Scene of the Crime: Widow Creek. Carla Cassidy

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СКАЧАТЬ in her heart for some reason she trusted Nick, in her head she wasn’t sure who she could trust. She was comforted by the fact that her purse held her gun and she wouldn’t be afraid to use it if things somehow went bad.

      “There aren’t many eating choices in Widow Creek so I thought we’d drive the twenty minutes to Casey’s Corner. It’s a slightly bigger town and has a great Italian place,” he said as they pulled out of the driveway.

      “Sounds fine,” she agreed. She wasn’t really hungry, hadn’t had an appetite since she’d discovered that Lauren was missing, but she knew she had to eat to keep up her strength.

      For a few minutes they rode in silence. Lexie stared out the window at the encroaching evening shadows and anxiety pressed tight against her chest. She couldn’t believe another night was about to fall without her knowing if Lauren was okay.

      “I just can’t imagine what’s happened to her,” she said as much to herself as to him. “I keep thinking maybe she’s been hit over the head and is lying someplace needing me to find her.”

      He gave her a curious glance. “Why would you think that?”

      She hesitated, knowing he would probably think she was crazy for what she was about to say. “Friday, when I got into my car after work to go home, I was struck with a blinding head pain.” She raised a hand to the back of her head, remembering that violent, momentary slice of pain. “It was there only a moment and then gone and I immediately wondered if maybe Lauren had gotten hurt.”

      She dropped her hand back to her lap as a laugh of embarrassment escaped her. “It’s kind of a twin thing. One time Lauren broke her arm and I knew it before she told me because I felt her pain in my arm. Another time I broke my little toe and she called me to see what I’d done because her foot hurt.” She laughed again without any real humor. “I know it sounds crazy.”

      “Not really, I saw a documentary one night about twins and the special bond they share. Must have been interesting growing up. Did you two pretend to be each other? Try to fool people?”

      Lexie cast her gaze back out the window, her thoughts taking her backward in time. “No, never. From the very beginning, even though we were identical twins, we had completely different personalities. Lauren is an extrovert and I’ve always been painfully shy. I could have never made anyone believe that I was her.”

      She turned to look at him, trying not to notice how handsome he looked with the last gasp of the sun lighting his features. “When we started high school there was Lauren and then there was the other twin. Nobody could remember my name, nobody really knew who I was. That’s when I decided to go Goth.”

      He gave her an amused smile. “So you dressed in black, wore heavy makeup and spouted tragic poetry.”

      She returned his smile. “Something like that.”

      “And did that help the other kids get to know you better?”

      “Not really. I went from being the ‘other’ twin to being the weird twin.” It all seemed so silly now, but at the time high school had been the most painful experience Lexie thought she’d ever live through. “It wasn’t until I was in college that I realized it was okay to embrace my quirkiness, to be a little different than everyone else.”

      “We’re all quirky in one way or another. Some of us just show it more than others.”

      “You don’t look quirky to me,” she observed.

      He grinned. “Ah, but looks can be deceiving. I sleep in my socks.”

      “That’s not quirky, that’s nerdy,” she replied and then gasped at her own words.

      He laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Lexie. I have a feeling you always speak what’s on your mind. And you’re right, it is nerdy, but I always have nice warm feet.”

      She averted her gaze back out the window and tried to cast out the vision of her in his bed, his warm feet against hers, slowly warming her body from her toes upward.

      By that time they had reached the town of Casey’s Corner. It appeared to be a big sister of Widow Creek. The business area stretched over three short blocks and there were only a couple of empty storefronts.

      He pulled up in front of Mama’s Italian Garden and as he parked she realized that the conversation they’d shared on the drive had momentarily taken her mind off Lauren. She suspected that’s what he’d intended and a warm gratefulness swelled in her chest.

      It took only minutes for them to be seated at a table for two in the restaurant. It was a typical Italian setting, with red-and-white checkered tablecloths, a little candle flickering in the center of the table and a very limited wine list displayed between the salt and pepper shakers.

      As Lexie picked up a menu her stomach rumbled with sudden hunger. Maybe it was the aroma of rich tomato sauce and fresh herbs that wafted in the air, or perhaps it was the conversation they’d shared that had relaxed her a bit on the drive to the restaurant.

      “I eat here fairly often and can tell you that pretty much anything on the menu is good,” Nick said.

      She was acutely conscious of his nearness at the small, intimate table. His eyes glowed almost silver in the candlelight and she found herself wondering what his lips might taste like.

      She snapped her focus down to the menu, wondering if the stress of everything was making her lose her mind. She’d given up on men almost six months ago when she’d discovered that the man she’d believed was “the one” turned out to be “the rat.”

      Michael Andrews had been a smooth-talking, hot-looking guy who had swept Lexie off her feet and away from her computer. They’d met through a mutual friend and they’d dated for six months. Lexie had thought they were moving toward an engagement, but instead she’d found out that Michael had a woman on the side, a cute, bubbly blonde who was all the things that Lexie wasn’t, that Lexie would never be.

      “Face it, Lexie,” he had said. “You’re a little bit weird. It was fun for a while but I wouldn’t want a steady diet of it.”

      She’d mentally dug a hole and buried her hopes for happily-ever-after in it and had returned to a social life that involved cyberfriends who didn’t have the capacity to hurt her.

      Nick reminded her just a little bit of Michael. Maybe because he was good-looking and seemed to know exactly what she wanted to hear when she wanted to hear it.

      The waitress appeared at their table and Nick ordered lasagna while Lexie opted for the manicotti. “Lauren told me the two of you were raised by your father,” he said once the waitress had departed.

      She nodded. “Our mom died in a car accident when we were four. Dad was devastated, but he rose to the challenge of raising us.” A pang of grief touched her heart as she thought of her dad. He’d been her rock and she missed him desperately.

      “He didn’t remarry?” Nick asked.

      “No.” She picked up her water glass and took a drink, then continued, “He told us that mom was his one great love and he had no desire to be with anyone else.”

      “Ah, the one arrow theory.”

      She looked at him curiously. “One СКАЧАТЬ