Trouble In Triplicate (2 page)

"Randi, I don't want to upset you," Juliet said. In the spacious Wilmont kitchen she was helping her sisters transfer the side of roast lamb from the roaster to the serving board. "But that jerk Caine Saxon is here tonight."

Miranda paled slightly. "Is—Is he here too?"

"Grant? No. at least we've been spared that misery." Juliet watched her sister with concern. Poor Randi! she thought. She hadn't been eating or sleeping well since her breakup with Grant Saxon, and she always seemed on the verge of tears.

A wave of pure rage surged through Juliet. A month ago Randi had been happily anticipating her wedding, wildly and crazily in love with Charlottesville's own hometown football hero, Grant Saxon. And for the first time in her life, Randi—"the shy one, the quiet one," as people insisted upon labeling her—had been confident and vibrant, sure of her worth as an individual rather than as part of a matched set of three. And then Grant Saxon had taken it all away from her, had smashed her dreams and self-confidence to smithereens.

"Hey. Julie, watch it, girl!" Bobby Lee Taggert. Olivia's boyfriend—sidekick, Caine Saxon had called him—grinned at her. "You're making me nervous, waving that carvin' knife like a pirate about to slash someone's throat."

Juliet couldn't help but grin back. Bobby Lee was always even-tempered, good-humored, and marvelously uncomplicated. Probably from growing up in the middle of a farm family of nine children, the sisters had decided. He was the manager of the Charlottesville Safeway, the local branch of the national supermarket chain. He cheerfully tagged along with Olivia and was so comfortable with the triplets that they sometimes joked that he'd been quadruplets with them in some past lifetime. He and Olivia were saving for the down payment on a house before they married. Olivia's idea, which Bobby Lee accepted with his usual good cheer.

"What did you say to Caine Saxon, Julie?" Olivia asked. "Both of you were glaring at each other like—like—"

"Two hound dogs squaring off to fight?" Bobby Lee supplied helpfully.

Olivia smiled at him. "Exactly."

"I was just pointing out a few home truths to Snake Saxon," Juliet said as she scooped mint jelly into a china bowl. "What a fitting nickname! When the press started calling him 'Snake' because he was such a hotshot wide receiver in the pros, I wonder if they realized what an apt name they'd chosen?"

"They shouldve called Grant 'Rat,' " Olivia added loyally.

"Julie, did he . . . did Caine . . . mention"— Miranda swallowed hard and her voice lowered— "anything about Grant?"

Juliet scowled. "He expressed surprise that you'd broken your engagement simply because Grant had spent the weekend in Richmond with that woman. I guess the Saxon brothers feel they're such great prizes that a woman would put up with anything just for the privilege of marrying one of them."

"Not me," Miranda whispered. "Oh, Julie, oh, Liwy, what a fool I was to get involved with Grant in the first place! I knew all about his reputation the first time I went out with him. He was a pro football player, and women had been throwing themselves at him for years. But he said he'd changed. He said that since he'd retired from the NFL and come home to Charlottesville, he'd wanted to settle down and start a family. ..." Tears darkened her deep blue eyes to a violet shade and her voice trailed off.

"Isn't there some down-home metaphor about rodents and reptiles never changing their spots?" Juliet asked Bobby Lee.

"I think it's leopards," Bobby Lee said. "And we don't have them down on the farm."

"Why did Grant and Caine Saxon have to come back to Charlottesville, anyway?" Olivia lamented. "Why couldn't they have opened their stupid restaurant in some other town?"

"Because washed-up pro football players are a dime a dozen, Liwy," Juliet said. "Where else would they be the celebrities they are here in Charlottesville?" She tossed the spinach salad with unaccustomed force. "Their restaurant would never have been the smash success it's been in any place but their old hometown!"

"I don't know about that, Julie." Bobby Lee looked thoughtful. "I mean, the restaurant is a huge hit with the university crowd and they have no hometown sentiment for the Saxon brothers. The food at The Knight Out is good and cheap, and that Middle-Ages decor of theirs is real original, and—"

"The Knight Out!" Juliet grinned in spite of herself. "Doesn't the name fracture you? The typical choice of two moronic ex-jocks."

"Let's not talk about them anymore," Miranda murmured in a strangled voice. She was obviously fighting back tears, and Juliet felt a sharp pain of her own at the sight of her sister's misery. It had always been so, from the time the triplets were toddlers. If one of them was hurt, the other two cried too.

Bobby Lee was fully aware of it. "Come on, let's get this lamb out to the hungry masses." He lifted the large serving board. "Liwy, get the door for me, darlin'."

Olivia preceded Bobby Lee out of the kitchen. Juliet turned to Miranda and laid a sisterly arm around her shoulders. "I wish I could help, Randi," she whispered fervently. "I wish I could make everything all right for you again."

Miranda managed a watery smile. "I know, Julie." She gave Juliet a quick, hard hug. "I know."

❧

When the phone rang at eleven o'clock the next morning Juliet was the only one at home to answer it. Bobby Lee had come by an hour earlier to take Olivia shopping, and they'd coaxed Miranda into going along. Juliet had stayed behind to bake a triple fudge cake that a customer had ordered for a birthday party that night.

She had just placed the three layers on separate cooling racks when the phone began to ring. "Post Sisters' Catering Service," she said briskly into the phone.

"I'd like to speak to Miranda, please."

Juliet's heart somersaulted in her chest. She recognized the voice at once. It was Caine Saxon. After a momentary pause she replied, "This is Miranda Post speaking."

She was acting in Randi's best interests, she assured herself. She was sparing her sister the emotional pain of dealing with yet another Saxon. The fact that she was shamefully curious as to why Caine was calling Randi might also be involved in her deception, she acknowledged dryly.

Caine paused a moment too. Then he said, "Miranda, this is Caine Saxon. I'd like to talk to you."

"I'm listening," Juliet said coolly.

"Not over the phone. In person. May I come over?"

"I really don't think that's a good idea, Mr. Saxon."

"You used to call me Caine." His voice was soft, and then suddenly suspicious. "Is this really Miranda? Or one of the others impersonating her?"

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, you 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."