Trouble In Triplicate

by Barbara Boswell

  Juliet didn't care for his phrasing. "One of the others," he'd said, and rather scornfully too! As if she were part of a litter or something!

  "If you want to see me, I'm free now," she said coldly.

  There was a long pause on Caine's end of the line. "All right . . . Miranda. It's quite important that I speak with you. I'll be right over."

  She was nervous, Juliet conceded as she glanced into the bathroom mirror a few minutes later. She picked up a comb and ran it through her hair. Even as she was applying her makeup she was admonishing herself for doing it. Why should she care what she looked like for this meeting with Caine Saxon? She resolutely refused to answer that silent question.

  She was wearing a pair of tight, faded jeans and a navy University of Virginia sweat shirt with the sleeves cut off to the elbow, and she wondered if she should change clothes. And immediately decided against it. She had to draw the line somewhere! She would not get dressed tip for a Saxon!

  Fifteen minutes later she peered out the window to see a canary yellow Ferrari pull up in front of the Posts' small frame house. Caine Saxon climbed out, moving with the lithe grace of a natural athlete. Juliet watched him as he strode purposefully up the front walk. He was wearing jeans, too, and a white polo shirt bearing the Pittsburgh Steelers logo. Shades of past glory, Juliet thought with a sniff. But she couldn't seem to take her eyes from him as he walked to her door.

  He was so big, at least six-foot-four, and his body was powerfully built, all hard muscled strength without an ounce of excess weight. The body of a professional athlete still, although he'd retired from his position as wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers at the end of last season. This was his first fall as a Charlottesville restaurateur, and she wondered briefly how he was adjusting to the change in life-style. Miserably, she hoped with a flash of venom. She hoped that his perfidious brother Grant was miserable too!

  She opened the front door just as he was about to knock, and they stared at each other in silence for a long moment. Caine Saxon was handsome, Juliet admitted grudgingly. In addition to that tall, masculine frame, nature had blessed him with thick dark hair the color of burnished chestnut, and the most unusually colored eyes that she had ever seen. They were a dark yellow-brown, an intriguing amber color that reminded her of a cat's eyes. He had a strong, square jaw and a well-shaped mouth. Bobby Lee had once remarked that Caine Saxon looked like the cowboy hero in one of those old Western movies.

  But he was no hero, Juliet reminded herself sternly. He was a rat by association with his brother.

  "Miranda?" Caine asked uncertainly.

  "Or one of the others impersonating her?" she said waspishly.

  "I'm sorry about that." He looked a bit sheepish. "But I had to know if I really was talking to Miranda. You see, I'm very worried about my brother."

  Juliet froze. "Has—has something happened to Grant?" As much as she loathed the man for what he'd done to her sister, she didn't really wish him physical harm, Juliet realized with some surprise.

  "May I come in? I don't care to discuss it on the front porch."

  Juliet led him into the small living room and sat down on the blue-and-yellow-striped couch. When Caine sat down beside her she resisted the urge to move to another chair across the room. It was because he was so big and she was so hostile to him that she was so disconcertingly aware of him sitting beside her, she told herself. He seemed to dwarf the couch, the entire room, by his presence.

  "What happened to Grant?" she asked, her voice suddenly breathless.

  "You happened to Grant, Miranda. He fell in love with you and planned to spend the rest of his life with you. And then, without rhyme or reason, you called off the wedding."

  "Without rhyme or reason? The fact that he spent a weekend in Richmond with another woman two weeks before the wedding isn't rhyme or reason enough?"

  "Miranda, do you know that until last night Grant didn't know why you'd broken your engagement? You refused to speak to him—you returned his ring by mail and left a message on his answering machine that you never wanted to see him again. He's tried and tried to see you, to talk to you, but you and your sisters haven't let him near you."

  "There was nothing he could say that—"

  "Do you realize that if I hadn't talked to that spitfire sister of yours, he still wouldn't know why you'd called off the wedding? I told him last night that the reason you broke up with him was because he had allegedly spent an illicit weekend in Richmond with another woman."

  " 'Allegedly' ?" Juliet echoed crossly. "There was nothing alleged about it, mister!"

  "How do you know, Miranda? You never gave the man a chance to explain. You tried, convicted, and sentenced him without ever hearing him out."

  Juliet thought about that. She'd urged Randi to confront Grant, but her sister couldn't bear the thought of seeing him, of hearing his lies. Randi had never been one to quarrel. Arguing and tension and raised voices could literally make her sick. She'd avoided confrontations all her life, and neither Juliet nor Olivia had had the heart to force one upon her at this most stressful time in her life.

  "Miranda, Grant was devastated by this breakup. I've never seen him like this. For the past month he hasn't been sleeping well or eating well, and—"

  "Well, neither has—" Uh-oh, she'd almost said Randi. And she was supposed to be Randi! "—uh, have I," Juliet quickly corrected herself.

  Caine held her captive with his piercing amber gaze. She shifted uncomfortably, excruciatingly aware of the hard virility emanating from him. "Let me ask you just one more question, Miranda."

  He leaned forward slightly, and Juliet inhaled the fresh scent of him, a heady mixture of soap and after-shave and pure male. She swallowed and forced herself to refrain from skittering away from him. Randi wouldn't skitter. Randi would be utterly immune to the potent sensual effect generated by Grant's brother. It worried Juliet that she herself was not.

  "What's the question?" she asked, and her voice quavered, much to her annoyance.

  "How did you learn that Grant went to Richmond that weekend with another woman? You never confronted him with it. You simply mailed him your engagement ring and left that message on his machine."

  Juliet was on firm ground with this one. She knew the full story of Grant Saxon's treachery by heart. "We were catering a card party that Friday afternoon, and when we got home there was a message on our answering machine from your mother telling . . . me to call Grant. When I did I got his answering machine with the usual standard message. You know, Grant saying, 'I'm not here, please leave your name and number.' "

  Juliet paused for a breath. "So I called your mother's house and your sister Sophia answered. She was very evasive when I asked about Grant. She said he wasn't there, that she thought she'd heard him say that he was going away for the weekend, but that she wasn't sure."

  Juliet's eyes burned with a blue flame of anger. "Grant hadn't mentioned going away for the weekend. We—we had a date for that night! I thought maybe Sophia had gotten her facts mixed up, that maybe you were the one going away for the weekend, so we—the three of us—went down to your restaurant." Juliet paused, remembering the debacle that had followed. "Your mother was there. She was rather vague, but she did say that Grant had left that morning for Richmond."

  "And from that you deduced he'd gone with another woman?" Caine asked incredulously.

  "No, of course not! We assumed there must be some logical explanation—until Karen Wilbur called the next morning to say she'd seen Grant in the lobby of the Richmond Hilton the night before with a woman who wasn't Miranda!"

  Caine frowned. "Karen Wilbur, that gossipy little prune! I never understood how Sophia could stand her."

  "They've been best friends since junior high school," Juliet said. She didn't bother to add that she knew neither Sophia Saxon nor Karen Wilbur liked any of the Post triplets. They'd gone all through elementary school and junior and senior high schools together and had never been friends.

  "So, y
ou ended your engagement over a piece of spiteful gossip?"

  "No!" Juliet glared at him. "But I was upset"—A mild understatement. Randi had been nearly catatonic with worry.—"and so Bobby Lee called your mother's house and asked to speak to Grant. Sophia answered. She assumed that Bobby was a friend of Grant's, I suppose, and she told him that he'd taken someone named Darla Ditmayer to Richmond and wouldn't be back till Sunday."

  "Darla Ditmayer?"

  "Grant called a few hours later. He said that he'd driven to Petersburg to pick up some fresh produce for the restaurant and the truck had broken down. He said it was in a Petersburg garage and he wouldn't be able to make it back until Sunday."

  "Oh, boy!" Caine shook his head. "It sounds incriminating, all right. Poor Grant."

  "Poor Grant? That lowlife sneaked off for a weekend with that—that Darla Ditmayer person and then lied about it!"

  "Last night Grant told me that he'd never been unfaithful to you, Miranda."

  "And you believed him?"

  "Hell, why would he lie to me?"

  "Maybe he's a compulsive liar, I don't know. We do know he lied to Randi about the weekend."

  Caine tensed. "Wait a minute! You're supposed to be Randi!"

  "Well, I'm not!" Juliet folded her arms across her chest and glared at him. "I'm her spitfire sister."

  Chapter 2

  "Juliet?" Caine stared at her.

  "That's right."

  "Damn, I should have known!" He sprang to his feet. "You tricked me! How does a person deal with someone who comes in triplicate? How does anyone ever know who is who is who?" He began to pace the floor, talking more to himself than to Juliet.

  "It's downright eerie for three people to look like one! And it's unfair to everybody else! How can I be certain you're really Juliet? You could be Olivia for all I know. Or Miranda, pretending to be Juliet pretending to be Miranda!" He looked confused and flustered and utterly incensed.

  Juliet tried and failed to suppress a laugh. His indignation struck her as hilarious. "You would've had a real problem with the Dionne quintuplets," she said dryly. "There were Jive of them!"

  He gave her a ferocious scowl. "I like to keep the players straight on my game card."

  "Is that a football metaphor?" she teased.

  Caine's scowl grew even more fierce. He stopped pacing and turned to study her with accusing amber eyes. "Are you the same one I talked to on the phone earlier?"

  Juliet nodded blithely.

  "Why did you say you were Miranda? Or do the three of you make a practice of impersonating one another?"

  "Of course not!" She paused. "Not unless it's absolutely necessary," she added defensively, avoiding his piercing eyes.

  "I'd like to know what you deem a necessity. A dinner party? Why were the three of you dressed alike last night if not for the express purpose of confusing everyone?" he asked challengingly.

  "Last night we were working. Those are the only times we dress alike. It's a gimmick we use. People seem intrigued by having identical triplets as their caterers, so our dressing alike is part of the service. It serves as a conversation piece and it boosts our business. At least it did when we first started four years ago. Our reputation has grown and we've enough steady customers now that I think maybe we could dispense with it, but—"

  "You have too much fun driving people insane by playing guess who," he finished caustically. "Which doesn't explain why you masqueraded as your sister Miranda today."

  Juliet met his gaze. "I wanted to find out what you were up to and I wanted to spare Randi the ordeal of talking to you."

  "Talking to me is an ordeal?"

  "For Randi it would be. She doesn't need to listen to you plead your brother's case. I want to spare her any more hurt by any more Saxons."

  "Your sister hurt my brother, too, Juliet. I've never seen Grant so strung out over anyone or anything."

  Juliet sniffed. "If Grant loved Randi so much, then why would he go to Richmond with another woman two weeks before his wedding?"

  "He wouldn't." Caine sat back down, frowning. "I know my brother. Grant has never been a deceitful, manipulative womanizer. Neither have I," he added with a sharp glance at Juliet.

  "And I suppose all those photos of you and Grant with beauty contestants and Hollywood starlets and professional cheerleaders—the ones you have framed and hanging on the walls of your restaurant—I suppose those are all composite pictures? Because you and Grant have never—"

  "I didn't say we haven't. . . uh, dated women. Of course we have. Hell, I'm thirty-four years old and Grant is thirty-three. We'd be pretty strange guys if we'd reached these ages without some . . . er, experience with the opposite sex. But we've never lied or cheated or hurt a woman. We've always been honest in our relationships. We never made promises or commitments. We always made it plain we wanted good times without serious involvement."

  "Maybe you're both incapable of making a serious commitment. Grant certainly blew all the promises he made to Randi. Good-time Charlies like you and Grant should stick to the Good-Time Shirleys of the world!"

  Caine heaved an exasperated sigh. "The point I'm trying to make—and the point you keep missing—is that Grant didn't break faith with Miranda. I know the facts seem incriminating, but ..." His voice trailed off and he stared into space. "Something just doesn't ring true, Juliet. I sense a setup."

  She rolled her eyes heavenward. "I think you've been watching too many nighttime soap operas on TV. We're not the Ewings and the Carringtons, Saxon. Who would want to cause trouble between Grant and Randi?"

  Caine looked thoughtful. "The common thread running through the entire story seems to be"—he drew in his breath sharply—"my sister Sophia."

  "Sophia?" Juliet stared at him, thoroughly taken aback. Had he made some wild accusation involving herself or Olivia, she would've laughed it off—or told him off! But for him to mention his own sister . . .

  "Darla Ditmayer is the daughter of a friend of my mother's—and a friend of Sophia's as well. And Karen Wilbur, who called Miranda to report having seen Grant and Darla in Richmond, is Sophia's closest friend. It was Sophia herself who acted evasive over the telephone. And it was Sophia who told Bobby Lee Taggert that Grant was in Richmond with Darla."

  "It's probably just a string of coincidences. Why would Sophia want to wreck her brother's engagement?" Juliet couldn't fathom such a thing. It was difficult enough to believe that Caine was making this accusation against his own sister!

  "Maybe she didn't intend to wreck his engagement. Maybe she simply intended to cause a little misery for one of the Post triplets."

  "But—but why?"

  "My sister has a long list of grievances against you three dating back to your grade-school days. Being eight years older than Sophia, I was never much involved with her as a child, but I do recall her lamenting over how unfair it was that you Posts had been born a trio. You triplets always had a starring number in every dancing-school recital, you were always invited to every birthday party, you took up three places on the cheerleading squad, you took up three places at Mary Washington College, thus always eliminating Sophia ... or so she claimed."

  Juliet stared at him, momentarily bereft of speech. She and her sisters had never given Sophia Saxon a thought, and Sophia had held a grudge against them for being born triplets all these years? "It's too bizarre!" she managed to say at last. "It's easier to believe that Grant went to Richmond for a fling with Darla Ditmayer."

  "Not if you knew my brother as well as I know him." Caine frowned. "As well as your sister should have known him. She's displayed an appalling lack of trust in Grant. I don't know if she deserves another chance with him."

  "She doesn't want another chance with him, Saxon."

  Caine ignored her. "I'm going to have a little talk with my sister this afternoon. If she confirms my suspicions, I'll be in touch with you later, Juliet. I'm afraid it will be our job to get this engagement back on the track again."

  "Our job? Why on earth
would I want to help your lying, cheating brother get reengaged to my sister?"

  "Because he isn't a liar and a cheat. I neglected to mention one small fact to you, Juliet. On the weekend two weeks before his wedding. Grant did go to Petersburg to buy produce, and our truck did break down, forcing him to spend the weekend there. We have dated sales receipts to prove it."

  Juliet's eyes widened. "But—but even your mother said he was in Richmond."

  "Probably because that's what Sophia told her. And you can bet Sophia didn't mention the Darla Ditmayer part to Mom. There would've been too many questions asked."

  "Does your mother hate us too?" Juliet asked quietly.

  Caine shook his head. "No. She was quite pleased when Grant and Miranda got engaged. Another thorn in Sophia's side, I guess."

  Juliet sank down onto the sofa. "I can't believe Sophia would do anything so—so wicked."

  "You were quick enough to believe the worst about Grant," Caine pointed out. "You owe him, Juliet. You owe him the chance to clear himself with your sister." His face darkened. "Of course, there's always the risk that Grant won't want Miranda back. I know I wouldn't want a woman who had so little faith in me."

  "You don't understand," Juliet cried, quick to leap to her sister's defense. "It was as much a lack of faith in herself that made her believe Grant didn't want her. Randi has always been insecure about herself as 'an individual. She's always believed that people were only interested in her because she was an identical triplet. She couldn't believe that Grant Saxon—a big, handsome, rich pro football player—would actually want her! She thought he merely wanted to be seen with a Post triplet, that any one of us would do."

  "I remember Grant telling me about that. It frustrated the hell out of him." Caine flashed a sudden, devilish grin. "That and Miranda's virginity. But he got past both, didn't he? Her lack of self-confidence and her virginity."

  Juliet blushed scarlet. "I should have known you big-time lady-killers would indulge in locker room—style boasting!"