The Look-Alike Bride (Crimson Romance) (13 page)

She let Butch outside for a few moments, then let him back in. “If he’s eager to rush back home,” she told the dog, “you get to eat his share of the breakfast.”

Butch regarded her with serious attention. Perhaps he was planning an attack designed to speed Adam on his way back home to his own cabin, and that was assuming Adam didn’t already have an excuse to flee on the tip of his tongue.

“Good morning, angel,” Adam said.

She looked up from the frying pan. He stood in the door watching her as if he took enormous pleasure in just looking at her.

She smiled at him. “You’re lucky it’s morning. The only meal I really know how to cook is breakfast.”

“Too busy the rest of the day?” He came to her and slipped his arms around her from behind to nuzzle her neck.

“How did you ever guess?” Goose bumps traveled up and down her arms in the wake of his caress. “But I was taught that if you ate a really good breakfast, it would carry you all day long. My experience is that it’s true. So I keep all kinds of fruit and hearty breakfast foods on hand and get up early enough every morning to cook.”

Adam pulled his cell phone from his pocket and glanced at the face. “It’s only seven o’clock. Since we’re both on vacation, I’m gathering you’re one of those early risers.”

“I suppose I am.” She forked bacon onto a plate covered with paper napkins and carefully blotted off the grease. “Once you get into the habit, it’s a hard one to break. I’ve never been able to sleep much beyond eight o’clock in the morning.”

She was babbling, and if she didn’t get hold of herself, she was likely to start telling him all about her mornings at the schools where she had taught, and why she sometimes had to be there even earlier than regular class times.

Adam appeared to notice nothing unusual about the way she suddenly shut up. “I know what you mean. I’m the same way.” He kissed her temple. “What time is our rock-painting class? Do we have time to go for a swim beforehand?”

Leonie reflected that if he knew how his touch confused her, he’d know better than to kiss her before asking a question. After dithering mentally for a moment, she replied, “Yes, I think so. The class is at ten o’clock.”

“Good. Do we have orange juice?” When she nodded, he went to the refrigerator. “I’ll get it. What about the butter?”

He behaved exactly like her father behaved with her mother, Leonie thought, astonished. He was helping her set the table and put out the items needed for a good breakfast. Of all the things she had expected him to do upon awakening in her bed this morning, helping her get breakfast hadn’t even been on the list. She shot him a quick, suspicious glance while he poked around in the refrigerator. What had happened to the male’s quick exit before the female even woke up?

So far as she could tell, Adam was in no hurry to leave. While she cooked, he examined the cabinets and the refrigerator for future reference, or so he said. After setting the table and sectioning a grapefruit at her instruction, he devoted himself to eating her version of a hearty breakfast, and talked about taking her to view some of the local sights that afternoon.

“Can you show me one of those crystal shops?” she asked. “Those big quartz crystals I see on display are so beautiful, I’m dying to see them up close.”

“What you mean is, you want to buy one,” Adam said. “Maybe we ought to go on a big crystal hunt in the mountains so you can pick one up for free.”

Leonie tried to keep her enthusiasm from showing. “I’ll bet somebody owns all the land and you can’t go on it without paying a fee. Unless you know someone?” she added hopefully.

He laughed. “If I don’t know anybody, I’ll have to ask around. You can bet somebody living on this lake has an interest in a crystal mine somewhere in these mountains. If not, there’s always a shop that would love to show you some crystals.”

Leonie felt as if the heavens had opened up and showered her with favors. Although she had dreamed of a vacation romance, she hadn’t really expected anything like this, where the man stuck around and entertained her.

Adam appeared to thoroughly enjoy the breakfast and complimented her cooking skills. He then slipped Butch a whole slice of bacon. He even helped her wash the dishes and waited while she changed into Zara’s tiny bikini. It was ridiculous, but she felt a little shy when she walked out with a big towel draped over her shoulders, even after the night she had just spent with him.

“Now that’s a bikini,” Adam said, grinning. “Too bad you’re not allowed to wear it for anyone but me.”

Naturally, he couldn’t have said anything more calculated to ease her discomfort. She dropped the towel and let it hang over her arm while they walked the fifty feet to the lakeshore. Butch walked beside Leonie, but she noticed he seemed much less hostile to Adam.

“Are you planning to wear your boxer shorts, or are you skinny-dipping today?” she asked, dropping her towel on the rocky shoreline.

Adam still wore the green polo shirt and khaki pants from the day before. Pausing, he scanned the lake, squinting into the rising sun to do so, and studied the forest behind them.

“I’ll wear my boxers. With all the early-morning fishermen out on the lake, I wouldn’t want to give anyone too big a thrill.”

Something about the way he spoke alerted her. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, angel.” He narrowed his gaze on a distant bass boat that floated in a cove across the lake. “But there are fishermen and women out, and we don’t need anyone calling the local cops out because of a naked-man sighting.”

Leonie looked around, but the cabins close enough for her to see all looked tightly closed, and the only fishing enthusiasts visible were the man in the boat across the lake and another man in a small motorboat that seemed headed toward the same small cove.

“That must be a good fishing area,” she observed. “There’ve been boats there every day since I’ve been here.”

“You’re probably right.” Adam quickly shed his trousers and tossed his shirt on the rocks. “Come on, angel. No sense in giving them an eyeful.”

“If I can’t see them clearly, they can’t see me,” Leonie said reasonably, but she followed Adam quickly into the cool lake waters.

Now that she thought about it, she had spent the past couple of days feeling spied upon. For all she knew, those boaters had high-powered binoculars lying beside them. She leaned forward into the water and swam beside Adam into the deeper waters farther offshore.

“How far do you usually swim?” He stopped his forward movement, still looking toward the cove where the two fishing boats had come together.

Leonie scowled at the rocky lakeshore where Butch stood waiting with canine patience. “I usually swim ten laps, but out here I can’t tell how far that is so I’ve been swimming to that outcrop and back. It seems to be about the right distance.”

“That sounds reasonable. Come on. I’ll race you.”

As she had suspected, Adam was a strong swimmer. She had been on her college swim team, and stayed in shape with regular swimming, but she had trouble keeping up with him. She loved it. She found their race invigorating and as beneficial as her usual morning jog or laps. Adam challenged her to put forth her best effort, something she had missed since she had gone into coaching and left competition behind.

Fortunately, she managed to remember her role before she came out with the exclamation of praise trembling on her lips when they finished their race. Zara would never praise anyone who beat her in anything, not even a man she wanted.

Not for the first time, she reflected that being Zara could be awfully wearing.

• • •

Back on the rocky shore, Adam pulled his trousers back on and donned his shirt. He kept his head tilted down so that his hair partially screened his eyes and held his gaze on the two boats in the cove across the lake. He couldn’t be sure at this distance, but he would not have been surprised if one of those boats, the one in back, served as a platform for a spotting scope.

That would make sense if someone were keeping Zara Daniel under surveillance. He resolved to check into the matter by making a few calls to his former employer. Zara probably expected someone to spy on her as a part of her job, and no doubt knew what to do, but Leonie was another matter. She obviously found it scary.

Adam discovered that he also disliked the idea of anyone watching Leonie. He had to restrain himself from grabbing the big towel she’d brought and wrapping her up in it. Fortunately, she picked up the towel and wrapped it around herself after casting one narrow-eyed glance at the two boats in the faraway cove.

“I’ll pick you and Butch up in an hour,” he said. “I’ve got to make a couple of calls and take care of a little business.”

Leonie halted at her front door and smiled over her shoulder at him. “Guess I’d better do the same. See you later, Adam.”

She wasn’t getting away with that. Adam moved in quickly and bent her back over his arm in the theatrical manner of an old-fashioned stage lover.

“Careful, my pretty, or I’ll have to stick closer to your side.”

With that, he righted her and kissed her thoroughly. Let the watchers across the lake make of that what they would. And let Miss Leonie Daniel take it as a declaration of his intent.

Leonie regarded him with wide, uncertain blue eyes. “I’m supposed to cling to your arm and refuse to let you go back to your own cabin for so much as five minutes?”

He pretended to think. “That might help soothe my ruffled feelings. It’s a blow to the masculine ego to be sent on my way with a smile and a wave.”

She actually put her fingers to her temples and squeezed her eyes shut. “What happened to the morning-after fast exit and the ‘I’ll call you later’ line?”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He stepped back, laughing. “You’re now in my power, and I intend to see to it that you stay there.”

• • •

Across the lake, Bolt looked up from the spotting scope and grunted. “Oh, I’d say it’s on. He spent the night with her, and now he’s kissing the towel off her outside her cabin door.”

“It could be a plan on the part of two government agents.” Lloyd, who had a pair of strong binoculars lying at his feet, glanced at the distant couple. All he could tell at that distance with his normal vision was that they stood outside the cabin door. “But I think you’re right. Whether it’s a plan or not, they’re still getting it on. What man wouldn’t take advantage of
that
?”

“That” being Zara Daniel’s delectable body, which both men had spent many hours admiring during the past few days.

“Smith still says he doesn’t think we’re watching Zara Daniel,” Bolt offered.

“Then who the hell does he think she is?” Lloyd grabbed his binoculars and peered through them.

“He thinks it’s some look-alike agent they’ve put in place to fool us.”

“She looks enough like Daniel to fool me.” Lloyd lowered his binoculars when the woman vanished inside her cabin and the man with her took off into the woods at the back of the cabin. “So what are we supposed to do? Stay on the subject, or go to something else?”

“Smith says we should never have wasted our time watching her in the first place. We should have trailed the real Zara Daniel to Istanbul.”

“So Smith is going to say we failed our mission, no matter who that woman is?”

“Looks like it.”

The two men exchanged portentous glances. They both knew what failure meant, especially in a matter considered so simple as keeping tabs on Zara Daniel. Each reflected, in his own way, that this job opportunity left a lot to be desired.

“You know what?” Lloyd stowed his binoculars at his feet once more and gave his fly rod a twitch. “I think we need to prove we’ve got the right woman. Or the wrong one, depending. Then we’ll know what to do.”

“And how do you think we should prove it?” Bolt collapsed his spotting scope and tossed a jacket over it before taking up his own fly rod once more.

“I’ve been thinking on it, and I’ve got a plan.”

They drew their boats a bit closer together and lowered their voices to discuss the plan. Anyone watching would have thought two friends in separate fishing boats were exchanging fish tales, so assiduously did they work their fly rods while they talked.

“I hate to say this, pal, but I think you’re right,” Bolt said when the discussion was finished. “Let’s do it.”

• • •

Adam spent almost half an hour on the telephone, calling his former contacts in the government and the head of his former department. The information he gathered was largely useless, and nobody would tell him what was up with Zara, or why they thought it so necessary to rope in Leonie to act as a decoy.

He did, however, learn that the weather in Washington, D.C. was hot and humid. On that note, he clicked off his phone, annoyed, and reflected that if he gave a government agency, the IRS for instance, the kind of answers they’d just given him, he would surely be arrested and spend the next twenty years in prison.

That meant that Leonie must be on her own because nobody figured she was in any danger.

Adam didn’t know why, but he had a gut feeling that Leonie stood in danger of something, and nobody would tell him anything. That was fine with him. For the next week or more, however long she stayed at the cabin acting as her sister, he was staying with her.

He smiled, remembering the night he had just spent with her.

It was always nice when a man had a good excuse for doing exactly what he wanted to do in the first place.

Leonie regarded Adam with suspicion as he drove them in his open Jeep to their rock-painting class. He looked relaxed, cheerful, and interested in her company, not at all like a man who had achieved his goal and was ready to move on. She felt sure that meant something, but she had no idea what it could be.

Maybe he was at loose ends and needed something, anything, to fill his time.

She considered that idea a moment while she watched the winding black highway. Maybe he had forgotten he’d told her about the proposals he was completing and the other work he had to catch up on. On the other hand, maybe he had been making it all up in order to keep her from encroaching on his time.