Bait & Switch (12 page)

He stopped walking and turned her in his arms, thinking he’d never seen such extraordinary brown eyes on a woman. He started to lower his head.

“Did you know a duck’s quack doesn’t echo?” she blurted out.

His head froze in mid-dip. The sensation of having her in his arms was making him lightheaded, but he was sure he’d heard her correctly.

“I’m not up on ducks,” he said.

“You’ve watched Donald Duck cartoons, right?” She rushed on before he could resume the dip. “Disney’s technical directors must be very savvy because you’ll notice that Donald’s quack never repeats.”

He ran one of his hands up her smooth bare arm and felt tiny goose bumps erupt. Her skin was soft and supple, her breath sweet and warm against his lips.

He looped his hands around the back of her waist. “Isn’t Donald a talking duck instead of a quacking duck?”

Her eyes locked on his. He could hear water trickling into the pool and smell the sweet scent of tropical flowers. He waited for some sign that she was ready for his kiss.

“I. . . I think Donald quacks, too,” she murmured in a low, sexy voice.

His body hardened. It took all his restraint not to haul her the rest of the way against him.

“Why are we talking about ducks?” he asked.

She blinked up at him, her lips moist and her mouth parted. As though she trusted him.

Before he could decipher the meaning of that, she moved forward and very softly and sweetly touched her mouth to his. This was his chance to convince her that she wanted him in her bed, buried between her thighs.

He knew the routine. He’d make sure the kiss started slow, coaxing her to open her mouth and allow him access. Next he’d stroke his tongue against hers and explore mouth until she didn’t know her own name.

Leeza stroked his cheek with a gentle hand.
Her
tongue shyly touched his. Blood pounded in his ears as he tangled his tongue with hers, their breath mingling. His heart pounded against her chest.

She tasted sweeter than any woman he’d kissed. She snaked her arms around his neck, and her soft breasts pressed against him. She wouldn’t be the only one in danger of forgetting her name.

Her surrender was so sweet and trusting that somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered Leeza thought she was kissing Grant — his loyal, trustworthy, dependable brother.

Ah, hell
. With a supreme act of willpower, Cary pulled his mouth from hers. She looked up at him, her breath coming fast, her eyes darkened in passion, her mouth forming a questioning O.

Take what she’s offering
, a voice yelled inside his head. Another louder voice drowned it out.
The LTD man wouldn’t take advantage of her.

He dredged up a piece of trivia he’d heard long, long ago, “Did you know that Donald Duck comics were once banned in Finland because he doesn’t wear pants?”

Leeza’s lips, still swollen from his kisses, curved into a smile. She laughed and he did the same, shattering the moment.

Cary didn’t try anything more serious than holding her hand as he walked her to the lobby. He didn’t trust himself to escort her all the way to her room.

“G’night, Mitch,” she said softly an instant before the elevator doors closed behind her.

He stood there for a moment, staring at the blinking numbers on the display as the elevator crawled upward to a room and a bed he could have been sharing with Leeza tonight.

He swore ripely.
 

What the hell was wrong with him?

A dull throbbing began at the backs of Mitch's eyes as he studied the pages of game charts in front of him. After Monday night's fiasco at the softball field, he needed to go over the schedules to assure he didn’t have any more double bookings.

He cross-checked the rows of teams against the fields until the throbbing turned into a full-fledged headache. He was irked at Cary for overstating the simplicity of his job and at himself for not asking more questions.

If he had, he would have learned that Cary was a recreation specialist — with
specialist
being the operative word. His brother not only ran clinics but planned and organized league play in various sports.

Considering there were coed, men's and women's leagues in softball, basketball and tennis, it was a logistical nightmare. And, as far as Mitch could see, his brother was a one-man show.

“Hey, Cary, my man.”

A teenage boy with a grin the size of the Charleston harbor bounced into the office, pulled out a chair and plopped himself down. He was swigging from a Coke he didn't need, because he already vibrated with enough energy to run a small town.

“Call me Mitch,” Mitch corrected, even though he had no idea of the boy’s name.

“You mean, like, as a nickname?” The boy shrugged. “Sure, Johnny’ll call you that if it'll float your boat. But what gives? What’re you doing here?”

Wondering who Johnny was, Mitch said, “I work here.”

“Not on Tuesdays, you don't. They changed the schedule last week.”

And Cary, of course, hadn’t bothered to note the change. It was the latest in a long list of details Cary had neglected to mention, like where in the world he’d gotten himself off to.

Mitch had returned home the night before to a message from Cary on the home answering machine, informing him he wasn’t in Atlanta. His brother hadn’t revealed his whereabouts, preferring to spew nonsense about it being safer for Mitch not to know.

Keeping Mitch in the dark was safer for Cary, because it lessened the chance of Mitch hunting down his twin and venting some frustration.

The strip club, the missing money and the job as a kneecap buster were bad enough. But Mitch was most steamed because he’d been thrust into a situation in which he was having lascivious dreams about his brother’s girl, who gave signs she was willing to let him act out those dreams.

Mitch had no business knowing Peyton kissed like an angel. He lived by the touch-her-not code when it involved any woman who was or had ever been involved with his brother.

But how could he refuse Peyton when she asked him to kiss her? And how would he summon the will to stop if she asked again? Putting a halt to things last night had nearly killed him.

“Earth to Mitch,” the kid was saying, telling Mitch he’d missed something. “You didn’t say what you were doing here.”

With a nod, Mitch indicated his mound of paperwork, yet another reason to be irked at Cary. “I've got to catch up on schedules.”

The kid stretched out his long legs, which were bare from the tops of his white socks to the bottom of his baggy, knee-length shorts. “Bummer. But now that you’re here, Johnny needs to ask you something.”

Again with the ubiquitous Johnny. “Where is he?”

“Where’s who?”

“Johnny.”

The kid’s face split into a grin, an astonishing sight. He had a mouth rivaling Mick Jagger’s in size and scope. “Stop messin’ with me. You ain’t no English major.”

The kid wouldn’t be either if he went to college.

“Anyway, Six-Pack says lifting weights every day in the off-season is bad for Johnny, but Johnny was like, hey, bigger is better. But Six-Pack wouldn't lay off 'til Johnny said he’d ask you.”

The kid looked at him expectantly. It gradually dawned on Mitch that Johnny
was
asking him, because the kid was Johnny. He also was under the delusion that Mitch was an authority on weight training. Mitch worked out some, but running was his exercise of choice.

“Well, Johnny.” He dredged up anything he'd ever been told about weight training. Moderation. Yeah, that was it. “Uh, you don't want to overdo it. Try every other day.”

“What if I work on my glutes one day and my abs the next? That’s okay, right?”

“Sure,” Mitch said, hoping that it was.

A white-haired man in his fifties with bulging gray sideburns and horn-rimmed glasses stuck his head into the office. With a paunch reminiscent of a kangaroo with a joey stuffed in its pouch, chances were good he wasn’t there to exercise in the adjacent gym.

“Mitchell, I heard tell you were here,” the man said. “Come walk with me. We need to have a word.”

The man didn’t wait for an answer before he lumbered away. He was obviously an authority figure used to having his commands obeyed.

“Oooooo, P.B. seems pissed,” the kid said. “Johnny thinks you must’ve done something the boss man didn’t like.”

“Only one way to find out,” Mitch said, grateful to Johnny for providing him with a clue to the man’s identity.

Armed with the suspicion that P.B. was the director of parks, Mitch caught up to him halfway between the outdoor basketball and tennis courts. The streaming sunlight illuminated the other man, who had a complexion as pale as Casper the friendly ghost.

“You wanted to see me, sir,” Mitch said.

“Yes, yes.” P.B. took out a pipe, lit it and set off at an ambling pace. “I heard a disturbing story the other day. A woman was out for a long walk rather early in the morning. Lo and behold, from out of the cover of trees she sees the most magnificent of sights. A bald eagle.”

Mitch tensed, guessing where the story was headed.

“A young girl, not as knowledgeable about bird life as the woman, turned to the guide to ask what she was seeing. Do you know what he said?”P.B. didn’t wait for Mitch to answer. “What you got there is one big bird.”

The response, which had seemed pretty clever at the time, sounded less so on repetition.

“Later in the walk, when the group chanced upon a ruby-throated hummingbird, the girl again asked the guide to identify it. Care to take a crack at what he said?”

It became clear P.B. wouldn’t continue until Mitch provided an answer. Mitch cleared his throat. “That there's one itty bitty critter?”

“Exactly.” P.B. didn’t crack a smile. “Now why do you suppose a recreation specialist who can't identify a bald eagle or a hummingbird volunteered to lead a bird walk?”

“I must've overestimated my expertise,” Mitch mumbled, his gut clenching. Cary couldn’t afford to land in the unemployment line. His brother had such a checkered work history it was important he keep this job longer than a few months.

P.B. puffed out his considerable chest, as though fortifying himself with resolve. “The reason I drove over here was to tell you—”

Mitch didn’t let him finish. “Please don't fire me. I'll do better. I promise I will.”

“What gave you the idea I was going to fire you?”

“Aren't you?”

“Hell, no. What kind of fool fires the man responsible for seeing that his son got a baseball scholarship to UNC?”

Cary had done that? Mitch shook his head. “You’re exaggerating. Your son must be a really good player.”

“Damn right he’s talented, but what good is talent if nobody notices it? You got him noticed, son, by calling that coach friend of yours.”

Mitch was starting to get the picture. “You’re keeping me on because I helped your son?”

“I’m keeping you on because you’re a damn fine recreation specialist,” P.B. corrected. “But as a bird man, you stink. How ”bout doing everybody a favor and staying out of the woods?”

“Sure,” Mitch said, gratefully sticking out a hand. “Anything to keep the job, P.B.”

P.B. took the hand Mitch offered. His eyebrows, which were as bushy as his sideburns, rose. “Son, I know everybody calls me Potbelly behind my back but I prefer you call me Albert.”

Mitch muttered an apology. He walked back to the office, thinking impersonation was hard enough without some wise-guy kid feeding him land mines. Or taking over his desk space.

“What gives?” Mitch asked Johnny, his hands on his hips.

“Johnny’s working on these seriously mixed-up schedules. What happened to you over the weekend, man? You never mess up like this.”

Mitch scratched his head. Clearly Johnny worked for the parks and rec department in some capacity. “I got too much on my plate, that’s all,” Mitch said.

“Why don’t you take off and let Johnny finish the skeds? You’re having dinner with that blonde babe’s parents tonight, right?”

“How do you know about that?”

“She called here to remind you because you don’t answer your cell,” Johnny said. The reason for that was simple. Mitch and Cary hadn’t thought to exchange cell phones. “She made Johnny promise to tell you.”

“Thanks.” Mitch strode for the door, wondering how to get Peyton’s parents to change their opinion of him.

“Hey, wait a minute.” Johnny’s voice trailed after him. “Are you and Johnny still on for pitching lessons tomorrow?”

“Sorry, man,” Mitch said, feeling genuinely so when the kid frowned. “This week’s crazy. Maybe I can make it up to you next week.”

Whether Cary could make amends to Mitch, however, was more doubtful. What kind of a guy was his brother, anyway?

“You know that Johnny still can’t afford to pay you, right?” The kid asked hesitantly, and Mitch’s heart softened.

“Yeah,” he said, glad he had an answer to his question.

His brother was the kind of guy who gave free pitching lessons to kids.

EVEN THOUGH PEYTON had been listening for the doorbell since she’d joined her parents for pre-dinner drinks in their study, excitement still coursed through her when it rang.

“Would you get that, dear?”

Her mother needn’t have asked. Peyton was already heading across the highly polished wooden floor for the door, her anticipation high at the thought of seeing Mitch again.

Since their kiss last night, and his unexpected restraint, her sexual attraction to him had reached a new high. If he asked her to make love with him tonight, as he had so many times before, she’d rip his clothes off his hard, sexy body.

She was smiling at the thought of herself as a sexual aggressor when she opened the door. The sight of G. Gaston Gibbs III and a dozen long-stemmed red roses greeted her. A salty breeze blew off the harbor, but every blond hair on his finely shaped head was firmly in place.

“Gaston.” She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice and failed miserably. “What are you doing here?”

“Amelia invited me to dinner,” he said, presenting her with the flowers. “I brought the roses for your mother, but they’re so lovely they make me think of you. Of course, their beauty still pales next to yours.”