Bait & Switch

by Darlene Gardner

  No, the surprise wasn’t the interior decorating. It was sitting behind the gleaming black desk.

  “I suppose I should thank you for pretending you didn’t know me earlier tonight.” G. Gaston Gibbs III leaned back in his chair, the strands of his blonde hair barely moving. “The McDowells are too uptight to condone ownership of a strip club. Even if I am a shadow owner.”

  Mitch tried to stop his brain from reeling. The G. in G. Gaston Gibbs obviously stood for Gordon. As in Flash Gordon. Another small detail Cary hadn’t mentioned.

  “I’m nothing if not discreet,” Mitch said.

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t want Peyton to hear about your indiscretions, either. Starting with your weakness for strippers and ending with your unfortunate gambling problem.”

  Mitch cleared his throat. “You’re right about that.”

  “I’m glad we understand each other.” He picked up a squishy rubber stress ball from his desk. His sharp features tightened. “What you said when Peyton and I were dancing, about hurting me if I didn’t let you cut in.”

  “Yeah?”

  Gaston squeezed the ball. Hard. “You were kidding, right?”

  Mitch kept quiet. He was confident he could beat Gaston if it came down to hand-to-hand combat, but they were involved in another kind of struggle.

  “Because I’m a reasonable man, I’m willing to overlook this little thing you’re carrying on with Peyton. Make no mistake about it, though. When it comes time for me to take a wife, she’s the one I’ll choose.”

  Mitch fought not to recoil at the thought of Gibbs so much as touching Peyton. “I think she’ll have something to say about that.”

  “Peyton does what her parents want her to do, and her parents want her to marry me.”

  “You can’t expect me to believe you love her,” Mitch said.

  Gaston laughed, a rasping, unpleasant sound. “Of course I don’t love her, but she’s a Charlestonian born and bred. She’ll provide me with the perfect cover.” He heaved a sigh. “This conversation is boring me. I didn’t call you back here to talk about Peyton.”

  Mitch had to unclench his teeth before he responded. “Why did you call me here?”

  “I have your first assignment.” He spoke in a cruel whisper, the culture gone from his voice. He rubbed his smooth cheek. “Guy by the name of Cooper Barnes works at a restaurant in North Charleston. If he doesn’t pay up, I want you to break something.”

  Mitch blinked. “Break what?”

  “A leg, a finger, an arm. I don’t care which. Just get the money and make him understand he can’t mess with me.”

  His brother, Mitch realized with sinking dread, was a debt collector for a bookie.

  “Nobody messes with me, Mitchell,” Gaston bit out. “You’d do well to remember that.”

  The instant he was on break, Mitch ducked outside the club and called Cary’s cell. No answer. He disconnected, tried his Atlanta apartment and listened to the phone ring unanswered. His grip on the phone tightened, impotent anger welling up in him.

  His brother owed him a lot of answers. At the moment, one question was more important than the rest.

  Where the devil was Cary?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lizabeth Drinkmiller sat alone outside a Key West cafe at a table built for two, chastising herself for being unable to go through with her grand plan.

  She glanced down at the fancy alcoholic concoction with the colorful paper umbrella floating on its surface. A rum-ba, the menu had called it. Sure to make you want to shed your inhibitions and dance. The drink had been sitting in front of her for thirty minutes, and Lizabeth still couldn’t bring herself to take a sip.

  Why had she believed she’d act any differently on a two-week vacation than she did the rest of her life?

  She was what she was. An information professional with a masters degree in library science who was more at home with computers than people. No wonder she hadn’t had a date in almost two years. She was the epitome of every bad stereotype about a mousy librarian, as boring as heat in the tropics. Like a chameleon that attached itself to a leafy, green bush, she faded into the scenery so well nobody noticed her.

  She might as well start going by the name Lizabeth the Lizard. Even the dye job she’d done on her mousy brown hair didn’t make a difference. Of course, at the last second, she’d put down the bottle of Yowlin’ Yellow and gone with Barely Brunette.

  She’d been more daring while shopping for a vacation wardrobe, choosing outfits that showed so much skin she’d nearly fainted dead away when she saw herself in the dressing-room mirror. But what good was a miniskirt when she had her legs tucked under the table? Or a plunging tank top when she’d covered it with a sweater buttoned to the chin?

  Determined to live it up, she began unbuttoning her sweater. And stopped at the second button. Okay. Exhibitionism wasn’t her thing, but she could at least imbibe. She picked up her drink. And managed a single sip before putting it down.

  She propped her chin on her hands, watching the tourists walk by as they enjoyed an evening in Key West. A woman, plain except for her smile, strolled by with a hunk of a man on her arm. Lizabeth bet she was secure in her own skin. That woman wouldn’t have a problem going to her boss and demanding a raise. Or getting a date.

  She watched the parade of tourists with growing despondence. They all looked happy and well-adjusted. The kind of people who went after what they wanted and got it.

  Unlike Lizabeth, who sat on the sidelines while life passed her by.

  A man on the other side of the street came into view, and Lizabeth’s entire body went rigid. Even from a distance, she could tell he was gorgeous. Taller than most of the other passers-by, he had thick hair the color of night and a broad-shouldered, long-legged physique that commanded attention.

  He passed under a streetlight that lit his features. She took in the cleft in his square jaw, the generous width of his mouth, the tilt of his nose. A shock of recognition passed through her, and her breath seized in her chest, the way it used to whenever he passed her in the hall at Hatfield High.

  Grant Mitchell. The hunk across the street was Grant Mitchell, the boy who’d sent her schoolgirl heart palpitating.

  She made herself breathe as her eyes devoured him. His body had filled out, but he still favored worn jeans and denim shirts. He’d been wearing a cap and gown the last time she’d seen him, striding across the stage in the high school auditorium to receive his diploma. She remembered her hot tears of frustration as she watched him. Even though she feared she’d never see him again, she’d known she wouldn’t approach him.

  Now, ten years later, he was the width of a street away. In another few moments, he’d be gone. Again.

  “No,” Lizabeth said aloud, the word emerging from deep in her soul. She couldn’t let Grant disappear. Not this time. Not when she’d come to Key West with the express purpose of shedding her retiring personality and going after what she wanted.

  She wanted Grant.

  She looked down the length of her body. She also wanted Grant to notice her, the way he never had in high school. Before she could change her mind, she fluffed her barely brunette hair, pulled off her sweater and gulped a big portion of her drink.

  Then she dashed across the street toward her fate, forgetting that the heels she wore with her short skirt were much higher than she was used to. The driver of one of the rental scooters that darted through the narrow Key West streets honked his horn, and Lizabeth panicked.

  She lunged for the sidewalk, her heel catching on the curb. Grant turned toward her at the same time she squealed, and his arms shot out to save her from falling.

  The sensation of his large, well-formed hands on her bare arms sent warmth pouring over her, like the cascade from a waterfall in the tropics. Her heart pounded a heavy beat and not because the scooter had nearly flattened her. He was looking at her in a way he’d never looked at her in high school, with an appreciative gleam that heated her entire body.


  “This is backward,” he said, grinning. “I’m the one who could fall for you.”

  He righted her, his warm hands secure on her hot flesh. She blinked up at him, unable to look away from his eyes. They were blue. So very blue. Like the water surrounding the Keys that had appeared so inviting from the window of the 747 that had flown her here.

  “Did you know that, other than humans, black lemurs are the only primate that can have blue eyes?” she asked.

  Lizabeth nearly closed her own boring brown eyes in mortification when she realized how hopelessly gauche she was. What had possessed her to spew that piece of useless trivia?

  His eyes smiled at her. “A black lemur couldn’t appreciate someone you the way I do.”

  She gulped. Was Grant Mitchell actually flirting with her? It was such an impossible dream that she figured she must have misinterpreted him.

  “You didn’t appreciate me in high school,” she blurted out. Damn. Why had she said that? In order to masquerade as a self-confident woman, she needed to act like one.

  “We went to high school together?” He released his grip on her shoulders, cocking his head and scrutinizing her.

  Lizabeth’s disappointment was swift and all-consuming. Of course he didn’t remember her. She forced herself to smile. “You grew up in Richmond, didn’t you?”

  “Sure did.” He continued to stare at her. Then he smiled, and the beauty of it sent her heart pounding the way it always used to. He snapped his fingers. “I remember now. You were in my biology class.”

  “I wasn’t in any of your classes,” Lizabeth countered. “You were two years ahead of me.”

  “I’ll be sure to remember if you tell me your name,” he said, but she was equally positive he wouldn’t. Their paths had crossed only once, at a high school dance when the boy she’d been dancing with had cut in on his partner. Grant had graciously finished the dance with her, but she’d been too tongue-tied by the feel of his hands on her waist to say a word.

  She started to tell him her name was Lizabeth, but it was such a boring name, not in keeping with her new image at all. “It’s Leeza. Leeza Drinkmiller.”

  “Leeza,” Cary repeated, wondering why he didn’t remember her. His taste in women hadn’t changed much since high school. With her curvy body and revealing clothing, she was exactly the kind of woman he usually dated. So how had he missed her?

  “You still don’t remember me, do you?” The corners of her mouth turned downward, and he found himself thinking that mouth would be prettier if she weren’t wearing so much lipstick. “I’m not surprised. I blended into the scenery in high school.”

  “You could never blend into the scenery,” Cary said. Her tank top was cut low, revealing a pair of gorgeous breasts. In her heels, she could look him straight in the eye, which meant her legs went on and on. He even liked her face with its big-eyed, gamin quality. The net effect was wildly appealing. “If I didn’t notice you, I must’ve been blind.”

  “You struck me as someone who had his eyes wide open.” Her smile looked forced. “You seemed like you knew exactly where you were going.”

  “I did?” Cary asked, amazed she’d had that view of him. Then again, he had been a star pitcher at Americana High with a bat so potent he was the team’s best hitter. Anybody could have seen he had the talent to make it to the pros.

  “Definitely.” She sounded like a one-woman fan club. “Anybody could see you had the brains to achieve whatever you set your mind to.”

  “They could?” All Cary’s mind had been on in high school was scoring, both on the field and off it. That was the direction his mind was headed now. Scoring with Leeza would be more thrilling than hitting a home run.

  “So, Grant, what did you set your mind to?” she asked.

  Grant. She’d called him Grant.

  Everything about their strange conversation fell into place. No wonder he hadn’t recognized her. Their parents and sent Cary and Mitch to different schools so they could establish themselves as individuals. They’d developed separate interests and unconnected sets of friends. Leeza had obviously attended Hatfield High with his brother, not Americana with him.

  Still, she must not have been very well acquainted with Mitch to call him by his given name. Moreover, people who knew them didn’t generally confuse them. They had different styles, not only in speech but dress. Except Cary had borrowed some of his brother’s clothes because he hadn’t packed enough warm-weather clothes when he’d headed for Atlanta.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, “I’m not—”

  The admiration in her eyes stopped him from finishing. He’d already guessed she’d had an unrequited thing for his brother in high school.

  “You’re not what?” she asked.

  Telling her he wasn’t Mitch no longer seemed like such a good idea. Despite their nearly identical appearance, Cary was as different from his brother as catsup from salsa. If Leeza was in awe of his twin, she wouldn’t admire him.

  “I’m not as successful as you think I am,” Cary said.

  “I find that hard to believe. What do you do?”

  Cary made his decision. “I’m a cop in Atlanta.”

  “Such a noble profession,” Leeza said. “I bet you’re great at it.”

  Cary started to confirm her observation, then considered how Mitch might respond. “I do okay. Hey, why don’t we have dinner together tonight and catch up?”

  Her mouth dropped open. To say yes, he was sure.

  “Sorry,” Leeza said, “but I have a prior engagement.”

  Her perfectly logical explanation sounded like an excuse. Except that didn’t make sense, not if he’d read Leeza’s feelings for his brother correctly.

  He whipped out his BlackBerry, pressed a few buttons and handed it to her. “Enter your cell number and we’ll take a rain check.”

  Her hesitation was so brief he might have imagined it. She took the phone and did as he asked. He made sure to brush her fingers with his when she handed the phone back to him.

  “I’ll be in touch, Leeza Drinkmiller,” he said.

  His brother might strike out with women, but Cary didn’t. Not even when he was disguised as Mitch.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lizabeth’s goose bumps wouldn’t have been so obvious if the sun weren’t beating down on the deck of the twenty-four-foot cabin cruiser. Or if she’d been wearing more clothes.

  She shifted and artfully arranged the fashionable sarong she’d tied loosely at the waist the way the sales clerk back in Richmond had demonstrated.

  The clerk had convinced Lizabeth she had the figure to wear the itty bitty red bikini that left so much of her pale skin exposed. Lizabeth wasn’t so sure. Especially now, when the love of her teen years sat across the boat.

  She’d been so thrown off guard yesterday when he’d invited her to dinner that she’d refused, then fought panic that she might have blown her only chance to spend time with him.

  Just in case she got another, last night she’d spent hours alone in her hotel room in front of a mirror trying out her new, bold persona. She’d tossed her hair, perfected her laugh and walked across the room over and over until the book on top of her head stopped falling off.

  This morning, when Grant phoned to ask if she’d like to snorkel the coral reef, she’d barely stopped herself from shouting her acceptance. Instead, she’d let loose a tinkling laugh. “That would be utterly divine,” she said.

  Lizabeth was to swimming what lead was to liquid, but Leeza could fake it. To keep Grant’s interest, her alter ego would pretend to be a mermaid.

  “It’s too bad you forgot to pack your PADI certification,” Grant called over the hum of the outboard motor. “I hear the scuba diving around here is awesome.”

  “It can’t be better than it was in Aruba.” She hoped she sounded worldly and sophisticated. “The water’s so clear the fish can see their reflection.”

  He laughed. “You get around, don’t you?”

  “Hmmmm,” sh
e said, because she didn’t want to lie. Not that she was lying. Exactly. She wasn’t a world traveler, but Aruba was the site of the only exotic vacation she’d ever taken.

  Yes, she’d spent a large chunk of her time there in a darkened hotel room recovering from a horrific sunburn. But one of her travel buddies had raved about the diving.

  She was fortunate Grant had misinterpreted her declaration that she didn’t have her PADI certification to mean she forgot to pack it. Leeza would know how to dive.

  On this trip, she couldn’t act like herself. Grant wouldn’t have chartered a boat for boring, ordinary Lizabeth. He wouldn’t be eager to share the blue skies and the azure seas with someone as colorless as Lizabeth.

  She tossed her head the way she imagined a practiced flirt might, but the wind caught her hair. Long strands flew into her eyes and all over her face. She frantically swiped at her face, imagining she looked like an overgrown Yorkshire Terrier.

  “Let me help.” Grant slid across the bench seat until he was next to her. She heard something tear and then able hands were in her hair, pulling the messy mop back from her face.

  He bestowed on her a heartthrob’s grin that illuminated his eyes so she couldn’t tell whether the sparkle was the sun’s reflection or simply Grant’s inner light. He was wearing a short-sleeved plaid shirt he’d left unbuttoned over his swim trunks, and his glorious, hair-roughened chest was within drooling range.

  Be cool, she told herself, even as heat enveloped her. He was even more of a hunk than he’d been in high school. His hair was a rich ebony and a lock of it swirled to the left. Funny, in her mental picture of him, his hair curled right. No matter. As long as he were here beside her, she wouldn’t care if he shaved his hair off. Even bald, he’d be gorgeous.

  “Here, let me.” He turned her by her bare shoulders so that her back was to him. Masculine fingers grazed her scalp as he gathered her hair at her nape and secured it. She prayed he wouldn’t notice the blush she felt creeping up her neck.