Chapter Eighteen
“What was that all about?” Lily asked a few minutes later when Emma closed the kitchen door behind her. She was still at the kitchen table nursing her cup of coffee.
“He’s furious.”
“That, I could tell. Why?”
Emma wandered listlessly over to the table and picked up her cup of cold coffee. She hesitated near the microwave, then turned and tossed the contents down the sink. Maybe she could have warmed it up, but she didn’t. Pouring the last bit from the pot, she switched off the machine.
She pulled out a chair and flopped down. She stared at her cup for a long moment, then raised her gaze to her sister.
“I blew it big time.”
“How? What’s been going on while I was gone?”
Sighing softly, she shook her head.
“You two sure hit it off fast,” Lily commented. “I, er, assume he rings your chimes?”
Emma tried a shaky smile. “An entire carillon.”
Twisting her cup, she glanced at her sister.
“Logan thought I was you,” she said.
“What?” Lily sat up at that. “What do you mean, he thought you were me?”
Emma shrugged.
“He barged in on the morning after you left and assumed that I was you and I sort of never told him I wasn’t.”
“I don’t believe it. What do you mean you sort of never told him? What’s there to say? I’m Emma Carter, Lily’s twin sister.”
Emma cleared her throat and met her sister’s outraged eyes.
“Actually, Lily, there are a few other people around here who think they’ve seen you this past week.”
Might as well confess the entire thing.
“You pretended to be me? Why? I don’t get it.”
“From envy maybe. Or for fun. I don’t know.
It seemed harmless at first. It was a bit scary, too.
Your life is so different from mine. I wanted a chance to experience it.
Really experience it. So I put on some of your clothes.
It was as if I put on an entirely new personality.
I felt daring, and competent and, I don’t know, different.
You have so much that you take for granted.
Try living in a small town all your life.
A small Southern town, where there are traditions galore.
Where what the neighbors think counts more than doing what you want to do.
Where adventure is hiking the Blue Ridge Trail.
Maybe it’s the old grass-is-always-greener syndrome. I don’t know.”
Lily looked at her oddly.
“Actually I would have loved to grow up in a small town, if someone paid me some attention. I always envied you. You had a stable environment and siblings to play with and love. Mom. I scarcely know my half-brothers and half-sister. Heck, I hardly know our mother.”
Emma stared.
“We’re even, I don’t know Dad. Though I did have lunch with him one day. He thought I was you, too,” she said gloomily.
Lily laughed.
“That’s not surprising. He can’t see beyond his nose, unless he’s holding a script in hand. So you pretended to be me. What did you do?”
Emma spent the next few minutes relating her week in California. Lily found it hilarious and laughed frequently. Once or twice Emma caught a glimmer of amusement, but every time she mentioned Logan, guilt and depression reared up.
She couldn’t excuse the seductive lure of pretending to be someone else as a lark anymore. She’d lied and a man thought he was falling for her. How could she have been so stupid?
“So now he’s furious and even I can’t blame him,” she ended. “Yesterday at the barbecue Phil told me how Logan hated liars. Logan even mentioned it a couple of times, but I just couldn’t find my way to confess. It’s even worse because of his wife, I guess.”
“I’ve heard about his wife. She played around on him. She was frivolous and flighty and pretty as all get-out. He’s always shied away from pretty women since I’ve known him,” Lily said pensively.
“Well, I’m no beauty.”
“Of course you are. I am and we’re twins.”
Emma looked at her sister in astonishment.
“Maybe with the right clothes.”
“Clothes, nothing. Well, maybe they gild the lily. You wear very bland colors. Our coloring is strong enough for bold tones. But that’s not what makes a person pretty. It’s facial features, and what you do with them. I bet you smiled at Logan and he was a goner.”
“Hardly.”
“He probably did think you were me. We’ve known each other a long time, but there’s never been anything like that between us,” Lily said. “Wonder what he thought changed.”
“He thought I’d changed or rather that you had changed. He kept asking me that. Even dressed up in your clothes, I wasn’t the same. You have a lot more experience in life than I do.”
“You read all the time, don’t you? I remember that from when we were kids. You thought reading was the most fun you could have.”
Emma nodded, twisting the cup around and around.
“I still like to read. So all my experience is secondhand, from books. I wanted to do something different while I was here, while I was on vacation. I felt like I was exciting for the first time in my life. Like I could be free and enjoy things and not have to worry about tomorrow and all the mundane things about life.”
“What happened to David?” Lily asked.
Her sister glanced up.
“One look at Logan Beckett and I knew I could never settle for David,” she answered honestly.
“I called him the next day and told him I couldn’t marry him.
Not that I had a chance of a marriage with Logan.
But he made me see that settling for David wasn’t enough.
If nothing else, I’ll always be grateful I didn’t make that mistake. ”
“Give the man a break. Let him cool off, then go talk to him.”
Blinking back tears, Emma shook her head.
“He won’t want to see me again. Oh, Lily, I’ve made such a mess of things. I’m in love with a man who never wants to see me again.”
The tears spilled over and this time Emma made no attempt to stop them.
Logan drove his car as if the demons chased him. Mercedes were built for speed, aerodynamically sound on turns and straightaways. And he pushed the car to its limit. Anger fueled his driving. He’d stormed out of his house moments after slamming the door on Emma.
Furious, he’d gotten behind the wheel and took off. Driving up the coast usually soothed him when stress and complications from work built up. He’d thought he’d find the same kind of relief today.
But the anger that had boiled over had merely turned to a slow simmer. He’d like to throttle Emma Carter. She’d played him for a fool, smiling her innocent smile and lying through her teeth.
He couldn’t decide if he were more angry with her, or with himself for falling for her. There had been a dozen signs, he realized, if he had only followed up on them.
She’d asked him what to wear to dinner that first night. Lily would never trust a man’s judgment about fashion.
Emma had enjoyed sitting quietly on the beach, Lily was one for bright lights and action.
Suddenly he remembered her comment about Virginia Beach. Was that where she was from?
A glimmer of perverse admiration peeked out. She’d pulled off the charade perfectly.
He’d thought Lily had changed a little or he himself had. For not knowing her way around Malibu, she’d done all right. Even fooled Lily’s friends at Garcia’s that first night.
Not that it changed anything.
She had lied.
He hated that. Hated that he had come to care for another liar. Hadn’t Crystal been enough? Was he destined to fall for beautiful women with black hearts?
He should swear off women for good and forget finding someone to build a life with.
Take what they had to offer and be done with it.
Maybe there was part of his father in him.
Maybe he couldn’t stay with someone throughout a lifetime.
Would that lead him to deliberately take up with women he knew wouldn’t stay the course?
The sun beat down on the road, heat waves shimmered as he roared up the coast highway.
One eye on the rearview mirror for cops, he sped along, weaving around slower cars, longing for the peace he usually found on this stretch of road.
The hills to the east rose and fell with irregular beauty.
The ocean glittered beneath the sun, looking like a sparkling carpet that stretched to the horizon.
He was almost in Santa Barbara before he could think clearly. Slowing as he approached the outskirts, he began to look for a place to eat. He was still angry, but hunger pangs were beginning to make themselves felt.
Finding a small café near the beach, he parked the car and walked back. There were no cliffs here, the road was practically on the white sand. Pausing a moment, Logan stared out to sea, letting the pristine setting calm him.
As he ate, he thought about what he wanted to do. Despite everything, he still wanted Emma Carter. He was an idiot.
He had thought Emma different from Crystal, different from other women with their eye to the main chance. Just when he had thought to give a relationship another shot, he discovered she wasn’t even who he thought she was.
Logan spent the day in Santa Barbara. He had nothing waiting at home. He didn’t plan to go into the office tomorrow. The turmoil he felt would make him useless for anything creative.
He wandered aimlessly around the older part of town. In the afternoon, he sat on one of the benches near the beach and watched the waves crash over the white sand. When he got too hot, he moved to another location with shade.
All through the day, he thought about Emma. About the time the two of them had spent together. He wanted to wring her neck and rant and rave at her until she begged him for forgiveness. And swore to never lie to him again. Until she promised to be faithful forever.
Then he’d feel the anger build. At himself for caring what she’d do in the future.
He wanted nothing to do with a liar. He’d had enough with Crystal. A leopard wouldn’t change its spots. He was a fool if he thought any woman was any different.
Yet the essence of the woman hadn’t been a lie, had it?
Genuine pleasure shone from her eyes at the most innocuous things.
She liked walking along the beach, liked sitting quietly for hours and watching the surf.
She’d been interested in what he told her about his work, her questions intelligent and insightful.
He’d wondered at the change in Lily. There was an inherent niceness about Emma that came through. Surely the feelings between them hadn’t been all false.
Thinking back over the days they’d spent together, he could sift through what had been pretense and what had been real.
It was long past dark when Logan turned into his driveway. Involuntarily his eyes sought the house next door. Lights blazed from a dozen windows.
Of course, Lily was home. She might even be having a party, for all he knew.
He stopped the car and got out. It was quiet, no sounds of music or laughter or people talking. Maybe Lily liked a lot of light. He’d never noticed before. Hadn’t paid that much attention to his neighbor.
He turned toward his house, but couldn’t go inside.
He still felt too raw. Walking toward the cliff, he let his eyes take in the silvery sheen on the ocean.
The moon was waning, in another week or so it would be much darker if he wanted to walk along the beach.
The brightness dimmed as it had with Emma.
When he reached the edge, he noticed a small fire burning to his right, near the base of the cliff. Drawn, he headed for the carved stairs and quietly descended.
A lone figure sat by the fire, gazing into the flickering flames. Emma. Sitting on a log drawn up near the blaze, she appeared not to hear him as he walked across the soft, still warm sand.