Secrets and Lies

by Maggie Shayne

  Someone muttered, “Oh, crap, here we go again.”

  Mel picked up two of the mugs, brimming full of icy cold beer, and poured them over Brett’s head. He scrunched his face up, spat and sputtered, turned red and let go of the tray all at once. The tray hit the floor, and the remaining mugs clattered, cracked, and shattered. Beer washed over the floor.

  “Oh, now, Brett, you shouldn’t’ve gone and done that. Look at the mess you made.”

  “Damn you, woman!” He took one long stride toward her, over the mess on the floor. By now the crowd had parted to give them plenty of room. Brett reached for Mel, but she still had the two empty mugs in her hand, and she brought them together, hard and fast, on either side of his head. Then she kneed him in the groin for good measure. He doubled over, so she brought an elbow down onto the back of his head, and he landed facedown in the spreading pool of beer.

  The crowd burst out with hoots and hollers. Brett started to rise, but Mel planted a foot on the small of his back to keep him down. “Now listen up, Brett. When a woman tells you to stop groping her, that means she wants you to stop groping her. You understand?”

  He pushed himself up. She pushed him back down. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes!”

  “Good. Now get up, and get out. You’re banned for a month. And when you come back, you damn well better have learned some manners.”

  She removed her foot. He got up on all fours, then rose slowly to his feet, wiping beer from his hair and face. “Damn you to hell, Melusine Brand,” he muttered.

  “You watch your mouth, young man,” Vidalia Brand called from behind the bar. She held a baseball bat in a fierce grip. “Now git, like my daughter told you, before I come over there and take a turn.”

  “All right, I’m goin’!” He hurried out the door, suddenly more sober than he’d been before.

  Mel brushed her hands against each other and bent to pick up the fallen tray. Her sister Kara came from behind the bar with a mop, and the patrons returned to their conversations as if nothing all that unusual had happened.

  Probably, Alex figured, because it hadn’t. He’d had a perfectly unobstructed view of the entire event, being at a small round table two feet from where Mel was bending over right now. Getting her for this job was a huge mistake. He didn’t like her. She would never fit into society, which was just as well, because she wouldn’t want to. She considered men like him to be useless pretty boys, all manners and no guts. She’d as much as told him so the last time he’d encountered her.

  Still, for the good of his country, Alex got to his feet, walked over to her and cleared his throat. “Can I give you hand with that?”

  She straightened, not turning. Kara looked up, too, and smiled at him so warmly that he found it kind of touching.

  Mel said, “Is that a GQ P.I. standing behind me?”

  Kara nodded, and Mel turned to face him. She was a head shorter, so she had to tip her face up to look at him. “Well, I’ll be damned. What is the slickest city slicker I’ve ever met doin’ back down here in hicksville?”

  “Came to see you, Mel. I hadn’t been insulted in so long I was having withdrawal symptoms.”

  “You shouldn’t be mean, Mel,” Kara said, shouldering past her shorter sister. “Alex helped save my life, and Edie’s, too.” She reached out and gave Alex a timid hug. He hugged her back just a little. “How are you, Alex?”

  “Just fine, Kara. And you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m mostly over it. I still get nightmares every once in a while, though.” She started toward the bar, taking his hand and tugging him with her. “Selene, Mom, look who’s here!”

  Vidalia smiled and waved a welcome. Selene, the youngest sister, narrowed her eyes on him, then slid her knowing gaze to Mel. “I told you he’d be back,” she said.

  “What’ll you have, Alex?” Vidalia asked. “And keep your wallet in your pants, son, your money’s no good here.”

  “I’d like to talk with Mel, if I could.”

  “Oh?” Vidalia blinked and looked past him at Mel, who was finishing the cleanup and making her way to the bar with the trayful of broken beer mugs in one hand and the beer-soaked mop in the other. “Well, I guess I can spare her for a while.”

  “Spare who?” Mel asked.

  “You, hon. Alex, here, wants to talk to you for a while. That okay with you?”

  Mel glanced at Alex, her eyebrows raised. “What do you want?”

  “Just what she said. To talk to you. Privately, if we could.”

  “About what?”

  He would never get used to her direct, in-your-face mannerisms. “About a job offer.”

  “For me?”

  “Yes. For you.”

  Her dark brows pulled closer. “What kind of job offer?”

  “One that pays a million dollars for three days’ work,” he said finally.

  That shut her up. She blinked in shock, looking from him to her mother, then to each of her sisters in turn.

  “So will you come with me so we can talk, or shall I go find somebody else?”

  “I’m coming. Sheesh, are you on a time limit or something?”

  “Yes, and there’s not much of it.” He took the mop from her and leaned it against the bar then reached for the tray, handing it over the counter to her mother. “Mrs. Brand—”

  “Vidalia to you, son.”

  He smiled at her. He couldn’t help it, he liked the woman. Which was kind of odd, because she was an older version of her rowdiest daughter, and he couldn’t stand the latter. “Vidalia, if it’s all right with you, we’ll meet you back at your house right after closing time. This discussion involves you, too.”

  “All right. I’ll close up a mite early and put on some coffee and brownies.”

  “Sounds great.” He glanced at Mel. “You ready?”

  “Sure. Are you?”

  He closed his eyes briefly. “I doubt it. Come on.” He led her to the door.

  Mel would never in a gazillion years admit to this city-bred, spit-polished, overly educated male model that she had been unable to breathe when she’d first heard his voice. It wasn’t that she liked him. In fact, she actively disliked him. He was a glorified P.I., and that was all. Just because he called his business a “private security firm,” and just because he was an ex-Secret Service agent, and just because all his clients were richer than God and almost as famous, didn’t change a thing. He was a P.I. A gumshoe. A dick.

  According to Caleb, the guy’s services were in such demand that he could afford to name his price, handpick his clients, and work only when he wanted to. Mel silently bet that was mostly because he had the looks and manners of Prince Freaking Charming.

  He opened the doors of the saloon for her and took her elbow, just lightly in the palm of his hand, when she walked down the steps to the waiting car. A Mercedes. Of course it was a Mercedes. He opened the door for her and held her arm until she was safely in. Then he closed it gently and went around to his side. Then he started the car, fastened his seat belt, reached out to adjust the heat.

  She noticed his hands then. They’d caught her attention before, and she found them just as interesting now. Long and narrow. They moved gracefully. It wasn’t an effeminate quality; it was very masculine, in fact, but different.

  It did something to her belly to watch him move his hands.

  “So where shall we go?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “This is your project, Alex. I don’t even know what it’s about.” But her brain was replaying his earlier words. A million dollars for three days’ work. “Do I have to kill someone?”

  He was backing out of the parking lot, but the question made him stop in the middle of the road and send her a probing look. “Would you?”

  She shrugged. “No. Not for money.”

  “No?” He put the car into drive, straightened it out and started down the road. “What would you kill for, then?”

  She glanced sideways at him. “What do you think? That guy who
had my sister strung up in that barn last year? I’d have killed him in a heartbeat.”

  He nodded. “So you’d kill to protect your family.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  He didn’t answer, just kept driving.

  “Now you’ve got me curious,” she said. She thought about his job as a Secret Service agent. That would imply being willing to kill to protect his employer. Or die to do the same. Wow. What kind of man did it take to do something like that? Had he ever killed anyone? she wondered, staring at his profile. He glanced at her. She looked away. “Turn here, we’ll go up by the Falls.”

  He turned the car up the dirt road and drove slowly over the potholes.

  “So why all this talk about killing?” she asked. “Is that really what this job is about?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Right there, that turnoff.”

  He squinted. “Is that a road?”

  “Yeah, just a short one. Leads to the Falls.” He turned, and they rolled forward. He stopped the car. The road ended at the edge of a wide chasm, and on the opposite face, the powerful Falls tumbled down from a dozen yards above, plummeting into the river, far, far below.

  “I didn’t get to see this the last time I was here,” he said. He pulled on the emergency brake, opened the car door, got out. He started toward her side, but she was out long before he got there.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “To say the least.”

  “This is where your buddy Caleb knocked up my sister, you know.” She glanced at him in time to see him wince, closing his eyes tightly and sucking air through his teeth. “What?” she asked.

  Sighing, he looked at her. “This is where the twins were conceived.”

  “That’s what I just said.”

  “No, you said it was where Caleb knocked up your sister. There’s a difference. Try it my way.”

  She rolled her eyes. “What is this? Are you on some kind of ’Enry ’Iggins trip, or what?”

  “In a way I guess I am. Now try it. This is where the twins were conceived.”

  “This is where the twins were conceived….”

  “Very good.”

  “When your best friend knocked up my sister.”

  He tipped his head back and stared up at the stars as if seeking help.

  “So c’mon, tell me about this job. What in the world could I possibly do in three days that would be worth a million bucks to anyone?”

  He brought his eyes level with hers. “Save the world.”

  She threw her head back and laughed out loud. But when she looked at him again, he wasn’t even smiling. Her laughter died. “Oh, come on,” she said. “Cut it out. You just wanted to see me again, right? So you concocted this scam and…” He was shaking his head slowly, left then right. “Are you telling me my country’s in trouble?”

  “No. A tiny little country called Tantilla could get into trouble. And the U.S. could be in danger if Tantilla were ever overthrown.”

  “Why?” she breathed.

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  She blinked at him. “They got nukes?”

  His eyes widened.

  “Well come on, I’m not stupid.”

  Sighing heavily, he took her upper arm in a gentle hand and steered her toward a giant boulder sitting nearby. She sat on it. He stood.

  “None of that matters, because Tantilla is not in trouble and won’t be if you agree to do this small job. You see, the president of Tantilla’s daughter and her husband came to the U.S. on a diplomatic mission. They’ve been in D.C. for a week, and they were supposed to spend a week in Austin, but they disappeared.”

  Her eyes got bigger.

  “Now I’m told they do this all the time. Run off to be alone together. It seems they’re newlyweds who can’t keep their hands off each other. They’ll be found within a few days at most. In the meantime, it’s in everyone’s best interest that the U.S. keep it completely secret that they are missing.”

  She blinked at him. “How the hell do they plan to do that?”

  “Put a couple in their place to attend social functions and photo ops, and basically fool the whole world for a matter of a few days. Just until we can track them down and get them back where they belong.”

  She was frowning now as she thought this through. “So someone’s going to impersonate them?” she asked.

  He stared her in the eyes. “Not someone. Us.”

  She blinked. “Us? As in you and me? But…but…”

  He pulled something out of his coat. A photograph. She stared at it, but it was too dark. Then he was shining a penlight on it. The shot was of the most gorgeous couple she’d ever seen. The man was kind of hidden behind a beard and dark glasses, but the woman had the face of a movie star. Flawless features, stunning eyes, thick dark lashes and satiny raven hair, all softly curling around her face.

  “Now do you see why I came to you?”

  She looked up into his eyes, shaking her head slowly from side to side. “No.”

  He frowned at her. “Mel, she could be your twin.”

  Mel almost fell off the boulder. “Huh?” She looked down at the woman again, then back at him. “You’re kidding, right? She looks nothing like me.”

  “She looks exactly like you. Your eyes, the shape of your nose, those cheekbones and that little pointy chin of yours. The dimples when you smile and the…”

  Her gaze rose slowly to his. He looked away fast, cleared his throat. “She’s wearing makeup and has her hair done here. Trust me, with a makeup artist and hair-stylist, Katerina’s own mother wouldn’t be able to tell you apart.”

  “Katerina. That’s her name.”

  He nodded. “The citizens call her Princess Katerina. She’s very beloved.”

  Mel sighed, thinking it through. “I imagine she’s also very educated, cultured and sophisticated, too.”

  “And soft-spoken, polite and gentle.”

  She was shaking her head slowly.

  “We’ll have a coach with you at all times. And I’ll be with you.”

  “Playing…my husband.”

  “Yes. Thomas Antony Barde.”

  “I’ll never pull off gentle and soft-spoken and polite in a million years, Alex.”

  “Katerina is shy. No one will question it if most of your responses are quiet smiles, or one-or two-word answers. I know you can do this, Mel.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He licked his lips. Said nothing for a full minute. Then he said, “Yes. Tantilla has nukes. And its enemies don’t like us. And if they find out Katerina and Thomas have taken off without their security team, they’ll try to find them before we do. And they’ll hurt them, or use them to force the president to hand over the country.”

  She closed her eyes. “Then I guess…I at least have to try. You promise you’ll be with me all the way through?”

  She thought he looked almost flooded with relief when he said, “Absolutely.”

  “Absolutely not!” Vidalia Brand said. She stomped her foot on the floor for emphasis, in case anyone thought she wasn’t dead serious. “No daughter of mine is gonna go getting tangled up in some government espionage intrigue. No. It’s too dangerous.”

  Alex did not like the fact that this gathering in the family room of Vidalia’s home had taken on the characteristics of a full-blown Brand family meeting, but Caleb had been insistent that this was the way it had to be. So Maya and Caleb where there, their eighteen-month-old twins sleeping in the living room in a play-pen. Edie and Wade were there, listening in and keeping mostly quiet, sitting very close. Kara and Selene were there, sitting side by side, looking worried. Mel was there, sitting by herself in a corner. They formed a loose circle, and he stood in the center to explain what he needed Mel to do. Vidalia Brand, the matriarch herself, was pacing back and forth now, shaking her head.

  “It’s not dangerous,” Alex said again. “I’ll be with her the whole time, and since everyone will believe Mel and I are the visiting
dignitaries, we’ll have Secret Service protection to boot.”

  “Besides all that, Mom,” Mel said, “no one even knows the two are missing. And it’s not like they’ve been kidnapped by terrorists or something. They’re off on a lark. We’re just gonna cover for them for a couple of days. It’ll be…it’ll be fun.”

  “Fun?” Vidalia asked.

  Caleb got to his feet. “I wouldn’t have let Alex approach Mel about this if I didn’t believe it was safe, Vi. I promise you that. They’re going to spend two or three days in a mansion being treated like royalty, dressing to the nines, going to parties. That’s all this involves.”

  Vidalia looked at Caleb. Her face softened a little.

  Caleb’s father tapped his walking stick on the floor three times. “Vidalia, key people involved in this will know what’s going on.”

  “Like who?”

  Sighing, Cain began to drop names, one of them belonging to a former president. Men Vidalia couldn’t help but trust. Alex saw her giving in.

  “Where would she be going? Washington, D.C.?”

  “No,” Alex said. “This is all happening in Austin.”

  “Where in Austin?”

  “There’s a house sometimes used for visiting dignitaries. We’ll be staying there,” Alex said.

  “Have the place to yourselves, will you?”

  He felt her eyes burning holes in him. “Well, not really. There will be a full staff, cooks and maids, drivers and bodyguards, and, of course, hair and makeup people for Mel.”

  “And a manners coach,” Mel added.

  Vidalia’s brows rose. “Does that imply I haven’t taught my daughter manners?” she asked Alex.

  “Not at all, Mrs. Brand. Just not the same manners and mannerisms of a president’s daughter.”

  Vidalia sniffed, thought, paced. Finally she went still. “I am nothing if not patriotic. The only things I love more than God and country are my daughters. So I’ll let her do this thing on one condition.”

  “Name it,” Alex said.

  “I’m going with her. And Selene and Kara, too.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “You said there would be a staff. Well, we can be part of it. I’ll do the cooking, and Selene and Kara can assist. Maya and Edie, with help from their respective husbands, and Cain here, can hold down the home front, run the saloon. Right?”