Twin Temptation. Cara Summers

mind and the kind of intuition that made for an excellent cop. Unable to stop himself, he yawned hugely. What he needed even more than a good night’s sleep was work. One lesson he’d learned when he’d been working special ops was that the best way to dim the images from the previous operation was to immerse yourself totally in a new one.

      “By the way, your roommate, Jordan Ware, has been trying to contact you. Mom told me that the two of you are sharing an apartment again.”

      “When? What did she want?”

      “About a week ago. She talked to Dino and asked him to pass on a message to contact her if you called in.”

      Once again, Jase frowned. Jordan never called him at work. Then he pushed the small worry aside. No doubt she’d called the office because his cell phone had been worthless where he’d been for the last few weeks. At any rate, he’d see her sometime tomorrow.

      “Hold down the fort. If Dino calls in, tell him I’ll be in the office tomorrow afternoon.” Once Dino brought him up to speed on all their active files, he knew exactly which case he would start on. He’d promised Eva Ware that he’d look further into that break-in and robbery at her Madison Avenue jewelry store. In his opinion, it had to have been an inside job, and that worried him a bit.

      “Right now, my aim is to crash for at least twelve hours,” Jase said, then added, “Thanks for covering.”

      “I live to serve.”

      A BIT DIZZY from sleep deprivation and jet lag, Maddie let herself into Jordan’s Soho apartment. During the last few days, she’d managed to lose all sense of time. The only reason she knew that it was shortly after midnight was because she’d asked the cab driver who’d driven her from JFK.

      According to her estimate, she’d spent nearly eighteen of the last forty-eight hours on an airplane. Severe thunderstorms in the midwest had delayed her flights both to and back from Santa Fe. She’d barely been at the ranch long enough to pack what she thought she’d need for a three-week stay in New York. Jordan, the lucky girl, had only had to make one flight.

      In the very short time they’d spent together before Jordan had insisted she immediately fly back to the ranch and set things in order for the switch, Maddie had learned that her sister was a ruthlessly organized woman who gathered data, made lists, assembled files and was quite used to having her “suggestions” followed. Had Eva Ware been like that? Maddie wondered. Would she ever know? She hoped that Jordan was right and that by switching lives each of them would come to know the other parent better. But she was beginning to feel a sense of loss that she would never have a chance to talk to Eva about her design process.

      And Jordan would never hear Mike Farrell’s laugh.

      Not that her sister wouldn’t discover as much as she could about the ranch and their father. The woman was meticulous. She couldn’t think of one thing that had escaped Jordan’s attention. Jordan had even suggested that since Maddie possessed very few outfits appropriate for the city and Jordan experienced the same lack of wardrobe for ranch life, they could borrow clothes from one another and cut down on what they needed to pack. Maddie figured that was Jordan’s subtle way of letting her know not to appear at Eva Ware Designs in her jeans and boots.

      Yawning hugely, she muscled her suitcase through the door, then sagged against it for a moment, nearly paralyzed with exhaustion.

      “Just a few more minutes,” she muttered. “You can do it.”

      She groped blindly along the wall until she located a switch. The muted light from a Tiffany-style lamp allowed her only a shadowy impression of the living room—stained-glass-fronted bookcases flanking a brick fireplace, an antique desk, a comfy-looking leather couch and a flat-screen TV. The furnishings with their mix of the feminine and the masculine suddenly reminded her about Jordan’s roommate—Jase Campbell.

      The man’s image slipped instantly into her mind. Jordan had provided her with photos of everyone she might possibly meet during her three weeks in New York, and she’d been reviewing them one by one on the long flight from Santa Fe. From the moment she’d glanced at Jase’s picture, she hadn’t quite been able to get him out of her mind.

      Maddie recalled Jordan describing Jase as a big brother. They’d been friends ever since they’d roomed off-campus together in college, and when he’d left the navy to start up his own security firm here in New York, he and Jordan had hooked up as roommates again. Jordan’s description of her relationship with Jase Campbell could have fit her own relationship with her neighbor, Cash.

      However, as Maddie had studied Jase’s photo, her response to him had been anything but sisterly. He had a strong face, lean with sharply defined bones. And though he wore a jacket and a tie, he didn’t look quite…tamed. Perhaps it was the longish, windblown hair that hinted at a streak of recklessness. Or maybe it was the eyes. She was baffled by the fact that every single time she’d closed her own eyes and tried to sleep on the plane, she’d thought of those angled cheekbones, the strong jawline and firm lips.

      And each time his image had popped into her mind, her palms had tingled with the desire to touch his face. When she’d imagined herself doing just that, a heat had begun to build inside her. She’d even foolishly given into an impulse to run her fingertips over the image in the photo—touching first his mouth, then the rest of those sharp features.

      When the heat simmering inside her had rushed to her face, she’d glanced nervously around to see if anyone had witnessed what she’d done. To her great relief, everyone within sight had been sleeping. Something she herself should have been doing. But instead of slipping the photo back into the file, she’d glanced down at it again.

      And traced her fingertips over it once more. Her desire to touch the image, to touch him was baffling…and unprecedented. She’d experienced a purely chemical reaction to a man before. But no man’s photo had ever affected her in such a physical way.

      Perhaps it was because she hadn’t had any sex in a while. During the past year, between the plans she had to expand her jewelry design business and the extra work she’d had to take on at the ranch, she simply hadn’t had the time. Or the desire.

      Yawning again, Maddie struggled against a huge wave of exhaustion as she turned and dragged her suitcase down a narrow hallway. The effort of placing one foot in front of the other almost defeated her.

      Probably her whole odd reaction to Jase Campbell’s photo was due to sleep deprivation and the emotional whirlwind she’d been caught up in during the past few days. When she met him, she’d find him a pleasant man, and her unusual and highly sensual response to his photo would turn out to be much ado about nothing.

      Not that meeting Jase was a sure thing. Jordan had mentioned that for the last three and a half weeks he’d been out of the country and out of contact. So she had no idea when he’d be back.

      Maddie stopped short at the first door she came to, not sure if she could take another step. If she didn’t find a bedroom soon, she was simply going to curl right up on the floor. She bit back a groan when the door to her left opened onto a tiny bathroom. Putting all her effort into the move, she half stumbled into the room directly across the hall. There was just enough moonlight pouring through the window for her to make out a bed. Not bothering to turn on the light, she shoved her suitcase against the wall. Unpacking would have to wait. Using the foot of the bed as her guide, she moved to the side nearest the window and pulled the drapes. Then she stripped down to her tank top and panties. With the last bit of energy she could summon up, she tugged just enough of the covers back to slip beneath them. The moment her head touched the pillow, she fell abruptly into sleep.

      IT WAS nearly one when Jase let himself into the apartment. At some point during the taxi ride from La Guardia, the adrenaline that had fueled him for the last few weeks had drained away as surely as if someone had pulled a plug. Setting his duffel down, he shut the door and locked it. Then, without turning on the lights, he made his way to his bedroom, shed his clothes, eased back the covers, and climbed in. Sleep claimed him before his head settled fully into the pillow.

      THE