2008 Laurel Wreath Winner
2008 Golden Quill Finalist

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The Sister Switch

Harlequin Superromance
March 2007
ISBN 0-373-71404-1
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Excerpt ~ Chapter One

“The solution is obvious,” Suzanne said. “You just have to be me.”

Nora Clark knew she was in trouble the moment she heard her twin sister utter those words. She tightened her grip on the phone and paced across her small kitchen. “Tell me I just misheard you. Tell me this cell phone connection is so bad you didn’t really say what I think I just heard.”

“You have to do this, Nora. You’ve gotta take my place.”

Irritation rolled through Nora. She’d been supporting her sister for two years as she tried to build a personal shopping business. Now Suzanne wanted her to be the personal shopper? Enough was enough. “Your biggest client wants you to do a rush job for her son. The correct answer is—you get off that cruise and come home.”

“I’m on the Inside Passage, remember? Alaska? Open water. Icebergs. You don’t just jump off cruise ships up here.” Suzanne’s voice turned pleading. “Please… I can’t afford to lose this account.”

Nora gritted her teeth. “I know you need this job. I know Camille Lamont is a famous author and connected enough to launch your business—”

“Then do the job for me. Think about it. If I keep Camille as a client, it could get me out of your hair—not to mention your house.” Suzanne paused. “Maybe then you’d have time to date.”

“Suzanne!”

“Nora!” Her sister mimicked her annoyed tone.

“How about if I go to the appointment as myself…and explain that you’re on a seventeen day cruise—”

“No! What will his mother think when she learns I sent someone who knows next to nothing about personal shopping to meet with her son?” Suzanne groaned. “I can see this account waving goodbye already.”

“Then, come back to San Francisco and meet with her yourself,” Nora said as evenly as possible.

“We’re practically in grizzly territory up here. Probably polar bear, too.”

Nora snorted. “I doubt the bear populations will be attacking you at the next port of call—or the airport, for that matter.”

“Nora.” Suzanne’s voice dropped low. “When Keegan called off our wedding, I thought I would die. I need this cruise. Even you said it was a good idea. The Lamont account is important to me, but I’m just not up to it yet. I’ve only been on the ship one day. What kind of a respite is that?”

Nora dropped into a kitchen chair as she tried to reason everything out. Suzanne had really hit bottom when Keegan dumped her. And though Nora had never been able to understand her sister’s devastation over losing that idiot, she had agreed time away might help Suzanne heal.

Still, that didn’t mean Nora taking her place was a good idea. “Suzanne, we may look the same but that’s where the similarity ends. I’m a physical therapist. You’re a personal shopper. You’re loose and carefree. I’m…not.”

“I’ll say.”

“What?”

“Sorry. Sorry.”

“Anyway, pretending to be you, even for one meeting, is like…expecting apples to be oranges.”

“You didn’t used to be an apple. You just became one over the years.”

“I did not.” Indignation rose up inside her.

“Then why do you keep staying in that hospital P.T. job when you hate it? Come on, I know your complaints by heart.” Suzanne’s voice took on a sing-song quality. “Once people have surgery, all you do is make sure they can use a walker and get out of a chair, and then—boom!—they’re gone. Discharged. You never get to see rehab through to the end.”

“It’s important work,” Nora said.

Suzanne just kept talking. “And what about that new sports medicine rehab center the hospital’s opening? They have to hire someone—and you haven’t even applied yet, have you?”

The truth in her words irritated Nora more than the know-it-all tone in her voice. “Suzanne, when you grow up you discover you can’t have everything. You become—”

“Dull. But you don’t have to.”

Nora slowly counted to ten in her head. “Whatever. My pretending to be you is still a dumb idea. Switching places is something you do when you’re seventeen.”

“Or something you do when your sister really needs your help. This isn’t about Erik Lamont—and you know it. It’s about keeping his mother happy. If she wants me to do a quick job for her son, I can’t not do it.” She sighed. “Nora, she’ll hire someone else.”

“Couldn’t you just call her and explain that—”

“Nora? You there? You’re breaking up.”

“Suzanne? Hello? Can you hear me?” She looked up at the ceiling in frustration. Dammit, they’d lost the connection. Hitting redial, she kicked into her spiel again as soon as Suzanne answered. “Just tell Camille you’re on a long cruise in Alaska. Surely she’ll understand that people take vacations.” She pressed the fingers of one hand to her forehead.

“I can’t risk it—she’s too new a client. How hard could it be to take my place just this once?” Suzanne laughed. “You never know, he could be cute…”

“Not even funny.” Nora stood, unable to stay still for long with the conversation twisting the way that it was.

“Why do you always discount the possibility of meeting another man? Kevin died five years ago—”

“How did we get from me impersonating you to my getting hooked up with some guy we don’t even know and for all we know is an unemployed loser living off his mother or still in high school or something? Suzanne, sometimes you’re like a broken record.”

“So will you take my place?”

She huffed. “New song. Same broken record. No. How could I? What if his mom notices the difference?”

“Why would his mom be there? You’re shopping for him.”

“Well, his mom made the call. Really, Suzanne, I’d help you if I could.” She felt a tugging at her shirt and looked down.

“Mama,” Danny said. “I think I found a new daddy—the right one. Come.” He pulled her with him toward the living room.

Suzanne kept talking into her ear. “Yeah, well, what happens if I tell his mother I can’t do it—”

“Hold on a minute, Suz.” She looked at Danny. “What?”

“I found a new daddy on my video.” His brown eyes shone with earnestness.

“You can’t just find a daddy on a video, honey. It’s not that easy.”

“But you said if I found one to let you know.”

Nora sighed. Whatever possessed her to say such a thing to him?

“He’s really nice.” Danny pointed at the television where Mr. Rogers was cutting construction paper with scissors and talking in his perfectly calm voice.

“Mr. Rogers? Oh Danny, Mr. Rogers is—” Dead. “Uh—married already. Tell you what, sweetie, why don’t you go get a cookie and I’ll be off in a minute.” She watched him dash into the kitchen, then turned her attention back to the phone.

“Something wrong?” Suzanne asked.

“He’s just looking for a daddy again. Found one on T.V. that he thinks is just right. Mr. Rogers.”

“Jeez, he’s really getting determined about that. Maybe you should sign up for some online dating—”

“Suzanne. Don’t be dumb.”

Danny hopped back into the room munching on a cookie and she went back into the kitchen.

“Okay,” Suzanne said. “So I was saying, what happens if I turn this job down and Camille finds some other personal shopper who is ready and willing to help. Now she thinks, golly, I like this new on-the-ball shopper girl, who’s available just when I need her. I think I’ll give her all my business. Now I’ve just lost my biggest account. All because I didn’t meet with—”

Suddenly silence was all Nora heard and she knew the connection had been dropped again. “I hate cell phones!” she muttered. She set her phone on the counter and stared at the cupboard for a moment, suddenly noticing the dried milk spatters on the doors. How did all this milk splash up here? And how could she not have seen it before? She grabbed the dishrag from the sink and began to wipe the spatters off the black doors as she debated whether to call her sister back or not.

Her head felt like it was going to burst. She knew this account was crucial to Suzanne’s success, to having Suzanne make enough money to support herself, to Suzanne ever moving out of Nora’s house. She exhaled. Which meant, keeping this account was as important to her as it was to Suzanne.

She picked up the phone and punched redial. Her sister answered on the first ring, saying, “I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to get a signal out here.”

“Look,” Nora said. “There’s not much I wouldn’t do for you, but this…this… I wouldn’t know the first thing about what I’m doing.”

“It’s not that hard.”

Nora could hear the hope in Suzanne’s voice. She looked down at her T-shirt and sweatpants and felt ill. “For God’s sake, I don’t know anything about style—let alone being a personal shopper.”

“I’ll talk you through it—”

“You’re on a cruise ship with crummy cell phone connections.” Kneeling now, she attacked the spatters on the lower cupboard doors as if the forcefulness of her effort would erase her frustration.

“There’s always ship-to-shore radio.”

Nora groaned and sat back on her heels. “I’m sure that’s a reasonable price-per-minute. Let’s just stop and look at this realistically. What if he figures out I’m not you? What if his mother comes along on the spur of the moment? What if I do a really bad job and you lose the account anyway—”

“Nora! We don’t have any other choices.”

We? She pushed herself to standing and went into the front hall to inspect her reflection in the full-length mirror. She pulled her dark hair out of its ponytail and shook it loose around her face. Yeah, she could still pass for Suzanne without a problem.

The thought made her stomach do a nervous flop. She wasn’t actually considering this ridiculous idea, was she?

Absolutely not.

“One meeting,” she said calmly.

“Right. Two at the most.”

“Two? When did this happen?”

“If you have to buy him something, you’re going to have to deliver it,” Suzanne said. “No biggie. He tries it on, you say it looks great, you’re outa there in, like, twenty minutes.”

“Okay. Two meetings at the most.” Nora felt the room begin to spin.

“Right.”

“You’ll talk me through everything?”

“Everything.”

Lightheaded, Nora sank down into her brown chenille couch. Across the room, Danny sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the T.V., still enthralled by Mr. Rogers.

“What if he is cute?” Nora said. “And he wants me to buy him—” Her voice dropped lower. “—pants. I don’t have to measure his inseam or anything, do I?”

Suzanne burst out laughing. “No. He should know what size he wears. If in doubt, get a couple of sizes and have him keep the one that fits best.”

“I have to tell him which pants fit him best? Some guy I don’t even know? What if he’s cute? What if he’s, ahem, built.”

Suzanne laughed harder. “You just say they look fabu and get the heck out of the house before he takes them off and asks you how his briefs fit.”

“No way. I can’t do it. I can’t. Really Suzanne, I am not ready for this—”

Suzanne’s laughter reached hysterical proportions before she pulled herself together. “I’m kidding. You really do need to get out more. Clients do not come on to the personal shopper. It just isn’t done.”

“Right. I know that.” Nora let her head fall back against the couch.

“So, will you do it? Just this once…just switch places one more time.”

She knew better. She really did. “Ohh, Suzanne, how many times did we switch places and have it backfire—”

“And think of all the times it didn’t… Nora?”

She hesitated even though she knew she didn’t have a choice. Not really. Not if Suzanne was going to get what she wanted so that Nora could get what she wanted. She hesitated, even though she knew she was going to say yes.

She drew a breath. “You have to promise—”

“Anything. Anything you want.”

“—Never to ask me to do this again.”

“Never?” Suzanne sounded shocked.

“Never.”

“Never is really an absolute. I mean, what if it’s mutually beneficial? Because there are times when—”

“No.” Nora made sure her voice was firm and strong.

“Wow. O-kay. But, just in case you’re wondering, I’ll still be you sometime if you want me to—”

“No, no, no. After this time, never again. Never.”

“Okay. I think I got that,” Suzanne said.

Nora closed her eyes for a moment and hoped she wasn’t about create yet another massive complication in her life. “Now what do I have to do to be a personal shopper? You’re going to have tell me more than just what questions to ask the guy—you’re going to have to dress me, too.”

As Suzanne’s laughter came across the airwaves, the phone cut out again. Nora hit redial but this time the call didn’t connect. She tried again and got Suzanne’s voice mail.

“Oh just great,” she muttered. “I’d better not have to make this up as I go along or we’re both in big trouble.”

#

“I’m not meeting with a personal shopper.” Erik Morgan scowled at his mother who was working on a computer at her large mahogany desk.

“Why not?” She slowly spun her leather desk chair round to face him.

“I don’t have the time. I don’t have the inclination. I don’t want some strange woman that involved in my life.”

“She doesn’t get involved in your life. She just shops for you. Or with you.” His mother smiled calmly and he knew manipulation was running rampant beneath her perfectly coiffed blond hair. “Whichever you prefer.”

Erik rolled his eyes. “Is this why you asked me to come over today? To talk about personal shopping? Not to check your knee?”

“I want you to check my knee, too. This replacement they put in doesn’t seem to work that well yet.” She rubbed her knee.

He knelt by her chair and checked her leg for swelling, then straightened her knee with his hands and made it bend again. “Your range of motion is still limited. Let me see you go up the stairs.” He stood and took her hand to help her up. “Are you doing the exercises? And walking like you’re supposed to?”

They moved slowly toward the wide curving stairway in the marble-floored foyer. This house was way too formal for his taste; he was glad he hadn’t grown up here.

“It’s hard to find so much time to exercise,” his mother said. “I’ve got a deadline. I’ve just got to get this next book written and the words aren’t coming easily. Maybe it’s from going under the anesthesia. Doesn’t that have some sort of effect on brain neuron connections?”

For a bestselling author, sometimes his mother was really a ditz. “Maybe on you.”

She gasped and he held in a grin. “Really? Is it permanent? How will I ever finish this book?”

“Mom! No—”

“It’s not permanent then?”

“It doesn’t happen at all! I just said that because you’re driving me nuts.” He frowned as he looked at her left leg. “A knee replacement isn’t going to finish healing unless you help it along. I know it’s been five weeks, but you’ve got to get up and walk.”

“Honey, isn’t there some other way—”

“No.” He tried to stay patient. “That knee is going to freeze up if you don’t work it. If all you wanted for a leg was a bent stick, we could have given you one in the first place and it would have cost less.” He gestured at the stairs. “Let me see you climb.”

“Now Erik, there’s no reason to get testy.” She took hold of the banister and started up the stairs, one step at a time. “I’m doing most of my exercises. I just wanted to double check because I really have to get this book finished.”

Patience, patience. “Some isn’t good enough. Look at you on the stairs—you don’t have the strength to go step over step yet.”

“What are you going to wear to the party?” she asked over her shoulder.

He watched her knee. “Promise me you’ll do all your exercises even if you have writing to do.”

“We’ll talk about it. Now what are you wearing to the party?”

“What party?” he asked irritably.

His mother sighed. “And you wonder why I want you to use a personal shopper?” Halfway up the stairs she turned around. “The one my publisher is throwing—”

“Oh yeah. Fifteenth straight book on the New York Times list.”

“And you have an outfit to wear?” She continued down the stairs, her eyes never leaving his face.

“An outfit? Sounds so…matching.”

“Erik—”

“Mom—”

“Don’t mom me. You spend all day in scrubs and the rest of the time in jeans. It’s time you start dressing like the grown-up you are.”

He folded his arms across his chest.  “I have other clothes, trust me—”

“I don’t trust you. Not since you showed up for dinner at Cavanaugh’s dressed like you were going to the ski hill.” She stepped off the bottom stair and took the hand he held out to her.

“That’s because I was coming from the ski hill. I just overestimated how long we’d be out there.”

“Well you had the appearance of someone from the wrong side of the tracks.”

He snorted. “Mom, I’m a doctor. Everyone knows I can buy clothes if I want them. Who the hell cares what I wear as long as I can fix their bodies up good as new—or almost good as new.”

His mother started back toward her office. “Well Mary Jean’s niece cared. She wasn’t impressed at all, even if you were once on the Olympic ski team.”

Oh, wait a minute. He’d thought she was manipulating something. His mother was matchmaking again. “Mom, I don’t want to meet anyone at this party.”

Her eyes widened. “I wasn’t going to introduce you to anyone.”

“Don’t invite anyone who might want to introduce themselves to me either.”

“Erik, I wouldn’t dream of interfering in your love life.”

Ha! He held up a hand. “Just so we’re clear. No more daughters of friends, friends of friends, acquaintances of friends— I’m tired of meeting plastic women who just want to land themselves a rich husband.”

A pensive expression crossed his mother’s face as she lowered herself into her office chair.

“Now what?” he asked against his better judgment, knowing full well that the master manipulator was just getting started.

His mother rubbed her knee.

“Does your knee hurt?”

“Only when I get into disagreements.”

Erik laughed.

“Now, sweetheart,” she said. “About that promise to do my exercises… I think I would feel so much more inclined to do them if I could remove the worry that you had something appropriate to wear to the party.”

“Fine, put your mind to rest. I do.” Khakis and a polo.

“What?”

“What do you mean, what?” He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.

“What are you going to wear?” she asked calmly. “Not your old khakis and a worn polo.”

“I’ll buy something.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“I’ve heard this before. And it’s not good enough. My shopper can take care of everything. Then I can do my exercises in peace knowing that your outfit is taken care of…and my brain neurons can reconnect so I can write the rest of this book.”

If his mother hadn’t succeeded as a novelist, she would have made a great lawyer. Juries wouldn’t even know what hit them.

“Mom! I don’t need a personal shopper. What’s next? Should I have my nails buffed? My chest hair waxed?” He held up both hands. “Okay, I’ll go shopping. I’ll even ask the clerk for help—if I need it.”

“Don’t be silly. This is the same shopper I use. You’ll like her. First, she’ll interview you.” She rummaged through the papers and notebooks on her desk. “I have an extra card here somewhere,” she said. “Then she’ll shop and bring back what she bought. You try it all on and keep what you want. Or in your case, you keep what she recommends so your clothes match. It’s jolly fun.”

“Jolly fun? Are you going British?” he asked grumpily.

His mother chortled. “So, what do think? I will force myself to get up and walk. That will make you happy. And you will force yourself to meet with my personal shopper. That will make me happy. Have we an agreement?”

At least this was better than her playing matchmaker and trying set him up with one of her friend’s daughters. “Fine. What’s her number? I’ll give her a call.”

She waved a hand at him. “No need to call. It’s all set up. She’ll be at your house tomorrow night at seven.”

“You already made the appointment? Mom, what are you doing?” No wonder his sister moved halfway across the country. He’d been the stupid one to move back when he finished his residency.

“I thought about having her meet you here since I know her already, but she’ll probably want to take a peek at what you’ve got in your closet.”

“She’s going to go through my clothes?” he asked, appalled.

“Well, how else do you think she’ll help you?”

“Mom! Why do you do these things?”

“I checked your schedule at work—”

“The Giants game is on tomorrow night. I’m not—”

“Talk fast then and the meeting will be over sooner. Now where is that business card?” She shuffled through her papers again. “The party is Saturday. In order for her to have time to shop, you have to meet tomorrow night.”

“Oh, well we wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on the opportunity.”

“Now Erik, that sounded a bit like an arrogant orthopedic surgeon talking.”

Arrogant orthopedic surgeon? Hell, he felt like a fifteen-year-old kid right now. “But, mom, really, she’s going to go through my clothes?

“Have you got something to hide?”

He almost choked. “No. But it’s sort of personal.”

“That’s why she’s called a personal shopper. Now sweetie, I’ve got writing to do and, you know, knee exercises. I hate to push you off like this, but I don’t have time to chit-chat the night away even if you do.” She turned back to her computer and poised her fingers at the keyboard. “If there isn’t anything else, you really should get on your way.”

He really should get on his way? That’s what he’d been trying to do when he left work and got an urgent call from his mother insisting he come over immediately. “Great idea. By the way, they say blueberries are good for brain development and neuron connections.”

“Really? I’ll be sure I get some.”

He waited a long moment, but his mother didn’t offer the information he needed. “Okay. I give up. Who am I expecting at seven tomorrow night?”

“Suzanne. Suzanne Carlisle. Her company is called The Shopping Goddess. You’ll like her.”

 
Excerpted from The Sister Switch by Pamela Ford
Harlequin Superromance
March 2007
ISBN 0-373-71404-1 |

        More info   |    Order Book             
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