a crime, uncaring that if he was caught, he could go to prison in his place.
His distaste showing in his face, he said simply, “No.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed. “You refuse?”
Jake shook his head. “Didn’t you expect me to?”
“Frankly, no.” Nathan gazed at him with bitter eyes. “After all, it’s what you did when you came back from Vietnam, isn’t it? I don’t recall you having any crisis of conscience because you tried to beat the system then.”
Jake bit back the ugly retort that sprang to his lips and made to get up again, but this time Nathan stopped him. “Please,” he said imploringly, the veins standing out on his forehead. “Please, you’ve got to help me. If—if I screw up, they’ll involve Cat, and it could kill Pa. I know you don’t care about him, but he’s not as tough as you think.”
Jake’s contempt was plain. “You son of a bitch,” he said harshly. “You’d do anything, say anything, so long as you saved your own rotten hide! My God, you disgust me. Well, tough, but I won’t do it. Find some other nut to screw!”
“What have you got to lose?” cried Nathan, hanging on to his wrist and preventing him from moving away. “I’m not asking you to deal with this guy. Just take the case to London and leave it where I tell you. Then check into a hotel in London. I’ll meet you there. I’ll be on the next flight.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Nathan groaned. “It’s so simple. You use my ticket, and I follow you. We’ll switch passports at the hotel, and you can fly home.”
“No.”
Jake was adamant, and realising his persuasion wasn’t working, Nathan let him go. “All right,” he said, dropping his face into his hands. “Go, then. But don’t think I don’t know why you’re doing this.” His voice became muffled, but his words were still audible. “You want to get back at me. You’ve always been jealous of the fact that our father chose me instead of you.”
“Jealous!”
Jake knew he shouldn’t respond to Nathan’s desperate accusations, but that one was too close to home. He couldn’t deny that there had been times when he’d envied his brother. But it was years since he had thought of it, and he certainly didn’t envy him now.
“Yes, jealous,” insisted Nathan, sniffing. “You’ve always resented me. Resented the fact that I had a better life.”
“No—”
“Yes. You’re not telling me you were happy, being stuck with that moron, Connor? God, it wasn’t me who came looking for you, big brother. It wasn’t me who used to stand outside of your house, spying on you, wanting for us to be friends! Remember?”
Jake’s jaw compressed. “You were glad enough to see me when I pulled those punks off you,” he reminded him tightly, recalling their first meeting with an unwilling sense of pain.
It had been just before he left for Vietnam. He’d been in a camp not far from Prescott, and he’d had the crazy notion that he might not be coming back. He’d decided he wanted to speak to Nathan at least once before he embarked for the Far East, so he’d ducked out of camp and hitched a ride to town.
He’d trailed Nathan and one of his pals to a bar in the sleaziest part of town, and then been beaten up for his pains when a couple of thugs had cornered the two rich youths by the jukebox. He’d jumped in to help them, and his uncanny likeness to his brother had caused some confusion. In the ensuing struggle, Nathan and his companion had gotten away.
He knew Nathan had recognised him. He’d found out later that Jacob had never hidden the fact that he had a twin. But Nathan hadn’t cared what happened to Jake, so long as he wasn’t injured. He’d saved his own skin, and that was all he’d cared about then. Hell, it was all he cared about now.
It was one of those occasions when Jake wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off not knowing he had a brother. Although his mother and Fletch had been reconciled before she died, he doubted she’d ever truly forgiven him and Nathan for being born. He’d always reminded her of Jacob—and of the way he’d betrayed her. Her life hadn’t been easy before, but it had been a damn sight harder after Fletch found out.
Nathan combed his hand over his hair and looked up at his brother with cold, accusing eyes. “Okay,” he said. “Forget it. Forget I ever came here. Forget I ever asked you for help. It was a crazy notion anyway. We’re not really brothers. We just share a likeness, that’s all.”
“That’s all it means to you, maybe,” muttered Jake harshly.
Right now, he wanted nothing so much as to put this ugly scene behind him. He wasn’t totally convinced by Nathan’s story, even if his brother’s cowardice was plain enough to see. What did Nathan really want, and did he, Jake, really care? It sounded as if his brother’s future was as shaky as his marriage.
“What do you mean?” Nathan demanded now, and Jake winced at the sudden hope that had appeared in his brother’s face. For once Nathan wanted a brother, so why did it sound so surreal?
“Get the case,” said Jake at last, telling himself it was the lingering loyalty to his mother’s memory that made him say it. He had plenty of free time due to him; hell, he never took a holiday, and he was making no promises. But perhaps there was something he could do to ensure that Caitlin wasn’t hurt….
The hospital was teeming with people. Many of the accident victims had been brought to St Anselm’s, and the doctors and nurses were working round the clock in an effort to keep up with the load. The lobby resembled nothing so much as a train station, with would-be passengers dashing from desk to desk, desperate for news, desperate for information.
Caitlin wasn’t one of them. She didn’t feel like one of them; she didn’t look like one of them. The anxiety she could see mirrored in their faces was not her anxiety; the fear that some loved one had perished in the crash was not what had brought her here.
Yet, as she pushed her way through the press of bodies, she couldn’t help an unwilling twinge of concern. Nathan might be all kinds of a bastard, but he was her husband, and for all her avowed indifference, she would not wish to see him dead.
And he wasn’t dead. He was injured, but he wasn’t dead. When the authorities had contacted her, to tell her that her husband had been one of the passengers on board the transatlantic flight that had crashed on take-off, they had instantly informed her that Mr Wolfe was one of the survivors. Like many of those who were injured, he had been taken to St Anselm’s hospital in New York City, and if she required any further information, Caitlin should contact the hospital direct.
It had come as a complete shock. Caitlin hadn’t even known Nathan was flying back on that plane. He’d left for New York over a week ago, ostensibly to visit his father in Prescott, New Jersey. He hadn’t told her why he was going, and she hadn’t heard from him since.
Not that that was unusual. These days, they rarely discussed personal things at all. It was only because her father expected it that they continued to share the same flat.
