The Look-Alike Bride (Crimson Romance) (20 page)

Leonie sniffed harder, determined not to break down. Zara would never burst into tears. It wasn’t her style at all.

It wasn’t hers either, but somehow everything had spiraled out of her control—if she had ever really been in control. Realizing she loved Adam Silverthorne had undermined any semblance of control she’d had. Now she had morphed into a real basket case, and she couldn’t even escape the situation unless she cared to run off and hide in the woods and probably get herself eaten by some dangerous wild animal.

“Th—thank you,” she managed. “I’m okay. Or I will be in a minute.”

“Too bad I didn’t have any guns on me.” Adam lifted her to her feet and kept his arms around her. “I could have given one to Jeremy, and we’d have rounded those goons up Old West style.”

“What did those nasty men want, Adam?” Frances looked from Leonie, still sniffing back tears, to her son. “What did the agents tell you?”

“Apparently, the goons were in trouble with their handler for spying on a fake and wanted to prove to him that they were following the real Zara Daniel,” Adam said and rubbed Leonie’s back gently.

“But—” The truth hit Leonie like a baseball bat to her head. “You know I’m not Zara.” She turned to stare at Adam’s beloved face, unsure whether she should feel outraged or inept and stupid. “How long have you known?”

“Actually, from the first day I saw you.” He smiled at her tenderly. “In spite of the obvious physical likeness, you aren’t at all like Zara.”

“Oh, Adam, I’m so sorry. I told her it wouldn’t work.” Leonie covered her face with both hands. She felt exposed and ashamed. “It’s true I can look almost like her twin, but there’s just no way I can carry on like Zara for long.”

“Thank God for that,” Adam said.

“Never mind, dear,” Frances said. “I’m sure you must have done an excellent job, or those two wouldn’t have followed you around so assiduously. It’s made for some real excitement in the family, let me tell you.”

“And how,” Jeremy said. “I’m thinking I may have to leave the computer business and apply for a job at that agency where Adam used to work. It really gets the old adrenalin flowing.”

“Not until you get this merger over and done with,” Maureen said in decided tones. “But I have to admit, I can see the attraction. Chasing after dangerous men on lonely mountain roads can be quite addictive. It was really a lot of fun.”

Leonie heard this with a peculiar mixture of embarrassment and relief. They didn’t sound as if they disapproved of her masquerade. In fact, they made it sound exciting. She remembered Adam approaching her in church the morning after meeting her in the woods and felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

She regarded Adam with considerable uncertainty and a certain amount of asperity. “No wonder you followed me to church. You decided to have some fun with me, didn’t you?”

“Actually, I thought you had followed me.” Adam laughed. “If you had been Zara, that’s exactly what I expected. But you didn’t behave at all like Zara usually did in church. When I discovered Zara had a younger sister named Leonie, it all made sense.”

“Rub it in,” Leonie muttered, freshly annoyed. She covered her face with her hands once more. “So now everybody knows I’m not Zara,” Leonie said. “This is really awful. Zara’s going to be so let down.”

“Don’t be upset, angel.” Adam gathered her into his arms and pried her fingers from her eyes. “Nobody else knows you aren’t Zara.”

“Does anybody else matter?” Leonie asked, despairing. “I was supposed to fool everybody, not to mention anyone spying on Zara’s whereabouts, and now everybody of interest knows the truth.”

“Look on the bright side,” Adam said craftily. “If Zara ever asks you to do this again, you have a perfectly good reason to turn her down.”

“I do?” Leonie dropped her hands from her face and looked at him through tears. “You’re right. I do. I can’t fool anyone, including people who don’t even know her.”

“It would be better if you just tell her your husband won’t let you.” Her hands rested on his chest, and he gathered both into one of his. “Because I won’t. Too dangerous, not to mention that there’s only so much Zara-behavior I can stand.”

Leonie processed this statement with a brain that made no sense of anything. “But I’m not married,” she wailed, “and I think Zara likes you, so you’d better not say you can’t stand her behavior. Oh, this is going from bad to worse. When Zara calls again, what on earth am I going to tell her?”

“I’ll talk to her.” Adam used his other hand to tilt her chin up to him. “Because there’s no way I’m going to marry Zara. I’m going to marry you. As soon as I can. So say yes, so Mom and Maureen can get busy planning the wedding.”

“You want to marry
me
?” Leonie stared at him. “But Adam. I’m really not a very exciting person and I don’t have an exciting job. Zara—”

“I’ve got news for you, angel,” he whispered in her ear. “Neither do I.”

He kissed her thoroughly, taking his time about it, and before she realized it, Leonie was kissing him back.

But she knew she must have misheard everything. Adam surely wasn’t planning to marry her. He couldn’t be, because Zara—

On the other hand, she had seen no signs that Adam had ever been attracted to Zara. In fact, she got the opposite impression. On that thought, a great joy exploded in her heart. Adam wanted to marry
her
, Leonie. And she wanted to marry him.

“Yes,” she whispered, and Adam kissed her again.

“Good,” Frances said. “That’s settled. Now I can stop worrying about Adam and get on with planning the wedding. You’d better give me your parents’ phone number, dear. Your mother will want to be in on things.”

“My mother?” Leonie looked at her, still dazed from Adam’s kiss. “But—”

“You’ll want to break the news to her first, of course,” Adam told her. “So you’d better call her the minute we get back to the cabin.”

“Break the news? That I’m masquerading as Zara and got caught? Mama would have a heart attack.” Leonie frowned and rubbed her forehead. “Zara said I wasn’t ever to tell Mama what I was doing. She thinks Zara has a safe office job at the agency, and if she knew I was masquerading as Zara, she’d come unglued.”

“She probably already has a very good idea what your sister’s job entails,” Frances said. “You’d be surprised what mothers know. Besides, you don’t need to tell her you were taking Zara’s place. That needn’t come up at all.”

“Really?” Leonie wondered if she had strayed onto the set of someone else’s life and remembered that she had. “Maybe you’re right. But she’s sure to wonder why I’m staying at Zara’s cabin when Zara isn’t here.”

“That’s why you’re here,” Jeremy said, grinning. “Zara’s gone and you can be alone.”

“You came here to meditate on your teaching philosophy in quiet, natural surroundings,” Maureen offered.

“You’re now into bird watching and you heard there were sky blue warblers in the vicinity,” Adam said, still holding her close.

Obviously, Adam had told his family all about the situation, including her real identity and profession. Leonie’s mind slowly adjusted to the new reality, even though standing in Adam’s embrace threatened to undermine what little thinking ability she had left.

“Maybe I can go with part of the truth,” Leonie said. “I was laid off from my last position, and after searching diligently and getting no results, I retired to the lake to rethink my approach to job hunting.”

“That reminds me,” Frances said. “I have a friend who’s now a principal at one of the high schools in Dallas. I’ll speak to her about opportunities for P.E. and health teachers. There’s always a big turnover at this time of year.”

“I’ll speak to the principal at my school,” Maureen said. “Don’t worry, Leonie. Between us, Mom and I know someone at most of the Dallas schools.”

Leonie’s head fairly whirled as she grappled with the idea that she had agreed to marry Adam and move to Dallas.

“She can start work in January,” Adam said. “She has to get through the honeymoon period first and adjust to living in a new city.”

“It’ll be pretty hard to adjust to living with you,” Maureen said thoughtfully. “Maybe you’d better make it another six months.”

Adam laughed and hugged Leonie closer. “Maybe we’ll just move into the cabin and live off whatever we can catch in the lake for a year or two.”

“That sounds wonderful,” Leonie said, and smiled at him. “We can paint rocks and sell them for a living.”

“On second thought,” Adam said, “maybe we’d better get back to Dallas. I’m a lot better at security consulting than I am at painting rocks.”

• • •

“I can’t understand it,” Zara said, two weeks later as she paced the living room of her cabin. “I leave for one month, and come back to find you about to marry Adam. How on earth could all this happen inside of three weeks?”

Leonie, seated on the sofa with a book of wedding styles open on her lap, bit back a smile. Zara had arrived an hour ago, and she still hadn’t gotten over finding Adam at the kitchen table, eating breakfast with Leonie.

“It just did,” she said. “What do you think about this dress?”

Zara halted in mid-stride and came to examine the dress. “Not my style. Give me a low-cut gown without a back or sleeves.”

“It’s for me,” Leonie said.

Zara frowned at the pictured frock then studied her sister. “You have a great figure, what with all that swimming and jogging you do. You’d look fantastic in a dress like the one on the next page.”

“I’m afraid Mama would have a hissy if I showed up at the church dressed in that.” She studied the backless, almost frontless, white satin dress with its deep front slit. “She’d want to know if I was planning on opening a house of ill repute.”

Zara collapsed on the sofa beside her, howling with laughter. “You’re right, of course. But still, a dress like that, worn with the proper attitude . . . ”

“That’s the problem.” Leonie marked the page with the dress she liked. “I don’t have the proper attitude. Which reminds me. You’d better not ever let Mama see you in that bikini you gave me to wear. It’s a scandal.”

“Yeah.” Zara put her hands behind her head and leaned back, stunning in her black tank top and black leather jeans. Not for the first time, Leonie observed that her sister looked like a cross between a helpless Barbie doll and a lethal, but sexy, agent. “She doesn’t exactly approve of this outfit either, but that’s part of my character. Needless to say, I can’t explain that to her.”

“You might be surprised.” Leonie remembered what Adam’s mother had said.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Zara said. “Seriously, Leonie, what happened? Adam wasn’t even giving me the time of day, and all of a sudden, he’s in love with you. Believe me, I know the signs. Did he realize you weren’t me?”

“He says he knew something was off the first time he saw me.” She raised her brows. “I told you I couldn’t do your act for any length of time. It’s natural to you, but it isn’t to me. Then he came and sat beside me in church, and that’s when he knew I wasn’t you.”

Zara rolled her eyes. “That figures. I’ll bet you sang all the hymns and listened to the preacher like you always do. No wonder he saw straight through you. Next time, I’ll drill you on how to behave—”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Leonie interrupted. “Not after this. No telling what could have happened, and all because I was impersonating you.”

“Who are you kidding?” Zara asked. “You did great, baby. That wannabe operative is still nursing his leg where you bit him, not to mention his wrist where your dog got him. Agent Bieler said he’d never seen anything like that choke hold you had on that guy’s leg.”

Butch raised his head to examine Zara, who stared back at him with interest.

“Trust you to adopt the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen,” Zara added. “Although, he will be a lot better looking when his coat grows out.”

“Now I know what I’m getting you for your birthday,” Leonie said. “A collie puppy—”

“Oh, no, you don’t, Leonie Daniel. I’d have to board him every time I left on a mission, not to mention haul him to the vet and remember to feed him.” Zara jumped up again. “There’s Adam. Does he live here now?” She obviously threw the question out at random, but Leonie’s prompt flush made her eyes go wide. “Well, I’ll be. You have a lot of nerve talking to me about my clothes, when here you are practically living with a man you aren’t married to yet.”

“Like you wouldn’t do the same thing if you met somebody like Adam.” Leonie tossed the magazine aside and hurried to the door to let Adam in. “Come on in, Adam. I’ve found a dress at last, and Zara says she’ll be my maid-of-honor, but only if she can wear black to signify her state of mourning.”

Her heart, as always, beat faster the moment she saw him. She still couldn’t believe he was hers, or that they were going to be married in another two weeks.

“My mother and yours would probably join forces to stop the wedding,” Adam said, smiling at her. He took her hand and glanced at the diamond he had placed on her ring finger several days before. “As it is, they’re both agreed that Hot Springs is the perfect place for the wedding. Both our families can get there easily.”

“And while we’re all here,” Zara said, pointing to the coffee table with distaste, “what is this humongous chunk of landscape doing on my coffee table?”

“That’s a display piece,” Leonie said with dignity. “It’s genuine Arkansas quartz crystal—”

“—mined in China or someplace else halfway across the world,” Zara said, rolling her eyes again. “She gets these weird fancies, Adam. She adopts ugly dogs, drags home rocks and calls them decorator pieces, and plants flower gardens full of nothing but weeds.”

“I know,” Adam said. “I would have called off the wedding when I found out about the weedy flower gardens, but fortunately, she’s found a cure for that.”

“What?” Zara looked from one to the other in disbelief. “Don’t hand me that, Adam Silverthorne. You’re crazy about her. But I’ll bite. Tell me this cure for her famous weed gardens.”

“She’s promised me an entire patio surrounded by flowers she paints on rocks.” Adam pointed to Leonie’s small display of rock flowers that lined the window sills. “As soon as she adds a few more flowers, we’ll build the patio.”