to the photo of the two sisters hugging on the nightstand. A faint scent of the orange blossom lotion that Lauren loved lingered in the air, intensifying Lexie’s overwhelming sense of confusion and worry.
She thought back to the last phone conversation she’d had with her sister but couldn’t think of anything Lauren had said that might explain her absence here. Lauren had talked about the dogs, about how excited she was about the growth of her business, but she hadn’t mentioned going anywhere for any extended period of time.
There was absolutely no reason to believe that she’d been missing since that phone conversation, Lexie told herself. She might have left the house that morning for some sort of day trip and hadn’t realized the dogs were out of water.
The fact that the house smelled like it had been closed up for a couple of days didn’t mean anything either. Maybe she was only thinking bad thoughts because of her job. As an FBI agent she was trained to look at the worst-case scenario.
An unmistakable sound came from behind her—the slide and click of a bullet being chambered in a shotgun. She froze as her heart nearly stopped beating.
“Who the hell are you and what are you doing in Lauren’s bedroom?” The deep male voice was calm but held a steely edge.
She raised her hands above her head and slowly turned. He stood in the threshold of the bedroom. With his dark hair and gunmetal gray eyes, he was a hot hunk in a pair of tight jeans and a navy pullover. And he had the business end of a shotgun pointed directly at her heart.
NICK WALKER SLOWLY LOWERED the shotgun as he recognized the woman standing before him as the same one in the picture with Lauren on the nightstand.
“You’re Lexie,” he said as some of the tension ebbed from him.
Even though she and Lauren were identical twins it was obvious Lexie had gone to some extremes to find her own identity. Lauren wore contacts while the woman standing before him wore oversized black-rimmed glasses that almost hid the beauty of her bright green eyes. Lauren’s hair was shoulder-length and Lexie’s was short and spiked and sporting an unexpected pink streak.
Nick was surprised to feel a small kick of attraction in the pit of his stomach, something he’d never felt for his friend and neighbor, Lauren.
“The real question is who in the hell are you and what are you doing in Lauren’s bedroom?” she asked, her chin lifted and eyes narrowed.
“I’m Nick Walker and I live next door. Why don’t we both get out of Lauren’s bedroom and go into the kitchen where we can talk.”
He didn’t wait for her response but rather turned and left the bedroom. During the past four months he and Lauren had become good friends and in that time she’d spoken often of her twin sister.
He knew that Lexie worked for the cybercrime unit with the FBI in Kansas City, that Lauren worried that Lexie had a better relationship with her computer than with any real people and that the twins had been raised by their father who had passed away five years ago.
He leaned his shotgun against the kitchen wall and then sat at the round oak table. She came into the kitchen holding a handgun and wearing a scowl.
“Now you can answer some more of my questions,” she said as she eased down into the chair opposite him.
“There’s no need for your gun,” he replied easily. “I’m on your side.”
“I don’t know that yet,” she countered. “What are you doing here and how did you get inside?”
“Lauren and I exchanged keys to our homes about a month after she moved in here. Since neither of us have family here, we thought it would be a good idea in case of emergency. I let myself in when I saw the unfamiliar car out front and I knew that Lauren wasn’t home.”
Lexie stared at him unblinking. Under normal circumstances the length of time of the eye contact would have bordered on inappropriate, but he told himself these weren’t normal circumstances. “Where is she?” There was a faint whisper of fear in her voice.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since Tuesday. She’s been working with my dog and I came here late afternoon on Wednesday for my usual session and she wasn’t here.”
He tried not to notice the scent of her, a clean fresh smell coupled with a hint of sweet, blooming flowers. God, he didn’t remember the last time he’d noticed the scent of a woman.
He consciously focused back on the issue at hand. “I realized that it didn’t look like the dogs in the yard had been fed and watered, so I took care of them and then left. Same thing happened yesterday. I was worried that maybe she was sick, so I used my key to come inside. I fed and watered Zeus and the dogs outside and then went back home.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “I haven’t known your sister for very long, but this felt out of character for her. I was worried, and then tonight when I realized somebody was in the house, I decided to come in and investigate.”
He didn’t feel it was necessary to tell her that when he’d seen that pink streak in her hair before she’d completely turned around to face him, he’d thought she was one of the teenagers of the town taking advantage of Lauren’s absence for an opportunity for a little party or a bit of theft.
“This is definitely out of character for Lauren,” she said and finally laid her gun down on the table next to her. “What’s your relationship with her? Romantic?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “Over the last couple of months Lauren and I have become good friends, but nothing more than that.”
“Her truck is in the garage.”
It took him a second to adjust to the leap in topic and her words sent a vague sense of uneasiness through him. “I didn’t know that.”
She nodded. “I checked out the property. Zeus and I walked it looking for her, but needless to say we didn’t find her.” She stood abruptly. “Thank you for looking out for things here.”
It was an obvious dismissal and Nick stood and grabbed his shotgun as she started out of the kitchen. He followed just behind her and tried not to notice the cute shape of her butt in her tight jeans.
What was wrong with him? He was far too conscious of Lexie Forbes’s attractiveness and it made him more than a little bit uncomfortable.
Maybe part of the problem was even though he knew Lauren and Lexie were identical twins, the woman in front of him seemed more vibrant and much prettier than her sister.
“So, what’s your next move?” he asked as they reached the front door.
She frowned. “First thing in the morning if she doesn’t come home or I don’t hear from her, I’ll head into town and file a missing persons report at the police station.”
“Don’t expect much from the local authorities,” he replied, remembering a time when he’d filed his own missing person’s report and nothing had been done until it was too late.
She looked at him sharply. “Why? Is there a problem?”
“I went to high school with Gary Wendall, the chief of police. He tends toward big talk and little action.”
