Bait & Switch (30 page)

“Cary Mitchell,” Cary said, sticking out a hand.

“Forgive me for staring.” Her uncle took Cary’s hand and shook it. “I knew Mitch had an identical twin but darn if it doesn’t seem like I’ve developed a bad case of double vision.”

Peyton had known they were identical twins the instant she’d seen them together, of course. Another truth struck her so hard she almost staggered.

At some point, for whatever twisted reason of their own, the brothers had changed places. The man she’d come to trust, the man who had let her fall in love with him, wasn’t Cary at all. He was a stranger.

“Peyton, I can explain.” The stranger approached her with his right arm outstretched.

She backed up a step. “Don’t you dare touch me,” she said, her voice quivering.

“Uh oh.” The exclamation came from Cary. “I’m getting the impression nobody told Peyton about the bait and switch.”

“Secrecy is important for an undercover operation,” her uncle piped up, although obviously he hadn’t been kept in the dark. “If Mitch had told folks he was a cop, maybe Flash Gordon wouldn’t have been arrested.”

“I didn’t know Flash had been arrested,” Cary commented.

Lizabeth clapped her hands. “That’s great news. What happened?”

The conversation swirled around them but neither Mitch nor Peyton took any notice of it. He was still advancing toward her, which was the impetus her frozen legs needed to move.

She pivoted and rushed out the open door, wanting only to get away from him and the ugly deception he’d perpetrated.

“Peyton, wait,” he called.

She dug in her purse for her keys. Damn it all. Didn’t automobile manufacturers realize how difficult it was to find those little pieces of metal? Why didn’t they make bigger keyholes that used bigger keys? She stopped at the sidewalk and rummaged through her purse, aware he’d caught up to her.

“Peyton, don’t cry.” He reached across the chasm separating them to wipe a tear from her cheek. “It breaks my heart when you cry.”

She swiped at his hand. “Maybe I’m not crying over you. Did you think of that? Maybe I’m crying because I can’t find my keys. I don’t even know who
you
are.”

“Grant Mitchell,” he said softly, “but everybody calls me Mitch.”

“So that’s why you were so insistent on the nickname,” Peyton muttered, still rummaging for her keys, still refusing to give in to her tears. “It must’ve made it easier for you. One fewer lie to keep track of. One fewer way for your brother’s girlfriend to find out who you really were.”

“My brother’s girlfriend?” He fastened on the remark. “Is that how you think of yourself?”

She could have sworn she heard pain in his voice but she steeled herself against it. She wasn’t going to tell him that Cary’s introduction of Lizabeth as the woman he loved hadn’t hurt at all.

She wouldn’t say her heart had known the brothers were far different men under the skin even if her brain hadn’t consciously realized it. That’s why she’d fallen in love with Mitch while Cary had never been more than a temporary diversion. And that’s why his betrayal hurt so very deeply.

“I don’t owe you any explanations,” she told him harshly but then gave him one anyway. “But for the record, no, I don’t think of myself as your brother’s girl. I never did.”

“But you thought of yourself as
my
girl,” he said unnecessarily. The night was quiet, the only sounds the wind-aided rustling of the plants, but he spoke so softly she had to strain to hear his voice. “I never wanted to lie to you, Peyton.”

Her hand stilled in her purse, and the tears that had been threatening suddenly dried. She felt a hot flash of anger in its stead and shot him an irate look. “Oh, right. That’s believable. Especially after you told me one whopper after another. Tell me something else, Mitch. Were you honest about anything?”

“I never lied about how I felt about you.” His voice lowered even further. “I’m in love with you, Peyton.”

She laughed harshly, aware of how much she’d wanted to hear those words mere minutes ago. So much had passed since then, though, that it felt like a lifetime.

“Do you expect me to believe that?” she asked, her volume spiking. “In my world, men introduce themselves before they take a woman to bed.”

He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture that should have tipped her off days ago that he wasn’t who he was pretending to be. Cary cared too much about his appearance to continually tousle his hair.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “If I’d told you who I was, I would have had to explain why I was in town. Gibbs was so desperate to keep his secrets hidden that I couldn’t risk that. He threatened to hurt you if you found out he was the shadow owner of Epidermis.”

Where were those damned keys? Peyton stooped and dumped the contents of her purse on the sidewalk. He got on his haunches next to her as she refilled her purse item by item.

“Did you hear what I said?” he prompted.

“I’m gullible, not deaf.” She combed through the items on the sidewalk, fruitlessly searching for her keys. “I’m also insulted that you thought I couldn’t keep a secret.”

“I didn’t think that, but I already told you. I couldn’t risk it.” Frustration clouded his every syllable. “I was protecting you.”

“You were deciding what was good for me instead of letting me decide for myself.” She scooped up the rest of the items, keys excluded, and glared at him. “Which is exactly what you say my parents do.”

“Your parents dictate to you. I was protecting you,” he refuted, a note of anger entering his voice. “Can’t you see the difference?”

“You’re the one who can’t see, Mitch. I already have an overbearing father, not to mention an overbearing mother. I don’t need an overbearing lover, too, especially one who lies to me.”

“So that’s it?” Mitch asked after they both stood up. He wasn’t touching her and the gulf between them seemed enormous. “You’re saying it’s over between us?”

“It never should have started,” she said sadly. Her hands were trembling so she shoved them in the pockets of her pants. Her fingers met cool metal. Her keys. She pulled them out of her pocket and walked to her car.

Away from the only man she’d ever loved.

“WHAT’S THE DEAL?” Cary asked after Mitch hung up the phone later that evening.

Mitch popped the top off a beer can and sank into a chair opposite his brother at the kitchen table. Having refused the beer Mitch had offered him, Cary’s hands were empty.

That was quite a switch, Mitch thought as he drank from the can and tried not to think about Peyton. Usually he abstained and Cary partook.

“Gibbs lawyered up but the detective in charge says the case they’re building against him is pretty strong.” Mitch sighed. Now for the bad news. “He also said Gibbs is making noises about bringing charges against you for theft.”

“If he does, I’ll pay the consequences,” Cary said solemnly. Another surprise. His twin didn’t normally do solemn. “I won’t run, even if it means I have to go to jail.”

“You won’t have to go to jail,” Mitch said. Not if he could help it.

“It’d probably serve me right,” Cary said wryly, “if only because of what I put you through.”

“Nobody put a gun to my head and forced me to help you, Cary,” Mitch said. “You were in a jam. I wanted to get you out of it.”

“Yeah, but I could have told you about bartending at Epidermis. Or collecting debts for Flash. Or cutting out to Key West.” Cary paused. “I could have told you about Peyton.”

The sound of her name sent fresh pain cascading over Mitch. He sent his brother a dark look. “You should have.”

“You fell for her, didn’t you?” Cary asked.

Mitch nearly thumped the table and asked what had happened to his real brother, the one who never noticed anything that didn’t directly affect him.

“I’d apologize for that,” Mitch said, glaring at his brother, “if recent events hadn’t made it clear I didn’t have anything to apologize for.”

Cary winced. “I shouldn’t have let you believe I had something good going with her. Things were never anything other than casual between us. I take it that’s not the way it is with you and Peyton?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mitch mumbled. “She’ll never forgive me.”

A few years ago, after his partner had botched the arrest of a scared kid with a gun, Mitch had taken a bullet in the fleshy part of the leg. It had burned like red-hot coals. The wounded look on Peyton’s face when she discovered his deception had hurt more.

“I could talk to her,” Cary offered.

“No thanks,” Mitch said. “You weren’t the one who lied to her about who you were.”

“Why didn’t you tell her?”

Mitch took a healthy swig of beer. The smooth feel of the liquid going down his throat couldn’t soothe the rawness inside. “At first it was because you asked me to talk her out of breaking up with you. You can’t imagine how disloyal I felt when it started to work.”

“Sorry, bro,” Cary said, looking sheepish.

“You should be.” Mitch took another swallow of beer. “Eventually I realized I couldn’t give her up, not even to you. I made up my mind to tell her who I was but then Gibbs threatened to hurt her if she found out he owned Epidermis. I thought telling her anything was too dangerous.”

“Because of your white-knight complex,” Cary commented.

“Pardon?”

“You were protecting her, the way you always protect me,” Cary said. “The way you think you have to protect everyone. Isn’t that why you became a cop?”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help people,” Mitch said. “And, besides, you never complained about me protecting you before. Somebody’s got to look out for you.”

Cary straightened his backbone. “Not anymore,” he said with conviction. “It’s time I looked out for myself.”

Mitch let out a short breath. “Where’s this coming from?”

Cary shrugged. “It’s the right thing to do. Just like coming back to Charleston was the right thing to do.”

“Don’t get me wrong, little brother, I’m in favor of accountability,” Mitch said, leaning his elbows on the table. “But since when do you recognize what the right thing is?”

“Since I met Lizabeth,” Cary said.

Mitch nodded, because he’d thought as much. Pleading tiredness, Lizabeth had gone to sleep thirty minutes ago, leaving the brothers alone. Mitch had seen enough to know she was good for Cary, who seemed more interested in her needs than his own.

“I like her.” Mitch screwed up his forehead. “Did I mention there’s something about her that seems familiar? Like I’ve met her before.”

“You have. She was a sophomore at Hatfield High when you were a senior.”

“I remember now.” Mitch snapped his fingers. “I danced with her once, I think. At a high school dance.”

“I don’t want you dancing with her again unless it’s at my wedding,” Cary said loudly, then lowered his voice. “I love her, bro. I’m praying she’ll stick by me if I go to jail.”

“You won’t go to jail,” Mitch said again, as though he could will it so.

“Maybe not, but I can’t ask Lizabeth to marry me until I’ve proved I can turn my life around.” He gave his brother a rueful grin. “Lizabeth thinks I’d make a good baseball coach, but first I’m going to try to make a go of it at the rec center.” He shrugged. “Unless you’ve showed me up there, too.”

“Are you kidding?” This time Mitch’s laughter was genuine. “You’re lucky I didn’t get you fired. The people over there love you, Cary. And for the record, I don’t think you’d make a good baseball coach. I think you’d make a great one.”

“You do?” Cary’s voice was lacking in confidence and much softer than Mitch had ever heard it.
 

“I believe in you, Cary.” Mitch met the eyes that were so like his own. “I always have.”

He reached across the table and clasped his brother’s hand, re-establishing the link they’d always shared. Soon, Mitch would return to Atlanta, away from the city he’d come to love. Loneliness gripped him when he thought about leaving Charleston, because he’d be leaving Cary and Peyton, too.

But, before he left, there was something he could do to make life run more smoothly. For both of them. The two people he loved most in the world.

“It’s you again,” Mr. McDowell said the next evening when Mitch showed up at the front door of his lovely antebellum house.

The stiff breeze from the harbor nearly blew Mitch inside the house. He held his ground for self-preservation purposes. Neither of Peyton’s parents had seen him in more than a week, but her father still acted as though that was too often.

“Good evening, Sir,” Mitch said.

“Call me Tommy Mac.”

Mitch swallowed so he wouldn’t let out a disbelieving snort. Was he joking? From the first moment they’d met, Peyton’s father had demanded such formality that Mitch had begun to believe the man’s first name was Mister.

He was on the verge of asking whether he should call him Mister Tommy Mac or just plain Tommy Mac but stopped himself. What he had to request of the solicitor was too important to risk starting off on a bad note.

“I’ll call you anything you want,” Mitch said, “as long as you listen to what I have to say.”

“Then you have more to say to me?”

“Much more.” Mitch thought the solicitor was acting odd. In the past, they’d never said much of anything to each other at all.

Peyton’s father swung the door open wide, a far different reception than Mitch had received on his previous visits. But the fact that he was no longer dating the daughter of the house undoubtedly had much to do with that.

Within minutes, Mitch had a glass of port in his hand and the undivided attention of the man who suddenly wanted to be called Tommy Mac.

“Now what else do you have to say to me, son?” he asked, leaning back in his leather chair.

“I want you to drop the charges against my brother.” Mitch met the solicitor’s inscrutable eyes. “It might not always seem like it, but he’s a good man. Even if he had taken that money from the cash register, which I’m not admitting he did, it was because he was the victim of a loan-shark operation. My brother’s not a thief.”

“Tommy dear, I was wondering if you’d seen my car keys.” Amelia McDowell strolled into the room, stopping when she realized her husband wasn’t alone. Incredibly, her face softened when she focused on Mitch. “Oh, hello, dear. How lovely to see you again so soon. Did you forget something?”