Bait & Switch (26 page)

“I know you saw me last night at the boat landing.”

Her lips parted. Was that what this was all about?

“It was your octopus broach. It glows.” He stopped, paced from one side of the room to the other, and dropped into the chair she’d been sitting in before he’d arrived. It was probably still warm from her body heat. “I don’t blame you for following me. I should have told you what I was doing, but the truth is I don’t know.”

He paused and shook his head. “Hell, I usually don’t know what I’m doing. Or why I’m doing it.” He let out an unamused laugh. “That’s the first time I’ve ever admitted that to anybody.”

Lizabeth wanted to believe he considered her important enough to confide in, but she wouldn’t let herself. If she meant anything to him, he wouldn’t have lied about being his brother. And she wouldn’t be hurting this badly.

“I know it looks bad, but it’s not what you think.” Again, he laughed that cheerless laugh. “Hell, maybe it is what you think. I don’t know what’s inside those crates, so how would I know?”

“What are you doing here?” Lizabeth’s voice was scratchy from disuse. Up to this point, he’d done almost all the talking.

He ran his fingers through his disheveled hair and his hands over the lower half of his unshaved face. “I suppose I’m trying to get you to think of me as one of the good guys.”

The smile he flashed her was a shadow of its former self but still potent enough to make her heart turn over. She ruthlessly commanded her heart to stay in place.

“Imagine that,” she said, aiming for sarcasm. “And here I was having a hard enough time thinking of you as Grant’s identical-twin brother.”

His smile disappeared, his shoulders dropped and she heard him expel a heavy breath.

“I know you’re Cary so don’t bother to deny it. The juggling was the clincher, but I should have figured it out before then.” She would have if she hadn’t been so blinded by how she thought she felt about him.

“I wasn’t going to deny it,” he said softly, but she didn’t believe that either.

“I suppose now you’ll say you intended to tell me you were Cary but hadn’t gotten around to it.” She hated the way her voice cracked but there was no help for it. Not when her heart was breaking, too.

“Nope.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid I’m not that noble.”

“I don’t understand.” She swallowed hard. “Aren’t you going to deny you pretended to be your brother because you figured out how I felt about him?”

“Why should I deny it when it’s the truth?” His blue eyes fastened on hers. “You liked my brother. That was a sure thing. I didn’t have any guarantee you’d like me.”

“So you admit you used my feelings for your brother to get me into bed?”

He swallowed and an unreadable expression crossed his face. “If I had any sense, I’d say that wasn’t my intention. But I won’t insult you. Especially because it was pretty clear right from the first that I wanted to make love to you.”

“But that’s. . .” Lizabeth paused, trying to come up with a word powerful enough to convey her horror.

“Despicable?” He suggested. “Underhanded? Contemptible?”

“Yes,” she bit out. “I can’t believe you’re not trying to defend yourself.”

His teeth flashed, but it wasn’t really a smile.

“How can I? I’m not my brother, Leeza. I’m not loyal. I’m not dependable. I’m not trustworthy. Hell, I’ve spent the last week helping smuggle crates out of Key West. That’s what kind of man I am.”

“But how could you have lied to me about who you were?”

He got up and walked across the room with a powerful, masculine grace, stopping inches shy of her. He bent down and cupped her cheek, filling her senses with his touch. Her heart hammered and, no matter what he’d done, she was powerless to resist him.

“I lied because I wanted you from the first moment I saw you,” he said softly, staring into her eyes. “And I knew that if my brother was your type, then I wouldn’t be.”

Something inside her softened at his words. She thought of how wonderful he was with the children on the baseball team, of how contagious his smile and spontaneity were, of how self-assured she’d started to feel in his company. She opened her mouth to tell him he should think more of himself, but he placed two fingers against her lips.

“Don’t say anything, Leeza. I know I’m not worthy of you. I could never be the kind of man you want. That man wouldn’t do what I’m about to do.”

He removed his fingers from her lips, leaned down and brought his mouth to hers. His lips were soft, moving over hers with something that felt like reverence, giving her no choice but to open her mouth and kiss him back. The moment she did, he drew back with a sad smile.

“Goodbye, love,” he said, staring into her eyes.

Then he turned and in moments was gone, leaving her sitting there with the Key West sunshine at her back.

He’d claimed he could never be the man she wanted, and he shouldn’t be. Not after the elaborate deception he’d pulled off.

So why did she have the suspicion that, despite everything, Cary Mitchell was exactly who and what she wanted?

CARY SUCKED IN A BREATH and walked through the door to the main Key West police station on Angela Street, in the heart of Key West’s historic district.

He might have lost the courage it had taken him all day and half the night to gather and turned back around if the drag queen from last night’s sunset celebration hadn’t been leaning one of his hard-boned hips against the reception desk. The drag queen let out a loud whistle.

“Will you look at the piece of eye candy the wind just blew in?” he asked the desk sergeant, a paunchy middle-aged man who looked like he’d be on the verge of pulling out his hair if his head wasn’t shaved. “Five’ll get you ten you’ll listen to
his
complaint.”

“Only if he complains about something more substantial than his evening gowns getting ripped off his clothes line.”

The drag queen harrumphed so powerfully a piece of paper on the reception counter fluttered into the air and back down again. “Those gowns
are
substantial! Do you know how hard it is to find a stylish dress in a size twenty-two?”

“About as hard as finding a thief to fit into it,” the desk sergeant muttered. “Why’d you have those dresses on the clothes line anyway?”

“They were smoky, and smoke isn’t sexy. Now what you gonna do about it?”

The sergeant sighed. “I’ll send an officer to take a look. That’s all I can do, Bubba.”

The drag queen balanced his broad hands on the counter and leaned forward. His yellow dress was so shiny Cary thought it might blind the officer. “I told you not to call me that anymore. The name’s Xanadu now.”

Xanadu straightened to his full lofty height and clomped to the door, pausing to give Cary a come-hither smile.

“Hey, there, handsome. I’ll be performing in about an hour at Club Cockatiel.” He blew a kiss out of lips that seemed to have undergone collagen injections. “You don’t want to miss it.”

Cary could have debated that, but there wasn’t much point. If the next few minutes went the way he suspected they would, he wouldn’t be free to go anywhere tonight but a jail cell.

“How can I help you?” the desk sergeant asked.

Cary hesitated. It wasn’t too late to claim he’d made a mistake and disappear into the tropical night. Nobody would blame him. Everybody knew he wasn’t the twin who was cut out to be a Boy Scout.

“Actually, I, uh, don’t have anything you can help me with.” Ignoring the speculation on the sergeant’s face, Cary turned around and went back outside, where he expected to be able to breathe again.

But his chest tightened and the glow of the moon reminded him of the night before, when Leeza had spied on him and found out what kind of man he was. He thought about the way she’d looked that morning, her beautiful face cloaked in sadness, her dark eyes filled with disappointment.

“Aw, hell,” Cary muttered and turned back around. He marched back up to the reception desk. “I’m here to report a crime.”

“What kind of a crime?” the sergeant asked.

“I don’t know,” Cary said.

“How can you not know?”

“I will know,” Cary said, then drew in a breath. After this, there would be no turning back. “As soon as you open the crates in the trunk of my SUV.”

AFTER HE POPPED THE TRUNK, Cary stood between two uniformed cops as the three of them considered the heavy crates he and Captain Turk had loaded into the SUV the night before.

“You’re saying you don’t know what’s inside?” asked the taller of the two cops, cracking his gum so loudly it sounded as if someone had set off a firecracker.

Cary tried not to jump, although his insides were bouncing. “That’s right.”

Aside from the traffic noise, the only sound was the officer’s teeth coming together as he chomped on his wad of gum. He looked long and hard at Cary. “And you were supposed to deliver them to a warehouse in Miami last night?”

“Sure was.” Cary kept his voice light, as though he wasn’t the least concerned that he was about to give up twenty-eight years of freedom. “That’s where I took the other crates.”

“Why didn’t you take these, too?” The question came from the shorter cop, who wasn’t nearly as pleasant as his tall buddy. Even though the only light came from a street lamp, his eyes were shaded with the sort of black sunglasses men wore when they’d stayed out too late partying the night before. Cary should know. He’d used that trick plenty of times himself.

“My conscience wouldn’t let me.” Cary made himself shrug, as though he discussed his conscience every day.
 

The little cop snorted and reached for one of the crates, which his partner helped him hoist to the parking-lot pavement. He pulled out a crowbar and looked up at Cary. “Well, Mr. Good Citizen, let’s see what your
conscience
has been letting you smuggle into Miami.”

The splintering sound of the crate being opened ripped into Cary like the slash of a knife, and he was tempted to use the speed God had given him to dash for his freedom. But then he’d have to add coward to the slate of reasons he didn’t deserve Leeza Drinkmiller. Figuring the list was already long enough, he stayed where he was and pretended the contents of his stomach weren’t rising with the top of the crate.

At the last second, he closed his eyes against the truth in the crate.

“What are those things?” the tall cop asked.

“Looks like they’ve been underwater,” came the gruff cop’s answer, and Cary’s stomach fell. He’d driven by the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Society and Museum. He knew all about Shipwreck Trail and Key West’s rich legacy of preserving history through the artifacts found on those unfortunate ships that had gone down in the waters off its coast.

He’d been aiding Captain Turk in plundering history. Maybe even in stripping one of those seventeenth-century Spanish galleons treasure hunters like Fisher had treated with such veneration.

“Looks like action figures to me,” the tall cop said. Cary’s eyes snapped open. The officer reached into the crate and pulled out a plastic doll dressed the same way Captain Turk did. “Hey, isn’t this the guy from Star Trek?”

“Star Quest,” Cary corrected. At the officers’ puzzled look, he explained, “It was a spinoff of Star Trek.”

“A spinoff? Looks to me like it was a rip-off.” The gruff cop pulled out a Sprock doll, complete with pointed ears. He turned to his partner. “Hey, remember that insurance scandal back in the ‘80s involving a ship carrying a shipment of toys? The cargo was insured for far more than it was worth. Maybe these dolls are from that wreck.”

Cary moved closer to make sure there weren’t any ancient Spanish coins inside the crate. All he could see was more plastic, including a replica of the U.S.S. Surprise.

“Does this mean you’re not going to arrest me?” Cary asked.

“For what?” The short cop asked, straightening. “Stupidity?”

The tall cop cocked his head, gesturing Cary away from his partner. They walked a few paces before he said, “We’ll check the rest of the crates but my guess is they include more of the same. Somebody obviously located a shipwreck, but it doesn’t seem to contain anything of historical significance.”

“Isn’t plundering against the law?”

“Whoever’s behind all this should have gotten a permit before he excavated. I’ll need you to give us his name, but he’ll probably get off with a fine.” The cop frowned. “If he thinks Star Quest action figures are valuable, I’d venture to say this guy is probably not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.”

Cary thought of Captain Turk’s theory about the Press-ons who could ingest ozone and nodded.

“How about me?” Cary asked. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Nothing,” the cop said. “You probably would’ve been okay even if we had found something illegal. You came to us.”

Cary thought of his brother advising him to go to the authorities when he’d found out about the mess Cary had created in Charleston.

“You guys give credit for things like that?” Cary asked.

“Sure do,” the cop said and smiled. “We tend to like guys who do the right thing.”

With that, he turned back to his partner, who was ripping open another crate. The cop’s parting words rang in Cary’s mind.

Do the right thing
.

Suddenly, the right thing seemed so simple. Why, Cary wondered, had it taken him so long to figure out what it was?

Mitch opened his eyes and reluctantly rolled away from the warmth of Peyton’s sleeping body to grope for the ringing phone.

He wondered if masquerading as his brother had resulted in so much bad karma that his punishment was being repeatedly woken up from a sound sleep. At least this awakening had a different twist. Usually, he was jarred out of dreamland by a doorbell.

“Yeah,” he said into the receiver, his eyes at half-mast.

“Hey, bro. It’s good to finally hear your voice.”

“Cary.” Mitch came instantly awake.

Peyton stirred beside him and turned over on her side. Her eyes cracked open. “Who’s that?” she asked drowsily.

Oh, no
, Mitch thought as his stomach pitched. Had Cary heard Peyton ask the question? Worse, had Peyton heard Mitch greet his brother by name?