The Look-Alike Bride (Crimson Romance) (9 page)

Leonie held her breath while Adam whipped the Jeep around a sharp bend and pulled off onto what looked like a minuscule shoulder. She twisted in her seat and stared back at the steep cliff that cut off their view of the winding highway they’d just traversed.

Butch looked around, interested. Leonie spoke softly to him, hoping he wouldn’t take the opportunity to try and hop over the side of the open vehicle.

“Wait for it,” Adam said. “We’ll look like we’re lost, just in case.”

He reached across her, opened the glove compartment, and extracted a map. His thick, dark hair brushed against her arm, he was so close. Worse, she could smell the spicy scent of his aftershave again. Her stomach experienced another of those peculiar falling sensations.

Before she could dwell too much on his proximity, he straightened and opened the map, then spread it across the steering wheel in imitation of a lost tourist.

“Well, what do you know?” he asked softly, pretending to study the map.

The bronze car rounded the bend at a swift pace. Leonie pretended to study the map, also, but in reality, she focused on the two men in the car as it swept by them. Oddly enough, they seemed interested in keeping their heads turned toward the view. Either the view was more spectacular than Leonie had supposed, or the men didn’t want their faces seen.

“If I was driving past a car stopped on the side of the road,” she observed, “I’d at least check to see if anyone needed help.”

Adam grinned at her suspicious tone. “You have to admit, the view is great in that direction. Maybe they’re genuinely interested in the scenery.”

“Maybe.” She said nothing else. In her opinion, the fact that a bronze sedan followed them spoke for itself. “Let’s see how long it takes them to find a way to follow us again.”

“I’ll be surprised if we see them again.” Adam put the Jeep into gear once more. “If they really are following us, they’ll know better than to let us catch sight of them again.”

Leonie stared ahead as far as she could see, but the road twisted and turned so much, the bronze car wasn’t visible. “They can’t just pull off and wait for us. Not on this road, anyway.”

But to her astonishment and unease, that was exactly what the bronze sedan did. Coming around a sharp bend in the narrow, rising highway, she spotted the car pulled off on the side of the road, almost plastered to the steep beds of layered gray shale towering above it. The two men inside appeared to be studying a map.

“How do you like that?” Leonie said, outraged. “They’ve stolen our move.”

“Map reading is a common ploy when you’re following somebody,” Adam said, mildly suspicious.

She whipped her head around to glare at him then returned to her study of the road behind them. “I don’t like the way you said that.”

“Sorry, angel.” He grinned at her. “I was just making an observation. We did it to them, and now they’re doing it to us.”

“Did you have to go to some sort of spook school to learn all these high-powered following techniques?”

She knew she sounded grumpy, especially when she recollected that Adam had once worked for the same government agency that employed Zara, but she didn’t much care. The evening wasn’t panning out the way she had hoped. Worse, she didn’t care to think about what she had hoped.

Adam burst into laughter. “As a matter of fact, I did. Map-consulting, bird-watching, arguing, or pecking on the cell phone, surveying, taking measurements—those are all activities surveillance experts claim to engage in when they’re caught spying on somebody.”

“Oh, yes?” Leonie came to a gentle boil. “And which one of those do you think the guy outside my window last night was engaging in?”

“Surveying, of course.” His laughter faded into a chuckle. “If I caught sight of you while I was walking past a window, I’d stop and survey you, too.”

“I’m sure you mean that to be flattering, but let me tell you something, Adam Silverthorne. It’s scary, and it’s infuriating, and I don’t like it.”

“I’m sorry, angel.” He sounded truly repentant. “I’m not making fun of you. It’s just that I don’t want you to worry.”

“You don’t want me to worry?” She couldn’t believe it. “How can I help it? And I’m not an angel. Anyone can tell you that.”

“You could have fooled me.” He smiled at her, but his expression was so full of concern and gentleness, she couldn’t maintain her anger. “Seriously, you don’t have anything to worry about. I intend to keep a very close eye on you.”

That, Leonie reflected, was exactly what she was afraid of most.

Adam glanced at the outwardly serene woman beside him as he drove along a fairly straight stretch of the narrow, winding highway. She appeared to be staring in fascination out her window. Since there was nothing to see outside the passenger window except beds of layered shale interspersed with mudstone and her hands were twisted tightly together in her lap, Adam figured she was actually scared to death.

Grimly, he focused on the road ahead, with occasional swift glances at the rearview mirror. He wasn’t sure whom he should be angriest with, himself, or with the two creeps in the sedan. Leonie had been mildly frightened by the steep cliff along one side of the mountain road. If he hadn’t been an idiot and tried to impress her with his driving skills, she might have viewed the sedan with more equanimity.

He’d have to check into that car. Although he knew the occupants probably thought they were following Zara rather than her sister, that knowledge didn’t make him any happier.

“Are they behind us again?” she asked.

“Not that I can tell.” He felt pleased that none of his anger showed in his voice. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, but there’s been no sign of them for the past ten minutes.”

Zara should have known better than to send her sister into a situation that involved any danger. Probably she expected people to simply check on her whereabouts and report that she was vacationing in Arkansas. She hadn’t expected anyone to actually follow Leonie’s daily activities.

He wondered why anyone would follow Zara Daniel when she was on vacation. The possibilities that occurred to him were not encouraging.

Leonie seemed to relax. “Good. I’d hate to scare off all the warblers by trying to hide in the underbrush.”

“We’d have to hide in the underbrush?” He hoped he sounded properly cowed at the thought.

She rewarded him with a grin. “If strange people are following you, it’s the only thing to do. You did bring along some mosquito repellant, didn’t you?”

Adam chuckled. “Mosquitos won’t be a problem at this altitude.”

“There is some underbrush where we’re going, isn’t there?” she asked, in deeply foreboding tones.

“There is, but I wouldn’t care to hide in it. Mountain climbing was never one of my passions.”

“Oh.” She twisted to stare behind her, silvery hair whipping across her face. “Maybe they’ve given up. I don’t see anything.”

“Is there any reason you know of why someone would be following you?” he asked casually. Surely Zara had some method of protecting her sister in this event.

“Not that I know of.” Leonie seemed positive on that point. “It’s not as if I’m doing anything suspicious.”

“It’s possible they weren’t following us at all,” Adam suggested. “We may be reading too much into a set of coincidences.”

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“At any rate, where we’re going, we’ll see them if they really are following us.”

Leonie’s face, with its fascinating bone structure and deeply blue eyes, turned toward him hopefully. “Are you sure?”

She sounded really worried and more than a little frightened, he realized, chagrinned. Obviously, he hadn’t impressed her as a man who would stop at nothing to protect and care for her.

“I’m sure,” he said simply.

Such was the conviction in his voice that after watching him steadily a moment, she settled back and looked toward the pine-covered mountains in the distance. Adam felt as if he’d just been awarded an Olympic gold medal.

He kept up his surveillance, but the men in the bronze sedan apparently had thought better of letting themselves be seen again. He wondered what they were up to.

Obviously, Zara was involved in something clandestine and important, or she wouldn’t have brought in Leonie to take her place. From his memory of past missions he’d been involved in, Adam figured Zara wanted to lull the other side, whoever they were in this instance, into believing she was vacationing in Arkansas.

He relaxed, considering the matter. Leonie should be safe, so long as she behaved like an ordinary vacationer, viewing mountain sunsets and painting flowers on rocks—and conducting a vacation affair.

In fact, Adam thought, smiling to himself, he was more than pleased to serve his country in this small way. Leonie needed a man in order to have an affair, and he was definitely available and willing to serve.

By the time they arrived at Adam’s chosen roadside viewing spot, both he and Leonie had forgotten the sedan. He pulled off the road to a small clearing, where a pair of wooden benches had been placed in a small, park-like area beside the highway that ended in a sharp drop off a sheer, rock cliff. A short, wrought-iron fence warned people back from the edge.

The panoramic view from the mountain cliff took in a valley backed by rows of mountains. The rows went from pine-tree green on the closer rows all the way to hazy gray. The Ouachita Mountains weren’t high enough to poke their heads into the clouds at all times. The late evening sun cast an orange glow over the valley, a glow that had begun its nightly retreat toward the west, chased by the dark shadows of the approaching night.

Leonie stared around, entranced. “This is the most beautiful spot I ever saw. When did you discover this?” She leaned forward and slipped out of the silver jacket she wore, laying it across the seat back.

Adam cast a cursory glance at the glowing valley, then looked at Leonie and sucked in his breath. Just the sight of her sleek, bare arms and the curves beneath the silk camisole sent his hormones into a frenzy.

“I found it last year, when I was just driving around looking at the scenery.” He watched her shove her tousled silver hair back. The action outlined her slim figure and high, rounded breasts. He could detect every nuance of her body beneath the thin piece of raspberry silk. “We’d better keep Butch from roaming around until he’s familiar with the area,” he added through rapidly drying lips.

Leonie turned to stroke the dog’s noble head. “Butch is very careful. He doesn’t rush into anything he doesn’t completely understand.”

Adam gazed at her and wondered if she had any idea how that silk thing showed off her feminine attributes. Probably not. He’d seen enough of Leonie to realize she normally didn’t flaunt all her charms at once the way Zara did. He swallowed hard and forced himself to step down from the Jeep, but he still managed to keep his eyes on her.

Not that she noticed. She gazed at the three-sided, spectacular view of the valley below while she wrapped Butch’s leash around her wrist.

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful,” she breathed.

“Neither have I.”

He opened her door, still watching her, and took her arm at the elbow. If his fingers slid up her arm a little too far, she didn’t appear to notice. He savored the smooth warmth of her skin and the slight movements of the sleek muscles beneath.

“I’m glad I brought my binoculars. Although I don’t think there will be any warblers up here.” She glanced up at the three tall pine trees growing along the road that gave the area the look of a roadside park. “Well, I’ll be. There’s a little bird up there.”

Adam reluctantly took his gaze off her and focused on the top branches of the nearest pine tree. “So there is. You’ll have to take notes on it so you can identify it later.”

Fine time for a bird to show itself, he thought, annoyed. That was what he most disliked about the animal kingdom. It was always inserting itself where it wasn’t wanted, from spiders and roaches all the way to ragged collies.

He regarded Butch a moment. The collie returned his look, then bounded lightly down from the vehicle and stood protectively beside Leonie.

Yes, Butch knew him for a rival, Adam thought. But this was a contest with only one possible conclusion, and Adam fully intended to be the victor.

Leonie took a couple of steps forward, still staring upward. “I see some black and white streaks.”

“I see pink. Lots of pink,” he said.

“Pink?”

He kept his hand beneath her elbow, reluctant to let her go. When she turned to see why he still held her, he closed the gap between them and took her into his arms.

“I’ve been waiting all day for this,” he said, intent upon her lips.

A panicky expression flitted across her face. “Wait—”

He folded her close and kissed her, molding her body against his. Her hands, one clutching the binoculars, came up to push against his chest, but he had no intentions of letting her put space between them. Not when he was soaking up the sleek softness of her well-toned body against his and enjoying every minute of it.

He rubbed his hands up and down the raspberry material that covered her back. If her skin felt any better than the silk, he might just die of pleasure. Heat poured off him, heat that seemed to soak into her cool, soft skin.

The minute she stopped resisting and let him kiss her, he knew it. Instantly, he molded her body to his and deepened the kiss. If he could have absorbed her into himself, he would have done it. The only thing marring his pleasure was the binoculars that kept him from feeling every inch of her against him.

Breathing hard, he came up for air and stared into her face. She looked dazed, as if she wasn’t quite sure what was happening.

Adam was only too happy to demonstrate again, for the record. He took the binoculars from her loosened grip and bent to set them on the ground. Then he placed his hands gently along the sharp angle of her face and explored her mouth delicately. As badly as he wanted to crush her against him once more, he knew better. Another kiss like the first and he’d try to seduce her on the front seat of the Jeep.