joint custody.” He hadn’t, of course, answered her question, although he probably thought he had.
“I have to tell certain people I’ll be gone, or they’ll worry.”
“Too bad you didn’t think of that when you ran away with my daughter. You just disappeared.” He leaned forward, his arms resting across his knees. “I wouldn’t trust you to call anyone, Camryn, so you’re going to just disappear again. Shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows you. You can spin whatever crazy tale you’d like when you get back.”
Resentful at the control he had over her, Kate flung more clothes and a pair of shoes into the suitcase. In actuality, there wouldn’t be many people who would miss her. Her parents had been dead since she was five years old, and she had no close relations left. She supposed that her neighbors might get curious about her extended absence, her friends might wonder where she was and her lawyer might leave messages on her answering machine, but no one would raise an alarm. She’d taken a leave from work, which meant co-workers wouldn’t note her absence. She was entirely on her own. A sobering thought. She could disappear from the face of the earth and very few people would notice.
She stalked to her closet and rifled through her dresses and suits, looking for just the right one to wear into a courtroom.
“Don’t tell me those are yours, too.”
She jumped at the low, gravelly voice that came from right behind her. She hadn’t heard him move from the chair, but now he stood peering over her shoulder at the neatly hanging garments in her closet. She understood his comment perfectly. She doubted that Camryn had ever worn a tailored suit or conservative dress in her life. Kate affected a nonchalant shrug. “So my tastes have changed.”
He let out a laugh and wedged a broad shoulder against the wall beside her closet. “I get it now. The puzzle pieces are beginning to fit. You’ve got some rich fool believing you’re a real prim and proper Miss Priss.”
“Miss Priss!”
“With your practical underwear, your tailored suits, your hair all pinned and braided.” He slipped his thumbs into his pockets and ambled across her room, nodding at the shelves that lined one side. “Leather-bound books in your bedroom, a piano in your living room.” He looked genuinely amused. “So your new man’s fallen for it, has he? Obviously so, since he must be paying the bills.”
Jamming her balled-up knuckles onto her hips, Kate cast him a withering stare. How she hated his implication that Camryn had been living with a man for his money! “How do you know I haven’t worked for everything I have?”
“Come on, Cam. Even if you worked long enough to earn a little cash—which is doubtful, since you’ve only been gone for six months—money slips through your fingers like water.”
He clearly thought very little of Camryn. The fact that he was basically right about her character did little to ease Kate’s resentment. “Maybe I got financial help from my—” She stopped on the verge of saying sister. Did Mitch know that Camryn had a sister? If so, he clearly wasn’t aware that they were identical twins. Perhaps it was better not to mention anything about sisters. Prudently, she finished with “My family.”
“You told me you didn’t have family.”
A surprising pain accosted Kate. So Camryn hadn’t acknowledged her existence at all. Pushing the pain aside out of pure necessity, she pursed her lips as if she’d been caught in a fib. “Okay, so maybe I don’t have any blood relations. But I do have people who care about me enough to extend a loan.”
“Maybe so. Maybe you borrowed the money to feather your elegant new nest. Won’t your new boyfriend be surprised when your true colors shine through?”
“You know nothing about my life now. Nothing.”
His lips curved in mock appreciation. “You’re good, Camryn. You’re really good. I like your lady-of-the-manor act. I like your upscale clothes, and your sophisticated new look.” He stopped beside her, leaned in too close and inhaled deeply. “And your expensive new perfume.” His nearness sent a frisson of awareness through her bloodstream. “I even like your smooth new way of walking.” His gaze roamed her face. “It’s all very effective,” he whispered. The odd intensity in his golden-green eyes suddenly cooled, leaving only contempt. “But you can drop the act with me, chèr’. It won’t do you any good. In case you’ve forgotten, I caught the last show.”
Thoroughly shaken, Kate drew back from him and gripped the edge of the dresser for support. Her hand itched to slap him. He’d invaded her personal space in a way no one ever had; in a way that disturbed her just as much as his earlier manhandling. She would resist the urge to slap him, though. He might kill her. Or, he might leave. Then what would the future hold for Arianne?
Only one thing Kate knew for sure—she needed more information.
She’d play the role he’d cast her in until she got it. And if, along the way, she discovered that this hot-tempered, hard-eyed man was indeed violent or emotionally cruel—“mean,” as Camryn had described him—she wouldn’t hesitate to take whatever steps were necessary to protect her niece.
Even if that meant running with her.
“I’m ready to go,” she muttered between clenched teeth, her hands still gripping the edge of the dresser behind her, “whenever you are.”
“Good.” With a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes, he again leaned in too close. “Then let me make it official. I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest.” From behind her came a click-click sound, and cold metal encircled her wrists. “For the crime of kidnapping.”
She jerked her arms, found them bound together and stared at him in horrified surprise. He’d reached behind her and handcuffed her!
“Kidnapping,” she repeated in panicked disbelief. “You’re charging me with kidnapping?”
“It was against custody orders for you to take Arianne out of state…which you well know. Not to mention the six months you kept her away from me.”
Alarm buzzed in Kate’s head. Could she, as the baby’s aunt, be charged with kidnapping, or accessory to kidnapping? She didn’t believe so, but she didn’t know much about kidnapping laws. “If you really think I kidnapped her, why don’t you just call the police, here and now?”
