Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch (29 page)

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Authors: Victoria Pade

BOOK: Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch
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“From what?”
“Boredom,” she replied. “Next time, remind me not to cut loose with a man immersed in a love affair with lures.”
Grant's laughter was interrupted by the high jangle of his cell phone on the boat deck. Mitzi looked over at the handset, then turned to Grant. He was so frozen she was afraid he'd sink. “Don't you want to answer that?”
Grant's lips turned up in a limp grin. He'd never not answered his cell phone before. But he was here to romance Mitzi, not to conduct business. This would prove he wasn't really a workaholic, or a slave to technology. Besides, the call was probably Moreland, who he didn't want to talk to anyway.
But what if it wasn't? What if it was Ted? There might be some emergency at the store. What if Herman Little had actually unionized the employees in five hours?
He tensed as the phone rang again.
“Maybe it's something important,” Mitzi said, unknowingly torturing him. Even Chester looked concerned. “Or business.”
Grant forced his shoulders to lift in a stiff shrug. “Business be damned! I've declared this a vacation.”
His tone might have lacked the enthusiasm his words called for, but Mitzi brimmed with admiration. Not many people could resist the call of the wireless. When the handset stopped ringing, she stood, feeling the sudden urge to frolic in the water with Grant. She decided he had unknowingly discovered a powerful aphrodisiac—not answering the telephone!
She looked into his eyes and saw a healthy male anticipation in them. “Would you stop leering? You're making me self-conscious.”
“Just curious to see which of those suits you finally chose,” he said, wriggling those eyebrows again.
She laughed. “It won't be much of a surprise. You picked it out!”
She tore off her T-shirt to reveal the cute navy blue bathing suit with the high neck and the modest skirt. She'd thought it was grannyish in the store, but now she was grateful for his good taste. “What do you think?” she asked, striking a model pose for him.
His face fell. “I think the next time I see a woman shopping for bathing suits, I should keep my trap shut.”
Mitzi dived in the water and swam toward Grant, trying very hard to present the grace of Esther Williams, which was difficult given that her only stroke was a refined dog paddle. “This is wonderful!” Even though she felt like a waterlogged landlubber, it was the truth. “I never get the chance to swim at home.”
“I thought New York City was surrounded by water.”
“But most of it's not the type of stuff you'd want to take a morning dip in,” she said. “Unless you groove on the sewage experience.”
Grant laughed. He'd been treading water forever, and he wasn't out of breath, whereas she already felt as if she'd just swum the English Channel. In fact, he appeared completely at home, with beads of water in his golden hair and his bronzed skin glistening in the sun. The lake god. He made her heart pump double time.
Or maybe the dog-paddling was doing that to her.
“Here,” he said, reaching out for her. She grabbed on to his shoulders as if they were a life buoy. Swimming backward, he tugged her gently through the water, so that she really did feel like Esther Williams in one of those crazy old water musicals.
Only, even Esther had never had such a sexy partner.
He stopped suddenly, his eyes darkening with sensual intent. She'd seen that look before, back in the swimwear department. Mitzi felt the bottom of her stomach drop like an out-of-control elevator.
“I don't think this is such a good idea.”
“Why not?” he asked, reaching forward to nibble at her ear.
The temperature in the water shot up ten degrees. “It's like that one summer when I was seventeen,” she said between nibbles. “Some friends and I went to the beach.”
“Mmm,” he murmured in her ear. “What happened?”
“I was swimming with this boy I really liked, Lou Herkimer.” His hand swept across her breast, making her shiver with desire.
At least, she hoped it was his hand. “See, there were jellyfish...”
His lips brushed lightly against hers. “And?”
It was as if she'd died and gone to a very wet heaven. “Lou was allergic,” she practically gasped out as he continued to tease her lips. “It was terrible...we had to go...to...to the...emergency room...and they gave him this shot...of...”
“Mitzi?”
Her eyes opened and she stared into mesmerizing blue eyes darkened by unmasked desire. “Yes?”
“Will you please just shut up about Lou Herkimer and the jellyfish and let me kiss you?”
She did. Gladly.
6
S
HE FELT AS IF she were walking on air. Never mind that she'd eaten nothing but bass for twenty-four hours straight. Never mind that she barely got a wink of sleep and had spent the entire night blinking up at scaly fish carcasses eyeballing her from the walls. Never mind that she was half-crazy in lust with Grant. She was happy.
For the first time in her life, she'd found a man who didn't want to keep her at arm's length. Far from it. It seemed she and Grant couldn't stop flirting, touching, kissing. In one short day, they'd become addicted to each other. But with Brewster as affable host and chaperon, kissing had been as far as matters had gone. They were still perched on the edge of flingdom. Mitzi felt jubilant, and a little frightened, as if she stood on the edge of a high rocky precipice, and was about to hurl herself over the edge.
As she skipped down the path to the lake, she noticed Chester sniffing something behind a very large pine tree. She approached quietly, and discovered Grant, crouching with his back to her and whispering into his cell phone.
Looking at him, she felt a now-familiar tightening in her chest. He was so gorgeous. And those arms—she loved the snuggly feeling of having them wrapped around her.
Crave
was too weak a word for what she felt for this man.
She frowned, reining in her galloping lust. Why was Grant talking on the phone behind a tree?
She cleared her throat, sending him whirling around in surprise. He looked like a deer caught in headlights. “I'll call you later, Ted,” he said, disconnecting the person at the other end. Then he sent Mitzi a bright smile. Overly bright. “I didn't see you.”
She arched an eyebrow. “What were you doing?”
Grant laughed. A little nervously, she thought. A wave of foreboding shivered through her.
“Just thought I'd check in at the office,” he said.
“Ted, that was your brother, wasn't it?” Without discussing it, they fell into step together toward the lake, with Chester padding happily in the lead. “Brewster mentioned him.”
Grant winced. It was bad enough to have Mitzi catch him sneaking a business call, now he worried that she might have figured out that Ted and he were identical twins. Not that he wanted to keep it a secret from her forever, especially now that they were growing so close.
Memories of last night temporarily blocked his senses. They'd necked by the light of the moon like two kids at summer camp, and he was ready for more. Much more. But he felt a gnawing discomfort around her, and he knew why. He hadn't been completely honest.
He wondered whether she would forgive him for having pulled the switch at the wedding. But then, why wouldn't she? Certainly he had to come clean at some point. The trick was finding the right moment.
Of course, there was no time like the present. Grant took her hand. “Mitzi, there's something I have to tell you.”
Mitzi froze as she stared into Grant's dead-serious eyes. Here it comes! The big letdown. For some stupid reason, she'd relaxed her guard, and had forgotten that all good things came to a speedy end. “Don't tell me, I think I can guess.”
Grant's eyebrows arched dramatically. “You can?”
She sighed. “You have another girlfriend hidden away somewhere.”
He looked surprised. “No.”
“A model, maybe,” she guessed, hoping to cut the bad news off at the pass.
“Of course not.”
“You're quitting your job and running off to the Himalayas to join a monastery.”
“No.” He laughed, completely perplexed. “Excuse me, but what are you talking about?”
At the risk of sounding like a neurotic, she confessed, “I'm talking about all the excuses men use to avoid commitment, at least to me.”
His smile faded. “Those things happened to you?”
She nodded. “In the past three years.”
“Good heavens,” he exclaimed. Then he tilted his head and asked, “A monastery?”
She nodded miserably. “That was Tim. Brother Tim now. Yes, I drove a man to celibacy.” It was a longer, more humiliating story than she cared to relate in detail, but in her defense, she felt compelled to add, “He never even mentioned India to me. Or Buddhism. He was a stockbroker! The only thing I ever saw him follow religiously was the NASDAQ.”
Grant shook his head in commiseration. “Something like that could make you lose faith in men.”
“Maybe you can understand now why I value honesty above everything else.”
His gaze locked with hers. “Of course.”
“There's nothing more contemptible than dishonesty, or leading a person on.”
He gulped. “Well...”
Mitzi gathered her courage. “Whatever you had to confess, Grant, I'd rather you just spit it out now than when I'm stepping on the plane back to New York.”
His blue eyes were full of doubt, and for a moment Mitzi knew it was all over. Another one bites the dust, she thought, trying to hold on to some shred of humor. “You can be absolutely brutal,” she assured him. “If nothing else, my dismal romantic past has served as an inoculation against real heartbreak.”
Grant did feel heartened by her pleas for honesty. After all, what was a little twin switching when the woman had been abandoned three times in three years?
Then again, maybe his and Ted's deception would be the straw that broke the camel's back. “You must have had one romantic triumph,” he said. “Nobody's that unlucky.”
Mitzi thought for a moment. “I almost pulled off a romantic coup in high school. Barry Delaney, captain of the basketball team and all-around heartthrob, asked me to the prom. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.”
Grant was so accustomed now to her tales of woe that he was on the figurative edge of his seat, waiting for the custard pie to be lobbed.
The wait wasn't long. “But halfway through the prom, as we were dancing to my favorite Boy George song, I realized that I wasn't dancing with Barry Delaney, heartthrob, but Larry Delaney, head case.”
Grant stopped in midstride. All the blood rushed toward his sneakers.
“They were twins,” she said.
He felt sick.
“Larry was just out of juvenile detention, where he'd served three months for causing a disturbance during a pep rally.”
“Wasn't that sentence a bit severe?”
“He'd caused it by using concentrated hydrochloric acid from the chemistry lab, and a torpedo.”
“Oh.”
She sighed. “After he was released back into society, he developed a fixation on me, and his brother—I guess he was trying to help in his twin's rehabilitation—helped set it up so that I went to the prom with him. After that, Barry didn't seem any more of a heartthrob than Larry.”
Grant swallowed past the boulder-size lump in his throat.
“Well, so much for another stroll down memory lane.” Mitzi laughed and turned to him. “Now, what was it you wanted to tell me?”
Mitzi obviously found telling these disaster stories a purging experience. But Grant's confession remained firmly lodged in his throat. How could he possibly come out with his tale of twin deception now? Chances were, the moment he even mentioned having a twin she would start flashing back to prom trauma and gymnasiums in flames.
Her eyebrows came together in an anxious bridge. “Is something wrong?”
There was. Mitzi could tell. She looked into Grant's troubled blue eyes and steeled herself for the worst.
But instead of coming out with some sordid confession of being secretly married or wanting to devote his life to beekeeping, he smiled at her reassuringly. “I don't know why we're getting all serious. I was just going to confess to you that I...”
Barry and Larry...Barry and Larry...Barry and Larry...
He swallowed, then looked into her adorable green eyes and felt his anxious thoughts melt away. Why borrow trouble? “I never cared so deeply for anyone before, Mitzi,” he confessed.
She frowned. “What?”
He stumbled on, “I know how you feel about dates—about stepping into doom, and all that. But I want us to go out when we return to Austin. You know, for a real date—dinner clothes, a fancy restaurant, candlelight, the whole bit.”
As what Grant was telling her sank through her thick skull, Mitzi wanted to kick herself for being such a paranoid. Not to mention such a blabbermouth.
“Of course, I'd love to,” she said, joy quickly overtaking chagrin at having spilled out the most embarrassing moments of her love history. Someday, she would have to tell him about the good things about herself, like that she was valedictorian of her kindergarten and a very competent canasta partner. But for now, she decided to keep quiet. She didn't want to overwhelm the man, after all.
He smiled and took her in his arms for a long, searing kiss.
 
GRANT DANCED into his office humming “Call Me Irresponsible” and reached for the phone. The first thing he did was order a dozen pink roses to be delivered to Mitzi's. Romance, once you got the hang of it, was a cinch. All you had to do was what he'd avoided his entire life—go with the flow.
Last night after getting home from the lake, he and Mitzi had ordered out pizza and rented a silly action movie that had featured about thirty car chases and twice that many exploding buildings. Never mind that the pizza tasted like cardboard and he hated mind-numbing movies with explosions. The real pyrotechnics had been going off in his heart.
In fact, he could swear he was falling in love. Love! In less than four days, his whole life had been turned on its ear. The thought made him laugh out loud as he hung up the phone.
Ted appeared in the doorway, scowling, his arms crossed. “So! You're back!”
Grant grinned. “Don't worry about that beautiful boat of yours, brother. I left you with a full tank of gas.”
“Beautiful boat? Good grief!” His brother crossed to the leather captain's chair across the desk, sat down and leveled a stern gaze at him. “Grant, are you feeling all right?”
“Never better!”
“Then do you have any idea how important this week is?”
“You're telling me,” he said. “Did you know what Mitzi's favorite book is?”
Ted's eyebrows knit in confusion at the mental leap he was being asked to make. “No...”
Grant laughed.
“To Kill a Mockingbird.
Same as mine. Isn't that amazing?”
“Incredible.” Ted cleared his throat officiously. “I don't know if you've forgotten, but we've got a problem on our hands here.”
Grant lifted his palm to stop him. “Wait, let me show you something.” He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a little velvet jewelry box that contained a gold camera charm to go on the dangly bracelet Mitzi always wore. She said it had been her grandmother's. “I bought this yesterday.”
Ted covered the box with his big hand before Grant could open it. “You've lost your marbles, Grant. You have responsibilities here that you've been completely ignoring,” he lectured. It was given in the same
how-can-you-be-so-irresportsible?
tone that Grant had used on him a million times.
He even looked a little like Grant. The old Grant. Today, Ted was wearing a somber dark brown suit, while Grant had shown up in a pair of jeans and a pale-blue polo shirt.
Grant laughed. “Amazing, the place hasn't fallen apart in my absence.” For years, he thought the old stone building would collapse in a heap of rubble without his presence.
Ted tapped his fingers impatiently. “Do you realize that while you've been running amok with that bridesmaid, Mona's been out to dinner twice with Moreland and that daughter of his? Mona's ready to sign on the dotted line, Grant, and the Moreland people have taken Uncle Truman to every golf course within a hundred-mile radius.”
Grant chuckled.
“This is no laughing matter,” Ted huffed. “We've got to start doing some sharp maneuvering here. Yesterday, in your absence I circulated a memo informing the staff of casual day.”
Grant blinked. They had never had casual day before. “When is that?”
“Every day until further notice, i.e., until the Moreland s leave. I thought you'd found out, considering that hobo getup you've got on.”
Grant shrugged. “I just felt like being comfortable.”
Ted looked at him accusingly. “And you didn't notice Fred the doorman was wearing cutoffs and a ZZ Top T-shirt?”
In fact, Grant did remember that everyone looked a little out of the ordinary, but his mind had been elsewhere. But he saw where Ted was going with the idea. Moreland, with his military love of spit-and-polish, would be as repulsed by employees in shorts as he would by Herman Little's one-man picket line next to valet parking.

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