But when Luke had said something about looking like an “actual couple,” it hit her.
It would be easier for everyone if she had a date. Her standing alone on the edge of the dance floor would only make everyone feel bad. If only her parents were alive, maybe it would be easier to be in Bridgett’s shadow again. But it was just her standing at the sidelines. And, she didn’t know what history Luke had, but he seemed to need to be her date.
Maybe he’d been in love with Bridgett. Wouldn’t that be fun? She and Luke could stand together in the shadows and watch the bride and groom dance.
Maybe he was just what she needed. A guy who didn’t expect anything, who just needed someone to stand next to when the lights dimmed. Yes, they could work together.
And she didn’t want to make trouble, not again. So yes, she would pretend, for Bridgett’s sake.
She’d simply ignore the fact that for a second—a long second—after he’d picked up her bag and carried it all the way to the top deck, after he’d settled on the bench beside her and the sea breeze had carried his strong and spicy scent, after he’d spoken to her in soft, almost gentle tones, she’d wanted him to really be her date.
Thankfully, she wasn’t so foolish to think he was actually interested.
After all, she had learned her lesson with Duncan. A smart girl would have realized that in the two years Duncan spent being her friend, meeting her for coffee and learning to ballroom dance with her, he’d never once looked at her the way he looked at Bridgett, her beautiful sister, when she walked through the doors of the church.
Fresh off the runways of Milan, burnt out and needing a vacation.
In fact, no one ever looked at Scarlett the way they looked at Bridgett—not even their parents—but she thought she’d become used to that.
Until Duncan did it.
Yes, she knew what it felt like to be an afterthought, to disappear. So maybe she’d even enjoy having a man as handsome as Luke on her arm, even if it wasn’t for real. Bridgett would be thrilled if Scarlett showed up on Luke’s arm, her smile tucked into place. And this weekend was all about Bridgett, right? Besides, she could enjoy pretending, as long as she knew it was just a game. She’d been a theater major, after all.
Thankfully, the charade didn’t have to start until tomorrow, according to the note her sister had left in her room inviting her to the dinner cruise, which she’d already missed. Scarlett left her a voice mail message in case her absence worried Bridgett.
She wouldn’t hold her breath.
She stood on the balcony of her cottage, watching the sea hit the reef, break into a thousand shimmering pieces and crash onto the rocks.
She knew how that felt, to shatter into so many pieces you couldn’t find them all. It happened the day Bridgett showed up on Duncan’s arm to the church singles group. And the day she told Scarlett that she “just might stick around Rochester.”
Duncan is a dentist! Scarlett wanted to scream as Bridgett climbed into her BMW, leaving her standing in the parking lot beside her rusty Sunbird. But Bridgett probably already knew that, because she introduced him to their Aunt Gretchen as Dr. Browne.
And then came the day when Bridgett moved off Scarlett’s sofa and found her own condo.
Just over six months later, she and Duncan announced their engagement.
A seagull cried, dipping into the ocean for a morsel.
Scarlett should probably breathe in these few moments of peace before Bridgett and her bridal party—the ones who the bride really wanted to attend—returned.
If she’d had Bridgett’s wedding dress in her possession, she might be tempted to simply hang it on her sister’s door and take the midnight ferry back to the mainland. Bridgett didn’t really want her anyway—just her organizational services. Scarlett replayed the voice mail in her mind. Scarlett, my new maid of honor broke her leg in Vail. She can’t attend the wedding. Is there any way you could fill in?
Her new maid of honor. Scarlett had been the old maid of honor—with the big mouth.
There is so much left to do—organize the bachelorette day and bring my dress and the maid-of-honor dress, not to mention work with the wedding planner at the resort. Besides, I’m sorry. Really, I want you there. Please come.
Really. Scarlett must have been some sort of chump to call her back for details, let alone say yes.
Sure, Bridgett, I’ll be glad to help. Let me just board my cat, take a leave of absence, drive to Minneapolis in a blizzard to pick up your dress and while I’m at it, maybe I can also plan your honeymoon—
Everyone just needs to calm down. Her own words. She breathed them in as she stood at her balcony in the warm air. She could get used to the ocean, so many shades of blue. On the ferry, she’d watched the mainland shrink, turning her gaze to the ocean floor as it slid by. The coral reefs, ledges and ripples seemed so close she wanted to dip her feet in. She’d pushed up her sleeves, letting her white skin see the sun for the first time in months.
She’d get a tan here, no matter what it took.
Sitting on the bed, she toed off her Uggs. The tile floor cooled her boiling feet. She probably needed a nap.
Or a shower.
She picked up the cute towel swan on her bed, holding it in her hand. She could get used to this place. Maybe she could find a job here—after all, after ten years of temping, she knew how to fit in, make things happen quickly.
A skill, apparently, that had netted her this fun-filled weekend.
And no matter what anyone else said, she wouldn’t call her reluctance to get a “real” job an inability to commit. She just liked change, that was all. And, well, she’d never found the one thing that she truly loved to do.
The shower cleaned from her the grime of the last sixteen hours. She found a blue sundress, one she’d worn maybe once and grabbed in a hurry, crumpled at the bottom of her carry-on. Maybe she could order room service. Or better, she’d venture out, under the glow of the stars, to the all-inclusive seafood dinner at the cabana. Then she’d park herself under one of those grass-covered umbrellas by the shore, under a tiki lamp, and lose herself in a book. Again.
She didn’t even want to think about what Luke, her overachieving plus-one, might be doing.
Off her balcony, twilight had just begun to darken the ocean to an inky blue. Unseen seagulls cried against the surf. The smell of the sea drifted inside.
A night made for romance. Of course, her novel was the only romance she could count on. Not that she really wanted romance, but wouldn’t it be nice if she could have a happily-ever-after? With a real-life hero, the kind she might find in her novel? Someone charming and strong, who saw her for the girl she wanted to be—if she could ever figure who that was?
The sultry air had clearly overheated her brain.
She put on a little makeup and was tying up her still-damp hair when she heard the knock.
Maybe Bridgett had returned and gotten her message.
As she opened the door her breath stopped, right there, caught in her chest.
So. Luke didn’t play fair.
He stood under the glow of her porch light, looking freshly showered, his burnished golden-brown hair still wet, clean shaven and wearing a pair of black dress pants and a white silk shirt open at the neck. And he even smelled good.
“What?” Oh, she had a nicer side, really. She softened her tone. “Sorry. I mean, can I help you?”
He grinned, as if she should be expecting him. “Hey. I know you probably thought we weren’t on for tonight, but I got a note from the bride. She wants us to meet her on the boat.”
“She does? I called and left her a message—the cruise already left.”
“I know, but I found us a ride out to the yacht.” He held out his arm. “Would you be so kind as to accompany me to dinner, Miss Scarlett?”
THREE
Scarlett sat in the back of the motorboat Luke had hired to take them out to sea, his words lingering like a song she couldn’t get out of her mind.
Would you be so kind as to accompany me to dinner, Miss Scarlett?
He’d turned on the charm, and for a second there, she’d just about let his voice go right to her head.
Yes, Luke. Thank you. Had she really taken his arm? She’d walked an entire ten feet before she came to her senses.
This wasn’t a date. She wasn’t living in her romance novel, having met a mysterious man at a destination wedding who would sweep her off her feet and into a new life.
Instead, this was the man her sister had finagled into wooing her for the weekend, a man who had no real interest in her. After three days her name would stir nothing more than indigestion, so she’d better keep that in the forefront of her brain.
A game. She was just playing a game.
Sometimes her ability to fling herself into her fantasies just made her want to roll her eyes.
She turned into the wind. Her hair lashed her cheeks in the salty air, and although she huddled in her ski jacket—she didn’t care that she looked like a frumpy Minnesotan—her bare legs had turned to blocks of ice. Her sister had better be happy to see her after all this.
Luke sat across from her, outlined by the moonlight as the boat motored through waves toward the sprinkling of yacht lights in the distance.
Admittedly, he’d won this round. Not only had she taken his proffered arm, but she’d had no words to rebuff him, because he had gone to the trouble of getting her to her sister’s dinner party.
As if he might be a bona fide gentleman.
“Why did she leave you a note and not me?” she shouted above the sound of the motor.
“Maybe she did. You were in a big hurry to get to your room.” He grinned.
She yanked a thick chunk of hair from where it had lodged in her mouth.
“You look nice tonight, by the way.” Luke’s voice lifted above the motor’s roar, and she glanced at him. He nodded too enthusiastically, like her response to his invitation had gone to his head.
Not a date. Not a date. “You, too.”
The lights began to take form, and as the yacht came into view, Scarlett had to admit that international modeling must pay pretty well. The yacht resembled a small cruise ship, with three brightly lit decks rising from the sea to an observation deck…and was that a helicopter? Talk about overkill. But Bridgett never did anything in a small way.
No wonder Duncan fell so easily for her—no, that wasn’t fair. Duncan happened to be a great guy, a man of faith and principles. He wasn’t marrying her sister for her money.
Or her beauty.
But was she marrying him because he was some safe rebound after her race-car driving or soccer-playing boy friends?
Scarlett glanced at Luke, suddenly glad that she didn’t have to walk into dinner alone.
Coward.
Oh, yes. She even found a smile for Luke as the boat eased up to the stern of the yacht where they could disembark onto the deck. The motorboat seemed a toy next to the hulking ship. Two deckhands—bull-size men with the look of the sea about them—held the boat as Luke stepped out. He pulled her up behind him.
“Here we go,” he whispered as he helped her up the steps onto the aft deck.
A little too much help, if anyone asked her, but she let him keep his hand on the small of her back anyway, just because the bigger of the two men stopped them, holding a metal detector.
And in his waistband…was that a gun? She glanced at Luke. To her surprise, he held up his hands.
Then the deckhand stepped forward and wanded him. Luke just let him, as if this might be something he expected.
Then the man stepped over to her and motioned for her to remove her jacket.
“What is this?” She backed away but Luke shook his head ever so slightly.
What on earth?
She glared at the man as Luke helped her slip off her jacket, then stood back as the man ran the wand over her, too. C’mon, it wasn’t as though she could hide anything in a dress with spaghetti straps. The whole process made her feel dirty.
And even a little betrayed by Luke, who settled the jacket back over her shoulders and reached for her hand. But how pitiful had she become that she practically leaped when he offered it? Yes, she was a coward.
He pulled her close and curled her against him. “I know I don’t need to say this, but you’re truly a professional.”
She had never been more offended in her life. Who, exactly, did he think she was? Just wait until she found Bridgett.
She heard the party going on somewhere in front of them, laughter drifting down from the deck above. She’d never been on a boat this size, however, and she took her time walking along the side deck, watching the lights splash on the dark ocean, getting her sea legs.
“This must have cost a fortune,” she murmured.
“I think the family can afford it,” Luke said, still holding her hand, walking in front of her.
“No, really, I don’t think they can.”
He glanced back at her, the slightest frown on his face. They emerged on the bow of the yacht where a band played steel drums, filling the night with a tropical beat. A couple of waiters held trays of pretty drinks and dark-haired women in dresses that certainly wouldn’t have needed the wand danced together while men lounged on the chairs, laughing and smoking cigars.
Uh, maybe there was more than one wedding party on this ship. “She’s not here. I think we have the wrong group,” Scarlett said into Luke’s ear.
She didn’t let go of his hand, however. And bless him, he didn’t let go of hers, either. See, he was a gentleman after all. She might decide to like him, just for now, despite the coerced dating.
He stopped a waiter and asked him something in Spanish. She tried to catch it but he had a much better grasp of the language than she did, clearly, because he talked so quickly she got nothing. The waiter gestured up another deck.
“She’s in her stateroom waiting for us,” Luke said and pulled her toward the stairs.
Stateroom?
They found another group partying on the deck above. Not a familiar face here, either. She let Luke drag her to the back of the boat.
As he knocked on the stateroom door, she turned and stood for a moment, staring out at the mysterious black sea, the stars pinpricks on the undulating surface. The music, the flicker of lightning in the distance, the low tremble of thunder—she had entered a different world. “I can’t believe Bridgett rented this. I mean, she’s normally over the top, but—”
“What?” Luke sidled up beside her just as the door opened.
Scarlett turned, expecting Bridgett. Instead, a woman with dark hair, wide brown eyes and very red lips stood in the doorway. She was petite, beautiful and wearing an off-white silk gown that left nearly nothing to the imagination.
The woman glanced at Luke, then her gaze landed on Scarlett. What looked frighteningly like relief crossed her face.
“Finally,” she said. Then she reached out and put her arms around Scarlett, hugging her as if she might be her long-lost friend. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Something didn’t feel right. Luke couldn’t put his finger on it, but ever since they boarded the yacht—from the panic on her face when Sanchez’s men wanded her, to her more-than-friendly grip on his hand, to the way her eyes widened when Lucia threw her arms around her—something about Scarlett seemed off.
She had been briefed, right? And it seemed that when she’d slid her hand onto his arm back at the resort, she’d even settled into their charade, had put on her game face.
Lucia grabbed Scarlett’s hand and pulled her inside.
Luke followed and shut the door behind them. Wow, the drug business paid well. His tiny flat in Prague that he shared with Brody Wickham—he might be displaced soon, thanks to Brody’s recent engagement to pop sensation Vonya—would fit three times over in Lucia’s living room alone. Closed doors probably led to a bedroom and more. The place looked as if it should be in a showroom or a catalogue—a seafoam-blue sofa and
overstuffed chair, cherrywood end tables, a giant flat screen on which played a soccer game. Opulence purchased with drug money.
The lavish setting probably accounted for Scarlett’s wide-eyed look, which she cast first at Luke, then back at Lucia.
He tried to dismiss this sense that something wasn’t quite right.
“I don’t understand,” Scarlett said softly.
Nope, there was no ignoring it any longer. Especially after Scarlett let go of his hand and said to the bride, the woman she’d been hired to protect, “Who are you?”
Who are you?
“This is Lucia, Scarlett. Lucia…the bride?” Luke said as calmly as he could.
Scarlett put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back, her voice low. The wild look in her eyes—something between panic and fury, only tightened the knot in his gut. “I know the bride. This is not her. And I’m starting to wonder exactly who you are.”
“I’m your…fiancé?”
She went white, put her hand to her chest, swallowed and stepped away from him. “Okay, what is going on here?” She took another step back toward the door, and Luke had no choice but to cut her off.
“Stop.” He put his hand up and she flinched.
Oh, man. The sudden flare of fear in her eyes made him feel awful. “Listen, you are Stacey Meyer, right? From Denver? You know, my bride-to-be?”
After seeing the look on her face, he didn’t know who to feel more sorry for—her, or himself. Because clearly he’d come to the wedding with the wrong date.
She drew in a breath, glanced at Lucia and then back at him. “My name is Scarlett Hanson, and I’m here for my sister Bridgett’s wedding.” Her voice had a sort of high twang to it. “But I think maybe you didn’t know that, did you?”
He looked at Lucia, who had frozen. Who, in fact, might not even be breathing. “Lucia, everything is going to be fine—”
“Who is this woman?” Lucia asked, her voice shaking.
“I picked her up at the airport. I thought she was my contact—”
“Picked me up? Picked me up? Oh…oh, you listen here—whoever you are. You were in my cab, thank you very much, and you were supposed to be my date, not the other way around, so let’s just rethink who picked who up, shall we?”
Undercover Pursuit Page 3
