Mistaken Identity. Merline Lovelace

Ellen’s casket being lowered into the Arizona earth. He speared a glance at the woman beside him.

      “I told you, to a ranch up by Flagstaff.”

      She took her lower lip between her teeth, and then twisted to catch a street sign. The movement brought her rear up hard against his thigh. With some effort, Marsh blanked his mind to the sudden, scorching pressure.

      “We’re heading west, not north.”

      Suspicion rang sharp in her voice. Obviously, she didn’t trust him. Wise woman.

      “We have to make a short stop before we head north.”

      “Where?”

      “At the Valley of the Sun Inn.”

      “That’s where my sister works! They’ll verify that you’ve got the wrong woman.”

      “That’s where Becky Smith works,” he agreed. “Whether or not I have the wrong woman remains to be seen.”

      She folded her arms and stared straight ahead, her mouth set. She had, Marsh conceded with a swift, sideways glance, one helluva mouth. The kind a man could feast on. For hours. The body that went with it wasn’t bad, either.

      His fists tightened on the wheel. Who was he kidding? She’d rocked him onto his heels when she’d flung herself into his arms there at the house, and the impact had nothing to do with the hundred and twenty-three pounds her license said she carried on that perfectly proportioned frame.

      Even now, with his mind spinning like a rat on a wheel, his senses insisted on working their own agenda. Much as Marsh wanted to deny it, Becky/Lauren Smith knocked the breath back in his chest every time he pulled in her scent, an elusive combination of shampoo, seductive perfume and nervous woman. Those long legs that were stretched out beside his didn’t exactly help his concentration, either. His fingers itched to hit the window button and drag some sharp night air into the Blazer to diffuse her impact on his senses. He needed all his wits to pull off the next, delicate step in his swiftly revised plan.

      His passenger didn’t know it yet, but he didn’t intend to let anyone at the Valley of the Sun Inn get close enough to positively ID her.

      Luckily, he didn’t have to resort to any extraordinary measures. When he turned into the curving drive that led to the front entrance of the exclusive hotel and golf resort, he found it clogged by a fleet of the hotel’s minibuses disgorging conventioners in golf shirts and shorts. From the chorus of the raucous male laughter, the businessmen had scored more booze than birdies that day.

      That suited Marsh just fine. So did the harried expression the valet parking attendant wore as he wove through the throng to get to the Blazer. Marsh lowered the darkened driver’s window just enough for the attendant to see his face. The tint on the other windows kept the Blazer’s interior in shadows.