What had just happened?
She had two women claiming to be her long-lost sisters, and she’d made the hunky town sheriff her imaginary boyfriend.She wasn’t doing crazy things on the spur of the moment.She’d gone insane.
Chapter Three
Zac waited until the bell over the door jingled before he squeezed Maxie’s leg.“Honey, huh?So how long have we been an item?”
It was a joke, an attempt to ease the tension, but it was the wrong thing to say.She wiggled off his lap like a slick eel, snapping with energy.Before he could catch her, she’d backed halfway across the room.“I’m sorry,” she said in a rush.“I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He swore underneath his breath.There she was again, the skittish mare ready to bolt.
He rubbed his empty palms against his thighs.He hadn’t meant to add to her anxiety, and he certainly hadn’t wanted to send her running from his arms.She was under enough stress already.She’d just come face-to-face with a real-life game changer.“You were thinking that they’re strangers, and you don’t want to be alone with them.I get that.”
She looked to the door where the two women had left and unconsciously touched the birthmark on her shoulder.“I just turned around and there they were.Where did they come from?What do they want from me?”
“Right now, they seem to want to talk.”
She blanched.Even that idea was a bit too much for her.
“I shouldn’t have agreed to dinner.”She took a shaky breath.“And I shouldn’t have obligated you.You really don’t have to come.”
The hell he didn’t.He dropped his foot from the bench to the floor and braced his elbows against his knees.“Why wouldn’t I come?”
“I gave them the impression we were involved.I don’t know why.It just came out.”
“They caught you unaware, and you wanted someone at your side.”He shrugged.“I can do that.”
She rubbed her hands against her dress, and it swayed sexily.Everything about her was sexy.Understated and quiet, but sexy as hell.
“I should have asked you first.The boyfriend thing was—”
“Inspired.”Zac rose to his feet.He couldn’t have planned things better himself.If she hadn’t invited him, he’d have found another way to put himself at that table.He didn’t like the idea of her alone against the two of them.From all appearances, the pretty women could be telling the truth.Even so, they’d knocked her world off its axis.He was going to be at her side until she could tell up from down and he could tell scam artist from sister.If he’d had to do it in the capacity of town sheriff, he would have.
But her way was much, much better.
Pretty dots of pink colored her cheeks, and she pushed her hair over her shoulder.She hadn’t stopped fidgeting since she’d hopped off his lap.If she’d fidgeted like that when she was there, they both could have been embarrassed.
“But it really has nothing to do with you,” she murmured.
Okay, that verged on the edge of pissing him off.“It has everything to do with me.You’re a citizen that I’ve sworn to protect and serve.If these two are trying to con you somehow, it’s best if I’m aware of it from the start.”
She went still.“You think it’s a con?”
“Do you?”
The pink faded from her cheeks.“Yes, but…”
But they looked like her and they moved like her.There were the birthdays, the birthmarks and, apparently, the blood types.He knew what she was thinking; he was thinking the same things himself, only he had the virtue of distance.
“They can’t be telling the truth.”She rubbed the bandage on her finger.“Can they?”
“You tell me.”
She appeared confused and scared and, most of all, alone.But she wasn’t alone.Zac took a deep breath around the knot in his chest.
Thank God he’d suffered through one more crappy cup of coffee.He could help her with this.She needed answers, and that was one thing he was good at getting.He knew how to ask the right questions.He’d built his career out of following hidden trails of information.“Nobody ever said anything to you about being adopted?”
Her head snapped back.“No!Of course not.”
