Read Double Take for Free Online Page B

noise from another room. She passed a pantry and then stepped into the room with the washer, dryer, and a spare utilitarian sink.
    Max was on his knees, tools on the floor beside him, the washer pulled out from the wall. He did not look at her.
    Her heart pounded. Did she dare ask him if he’d taken her bag? Did she dare be that direct?
    He said, “You want something, Mrs. Coleman?” But he did not look up.
    His tone insinuated something dirty and Kait recoiled. “I seem to have misplaced my handbag,” she said carefully.
    “Maybe you left it in the car,” he said, finally settling back on his haunches and gazing at her. Again she noticed his huge, bulging biceps and thick, powerful hands. And the worn undershirt revealed his wash-board abs. He could probably snap a watermelon in two with his bare hands, Kait thought uneasily. He had probably been in the marines as a youth.
    She didn’t like the way he was looking at her—she said, breathlessly, “I took it with me. I guess it just walked off on its own accord.”
    He made a disparaging sound.
    Kait turned and hurried across the kitchen, past a wood center isle and a stainless-steel stove. She swept through the dining room, where Elizabeth had left a set table, with a salad in a glass bowl and a platter of seared tuna steaks. Kait continued through the house and up the stairs.
    Max had to have taken her bag. But why?
    Just then, it was very hard to think clearly.
    Kait rushed up the stairs, passing four bedroom doors and entering the last room on the floor. She quickly stepped inside, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it, aware suddenly of extreme exhaustion.
    It competed with her frayed nerves for her attention.
Calm down,
she told herself. There had to be other people employed at Fox Hollow—a housemaid, grooms, who knows? Someone might have taken the bag simply because it was valuable item in itself. The bag’s disappearance did not mean that someone was on to her.
    She fought to relax, an impossible feat. She told herself that even if Max had taken it, he wasn’t going to realize that Kait was a fraud. Lana had written in her letter that no one knew she had a twin, so no one would ever suspect their deception.
    She wasn’t relieved. But she started to look around, incapable of tamping down her curiosity.
    She stared at the king-sized bed in the center of the room.
    The bed had a massive dark oak headboard and footboard, and a paisley quilt spread in black, red, and gold covered it. Three sets of pillows in contrasting hues and fabrics made the bed luxurious and inviting. A dark red Oriental rug covered the oak floors, an orangey tweed sofa was in front of the fireplace, and various antiques filled the room.
How was she going to share a bed with Trev Coleman?
    And Kait was suddenly furious for being put in the position she was now in. What was she supposed to do, lie there sleeplessly all night, right beside him? Surely he wouldn’t become amorous—after all, he wanted a divorce. But if he did, was she supposed to claim a headache? And that didn’t solve the real issue—there was simply no way she could share his bed even if he never tried to touch her, not even once.
    It was absolutely impossible.
    And Kait refused to even consider why.
    Kait backed away. She didn’t even want to share this bedroom. But she wanted to smooth over his anger now, for her sister’s sake, so suggesting separate bedrooms was not the right tack to take. Kait felt as if she were stuck between a rock and a hard place—worse, she felt as if she were slowly but surely drowning. In that moment, she felt like throttling her sister.
    She reminded herself that Lana’s life was in danger, and so, maybe, was Marni’s. And if she had to share the bed, so be it, she’d keep a pillow between them. It was only for two nights, and a small price to pay if Lana paid off Corelli and got herself out of the mess she was in.
    Kait couldn’t quite recover her composure.
    And as