The Other Laura Read online

  A real man didn’t discuss the particulars of his marriage bed.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Books by Sheryl Lynn

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Weddings by De Wilde

  Copyright

  A real man didn’t discuss the particulars of his marriage bed.

  Except this once, Ryder thought. “Have you ever been with a woman...” Ryder said, glancing at Tom. “And she loves you so much you want to crawl right inside her skin until the rest of the world drops off into space?” Ryder thumped his chest. “It’s a fire right in here, stoking embers in your blood. Your skin’s too small to hold all the feelings in. Anything is possible and everything is right. And the only word in your head is her name....”

  Tom slowly shook his head. “I guess, Ryder.”

  “Well,” Ryder continued, “that’s how Laura makes me feel, and that’s how come I know she’s not Laura.”

  “Then who is she?”

  Ryder glanced toward the house, envisioning the beautiful woman still sleeping in his bed. “I don’t know,” he whispered softly. “I just don’t know.”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sheryl Lynn lives in a pine forest atop a hill in Colorado. When not writing, she amuses herself by embarrassing her two teenagers, walking her dogs in a nearby park and feeding peanuts to the dozens of Steller’s jays, scrub jays, blue jays and squirrels who live in her backyard. Her best ideas come from the newspapers, although she admits that a lot of what she reads is way too weird for fiction.

  Books by Sheryl Lynn

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  190—DOUBLE VISION

  223—DEADLY DEVOTION

  258—SIMON SAYS

  306—LADYKILLER

  331—DARK KNIGHT

  336—DARK STAR

  Don’t miss any of our special offers. Write to us at the following address for information on our newest releases.

  Harlequin Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  The Other Laura

  Sheryl Lynn

  TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

  AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

  STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN

  MADRID • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

  To Tom, for keeping our young’uns safe and sound.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Teresa Gallagher—Whatever Ryder wants, she’ll do; she’ll even get rid of the other Laura.

  Ryder Hudson — This cowboy artist will do anything to protect his stepdaughter, especially from her mother.

  Laura Hudson — She has it all, beauty, wealth, a loving husband and a sordid past.

  Abby Weis — This little girl is Laura’s pawn, but she has a will of her own and a few secrets, too.

  Donny Weis — Laura’s ex-husband knows opportunity when he sees it.

  Mrs. Weatherbee — A loyal housekeeper who loves Abby as her own.

  Tom Sorry — A ranch manager given a second chance.

  Becky Solerno — This sheriff’s department investigator hates wife-killers and she always gets her man.

  Chapter One

  Struggling with a bulky paint can and bulkier portfolio, Teresa Gallagher shouldered her way into the studio. Spotting her, Ryder dropped a handful of photographs. He rushed between the worktables to her side and snatched the can of primer from her hand.

  “You’re a lifesaver!” he exclaimed. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Slowly starve to death under a twenty-year-old pile of sketchbooks, no doubt,” she said dryly. “You’d lie there, buzzard bait, trying to remember how to call for help.”

  He admired the nondescript can, his dreamy expression saying he was already mentally back at work on his painting. “I’m not that bad.”

  “You’re helpless without me. We both know it.”

  “Sad, but true. If it weren’t for you solving my problems, I’d stay as tangled as a calf in barbed wire.” Chuckling softly, he wandered to the corner where he’d set up a stretched and sized canvas in preparation for his next big project.

  Teresa deposited receipts in the office before joining Ryder. “When you were a kid, did you ever dream you’d grow up to paint portraits of horses?” She clasped her hands behind her back and peered at the series of photographs Ryder had posted on a corkboard.

  Ryder dipped a wide brush into the primer. With sweeping strokes, he applied the white acrylic. “Ma’am, I might remind you, that is Dizzy’s Two Times Two, grand national championship quarter horse, so judged at the All American Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus, Ohio. Don’t be calling him a mere horse, Tess.”

  Teresa bit back a smile. Only he called her Tess. At night, when she fantasized about his midnight blue eyes locked with hers and his big hands having their sexy way with her, that’s what he whispered in her ear. “Tess, Tess, Tess, my darlin’ Tess.”

  He jerked his thumb at the montage of photographs. “What you’re looking at there is the epitome of horsedom. His head is perfect and he’s full of pure smart.” His eyes gleamed with affection. “Look at the depth in those hindquarters, the muscle in that chest. That’s some kind of horse.”

  “Okay, so did you ever dream you’d grow up to paint epitomes?” Or ever imagine that wealthy horse breeders would be paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars to do so.

  He laughed.

  Teresa loved his full-throated, and much too rare, laugh. She wished she was in a position to give him cause for laughter every day. Instead, the poor man was stuck with the Dragon Lady, and nobody dared laugh around her. No amount of Teresa’s problem solving skills could find solutions for his marital woes — not that he ever asked her advice concerning his wife. Ryder Hudson wasn’t a complainer.

  “Truth is, as a kid, I didn’t see myself as anything other than a cowboy.” He flashed her a grin. The broad brim of his hat shaded his eyes. “I figured I’d marry a nice girl and have a passel of kids and live up in the high country. I’d baby-sit cows and draw pictures on the side.” He slapped primer onto the canvas with sure, broad strokes. Specks of white dotted his forearms like freckles. “A log cabin, wood-burning stove. Horses in a corral next to the house. Teaching young ’uns how to ride and rope.”

  The dreamy melancholy of his words made her think he’d trade all his wealth and hard-won prestige for a simple log cabin. Sorry she’d brought it up, she turned to an ash wood drafting table, the only clear work surface in the studio. She dusted the table with a soft cloth, then opened the portfolio and brought out the stack of prints. “I’ve got the prints of Eight Seconds. They came out great.”

  Wiping his hands on a cloth, he maneuvered through the messy studio. At her side, he looked down at the lithographs of a pen-and-ink drawing of a bull rider holding on to the back of a tornado-twisting Brahma bull.

  “Sign, number and date, please,” she said, and handed him a mechanical pencil.

  “Only one hundred and fifty prints, huh?” he asked, smiling fondly. “I think this is one of my best.”

  Ryder possessed a sweet naivete, a truly trusting soul. He’d been born a hundred years too late, and couldn’t seem to understand that the sharks outnumbered the guppies ten to
one. If left alone, he’d give his art away for the sheer pleasure of it. His limited-edition prints commanded up to fifteen hundred dollars apiece, however, so it was up to her and his agent to keep Ryder’s generosity under control. “Supply and demand, boss. But, yeah, it’s terrific. I can almost feel the heat coming off that bull.”

  He gave her an appreciative smile before he started penciling his world-famous signature onto the bottom of the prints. Teresa stepped back to give him room to work.

  Unable to help it, she watched his back. Though the premier Western artist in the world, with his paintings highlighted in the finest galleries, museums and private collections, he was a cowboy first.

  A red-and-blue plaid cotton shirt strained over his broad shoulders. The shirt was tucked into a pair of jeans that time and hard wearing had molded lovingly around his lean hips and taut backside. A black felt hat was perched at a rakish angle atop his thick brown curls. Her fingers itched to tame those curls.

  She made herself turn away. Harboring a wild crush on her boss had never been part of her career plan. She studied the view of boulder-studded forests through the plate-glass windows. She couldn’t stop wishing she was Mrs. Ryder Hudson and belonged on Eagle Point Ranch.

  A hinge squeaked, and a small dark head eased around the door frame. “Daddy?”

  Ryder turned on the stool and his eyes sparkled. “Hey, sugar bear, how was school?” He held his hands open in welcome.

  The little girl skipped through the studio. She clutched a sheet of paper. “I drawed a horse, Daddy.” She waved the paper at Teresa in passing.

  “Hey, Abby,” Teresa said. A pang of jealousy cut across her midsection. Ryder’s daughter looked like a little angel in her pink velvet and white lace dress and patent-leather Mary Janes. Ryder’s childhood dream of a happy family living in a high-country log cabin sounded pretty darn good. Especially the part about lots of kids.

  Ryder held Abby’s drawing to the light. He oohed and aahed in appreciation. “That’s the finest purple horse I ever saw,” he stated and sounded as if he meant it. “Let’s add it to the gallery.”

  Abby boasted, “I drawed a finest horse, Teesa.”

  “I’ll be in the office, boss,” Teresa said, and left the two of them alone.

  The office adjoined the studio, and like the studio smelled strongly of linseed oil and turpentine. Unlike the studio, it was neat and organized with everything in its place. Teresa turned on the computer and typed a letter to Jordan Pallatier informing him that the lithographs of Eight Seconds would soon be on their way to Pallatier’s gallery.

  After she had faxed the letter to New York, she went to the door. Abby had left and Ryder was back at work signing the prints. She waited until he finished before bringing up his least favorite subject.

  “September, tax time,” she said.

  He made a disgruntled sound. He resumed pruning the canvas.

  Teresa repressed a laugh. She doubted if Ryder had an inkling about how much money he was worth. She doubted if he cared. He loved to paint, he loved his daughter, he loved his horses and the neat little ranch tucked into the foothills north of Colorado Springs—not necessarily in that order. He despised bookkeeping, investments and figuring out his income taxes. Over the past two years, she’d grown from bookkeeper to personal assistant, handling his mail, phone calls, errands, art-show schedules and whatever else he might need. And he needed plenty.

  “You know the drill, boss.” She gathered the signed lithographs and placed them carefully inside the portfolio. “All receipts and checkbooks on my desk in the morning. I need them before you take off for Fargo.”

  “Fargo?” His expression twisted in confusion.

  She dropped her face onto her hand and groaned. “I’m going to start stapling memos to your forehead.”

  “Oh... McAllister?” he ventured.

  “Very good. You promised him you’d deliver his painting personally and attend the reception in your honor. Your flight leaves Colorado Springs at nine.”

  He grimaced. “I forgot.”

  “I already asked Tom to take you to the airport.” She pointed at the crated painting. “Take that, your tuxedo and your good boots.”

  “Fargo, tuxedo. Yes, ma’am.”

  The next morning, Teresa returned to the ranch. While reconciling the books for the ranch, household and business, she discovered five thousand dollars missing from the ranch account. Ryder owned three hundred acres of Colorado high country where he raised quarter horses and longhorn cattle. He treated Eagle Point Ranch like a hobby, but the IRS considered it a business and expected meticulous bookkeeping.

  The latest bank statement didn’t account for the missing cash. She called the bank and learned two checks had been cashed, one for two thousand, another for three. Unwilling to raise Cain with the bank—yet—she went through the checkbook. Only two signatures were authorized, Ryder’s and his ranch manager Tom Sorry’s. Ryder never wrote checks on the ranch account, and if Tom had spent five grand in the past week, she’d know about it.

  She checked with the bank again and asked for an accounts manager. She explained the problem. The manager gave her the check numbers. They’d been taken from the back of the book.

  Teresa frowned at the ledger where a full page, including the register and duplicate sheet, had been removed.

  Fearing embezzlement, she asked the accounts manager to fax copies of the canceled checks.

  As soon as she received the fax, she knew the checks were forgeries. The thief had done a fair job of forging Tom Sorry’s name on the checks, but had tripped herself up writing out the date and amounts in her own handwriting.

  Teresa slammed shut the checkbook. The Dragon Lady had gone too far this time.

  LAURA HUDSON threw the remote telephone on the couch. It bounced and fell on the floor. Her entire body was rigid, quivering. In her hand she clutched a certificate, so tightly that her fingernails cut into the sepia-toned paper.

  Teresa hunched her shoulders and lowered her eyes. Under the best of circumstances, Laura intimidated Teresa, making her feel dowdy and insignificant. At the moment, with the lady of the house openly furious, Teresa felt like a frog trapped by a hawk.

  Laura paced, her fingers tightening and grinding against the certificate. A sticky note fluttered to the floor behind her.

  Teresa picked up the scrap of yellow paper. She glanced at the handwriting. This is a bunny trail I bet you don’t want the cowboy following, it said.

  Laura turned, gasped and snatched the note from Teresa’s hand. She crushed the paper in her fist. “What do you want?” Her voice seethed.

  “I’m doing the books, Mrs. Hudson. You wrote two checks off the ranch account. You aren’t authorized.”

  Laura used one finger to draw aside the drapery. Rain pattered against the window, drizzling sullenly from a low, gray sky. Clouds shrouded the mountains. The ponderosa pines and spruce trees looked black; the clusters of aspen trees shimmered like beaten gold. The barn and other outbuildings were softened by fog, as misty as a watercolor painting.

  “So what do you want?” She faced Teresa. “To blackmail me?”

  Teresa laughed uneasily. She never knew how to take Mrs. Hudson. Sometimes she hated the woman with a passion—surely she was to blame for the sadness in Ryder’s eyes. Sometimes she thought the woman had to be playing a joke. No one could be that stupid, shallow and selfish.

  Laura kept glaring at her, her eyes glittering. She glided to the fireplace. There, she began tearing the certificate into tiny pieces and tossing them into the hearth.

  Teresa cleared her throat and held up the fax transmission from the bank. “I know you forged Tom Sorry’s name on these checks. You can’t do that. I have to be able to account for every penny.”

  The amazing thing was, Laura didn’t need to steal She had tons of credit cards. Ryder had explicitly instructed Teresa to never allow his wife’s personal checking account to fall below ten thousand dollars. If she needed more, all she
had to do was hold out her perfectly manicured hand. Five grand must be a piddly amount to her.

  “So? It’s my husband’s money. His money is my money. I can take it if I want.”

  “That’s not how it works, ma’am.” She licked her lips and pushed back her hair. She plucked at the collar of her rayon dress. “You shouldn’t forge Tom’s name. It isn’t right.”

  Laura tossed the last piece of paper into the hearth. She swiped her hands together as if cleaning off dust. Turning, she rubbed her fist between her breastbone. “Do you honestly think I don’t know what this is all about?”

  “It’s none of my business. My business is making sure the books balance. That’s all.”

  Laura suddenly leaned forward and dropped her hands to the back of a sofa. She tightened her fingers and her knuckles whitened. “You’ve been lusting after my husband ever since you first walked into this house.”

  Teresa gasped. Heat rose on her face.

  Laura lifted an eyebrow. “Can’t deny it, can you? Do you think I don’t notice the way you two carry on? His assistant, how sweet. What a joke! I can well imagine what you assist him with over in that filthy studio of his.”

  “Mrs. Hudson, I—you can’t — that’s not the—”

  “You’re fired.”

  “You can’t fire me!”

  “Oh, yes, I can. Leave now and I won’t tell Ryder how you embezzled all that money and tried to pin it on me.”

  The heat drained from Teresa’s cheeks as quickly as it had arisen. She staggered and caught a chair for support. “You don’t understand. All you have to do is properly transfer the money to your household account. We can call it a loan.” She held up a sheet of paper. “Either we have to fix it or I have to tell Mr. Hudson.”

  “I bet if I go upstairs right now, I can discover some valuable jewelry missing. I better call the police and tell them you’re a thief.”