Falling for the Wrong Twin (11 page)

“Technically that would be parking lot sculpture.”

She laughed as she waved a dismissive hand at him. “Tomato, tomahto.”

He caught her fingers and tugged her into walking again. She was getting to restless in his arms for him to bring her back into his embrace. Damned shame. He could have stood there for a few years at least with her pressed tight against his body. But he already knew she’d never keep herself still for long, so he let her lead them onto the quaint boardwalk.

“Perhaps I have a better suggestion,” he said.

She twisted to look at him, her eyebrows raised. He didn’t answer at first, too involved in the feel of her fingers entwined with his. She had elegant hands, he thought. Soft and smooth with long fingers tapering into nicely manicured nails. They weren’t even chewed on, he realized. No, her nervous habit was more along the hair twirling variety. Or pencil tapping. He’d heard her doing that when she was waiting for her turn in Monopoly. She wasn’t a woman who liked to sit still for long, not even when playing a board game.

“You’re keeping me in suspense,” she prompted when he didn’t speak.

He jolted back to present, scrambling to remember what he wanted to say. “What’s your favorite memory of that car?”

She smiled, her face lighting up as she looked off into the distance. “There are so many.”

“Pick your favorite.”

“Mom singing to me as I fell asleep in the back seat. Then I’d wake up in the morning as she put it into gear. I’d look over at the clock and see that she’d woken up early and that we could have breakfast together at the diner where she worked. That was always the best. Waking up just as the car went into gear and knowing that we were going to spend breakfast together.”

He felt his jaw clench, the truth behind her words hitting him hard. Her childhood must have been dirt poor. “You lived in your car?”

“For a while, yeah.” She looked over at him then shrugged. He was beginning to see that she only did that when things got too personal. As if she were pushing off something uncomfortable. “Don’t look so tragic, engineer. It wasn’t so bad. I was too young to realize it wasn’t the grand adventure my mom made it into. And we got a room soon enough. We were never homeless in the winter.”

He swallowed, his throat suddenly feeling raw. “So it was just you and your mom. She was a waitress and you went to college.”

She smiled. “Graduated cum laude in business.”

“And now you’ve got a successful party planning business. I’m impressed.”

She laughed. “Well, you should be. Not everyone can keep a 1976 Chevette alive as long as I have.”

He chuckled. “True enough. Now here’s my suggestion: why don’t you let me take apart the dash. I’ll get you that clock and you can watch it keep time for the next half century.”

She shook her head. “Hate to break it to you, but that clock stopped working a decade ago.”

“Well, I can probably fix it. Or we can set it to whatever time it was when you woke up. Then every time you look at it, you’ll know you’re about to go to breakfast with your mom.”

She looked at him a long moment, her smile fading, but her eyes shimmering bright in the half light. “That’s…that’s a really good idea, engineer.”

“I am known to have them sometimes.”

She nodded slowly, her expression warming by the second. “Then answer me this: if I junk my car here, how am I going to get back to Kansas City? Or up to Chicago?”

Lots of answers came to mind. There were trains and buses, not to mention rental cars. But before a single one of those ideas made it to his lips, he said something else entirely.

“I’ll take you.”

Her expression softened and he read a yearning in them that was quickly blanked. “Mike, you live in Peoria. That’s in the opposite direction.”

He shrugged. “Kansas City isn’t that far, and my car is in excellent condition.”

“Yeah, but does it have a clock permanently set to 4:37 am?”

“Nope. You got me there.”

She laughed, the sound lighter than he’d heard from her all day. “So there.”

Then she started meandering down the boardwalk. He followed a second later, his mind still turning over her words. “Um, so there…what? I don’t know what you mean by that.”

She looked at him and laughed again. “There isn’t a meaning, Mike. It’s just an expression. So there!”

But did that mean he was taking her to Kansas City or not? It had been an impulsive offer--and one he didn’t regret--but he was going to have to plan logistics if he was actually going to do it. He had to be back at work on Wednesday. The family reunion was going to last another two days. Assuming the roads were cleared of dead trees by then, he could--

“Don’t worry about it, Mike. I’ll find my own way home.”

He frowned, his gut tightening. He didn’t want her to find her own way, he wanted to be the one to rescue her. But she was clearly well used to saving herself.

“We can talk about it after dinner.”

She flashed him a coy smile. “But that will be during our date. What if it’s a lousy date and I’m completely sick of you?”

“Then it’ll be a short conversation, won’t it?”

She nodded. “Okay. I guess we’ve just set the stakes for the date. Good date, you can take a day out of your life to deliver me home. Bad date, you still have to pull the clock out of my car while I bad mouth you to your family before buying a bus ticket home.”

“Huh,” he said, his mind heading somewhere else entirely. “And what if it’s a really awesome date? What if it’s the best date you’ve ever had in your life?”

She turned to him, surprise in her expression. “That’s a pretty high bar you’ve set for yourself, don’t you think?”

“What then?” he challenged.

“Then…I’ll let you pick my next car. And after I buy it, I’ll take you for the very first ride.”

“My choice of destination?”

“Absolutely.”

“Deal.” He knew just the place he wanted to go.

Chapter 8

The day turned out to be lovely. Not the weather. That turned drizzly, but even in the misty drip of a gray day, Mike was a fun companion. He wasn’t a big talker, but when he did speak, he proved he was incredibly perceptive. That was both flattering and annoying. Flattering because it showed he was paying attention. He listened to what she said and thought about it. Annoying because he didn’t let her get away with any of her usual bullshit. She was used to dazzling people with her charm or distracting them with celebrity gossip or amusing anecdotes of the party life, whatever floated their boats.

But Mike couldn’t care less about the people she’d met or the tales of their conquests. He was interested in her. Earlier, he’d asked the basics about her education , her family--what there was of it--and even her business. Now he was probing deeper, and she was doing her best to turn every question around to him. She wasn’t hiding anything. Not really. Just that her life was really boring. She worked. That’s it. End of story. As for her childhood? She’d grown up in poverty. Not really an exciting life.

So she pushed for his background. He’d grown up middle class, was a football athlete in high school (the American kind), and had been working at Caterpillar since graduating from college, though he was thinking of changing jobs to be closer to his family. He was the American boy makes good, just as she was the Latino girl makes good.

And yet something was obviously missing for them both. For her, it was a simple answer. She missed having a family, and she was doing everything she could to glom onto his for her short vacation. He lived the well-loved life she wanted, and yet there was still something off for him. She couldn’t put a name on it, but she felt it when he spoke. He had a reserve or a secret, something that he kept locked down so tight she wondered if he even knew what was wrong.

Which meant that when the date portion of the evening came, she had an agenda. It was simple really: she had to get him to crack. If she found where he wavered and pushed hard enough, he would let her in. He would show her that secret something and he would also--side bene--stop probing into her lonely life.

Her first guess was the obvious sibling rivalry thing. They’d just given their order to the waitress at a lovely Italian restaurant (the one recommended by Aunt Tilde) when Anna started to explore that track. “So what was it like growing up with super-athlete for a twin?”

He frowned at her. “Rick wasn’t born a pro-athlete, you know. We were just two boys doing what boys do.”

“But did he do it better?”

“Never.” The word came with a twinkle in his eyes and a smile that might have been a smirk.

She arched her brows and pretended he didn’t look sexy as hell like that. “Was that an attempt at flirtation?”

“No ma’am,” he answered, affecting a TV cowboy drawl. “It’s just the God’s honest truth.”

She laughed. “Sure it is. But seriously, was Rick an amazing athlete from the cradle?”

Mike sobered, and his lips tightened a smidge. Score 1 for sibling rivalry. But when he spoke, his tone was thoughtful. “We were both good athletes, though he was always a little bit faster. And he loved to kick things.”

“What things? Like a soccer ball?”

“Not really. He discovered that relatively late. The only reason he went out for
futball
--” He emphasized the European pronunciation of the word. “–was because he found baseball way too boring.”

“So what was he kicking?”

“Anything, everything. My clothes, his books, the refrigerator, the dog.”

“He kicked your dog?”

“Not like you’re thinking. He had this game with Molly--our golden retriever--where he’d tap her on the rump with his toe. She would spin around and try to stop him. They played that for hours.”

“Seriously?”

“And then he discovered hacky sack balls. I always wanted to throw them, but he kicked them around like…” He shrugged. “Like a soccer ball only smaller.”

“So always an athlete.” She watched him closely when she asked the next question. “Were you jealous? I mean you’re identical twins—”

He frowned at her, his expression shifting to annoyed. “ He was just my brother who kicked things and tried to con me into doing his chores.”

“Did it work?”

He snorted. “Never.”

“How would you know?”

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Well, if you were conned, you wouldn’t know it, would you? You’d think you were doing him a favor or something.”

Mike leaned forward onto his elbows, and his gaze fixed hard on her. “You’re pushing here. Why?”

She blinked, then put on her most innocent expression. “I’m just trying to get a picture of your childhood.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay, here it is. I was the athletic god in high school. I played American football and he was only mediocre at that. He was fast, so he made varsity, but he hated the pads, had terrible hands, and really disliked slamming into each other.”

“And what did you do?”

“I was a wide receiver who was fast enough to catch whatever my best friend--the quarterback--threw at me.”

She smiled. “Winning season?”

“Every year.”

“So did you want to go pro?”

He leaned back as the waitress took away his barely touched salad. “Every high school boy with a smidgeon of talent wants to go pro.”

“So that was your dream?”

He nodded. “It was.”

“What happened?”

He tilted his head. “Reality. College. I went to the University of Michigan, but never made first string. Became an engineer.” He toyed with his fork. “All those hours my brother spenttrying to kick our dog, I spent trying to tear apart machines. I tore down and re-built our vacuum cleaner a dozen times.”

“Did the vacuum need to be taken apart?”

He flushed. “Not the first time. But after that? Um…yeah.”

She laughed. “Your mother must have loved that.”

“What about you? Cheerleader? Mathlete? Drama queen?”

“Waitress.” She took a last stab of salad before tossing her fork down. The truth was she envied him his high school days. She’d started working before it was even legal for her to work. The moment she’d looked old enough to buss tables, she’d begun pitching in at her mother’s side. She knew how to be a short-order cook before she’d mastered her multiplication tables. “So you were the football god, big man in high school. And your brother--”

“I was never big man in high school. That was Rick the whole way, but not because he was an athlete. So didn’t you have any extra curricular activities? Never wanted to stand on top of a human pyramid?”

“Of course I did. But I liked making money more. And why was Rick big man on campus and not you?”

His lips curved in a feral smile. It was dark and predatory, and it sent excited shivers down her back. God he looked scary good when he got all intense like that. Then he spoke, his words quiet and low. “This is starting to feel like an interview, Miss Lopez.”

“An interview?” she parroted, trying to appear confused.

“A side piece on the family behind the athlete.”

“And do you get interviewed a lot?”

“Not by professional journalists.”

Something dark had entered his tone. Something that sent warning signals into her brain which she purposely ignored. “If not by journalists, then who--”

“Fan girls, Miss Lopez. Obsessive freaks who think being close to the celebrity is just about as good as the real thing. Especially since he’s my identical twin.”

She blinked. Okay, right here was the nerve she’d been probing for. But rather than back off like an intelligent person, she decided to bang it a little harder.

“How many fan girls hit you up every year? Seriously, I know he’s famous and all, but that’s half the continent away. Most of this country could care less about soccer.”

“There are a zillion celebrity watchers, just like you. And they all know about Rick’s spread in that magazine.”

She smiled. His tone was getting gravelly with an undercurrent of warning. But at least he’d stopped asking about her high school interests. “ Why are you a freak about fan girls? Did some psycho stalk you by mistake? Or are you just mis-directing your jealously into super-suspicion? Maybe you’re hoping one of those psycho fan girls will take you instead?”