The Right Twin

by Gina Wilkins

  He shrugged. “I’m used to that.”

  She studied his handsome face from beneath her lashes. “I’ll just bet you are,” she murmured.

  His eyebrows rose, and he studied her speculatively.

  Giving him a friendly pat on the shoulder, she said, “Enjoy your dinner. Mom will take good care of you. I have some things to wrap up in my office, but I’ll see you later.”

  She heard his stool squeak when he turned to watch her stroll toward the exit. She added a little extra pop to her walk—just because.

  She hadn’t flirted this way with Andrew, she remembered, her amusement fading. Because of Pete, maybe. Or maybe the circumstances. But she couldn’t resist drawing those lazy grins from Aaron that made him look so different from his brother. And now she sounded like Mimi, she thought with a wry shake of her head.

  It wasn’t as if she expected anything to happen between her and Aaron. He was here for vacation, and he’d agreed to do a favor for her only because she’d given him little choice. She wasn’t the type to sweep a good-looking adventurer, which she considered Aaron to be, off his feet. She wasn’t the “pretty one” in the family—her cousin Hannah held that title. Nor was she the summer-fling type. She’d had plenty of opportunities for that sort of thing, had she been interested, but that just wasn’t her style. Still, she enjoyed a little harmless flirtation as much as the next girl, especially with a man as attractive as Aaron Walker. Those sexy smiles of his were definitely rewards in themselves.

  Half an hour later, after finishing the few work tasks she’d had left to do that day, she wandered back downstairs—only to find Aaron still in the diner, now sitting at a table surrounded by members of her family. Maggie sat next to him, with Mimi on his other side. All three of them were eating her mom’s homemade chocolate pie. Uncle Bryan and Aunt Linda sat across the table with cups of coffee. With no one waiting to order at the moment, Sarah sat on a bar stool near the table, participating in the lively conversation.

  Shelby noted that Aaron didn’t seem to be saying much—as if anyone could get a word in edgewise with her family—but he appeared to be enjoying himself. She moved toward the cheery group. “Looks like a party going on in here.”

  Her aunt motioned her over. “We were just telling Aaron some funny stories about raising you kids in the resort. He said he and Andrew always had family around when they were growing up, too.”

  Aaron chuckled. “We could never get away with much. Which doesn’t mean we didn’t try. The terrible trio got into more than a few scrapes, despite being watched almost constantly by our parents, aunts and uncles. Not to mention older cousins who thought it was their job to report on our activities.”

  “The terrible trio?” Shelby asked, pulling up a chair.

  He nodded. “That’s what they called my brother, our cousin Casey and me. I can’t imagine why,” he added with a humorous attempt at innocence.

  Mimi tsked her tongue. “I bet you boys were a handful.”

  “Yes, ma’am, we surely were.”

  Maggie propped her chin on her hand and studied Aaron with a smile. “For some reason, I can picture you getting up to mischief, but it surprises me that your brother was part of it. He seemed so proper and conservative.”

  “I guess he is. Now,” Aaron murmured, and once again Shelby would have liked to know what was going on between the twins.

  “Oh, here’s Pop,” Shelby’s mom commented, glancing toward the doorway. “I don’t think you’ve met my father-in-law, Aaron.”

  “No, I haven’t.” Aaron started to rise, but the older man waved him back into his seat, peering intently at Aaron’s face.

  Shelby sat back to enjoy the show.

  Pop scraped a chair on the floor and dropped into it, never taking his gaze off Aaron. A sun-weathered, work-hardened eighty, Carl Bell Sr. had a ring of thin gray hair around his brown-spotted scalp and silver-framed glasses through which he peered with intense gray eyes. His nose was crooked and his thin mouth firm. He had hunched a bit with age, softened around the middle, and moved a bit more slowly, but he was still in full possession of his faculties. The thing was, Pop had always been eccentric, a quirk that grew more pronounced each year.

  “So you’re Aaron.” He didn’t quite make air quotes with his fingers, but the gesture seemed to be implied.

  Aaron nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Humph.” Pop narrowed his eyes, while everyone else watched with poorly suppressed smiles. “I imagine a P.I. might need to use a different name when he goes on vacation. What they call incognito.”

  “If he was incognito, why would he come to a place where everyone would recognize him, Pop?” Bryan asked.

  Pop had never been overly concerned with logic. “Probably because he’d know he’d be among friends who wouldn’t give him away if anyone asked. You got a picture of yourself with Andrew?” he asked their guest.

  Aaron seemed amused. “No, sir, not with me.”

  “Humph,” Pop said again and gave the others a somewhat smug glance.

  Laughing, Linda stood. “I’ve got to go take care of a customer in the store. I’ll let the rest of you try to convince Pop that identical twins do occur in nature.”

  “Pop tends to let his imagination get away with him. And most of us think Shelby is just like her grandfather,” Shelby’s mom confided to Aaron with a smile that was both affectionate and wry. Maybe it even held a bit of a warning, Shelby thought with a frown.

  Was her mother actually cautioning Aaron that he couldn’t take everything Shelby said seriously? Well, gee, thanks for the support, Mom, she tried to say with her expression.

  If she received the subliminal message, Sarah ignored it serenely, moving to wait on an elderly couple who’d just come in for dinner. She greeted them by name. For almost as far back as Shelby could remember, the Hendersons had traveled in their motor home from Shreveport, Louisiana, at least a couple times a year for weeklong stays at the resort.

  Lori drifted in through the diner doors, pausing to look with surprise at the group of relatives gathered there. “What’s everyone doing in here? Oh.” She pushed a fringe of blue-streaked black hair out of her eyes and studied the man everyone had gathered around. “You must be Andrew’s brother. Mimi told me about you.”

  “Says he’s an identical twin,” Pop said with a grin and a broad wink, causing everyone to shake their heads in exasperation. “We’ve been instructed to call him Aaron.”

  Lifting a thin, arched brow, Lori glanced at Shelby, who shrugged. “Lori, this really is Aaron Walker. Aaron, my sister, Lori.”

  They exchanged greetings, and Shelby wondered idly what Aaron thought of Lori, who looked so different from the rest of the family—a deliberate effort on her part. Taller and thinner than Shelby, twenty-year-old Lori wore her colorful hair short and shaggy, tumbling into blue eyes lined in dark, smoky gray. She sported bloodred lipstick and black nail polish, and favored filmy, smoke-colored garments that seemed to float around her when she walked. She refused to call her style “Goth,” saying the term was outdated and inaccurate. She liked to call her taste “ethereal” instead.

  However it was defined, the style somehow worked for Lori. Shelby thought her sister looked striking and interesting, especially in comparison to her own wardrobe, which consisted primarily of easy-care shorts and T-shirts chosen for ease of movement and comfort in hot Texas summers. In the winters, she swapped the shorts for jeans, wore long-sleeved tees and donned sneakers rather than flip-flops. Glancing from Lori’s ethereal chic, to Maggie’s pretty, fitted wrap top and cropped khakis, Shelby wondered if maybe she should start paying a bit more attention to her own wardrobe.

  Aaron pushed his chair back from the table. “It’s been great meeting everyone, but I should probably unpack and make a few phone calls.”

  “Did you walk over?” Shelby
asked.

  When he nodded she stood. “I left my car here earlier. I can drop you off at your cabin on my way to my place.”

  She was aware that everyone watched them as they walked out. Did they think she was chasing after Aaron? She frowned, her ego piqued at the thought. She was going to have to think of a plan that would let her collaborate with Aaron while still preserving her feminine pride.

  “So I’ve met everyone in the family except your father and brother now?” Aaron asked when they were in her car.

  “And Hannah.”

  “But she’s out of town.”

  “Right.” Shelby started the engine. “Dad and Steven have been busy today. I’m sure you’ll meet them tomorrow.”

  He nodded. “Have to admit I’ll be glad when your whole family has seen me and gotten past the fact that I look like my brother.”

  She glanced at him apologetically as she backed out of the parking space. “I’m sorry about that. I’m sure you’re getting tired of hearing it.”

  “Like I said, I’m used to it.”

  She thought of her sister’s little rebellions against being surrounded by a sometimes-too-close family. How much more restless would Lori feel if she looked so much like her sister that no one could even tell them apart?

  “So, about your grandfather.”

  “Pop?”

  “Yeah. Is he serious? About insisting I’m really Andrew, I mean.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to tell with Pop,” she admitted. “He can carry on a joke for days without ever cracking a smile. But he can also get an idea in his head that you couldn’t shake with a jackhammer. If he’s really decided you’re Andrew, it would take the two of you standing side by side in front of him to convince him otherwise. And I’m not certain even that would do it,” she added with a rueful laugh.

  Aaron laughed with her. “He reminds me a little of Vinnie D’Alessandro. He’s the grandfather of some of my cousins. Older than your Pop—Vinnie’s over ninety—but just as pigheaded.”

  She stared fiercely out the windshield as she made the short drive to his cabin. “That, uh, crack my mom made. About me being like Pop?”

  “I could tell that ticked you off.”

  Had she been so transparent? She hadn’t even realized he was looking at her. “Anyway, I’m not imagining that there’s something strange about Terrence Landon. Maybe he’s not doing anything illegal, but he’s definitely weird.”

  “You should probably not hang around staring at him unless you want him to disappear in the middle of the night or something. If he’s up to something illegal, he’ll bolt for fear that you’re onto him. If he’s not, he’ll take off because you’ve creeped him out. Now, maybe it’s your objective to get him to leave....”

  She parked behind his car in the short driveway to his cabin. “No. I mean, if he’s not up to anything...well, nefarious, as you called it, then I don’t want to run off a paying customer.”

  “So you’ll stop watching him and let me keep an eye out—maybe a bit more discreetly?”

  “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that.”

  She heard a faint sound that might have been a muffled groan, and she shot a quick, suspicious look at Aaron, but his expression was bland. “What have you been thinking?” he asked a little warily.

  “Well, I can see where it would look odd if I keep hanging around your place for no apparent reason. Landon could think I’m watching him, and other people—well, they might wonder if I’m chasing after you or something. Which I’m totally not doing,” she assured him firmly.

  Aaron nodded. His expression was still innocuous, but she thought she saw a new glint of amusement in his dark eyes, which only made her frown. “Anyway,” she continued doggedly, “maybe if you could flirt with me a little—you know, like you’re interested in me—I could act like I might be interested in return.”

  “A summer flirtation.”

  “Something like that,” she agreed. “It would probably be more believable if you were hitting on Maggie, or even Lori, but neither of them are interested in finding out what’s going on with Landon. Maggie thinks I’m letting my imagination run away with me and Lori just doesn’t care, so neither of them would go along with it. Not that I’d want them to, anyway. I’m the one who noticed something off with the guy, and I want to find out for myself if my instincts were right again.”

  He followed her somewhat disjointed plan easily enough, apparently, though one comment seemed to particularly intrigue him. “Why would it be more believable if I was interested in your cousin or your sister? And by the way, I don’t hit on young college students, regardless.”

  Nice to know, she thought. “Guys tend to notice Maggie. Well, when Hannah’s not around, anyway. Hannah’s the one who makes men walk into walls.”

  “And what about you?” he asked, studying her face a little too closely.

  Shelby shrugged. “I’m everyone’s pal. But just for the next few days, maybe you could pretend to flirt with me? That would give me a reason to hang around here some—if you don’t mind, that is?”

  “I wouldn’t mind at all having you hang around me. And I don’t think it would be such a hardship to flirt with you.”

  She giggled in response to his tone. “Thanks. I could probably use the practice. It’s been a while since...”

  She shook her head. “Anyway, we could kill several birds with one stone this way. We can keep an eye on Landon and if I’m right that he’s using our resort for his own shady purposes, my family will have to admit that my instincts about people are better than they think. And I have to confess that having a good-looking guy like you flirting with me would be good for my ego. The family’s been worried that my last boyfriend broke my heart when he dum—er, when we broke up a few months ago.”

  “Did he break your heart?”

  Shelby sighed gustily. “No, he did not. Maybe he bruised my pride a little—I mean, I sort of selfishly wish I’d been the one to break it off first, but it was bound to happen eventually, anyway. Pete felt stifled by having my family around all the time, and he was impatient with my responsibilities to the resort, which keep me pretty busy. But if I spend a little time with you, and then politely break it off with you, they’ll see that I’m in no hurry to get hooked up with anyone else. That I’m perfectly content with my life the way it is for now. That makes sense, right?”

  “So, you’re going to shoot me down in front of your family in order to convince them that you aren’t looking for a man in your life.”

  She winced, but he seemed more amused than annoyed. “Well, yes. I guess that’s a lot to ask.”

  “I’m starting to get used to it.” Sitting sideways in the passenger seat, one arm draped behind him as he watched her, Aaron cocked his head. “Is everything an elaborate scheme with you?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Not everything.”

  Looking away from his too-perceptive gaze, she saw the blinds twitch in the front window of Cabin Seven. “I think Landon is spying on us!” she said indignantly.

  Aaron’s laugh held an edge of recklessness. “Then maybe we should give him something worth seeing.”

  Before Shelby could question the comment, she found herself in Aaron’s arms, her mouth smothered by his.

  His lips were firm, warm, and there was just a hint of roughness to his chin, as if it had been several hours since he’d shaved. He smelled good, male and spicy. Her hands rested on his chest, but she had to make an effort not to wrap her arms around his neck and yank him across the console of the car.

  Considering the explosions it ignited inside her, the kiss didn’t actually last all that long. Aaron drew back with a smile. “That should give him something to think about.”

  It would certainly give her something to think about—perhaps even to dream about, she
thought with a gulp. “Um—yeah.”

  “Good night, Shelby. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Aaron,” she replied, somewhat surprised that her wildly tingling lips would even form coherent words.

  He climbed out of the car and strolled to his front door with neither a glance toward the neighboring cabin nor back toward her. After a moment, Shelby roused herself to start her car and back carefully out of the drive.

  Chapter Four

  Aaron stepped out of his cabin at just before seven the next morning, filling his lungs with the crisp breeze coming off the lake. Though a few thin clouds drifted across the pale morning sky, it was going to be another beautiful day. It was already warm, but comfortably so this early. From the water came the growl of boat motors as fishermen headed out for their anticipated catch.

  Carrying his fishing rod in one hand and tackle box in the other, he headed for the marina. He wore jeans and a gray pocket T-shirt with battered sneakers. A Texas Rangers ball cap shielded his face from the rising sun, though he hadn’t yet donned the sunglasses tucked into his shirt pocket.

  The marina smelled of fuel, exhaust and vaguely of fish, a combination that took him back to fishing outings of the past. He didn’t see Shelby’s uncle Bryan, but a man who bore a strong familial resemblance was sweeping the pier with a push broom. The man looked around when Aaron approached, giving him a thorough once-over.

  “You must be Andrew’s brother,” he drawled. “Heard about you.”

  “And you must be Bryan’s brother,” Aaron responded with a faint smile. “I heard about you, too.”

  “Carl Jr. But you can call me C.J. Been nicknamed that since I was a kid.”

  Aaron nodded. “Nice to meet you, C.J.”

  “Everyone says you’re as likable as your brother—well, everyone except Pop, who seems to think you are your brother.”

  “So I gathered.” Chuckling, Aaron set down his tackle box. “Bryan invited me to fish with him this morning. Have you seen him yet?”