nerves tightened in her stomach. Was she really thinking of switching places with her sister?
“Is there anyone at the ranch who can fill me in on what I have to do?”
“Cash and my foreman can when they get back from the cattle drive.”
Jordan narrowed her gaze on her sister. “This Cash—are you and he…seeing each other?”
Maddie shook her head. “No. We grew up together. He runs the ranch next to mine. My father and his father had this idea that someday we might fall in love and join the two ranches. But it hasn’t happened. Cash and I are just friends.”
“Good. Do you think I could fool him into thinking I’m you if he shows up at the ranch?”
Maddie studied Jordan. “You’re really getting into the idea of masquerading as me.”
“It’s a practical approach. I won’t have to explain to everyone about the will and switching places. Do you think your cowboy neighbor will buy it?”
Maddie considered, then shook her head. “He’s pretty astute.”
Jordan grinned at her. “Really? I love a challenge. We’ll have to write things up for each other, and we’ll keep in touch by phone. That’s what the girls did in The Parent Trap, and they were only half our age.”
“You saw that movie?”
“Only about fifteen times. When I was little I remember watching it with Mom.”
“There’s one big difference between us and The Parent Trap girls. They switched so that they could get to know the parent they were separated from. We’re not going to be able to do that.”
“No.” Jordan sat down next to Maddie again and took her hands. “We’re not. I wish with all my heart that there was a way for you to meet our mother.”
The understanding she saw in her sister’s eyes helped ease the tightness in Maddie’s throat. “Same goes about our father.”
“Maybe switching places is the only way we have left to get to know them. We can do this.”
Maddie searched her sister’s face. “I don’t understand. Why do you want to? And why would you want to share your inheritance with me?”
Jordan stared at her. “Because you’re my sister, and because our mother wanted it this way. However late it is, she must have had some regrets about separating us, and this is her way of making sure we get to know one another.”
“There are other ways for us to get to know one another.”
“Maddie, you heard the terms of the will. If we don’t change places for three weeks, Eva Ware Designs will be sold. I can’t stand by and let that happen. Our mother worked her whole life to create it, and I can’t let it be destroyed. I want her legacy to live on. No matter what it takes, we have to fulfill the terms of the will. Please say you’ll do it.”
Maddie wasn’t an impulsive person—at least she didn’t think of herself that way. But she could sympathize with what Jordan was trying to do. It was the same thing that made her want to hold on to the ranch and keep it going so that her father’s legacy would live on.
And Jordan was right. If she did switch places and step into Jordan’s job at Eva Ware Designs, it would provide her with the only opportunity she might ever have to learn more about the woman she so admired. The woman she’d never met. And it was just possible that she could find out why their parents had decided to separate them. Hadn’t that been one of the primary questions on her mind since she’d accepted the truth of what Edward Fitzwalter III had told her during that phone call?
“Okay. I’ll do it.”
“You will?”
Maddie nodded.
“Thanks.” Jordan gave her sister a quick hug. “Okay. Now for the practical matters. You can live in my apartment, of course. I have a roommate, Jase Campbell. He was a few years ahead of me in college and we shared an apartment there. He moved into my place when he came to New York and started up his security firm. The arrangement has become sort of permanent.”
“Are the two of you involved?”
“No, we’re strictly pals. He’s like a big brother to me. But you probably won’t even run into him. He’s off on some mysterious job in South America. I can’t even reach him by cell. I haven’t been able to even tell him about…”
When Jordan suddenly stopped talking, Maddie took her hands.
“I don’t think it’s totally sunk in yet that she’s gone,” Jordan said.
Maddie handed Jordan her wine. “How could it? You had to identify the body.” Fitzwalter had told her about that. “Then there were the funeral arrangements and to top it off you find out you have a sister you never knew about.”
Jordan met her sister’s eyes. “When you lost your father, how long did it take for you to accept it?”
Maddie sighed. “I think I’m still trying to adjust.” She raised a hand to her sister’s cheek. “But I think that visiting the ranch may help you. There’s a kind of serenity there.”
“I’m glad I have you, Maddie Farrell.”
“Ditto.”
“Well.” Jordan drew in a deep breath and let it out. “We only have about seventy hours left. We’d better get started.”
Maddie blinked as Jordan rose, strode to a desk and pulled out her laptop.
“There’s a lot we have to learn before we switch lives.”
Chapter Two
IT WAS nearly midnight when Jase Campbell descended the steps of a small private jet at LaGuardia Airport. After nearly a month in the bowels of the steamy Amazon jungle, he welcomed the stiff breeze that had made their landing a little rough. New York City’s humidity level couldn’t even begin to compete with what he’d been experiencing.
The Cessna was the third plane he’d been on in the last twenty-four hours and the only one that had provided any amenities. Thanks to Federman Corporation, the company that had hired him as a consultant in their efforts to free three hostages, he’d been able to shower, shave and even change his clothes—luxuries that he’d sorely missed.
The one thing he hadn’t been able to do was catch much sleep. The last days of the mission were still too fresh in his mind. It had only been partially successful—one of the men hadn’t made it out of the jungle. Each time he closed his eyes, his mind would run through the other options he might have used, other tacks he might have taken with the captors.
He needed sleep, Jase told himself as he strode up the steps of the terminal building. Thank heavens his apartment was only a thirty-minute cab ride. And at this hour of the night, Jordan would be sound asleep. That would save him from being cross-examined on what he’d been doing for the last three and a half weeks.
Jordan and
