Bait & Switch (16 page)

A pot-bellied man in his mid-thirties trotted over to the sidewalk. His Florida Marlins baseball cap was a few sizes too small, as though he’d filched it from his kid.

“Please say you’re a Key West citizen who can’t resist a bunch of kids with a know-nothing coach?” the man said.

Cary laughed. “Sorry, pal. Normally I’d love to help you out, but neither of us are islanders.” He nodded at Leeza, only then realizing she was watching him curiously. Damn. He’d forgotten who he was supposed to be again.

“This is Leeza Drinkmiller,” he told the man. “And I’m. . . Grant Mitchell.”

“I’m Sam ‘I-never-played-baseball-in-my-life’ Johnson. I’m only coaching because my predecessor moved to the mainland.” The man stuck out a hand, looking thoughtful. “I don’t suppose. . . never mind.”

“Go on,” Cary prompted. “What were you going to say?”

“I was going to ask if you’d help out at practices while you’re here.” Sam shrugged. “But seeing as to how you’re on vacation, I—”

“I’ll do it,” Cary interrupted.

“You will?” The question had an echo because both Sam and Leeza asked it at nearly the same time.

Sam, though, could recognize a good thing when he stumbled across it. He slapped Cary on the back.

“Thanks, buddy,” Sam said. “Practice is the same time and place tomorrow. We have a game Saturday at noon.”

The reluctant coach trotted away, probably afraid Cary would change his mind.

Leeza was staring at him. “I knew you played the trumpet but I didn’t know you played baseball.”

Ah, hell, he thought, irrationally angry at his brother for never taking up the sport. Mitch would have been a good baseball player, but his interests ran in different directions. Like Leeza’s probably did.

“I played Little League a long time ago.” He cleared his throat, guilt eating at him because he wasn’t telling her the entire truth. “But I watched enough of my brother’s games that I know the game pretty well.”

“You have a brother?”

“Yeah.”

What’s his name?”

Cary gritted his teeth. Oh, swell. Now he had to pretend that his brother was him. “Cary.”

“Cary Mitchell, the pitching star?”

“You’ve heard of him?”

“Who in Richmond hasn’t? The sports pages used to be full of his accomplishments.” She screwed up her forehead. “Funny I never connected him with you. I guess because Mitchell’s a pretty common last name.”

“We didn’t go to the same high school. Cary went to Americana because it had a better baseball program.”

The private school also had better academics, which was more important to Mitch than Cary. His brother hadn’t complained about being at a public school, though. Come to think of it, Mitch had never groused about their parents paying more attention to Cary’s athletic accomplishments than Mitch’s good grades.

“Didn’t something happen to him?” Leeza screwed up her forehead as though trying to remember. “Some kind of accident that ended his baseball career?”

Cary evaded her eyes while he considered how to answer. In the past, it had been easy. He’d merely engineered a subtle shift of the subject to his shining time on the mound instead of the accident that had ended it all.

But a funny thing was happening. The story that had festered inside of him for so long seemed to be bursting to get out. The irony was that Leeza wouldn’t know the story was auto-biographical.

“He was in a car crash after his sophomore year at the University of Virginia,” he said. “He was coming off a fantastic season and was mulling the option of turning pro early.”

“Now I remember,” Leeza said. “His car spun out and slammed into a tree. It seems to me it wasn’t his fault. There was a slick spot on the road or something, right?”

It had rained the night before the accident. Cary had told the cops who wrote the accident report that his car hit a wet spot and hydroplaned into the unforgiving tree.

“There was no slick spot,” he heard himself say.

“There wasn’t?” Leeza seemed as surprised by his statement as he was. “Then why did he crash?”

Tell her about the mini van traveling so slow it was crying to be passed
, he thought.
Tell her the lie about the car’s power steering failing.

“He was speeding and lost control of the car.” Cary remembered the night as though it were yesterday. He’d downed a few beers at happy hour, then hopped into the sports car his dad had bought him. “It was a brand new Corvette, and he wanted to see how fast it could go.”

“He broke something, didn’t he?”

“The elbow on his pitching arm,” Cary said, recalling not only the searing pain but the disbelief this could have happened to him.

They reached a small playground nestled among the houses. Feeling suddenly weary, Cary sat down on a bench meant for parents who wanted to keep an eye on their children while they played on the jungle gym. The playground was empty now, just like his life had been since that accident.

Leeza sat down next to him. “Didn’t the elbow heal?”

“Sure it did.” Cary thought back to the month in a cast and the six months of grueling rehabilitation that followed. “The elbow looks good as new on the outside, like he was never in an accident at all.”

“Then why can’t he pitch?”

“He can pitch all right. He just can’t throw more than ninety miles per hour like he used to. That was his ticket to the majors.”

“Losing baseball must have been hard on him,” Leeza said softly.

Because Cary was talking about himself in the third person, or possibly because he was talking to Leeza, the truth poured out of him.

“Harder than anything that had ever happened to him in his life.” He considered how to put the impact of the accident into words. “Cary was so sure he’d play pro ball that he never considered doing anything else. He didn't have a contingency plan.”

“Did he go to college?” Leeza asked.

“He did,” Cary said. “He even graduated. But that isn’t much of an achievement considering his degree was in physical education.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say,” Leeza said.

Cary closed his eyes briefly. Boy Scouts didn’t badmouth anyone, not even their no-good brothers.

“You’re right. But, believe me, if anyone coasted through college, it was Cary.”

“What did he do after college?” she asked.

“Jumped from job to job and from place to place. He’s tended bar, worked in a health club, at a community center, at a YMCA. A couple months ago, he moved to Charleston. Now he works as a recreation specialist for the parks department.”

Unexpectedly, her expression brightened. “So he’s getting his life back in order?”

Nope
, Cary thought wryly.
He’d merely stolen his brother’s life until he had to return to his own.

“The job in Charleston won’t last,” he said.

“Why not?”

The reason pushed at the back of his throat. It was his deepest secret, one he’d never dared utter and hardly ever allowed himself to think. Quite suddenly he couldn’t hold it back.

“Because throwing a baseball is the only thing he’s ever been good at.”

The truth hung in the air between them, stark and ugly. Cary felt as though the secret had spewed from a gaping wound in his throat.

“Is that what you believe or what Cary believes?” Leeza asked.

“I think it’s what both of us believe.”

Leeza gazed at him intently, as though she could see into his soul. Considering the state it was in, he hoped that wasn’t possible.

“You know the only limitations a person has are the ones he puts on himself, right?” she asked softly.

That was probably the credo by which his brother lived. And no wonder. Mitch had so much going for him that, had he lost one of his talents, he could fill in his life with the others. Mitch was the successful, responsible twin. He always had been.

He answered her the way his brother would have. “I do know that.”

“Then you have to tell Cary.” She reached across the space separating them, placing her warm hand on top of his cold one. “I only wish your brother was more like you, Grant.”

His spirits plummeted, as though pitched into an abyss like the fastballs he could no longer throw.

Because, aside from their physical appearance, he was nothing like the brother she so admired.

Lizabeth took another sip from her frozen margarita when Grant inched closer to her. That way, she could pretend her shiver was from the cold drink.

Worldly, sophisticated women did not vibrate from sexual awareness when a man barely touched them.

“What will it take to get you to dance with me?” His breath close to her ear set off another torrent of shivers. Of course, he was only trying to make sure she heard him above the blaring music.

The entire nightclub assaulted the senses. Two enormous video screens lined the dance floor showing dual images of a famous male rock star prancing around a stage with such manic energy it was miraculous the seams of his tight pants didn’t burst. His female backup singers swayed sensually to the beat in slinky red dresses not very different from Lizabeth’s.

“I don’t dance.” Lizabeth was dismayed at how stark and gauche that sounded, so she added, “dahling.”

“Did you call me
dahling
?” Grant asked, a corner of his mouth kicking up.

“But of course, dahling,” she said, and he laughed. A few days ago, she might have feared he was making fun of her but now she realized he was simply having fun.

It was crazy, but their talk that afternoon about his brother Cary’s shortened baseball career had made Lizabeth feel closer to Grant. As he’d confided his brother’s troubles, she’d felt as though a bond were growing between them, invisible but as strong as steel.

They’d returned to their respective hotels to freshen up after their walk but had spent the rest of the evening together. Grant had been extravagant as usual, taking her to the island’s most expensive restaurant when she would have been as happy to dine at one of the casual open-air spots along Duval Street.

Now they were huddled together at a tall table for two in an art-deco style nightclub teeming with people bent on having a good time.

“It’s hard to believe a woman like you doesn’t dance,” Grant said.

Actually, she’d used the wrong terminology. She
couldn’t
dance. Not well, anyway. Certainly not well enough to fool Grant into thinking she was the sophisticated, adventurous woman she was pretending to be. That woman would surely know how to dance.

“Gyrating isn’t my style,” she said.

He grinned at her again, looking so devastatingly handsome her stomach did a roll.

The video screens abruptly changed from the dancing, prancing rock star to a close-up of a balladeer who rose to fame in the 1970s on the strength of corny love songs.

“I never thought I’d say this about a Barry Manilow song, but this is more like it.” Grant stood up and held out his hand. “For a slow dance, you don’t have to gyrate. All you have to do is sway.”

The sight of Grant Mitchell standing before her with his hand outstretched was more than Lizabeth could resist.

For years she had only to close her eyes to relive the memory of being in his arms for that single dance in high school. She liked to fantasize that he’d begged her to dance with him instead of having her thrust upon him.

And now here he was, her fantasy come to life.

Wordlessly she put her hand in his and followed him to the dance floor, where he turned her into his arms. He placed one hand at her waist and the other at her back, and her nerve endings came alive.

She’d revisited their long-ago dance with such regularity she was shocked that it seemed like she’d never danced with him before. The faint, pleasant scent of his cologne was different than she remembered. So were his smooth, self-assured steps and the very feel of him.

But of course he was different. He was ten years older, a mature man instead of a boy. And she was a grown woman. No wonder the warm, wonderful sensations swirling through her seemed unfamiliar.

She let her hands creep around his neck and felt the warmth at the nape of his neck. His heat spread through her, and she sought closer contact with the hard length of his body. She rested her head against his shoulder as Barry sang about writing the songs that made the whole world sing.

“Ah, Leeza,” Grant said against her hair. “I’ll always remember we danced our first dance to one of the corniest songs ever sung.”

Cold fingers of disappointment settled over Lizabeth, snuffing out the warmth. She drew her head back to look into his face.

“This isn’t the first time we’ve danced,” she said.

“Sure it is.”

He didn’t remember, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise. However, some silly part of her had fantasized that their dance would bring back the memory of that long-ago night when Grant held Lizabeth instead of Leeza in his arms.

“This is the first time you
asked
me to dance. You were stuck with me in high school when my partner cut in on yours.”

“I hardly think
stuck with you
is the right expression.”

“You didn’t ask for a second dance,” Lizabeth pointed out. He hadn’t asked her for anything at all after a polite inquiry as to her name. He hadn’t remembered that either.

“Then it’s a good thing I have a chance to make up for my mistake,” he said.

They continued dancing, with Grant holding her slightly apart, as he had at the beginning of the song before she’d plastered herself against him. Lizabeth turned her face toward his shoulder and closed her eyes in horror.

She’d been fooling herself about the way he felt about her for days. Grant hadn’t been making the moves. She had. She’d approached him on the street and made it very clear he’d been the object of her affection in high school.

Sure, he’d been willing to spend time with her. But she was the one who initiated the kiss in the courtyard. She was the one who’d invited him sightseeing after not receiving a post-kiss phone call.

She’d been so busy pretending to be worldly and sophisticated that she’d made a naive, ridiculous mistake.

Grant didn’t want Leeza any more than he had wanted Lizabeth. If he’d been truly interested, he’d have made love to her the other night. And he surely wouldn’t be holding her so loosely now.