Suddenly nervous, Tara cleared her throat. “I’m not sure.”
“Didn’t I tell you to trust me?” Stephanie took firm hold of Tara’s shoulders and turned her toward the full-length mirror. “What do you think?”
“I think,” Tara said, her voice faint, “that there’s a stranger hiding in your mirror.”
The woman reflected couldn’t possibly be Tara. This woman had dark copper hair that curled flirtatiously around her face. As for the face itself—well, suffice it to say that Stephanie was an artist with a makeup brush, Tara thought in wonder. Her usually unspectacular blue eyes had been shaped and shadowed so that they looked huge, with a seductive tilt to the outside corners. Blusher sculpted her cheekbones, making them look more prominent. Her mouth had been outlined with bold, smudge-proof lipstick into a deep crimson pout.
The amount of skin revealed by the low-cut, sleeveless black dress would have made Tara’s mother gasp in shock and her father snatch a blanket to wrap around her. Tara hadn’t even realized she had cleavage until Stephanie had poured her into this dress.
“You,” Stephanie said proudly, “are gorgeous.”
“You’re right,” Tara replied blankly. “I am.” And how on earth had that happened to ordinary Tara McBride?
Stephanie laughed. “Wait until Blake sees you. He already thinks you’re beautiful. But seeing you like this is going to knock the socks right off him.”
Tara’s cheeks flamed beneath the paint. “Stephanie, Blake and I aren’t... I mean, we hardly know each other. We’ve only been thrown together temporarily by circumstances.”
Stephanie gave a delicate snort. “I’ve seen the way Blake looks at you, Tara. There’s more between you than ‘circumstances.’”
Tara’s cheeks darkened even more as she thought of the kisses she and Blake had shared that very morning—in Stephanie’s bed.
Stephanie laughed again. “I knew it,” she said in apparent delight. “There is something going on! Oh, I love seeing Blake all shaken up for a change. It’s good for him.”
Totally bewildered, Tara turned away from the mirror. “Not that there’s anything between Blake and me, but...it really wouldn’t bother you if there was? You and he aren’t...?”
Stephanie sighed heavily. “Honestly, sometimes I just want to strangle him. Tara, Blake is my brother.”
Tara felt her jaw drop. “Your...?”
“Brother,” Stephanie repeated clearly. “He’s five years older than I am. He raised me after our parents died when I was ten and he was barely fifteen.”
Tara shook her head. “I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
“We don’t tell many people. Ever since I accidentally got involved in one of Blake’s cases a long time ago, and almost got myself kidnapped by a guy who thought he could use me to keep Blake from going public with some damaging information, Blake has this crazy idea that it’s safer for me if no one knows he has a sister. He should have told you the truth. I don’t know why he hasn’t, but I refuse to lie to you. I like you.”
The touch of defiance in Stephanie’s voice might have been amusing, had Tara not still been completely staggered by her admission. “Your brother,” she repeated, mentally reassessing everything that had happened since she and Blake had arrived in Savannah.
Blake had to know what she’d been thinking, Tara decided with a sudden flare of anger. He must have realized that she would misinterpret his having a key to Stephanie’s apartment. And he’d let her go on thinking that way, even after he’d kissed her until she had been almost ready to throw all common sense to the wind. He’d left her feeling guilty and confused, and had made it very awkward for her when Stephanie had arrived, acting so friendly and welcoming.
Tara thought she just might strangle him herself.
Tara searched the other woman’s face for signs of a family resemblance. They were there, just faintly, now that she knew what to look for.
Why on earth hadn’t Blake told her the truth?
Stephanie touched Tara’s hand. “I know it’s none of my business, whatever is going on between the two of you. But...well, Blake has been alone for a long time. He hasn’t seemed to truly belong anywhere, and that has bothered me. I’ve hoped he would find someone nice like you. I love him very much, and I want him to be happy.”
“I know you do,” Tara replied, her stomach suddenly knotting. “But please don’t start matchmaking. This really isn’t a good time.”
Nor did she have any reason to believe that she was the one who could make Blake happy, she could have added. Tara and Blake were so different. Besides, who knew what would happen when this all ended?
“First you have to make sure you’re both safe. I understand. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have hope for afterward,” Stephanie added impishly. Even though she and Stephanie were the same age, Tara thought the other woman seemed much younger at that moment.
“I have to go now,” Stephanie said before Tara could argue further. “So you and my brother will be all alone tonight. All night.”
Tara rolled her eyes. “Stephanie!”
Stephanie grinned. “Just thought I would point that out. And you really do look beautiful, by the way. You’ll make Blake’s head spin...and it will be good for him. If I were you, I’d make him sweat a little as punishment for lying to you.”