His Brother's Fiancee. Jasmine Cresswell

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      CHAPTER TWO

      THE NEXT TIME Emily was consciously aware of her surroundings, she found herself facing a set of imposing barred wrought-iron gates. Unable to proceed, she was forced to stop driving. She drew her Ford Explorer to a halt, her hands starting to shake on the steering wheel when she realized that she had arrived at the Double G Ranch on the far northwestern outskirts of San Antonio.

       Good grief, if she was at the Double G, she must have driven clear across town at the height of midday traffic! Try as she might, she couldn’t summon a single memory of seeing another vehicle, or stopping for a traffic light. She could only be thankful that she hadn’t killed anyone in the process of getting here.

       Although a traffic accident might be one solution to her dilemma, she thought with a touch of hysteria. Maybe she could stage a fake accident, smash up the car a bit, and feign head injuries. How about pretending to have amnesia? Then Michael could sorrowfully announce to the 350 assembled guests that since his fiancée had lost her mind, they were postponing the wedding.

      Three hundred and fifty guests. Emily’s hands started to shake again. She’d tried so hard to be a source of pride to her parents. The Suttons had showered her with love and attention from the day they picked her up at the adoption agency, when she was only two weeks old. Achieving her maximum potential had seemed the least she could do to demonstrate her gratitude. Now she appeared doomed to shatter their pride in a big way, in the most public of settings. How in the world was she going to face them?

       Her hands simply wouldn’t stop shaking. She gripped the wheel, forcing herself back to an approximation of calm. Take things one step at a time. By chance, she’d made it here to the ranch without mishap. On time, no less, so she might as well keep her appointment. When she’d finished her consultation with Dylan Garrett, there would be more than enough hours left in the day to track down her parents and pass on the shocking news that their weekend schedule suddenly had plenty of free time in it.

       First she had to get through the closed gates. Small tasks seemed very difficult when half your brain was nonfunctioning. Emily rubbed her pounding forehead. How was she supposed to get inside? There were video monitors mounted on the decorative stone gate posts, but she couldn’t see any handles or locks on the gates themselves. Belatedly, she remembered that Carolyn had warned her about the secured entrance to the ranch. She’d been instructed to press the buzzer right below the videocam and request admittance.

       Okay, Emily decided. She could manage that.

       Hot, humid air assailed her as she rolled down the window. The temperature had been in the nineties for the past several days, and there was no rain in the five-day forecast, no expectation of a return to the eighties anytime soon. She’d been happy about the dry spell when she heard the forecast this morning. Now she wished rain would pour down in torrents. If there could only be a flood, just a little one, with nobody drowning, would that be sufficient excuse to call off the wedding?

       Despite a fervent prayer for lightning bolts and thunder claps, the sky remained stubbornly cloudless, without the tiniest hint of an impending shower, let alone a flood of torrential rain. Thunderstorms, she could only conclude, were not delivered on demand to save people from social embarrassment.

       Sighing, she pressed the intercom button. “This is Emily Sutton. I have an appointment with Dylan Garrett of Finders Keepers.”

       “Hi, Emily. This is Carolyn. I’ll let you in.”

       The gates swung open, but Emily didn’t drive through them. Instead, she stared at the electronic speaker as if it had sprouted fangs and poison pincers. Carolyn St. Clair! Her maid of honor. Good grief, she was truly losing her mind. How could she possibly have forgotten that Carolyn would be here, at the Double G Ranch? How could she have forgotten that the main reason she’d chosen Dylan Garrett to be her investigator was because her best friend Carolyn worked for Finders Keepers?

       “Hey, Em, are you there? Or have we lost you to a daydream about your honeymoon?” Even over the intercom system, Emily could hear that Carolyn’s voice was tinged with friendly laughter. What in the world was she going to tell her? Carolyn was probably the kindest, most sympathetic woman in San Antonio, but that didn’t make it any easier for Emily to confess that she’d been dumped by her fiancé, hours before the wedding.

       Whatever story she settled on, Emily decided, she couldn’t break the news over an intercom. She cleared her throat. “I’m here, Carolyn, and the gates are open. I’ll be with you in a couple of minutes.”

       “Okay. I’ll meet you at the head of the stairs. When you’ve parked the car, you’ll see the signposts to our office.”

       The gates swung closed behind her, and Emily followed the winding, tree-shaded drive to the ranch. The driveway was almost long enough and wide enough to be considered a road, and on another day, in different circumstances, she might have been intrigued by this chance to observe one of the San Antonio region’s oldest and most successful cattle ranches. As it was, her brain was so stuffed full of worry that she could just as easily have been driving to the local mall for all the attention she paid to the view.

       Parking on a flagstone apron shaded by a pair of giant live oaks, she followed rustic wooden signs that pointed her to a side entrance and a stairway that led up to the second-floor offices of Finders Keepers.

       As promised, Carolyn greeted her at the head of the stairs. “I’m glad you could make it, Em. With the wedding tomorrow, I half expected to get a phone call saying that some last-minute glitch in the arrangements was keeping you in town.”

       “No.” Emily drew in a shaky breath. “I decided to get the hell out of Dodge for an hour or two and leave everyone else to cope with the disasters.”

       Carolyn laughed. “I should have known you would be much too well organized to be panicked just because several hundred of the most important people in Texas are coming to watch you get married. Now me, I’m already chugging antacids just because I’m going to be your maid of honor. I know people aren’t going to pay the least bit of attention to anyone except you, and maybe a glance or two at Michael, but I’m not used to moving in the sort of high-society circles that you inhabit, and I don’t want to mess up.” She rolled her eyes. “The Chambers family is so nose-in-the-air Old Money that I’m never quite sure whether to curtsey or tell them to lighten up and get a life.”

       This was simply awful. Emily wondered if she should faint, have hysterics, or cut short her torture by jumping out of the nearest window. “Look, Carolyn, you probably need to know that you don’t have to worry anymore about being—”

       A man came out of a door to her left. “Ms. Sutton? I’m Dylan Garrett, one of the partners in Finders Keepers. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”

       Years of social training took over and Emily extended her hand, smiling politely. “Yes, I’m Emily Sutton. It’s good to meet you, Dylan.”

       “I’ll get back to straightening out the petty cash accounts,” Carolyn СКАЧАТЬ