Hero in Disguise

by Wilkins, Gina

  Copyright © 1987, Gina Wilkins

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Denise Marcil Literary Agency, Inc.; the agency can be reached at dmla@denisemarcilagency.com .

  Contents

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  1

  “OH, MY GOD, what is he doing here?”

  Connie’s distressed query drew Summer’s attention away from the noisy, uninhibited party going on in their living room. She turned her eyes toward the open doorway. Her pulse gave an odd little leap at the sight of the attractive man standing there looking curiously around the crowded room. Surrounded by movement and color, he was conspicuous by his very stillness and neutrality. He looked to be in his late thirties and was dressed quite conservatively in a tan sport coat and dark brown slacks, a muted striped tie knotted at the collar of his cream shirt.

  “Bill collector?” she inquired of her obviously displeased roommate.

  “Worse,” Connie groaned. “It’s Derek.”

  “That’s your brother?” Summer asked in surprise, her eyebrows shooting upward to disappear beneath her heavy fringe of amber-brown bangs. “What’s he doing here?”

  “That’s what I want to know. He’s lived across the bay from us for six months and he has to pick tonight, of all nights, to pay a surprise visit,” Connie muttered grimly. “And I was having such a good time,” she added in a wail. Squaring her shoulders beneath her brilliantly patterned, oversize sweatshirt, she tossed her unruly red hair out of her face and started across the room toward her older brother.

  Summer found herself unable to look away from Derek Anderson. Because Connie and Derek had been at odds since he had settled in Sausalito six months earlier, Summer had not had the chance to meet Connie’s brother before that night. He looked nothing like the mental picture she had formed of him. Connie had always described her older brother as average in appearance, stern of personality. Summer had expected to meet a man who looked older than his thirty-seven years, dull and unappealing. That was not what she saw as she stared at him. True, Derek’s tobacco-brown hair was conservatively short, his black-framed glasses quite conventional and his clothing rather staid. But there was something about him that didn’t conform to Summer’s preconceptions. Something about the spark of streetwise intelligence in pewter-gray eyes when they met hers for a moment from across the room. Or the six feet of hard, lean muscle beneath the strictly tailored clothing where there should have been softness and perhaps a little flab. Or maybe it was something about those broad, squared shoulders.

  He looked strong, solid, a little tough. Even as she watched him conversing stiffly with his defensive sister, Summer decided that there was more to this man than Connie had implied. Never one to resist a challenge, Summer vowed to make an effort to find out more about Derek Anderson—personally—at the earliest opportunity.

  “Hey, Summer,” someone said, drawing her attention reluctantly away from her roommate’s possibly interesting brother. “Tell Clay about the ninety-year-old dude who tried to pick you up in the supermarket the other day.”

  “Ninety?” she scoffed, her brilliant blue eyes widening dramatically. “He was a hundred if he was a day.” Then, with great enthusiasm and liberal embellishment, she launched into a mostly apocryphal account that soon had her listeners bellowing with laughter. Her own laughter, which had once been described by an infatuated and quickly dispatched young man as “the tinkling of dozens of fairy bells,” floated frequently above the less refined guffaws.

  “What are you doing here, Derek?” Connie demanded the moment she came to a stop in front of him.

  “I wanted to meet some of your friends,” her brother replied in a conciliatory voice. “I heard you mention this party to Mom last weekend and I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to interact socially.”

  “Did it ever occur to you to request an invitation?” Connie asked him sarcastically, her green eyes glittering. “And don’t give me that stuff about interacting socially. You’re just here to criticize my friends and make more cutting remarks about the way I run my life.”

  Derek sighed. “Would you give me a break, Connie? I’m trying to offer a truce.”

  “Sure you are. The same way you ‘offer’ advice, right?”

  Derek ran his fingers through his short brown hair in frustration. “You want me to leave?”

  “Suit yourself,” Connie answered with a shrug. “I’m sure you’ll be bored to tears. Don’t expect me to entertain you. I plan to spend the evening with my friends.” She placed extra emphasis on the last word.

  Derek was tempted to tell his sister that she was acting like a brat but knew that comment would not help matters between them. “I’ll stay for a while, then,” he told her. “And I won’t expect you to entertain me.”

  Connie shrugged again. “Whatever.”

  He refused to allow her to make him angry. Instead, he looked around the crowded room, pausing when his gaze clashed with a pair of vivid blue eyes. “Who’s the woman on the bar stool?” he asked, hardly aware of having spoken aloud.

  ‘That’s my roommate,” Connie answered coolly. “Summer Reed. You’ve heard me talk about her. Go introduce yourself if you want to. I’m going to mingle with my guests.” She didn’t add “invited guests,” but then she really didn’t have to. Her tone said it for her.

  Not for the first time, Derek was aware of a sense of regret that his absence from the country for most of the past fifteen years had left such a rift between him and his only sibling. A rift that he was having no luck trying to repair. He’d had some vague notion of getting closer to his estranged sister by meeting some of her friends and learning more about her life-style, of which he frankly disapproved. Unfortunately, he’d made her angry again. He seemed to have a real talent for it, he thought, stifling a sigh. Connie was convinced that he was there only to criticize her.

  Looking around, Derek was relieved to discover that the admittedly eccentric group of young people with whom Connie claimed friendship was not quite as unsavory as he had expected. True, alcohol was flowing freely, but no one seemed to be indulging more than the usual overly enthusiastic party guest, and Derek saw no sign of illegal substances being used. The music was too loud, the clothing decidedly strange and the humor rather twisted, but on the whole he saw nothing more detrimental than the quite obvious signs of immaturity and irresponsibility.

  Derek’s attention wandered back toward the battered wooden bar across the room. Specifically he focused on the young woman chatting animatedly from the only bar stool. His immediate attraction to Summer had startled him. She was too young for him, for one thing. He knew she was Connie’s age—twenty-five, twelve years younger than Derek. She wasn’t particularly glamorous. Her short, silky hair was golden brown, her eyes bright blue, her face lovely in a refreshingly wholesome way. She seemed to wear a permanent smile, a wide, contagious grin that displayed very even white teeth and a glimpse of pink tongue. Because he was consumed by a sudden hunger to have that smile turned upon him, Derek straightened his tie and moved deliberately toward the bar.

  The floor of the large living area of the furnished apartment had been cleared for dancing—no big deal since the only furniture consisted of a sagging couch and a couple of small, worn armchairs flanked by a rickety coffee table and two mismatched end tables. Music throbbed from
the stereo system in one corner. Still perched on the stool beside the functional bar, Summer sipped her liberally spiked punch, watching what promised to become a hilarious dance contest. Clay McEntire—Crazy Clay—was in rare form that night, and Summer was fully prepared to enjoy the show.

  “Has the queen bee been deserted by her drones?” a dry voice inquired from her side. Though not raised above the screaming music, the words were clearly audible nonetheless.

  Summer looked around with an eyebrow lifted in curiosity to find Derek Anderson leaning negligently against the bar beside her. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’ve been sitting here surrounded by an audience since I arrived. What are you to keep them so entertained, a stand-up comic?”

  “A sit-down comic, actually,” Summer replied in her soft Southern drawl, resisting the impulse to rub her right knee. “How are you, Derek? I’m Connie’s roommate, Summer Reed.”

  “Yes, I know. I hope you don’t mind that I crashed your party tonight.”

  “Of course not. I’m glad you’re here. I’ve wanted to meet my all-time favorite roomie’s brother. Connie’s told me a lot about you.”

  “I’m sure she has.” His voice was heavy with irony, his pewter eyes entirely too knowing. “Has she told you that ‘Derek the Dictator’ is a sanctimonious, interfering stuffed shirt?”

  Summer grinned. “That about sums it up.”

  Derek’s eyes slid slowly down to her smile, and Summer was rather surprised to feel a momentary self-consciousness at the intensity of his close regard. Though Derek’s expression seemed admiring enough, she was under no illusion that he was bowled over by her beauty. She wasn’t beautiful. Her hair, the color of clear amber honey, was cut very short in the back and left longer in the front to fall in a flirty fringe over her intensely blue eyes. The rest of her features, in Summer’s opinion, were rather ordinarily pixieish—a small, tip-tilted nose, high cheekbones and a generous smile. No dimples, thank God. She’d always thought that dimples would have made her just too “cute” to bear.

  She crossed her denim-covered legs and returned Derek’s unblinking look. “I’ve always wondered how accurate Connie’s description of you was,” she informed him with a suggestion of a question mark at the end of the comment. She especially wondered now, as she found herself responding to his hard strength in a decidedly physical way, if all those derogatory remarks Connie had made in the past few months had been anywhere near the truth. Summer had certainly never expected to find herself attracted to the man, yet her quickened breathing and accelerated heartbeat as he leaned closer made it impossible for her to deny that she was. “Are you really as bossy as she says?”

  His breath almost brushing the soft cheek of the woman on the tall stool beside him, Derek seemed to reflect a moment, then his hard mouth twisted into a smile of sorts. “I suppose she was fairly accurate.”

  There was just something about him…. Summer eyed him consideringly. “I wonder.”

  Seeming to suddenly grow tired of the subject of himself, Derek nodded toward the writhing bodies on the makeshift dance floor. “I know why I’m not out there making an idiot of myself, but what about you? Why aren’t you dancing?”

  Summer shrugged, unable this time to keep herself from protectively cupping her knee. “I’m just not into dancing. Tell me about the new business you’ve started, Derek. Management consulting, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I’m specializing in small, struggling businesses.”

  Though he didn’t elaborate, Summer knew that Derek was already making a name for himself in his field. In spite of herself, Connie had not quite been able to hide her pride in her brother’s early success. He was not yet rich from his new enterprise, nor was he known in any part of the country other than Marin County and the surrounding San Francisco area, but Connie seemed to think it was only a matter of time. Examining the determined glint in Derek’s gray eyes, Summer knew Connie was probably right. This was a man who could accomplish whatever he desired.

  She peeked at Derek through her lashes as she lifted her punch and took a sip. “You must be very good at what you do.”

  He looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”

  She returned the look innocently. “Connie tells me that you’re an expert on offering advice.” Connie had been quite vocal in her displeasure with Derek’s heavily paternal treatment of her. She’d informed Summer that Derek offered advice to struggling businessmen during working hours and to his resentful younger sister in the little free time his career left him.

  Derek winced, obviously well aware of his sister’s opinion of his “advice.” “I think I’ll pour myself a drink.”

  Summer laughed softly. “Why don’t you do that? Would you like some punch? It’s pretty good, though God only knows what’s in it.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll pass.” He reached for a bottle of Scotch, splashing a generous amount over two ice cubes in a glass that looked suspiciously like a jelly jar.

  Summer exhaled dramatically. “Okay, we’ll drop the subject of your present career. How about your former one? Were you truly just a government gofer, as Connie likes to say, or were you really something more exciting, like a spy?” Actually, Connie had been rather vague about what Derek had done for the fifteen years prior to settling in Sausalito, but Summer had understood that he’d worked in some sort of diplomatic capacity that had kept him on the move from one American embassy to another.

  Derek answered without changing expression. “A spy, of course. But I try not to spread that around.”

  Delighted with his answer, since it indicated that he did possess a sense of humor, Summer smiled brightly. “Of course not. Tell me, Derek, was it terribly exciting?”

  “Terribly.”

  “And chillingly dangerous?”

  “Chillingly.”

  “And desperately romantic?”

  “Desperately.”

  She laughed and leaned against the bar, cocking her head to meet his studiously grave expression with a friendly smile. “You have such a colorful way with words, Derek. Are all spies as silver-tongued as you?”

  He nodded. “Just like James Bond.”

  “Why in the world would you leave such an exciting life to become an ordinary California businessman?” she asked tauntingly.

  He shoved one hand into the pocket of his brown slacks and leaned beside her, his drink held loosely in his other hand. He continued to watch her with that oddly intense gaze as he answered lightly, “All that excitement, danger and romance gets boring after a while. I needed a change.”

  “How fascinating.” So he was capable of returning nonsense for nonsense, Summer thought in fascination. Connie hadn’t mentioned that. In fact, Summer added reflectively, her eyes straying to Derek’s powerful chest and muscular thighs, there were several things about her brother that Connie had failed to mention. She decided it was time to test his reflexes. “So, Derek, Connie tells me now that you’ve retired from globe-trotting, you’ve decided to settle down and become domesticated. Looking for a wife?”

  He had just taken a sip of his Scotch. For a moment Summer thought he might choke, and she watched expectantly. Instead, he swallowed, set his glass on the bar and leaned even closer so that his chest brushed her shoulder. “Perhaps,” he agreed. “Are you applying for the position?”

  Summer chuckled and lifted her plastic tumbler in a mock salute. “Good comeback, Derek.”

  She imagined that his almost imperceptible smile was reflected in his metallic eyes. “Maybe I was serious.”

  “I think you should know I’m not exactly good wife material.”

  “Why not?” he inquired, looking admirably un-fazed by the personal nature of his conversation with this impish stranger.

  She lifted her watermelon-painted fingertips and began to enumerate. “A respectable businessman-type such as you would want someone punctual, fond of schedules. I’m neither. I’m not particularly well educated. I dropped out of college in the second s
emester of my sophomore year. The only thing I’m serious about is not being serious. I’m not socially or professionally ambitious. I require a great deal of attention and I like being entertained. Connie says you’re a real sports nut. The only sports I participate in are people-watching and an occasional card game—for fun, of course. Do I sound like the woman you’ve been looking for?”

  “No,” he answered genially. “You don’t sound at all like the woman I’ve been looking for. Perhaps I’ve been looking for the wrong kind of woman.”

  Summer’s smile grew even more brilliant, though she wished rather breathlessly that he would step back just a little. She was entirely too aware of the feel of him against her shoulder. “I like you, Derek Anderson,” she told him candidly. “Connie forgot to mention that her brother can be charming when he chooses to be. You and I might even manage to become friends.”

  The suggestion of a smile faded abruptly from Derek’s eyes. “I can’t seem to accomplish that feat even with my own sister.”

  Summer caught the undercurrents of pain in his voice. “I don’t think Connie knows that you want to be her friend,” she told him carefully.

  He exhaled through his straight, sharply carved nose and changed the subject. “So what kind of man are you looking for, since you’ve turned up your nose at respectable businessmen? Or are you looking?”

  Swallowing another sip of her punch, Summer swung one leg in time to the music pounding over their conversation and replied, “Not actively. I’m waiting for the kind of hero Bonnie Tyler describes in her song, and they seem to be in short supply.”

  A slight frown creased Derek’s brow behind his dark-framed glasses. “What song?”

  “Sorry. I should have known you aren’t into rock and roll. It’s called ‘Holding Out For a Hero.’”

  “Oh. So what special qualities must this ‘hero’ possess?”

  A flippant grin punctuating her words, she responded lightly. “Well, for starters, he has to have a great sense of humor. And he has to be adventurous and occasionally impulsive yet always there when I need him. I’d want him to be kind and caring, strong in more than the physical sense and emotionally mature. Like I said, there aren’t many of them around.”