A Case of Mistaken Identity

by Collette Thomas

  "You can refuse to go, you know. This isn't a kidnapping."

  "You could've fooled me."

  "I doubt it. I got a feeling that you're not that easy to fool."

  With that cryptic remark, he returned to his task.

  Yes the old Myrna Dunbar would've positively refused to go up in that thing. But hadn't a new, improved Myrna Dunbar evolved after sampling Adrienne's life style?

  Had the sky fallen because she'd taken a few chances? No. In fact she'd rather enjoyed their misadventures because she'd shared them with Jonathan. She focused on him. On the way he seemed taller, stronger, more decisive. Jonathan, who had faced his fears in taking one ego-busting fall after another was still willing to try again. He was going to get on that thing and go, because it was what he wanted to do. Or perhaps, it was something he needed to do for himself.

  Wasn't that why Adrienne had decided Myrna was the perfect match for Wetherall in the first place? Cowardly birds of a feather and all that. Both afraid to get their feet wet. No wonder Jack Morgan dumped her so many years before. After the dance she'd refused to go water-skiing, even ride in the boat and had opted for the carousel instead of the bumper cars on that disastrous first and last date.

  "Well, Myrna, it's now or never.” The whirring noise of a blower fan breathed life into the envelope, first pushing a steady stream of cold air into the fabric, followed by bursts of warm air. She watched the folds of the balloon fill out and reach for the sky, growing to almost six stories in height and tethered to the earth by ropes. To go or not to go? Myrna, without a doubt, knew her answer.

  "Now or never."

  "C'mon! In you go!"

  Myrna faltered and Jonathan scooped her into his arms, quickly depositing her inside the unsteady flimsy wicker basket. Her heart beat wildly as she grabbed the sides of the gondola and shook her head against the possibilities of fainting.

  This is it, she silently screamed. “This is it!"

  He climbed in beside her. Instinctively, she shouted her protest and headed for the sides. “Don't!” she cried. “What are you doing?"

  "You might say I'm putting my eggs all into one basket. Okay, now hang on! We're going to ride the wind!"

  Jonathan's odd and slightly corny remarks were becoming an adventure in and of themselves. Myrna paused and turned toward him. She opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, she felt a slight tug at the line for release and the basket left the ground. Gentle air currents took them effortlessly up into the morning sky. Myrna felt no real sense of movement, only by looking down could she tell they were rising, drifting up, up and away. She felt as though she was looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. The landscape gradually formed into squares of green and brown. Highways became winding black ribbons carrying toy-like vehicles. Houses, trees, and people took on ant-like proportions. Myrna felt all color drain from her face. An ethereal silence enveloped them. She continued to hug the side of the gondola and felt removed from it all. The world. The people. Gravity. With no point of reference but the man beside her.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Where do you want us to go, Myrna?"

  She gripped the basket edge tighter, pretending she hadn't heard him call her by her real name. The air was thin at this altitude. Her mind was playing tricks. Nonetheless, cold panic seized her as she realized the impossibility of escape. Escape from all the questions that were now sure to follow. She braved another look down. Familiar sights became foreign. Enemy territory.

  "Myrna, it's okay."

  "What exactly is okay?"

  "Well, the variometer says we're making a very good ascent. Not too bad for my first solo flight. Of course I can't actually call it a solo flight now, can I Myrna, since you're up here with me.

  First solo flight! The information chased all other thoughts from her mind as her panic grew in direct proportions to the distance between them and the ground. Dear Lord, will he remember how to land this thing? Myrna recalled the black-chrome Harley. Thunder. The roller coaster. Then she saw him. Really saw him as he handled gauges and controls of the balloon. There was no hesitation. No uncertainty in his movement. He knew what he was doing and suddenly she realized he always had. Every one of his exploits had been undertaken by choice and with full knowledge with what might or might not happen. She'd had choices, too. She'd chosen to trust him. The thought calmed her, brought her a new sense of reality. She did trust him. She always had.

  "How long have you known? How did you find out?

  "Well, for one Adrienne has blue eyes. And as for your name, I talked to her father, and he told me all about Adrienne's roommate."

  "You knew at the airport that I was not Adrienne?” Myrna's eyes narrowed as she swung her body around to confront him. Forgetting where she was, she stumbled as the basket swayed beneath her feet. She frantically clutched his arm, cursing the fact that there was no way out of this damn thing unless of course she wanted to plummet to the ground. Jonathan looked down at her. A full-blown smile spread across his handsome face.

  "Yes I always knew. And I suspected you did as well, that I was not Flynt Adams."

  "It was your glasses I think that gave you away."

  "Yeah, and my lack of heroic qualities. You and Adrienne had Jonathan Wetherall the Third pegged pretty good."

  "Jonathan. How nice to be able to call you that. All this time we both knew and yet we continued with this idiotic scheme.” She sighed. “I don't know about you, but I feel like the fool."

  "Adrienne's always had a knack for convincing people to act like little fools."

  "Why did you keep on pretending when you knew all along? Why didn't you expose me when you had the chance? Dammit, why did you let me go on believing you were Flynt Adams?"

  "Because misery loves company, Myrna, and I didn't want to lose you. Once you found out who I was, then what?"

  "You didn't need Adrienne to turn us into idiots, Jonathan. We did that all by ourselves."

  "We sure did. I hadn't planned things to work out they way they have. Sure I dressed up that day at the airport like the all American cowboy, but I guess I didn't want to have Adrienne see me as the same wimp with the limp who ruined that summer for her. Anyway, I hoped that when she saw how I had changed, her opinion of me would also have changed."

  "Except that I showed up and everything changed."

  "Yeah. When I saw she had sent someone else in her place, and you had no idea what I looked like except that I was a geek, I took a chance."

  "On what?"

  "It was every nerd's fantasy to step out of character to play the jock, or the renegade, or whatever. I was away from home where no one knew me. So if I screwed up, it would've been my secret.” He shrugged and glanced away. A soft mocking smile on his face. The balloon surged upward on an air current, and he reached over to adjust the gauges. “But the whole thing backfired. I spouted off about librarians, only to find you're a librarian. I wanted to prove something to myself and found myself needing to prove something to you instead."

  "Revenge? You were certainly entitled."

  "Ahh, I wanted revenge for about twenty-four hours. When you didn't laugh at me for blowing the motorcycle ride, I realized you weren't like Adrienne. Never could be. No matter what happened. You accepted me for just me. Actually, I kept getting the feeling you accepted me because of what I am."

  "Well, why shouldn't I? We're the same, Jonathan. Two ordinary people in a world where everyone wants more than what they see. The truth is that I don't want to be more or less than what I am. Fantasies are fun and enlightening, but they can't hold a candle to real life."

  Jonathan took her hand in his. She reached up to wrap her hand around his neck and stood up on tiptoes to give him a light kiss.

  "So, tell me Jon. If you had such a high opinion of me, why continue the charade?"

  "Because I was learning something and I think so were you. I was facing my worse nightmares. Coming out of them knowing that I can do anything I want. May
be not well. But I can do it. It's occurred to me that's what courage is all about."

  He released her and worked with the balloon. They began to make a slow drifting descent. She thought about his concept of courage and nodded to herself. Jonathan Wetherall III had more courage than any three superheroes she could name. They had powers to boost their confidence, all Jonathan had was his own humanity. And she wanted all that Jonathan had and was.

  As they landed with a thump and the ground crew hustled to secure the tethers, she took a deep breath, knowing that what she was about to say would test her own courage to the limit, realizing she had fallen in love him, and wanting to tell him resisted, instead, “You know as far as I see Flynt Adams and Jonathan Wetherall III are inseparable. It's like a play. The actor himself makes the role and not the other way around."

  He said nothing as he lifted her out of the gondola and helped the crew break down the balloon. She did what she could to help, needing to keep busy and not worry too much about his lack of response. Maybe her love was one-sided. Maybe Jonathan merely liked her and was gearing up his courage to deliver the classic line about ‘let's just be friends."

  Subdued by the grim possibilities, she followed him to the Cherokee and held her silence on the drive home, waiting for him to make the next move. He moved extraordinarily fast the minute he pulled into her driveway and shut off the engine. Without a word, he lifted her off the seat and swept her into his arms, carrying into the house and kicking the door shut behind them. He staggered in the hallway and lost his grip on her. She slid down his body, her knees buckling, as she landed none too gracefully on the floor. His hand shot out, saving her from making a three point landing.

  He grinned sheepishly. “You know I've always wanted to do that. Sweep the woman I love off her feet and carry her into the bedroom. I guess for a semi-wimp, getting as far as the hallway isn't half bad, it is?"

  "What else do you want to do, Jonathan?"

  "I just want to hold you. I'm through with all these silly games. We've never given Myrna and Jonathan a chance, have we?"

  "It seems to me that Myrna and Jonathan need to embark on one more adventure."

  "Oh? And what did you have in mind?"

  "Didn't you say once, that the second best thing one can ever do is to fly in a balloon?"

  "I sure did."

  "Then, how about doing the first best thing?” Taking his hand she led him into her bedroom, then turned to him and spoke softly in what she thought might be a seductive voice.

  "Come fly with me, Jonathan.” It was Myrna's willing body not Adrienne's who again would lie beside Jonathan's. It was Myrna's desires not Adrienne's brought vividly alive as she surrendered to the kaleidoscope of emotions. Myrna welcomed the wild currents of sensual pleasure as Jonathan's lips brushed teasingly against her own, moving on to graze a tender part of an earlobe, downward against her neck, lingering there, willing to explore further.

  Jonathan Wetherall III would take her beyond the limits of her imagination with his passion where Myrna knew she would once again enjoy hot sex, but no longer with a stranger.

  AUTHOR INFORMATION

  Collette Thomas

  I've always enjoyed writing romance, particularly the love scenes inherent in these stories. Writing erotic romance gives me the chance to push the envelope with my characters. With no restrictions placed on the content in this type of story, I have found a sense of freedom that allows me to dig deep into the psyche of my characters, get to the core of their most hidden sometimes perverse desires and fantasies, and then let it all play out on the page.

  Hot Sex with a Stranger is one story I enjoyed writing as it shows the growth of my characters who acquire enough of courage to walk out on that wild side.

  * * * *

  * * * *

  If you liked this book, why not check out some of the other titles at Forbidden Publications. We offer a wide variety of books for all your reading pleasures.

  www.forbiddenpublications.com

  * * *

  Visit www.forbiddenpublications.com for information on additional titles by this and other authors.