Bait & Switch (10 page)

For a big man with a large, fleshy face, the waiter had small eyes. They narrowed as he inspected Mitch. “You’re telling me Flash sent a dandy in a flashy suit to bleed money out of me?”

“I’m not as civilized as I look.” Mitch used his gruff cop’s voice. He hardened his jaw and stuck out a hand. “Let’s have the money.”

He expected Barnes to laugh. Instead the big man backed up a step, like a mouse cornered by a cat. “What will you do if I don’t have it?”

Mitch hardened his eyes and bluffed. “I’ll have to hurt you.”

The waiter covered his hands with beefy hands. Incredibly, they were shaking. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Hurt me.” The cowering big man whimpered. “I got a low threshold of pain. I got a splinter last week and it about killed me.”

Mitch’s stomach lurched. He was a cop. He was supposed to protect people, not terrify them. He sighed. No matter what Gibbs had ordered and how much trouble his brother was in, he couldn’t hurt Cooper Barnes. It didn’t matter that Mitch’s hand would probably hurt more than the big man’s face if he punched him. “Relax. I’m only here for the money.”

He sniffled. “I don’t have the money.”

“It’s only five hundred dollars. Can’t you borrow it?”

“Not in the next five minutes.” The giant closed his eyes and held out his right hand. His eyes were wet. “Go ahead. Get it over with. How ‘bout you break my pinky? I don’t use it too much.”

“I’m not breaking your pinky,” Mitch said.

Barnes pulled his hand back. “Please not my index finger. I need that one to point.”

“I’m not going to break any of your fingers!”

Lines appeared on the waiter’s forehead. “If the mark doesn’t pay, you got to break something. Didn’t they tell you that?”

Barnes was right. Either Mitch had to collect the money or inflict damage. It was the debt collector’s code. But clearly the waiter couldn’t fork over the cash he owed tonight. Mitch blew out a breath. He’d probably regret this but couldn’t see another way out of the mess.

“What if I lend you the five hundred?” Mitch asked.

Barnes looked dubious. “Is this a trick? How much interest you charging?”

“No interest.” Mitch was a really bad businessman. If Barnes owed Gibbs money, he undoubtedly owed others, too. “You want the deal or not?”

Barnes stopped sniffling and brightened. “Sure do. Hey, while you’re at it, could you lend me an extra hundred?”

“No,” Mitch yelled.

Barnes’ smile didn’t waver. Why should it?, Mitch thought as the waiter hurried off to hunt down the temperamental chef.

Mitch was probably the only debt collector in history who would end up owing more than he collected.

Peyton’s nerve endings tingled and her stomach muscles clenched as Mitch walked her up the stairs leading to her apartment on the second floor of a charming old Rutledge Avenue home.

Not once in her weeks of dating Mitch had she looked forward to the end of an evening more.
 

The date should have turned into a bust after the chef scurried into the dining room ranting about unsophisticated palates. But their enormous waiter had apologized and presented them with a complimentary desert of dry, inedible cheesecake. Mitch seemed to relax after that, shaking off whatever had been bothering him.

And now they’d reached the critical point in the night when she got to decide whether to take their relationship to a new level. Mitch had already let her know by word and deed that he wanted to be her lover, but she’d repeatedly put him off.

She hadn’t been ready. Until now.

The moonlight gleamed on his dark hair and cast his handsome features in a golden aura, and her pulse jumped. What was happening to her? She’d always found Mitch attractive, but now he was darn near irresistible.

She hoped, for once, that he’d ignore her oft-stated plea about taking things slow. That he’d try to change her mind with his kiss, the way he always did.

At the top of the stairs was a small veranda leading to the front door of her apartment. She stopped and turned toward him, expecting his hands to reach out for her, his mouth to seek hers.

“You won’t hold tonight against me, will you?” Mitch’s hands were jammed in his pockets, his mouth too far from hers to do any seeking. “Because I swear I’ll make it up to you if you give me a chance.”

“What’s to make up?” Peyton asked, as frustrated as she was confused. The foot that separated them seemed like a mile.

“The restaurant was a dive, the chef was a kook and the food was awful.”

“True.” Peyton moved forward a step. Somebody had to close the gap. “But the company was good.”

His smile was slow and more devastating because of it. He reached out to stroke her cheek. “I agree. The company was darn good.”

Their eyes locked and Peyton held her breath. After a pregnant moment, he inched forward and she took a relieved breath. She liked the way he smelled tonight, of soap and shampoo instead of the cologne he usually wore. She waited for the feel of his mouth on hers, her heart beating heavily.

His lips landed briefly on her cheek before he drew back.

“G’night, Peyton,” he said, starting to turn away.

“Good night?” she blurted out. “What kind of a thing is that to say at the end of a date?”

What is wrong with me?
, she wondered as he regarded her with obvious confusion. For weeks, she’d been trying to get him to take things slow. Now that he finally was, she wanted to slug him. No, that wasn’t right. She wanted to kiss him. Badly.

“Would you rather I say goodbye?” he asked.

Say yes. Nod. Make some kind of silly comment about goodbye not being forever. Peyton couldn’t seem to make herself do any of those things.

“I’d rather you kiss me on the lips instead of the cheek.” She bit her bottom lip, aware that wasn’t what a proper young lady would say. If Peyton knew anything, it was how to be proper. Her mother had made sure of that by enrolling her in etiquette classes and sending her to debutante balls.
 

But even the boys she’d danced with at the balls had tried to do more than kiss her on the cheek.

He hesitated, looking unsure of himself. Since when, she wondered, had Cary Mitchell been undecided about whether to kiss her?

Since you told him he was moving too fast
, came the answer.
This is nobody’s fault but yours
.

“There’s nothing I’d like to do more,” he said in that cocky way that used to annoy her. But the steps he took toward her were hesitant, the look in the depths of his blue eyes indecisive.

Had he decided she was right to insist they slow things down? Could she convince him with her kiss that she’d changed her mind?

She took a step forward and tangled her fingers in the silky blackness of his hair. Exerting subtle pressure, she brought his head down to hers.

The lips that met hers seemed strangely unfamiliar, as though she were experiencing them for the first time. His mouth was somehow softer, the hands that had crept around her back somehow gentler, the body pressed against hers somehow more exciting.

Mitch usually dived right into a kiss, wasting no time in deepening it. It had always seemed to Peyton to be no more than a prelude of things to come, except something about his kiss had been so practiced that she’d never been swept away by passion.

This kiss wasn’t the same. The way his mouth advanced and retreated was almost worshipful. He placed soft kisses at the center of her mouth, at the left, at the right.

Something else was different, too. His blue eyes were open, gazing into hers, connecting with her in a way he never had before. He seemed to be communicating that there was no one else on this earth he’d rather be kissing.

A strange, warm sensation spread through her, centering in the region of her heart. Much lower the warmth turned to liquid heat and his kisses, so sweetly satisfying a moment ago, weren’t enough.

She pressed against him, intending to deepen the kiss, wanting to drag him to her bed and lose herself in him. But he was already lifting his mouth from hers and resting his chin on top of her head.

She felt the heavy beating of her heart but couldn’t hear anything except the rush of blood pounding in her ears.

This, she thought dimly, was what it felt like to be absolutely sure you wanted a man not only in your bed but in your heart.

Peyton tipped her head back, smiling up at Mitch. He wanted her, too. The knowledge was there in his strained smile. Surely he’d ask to be invited inside. When she recovered from the shock of their passion, she’d ask him herself.

“I need to get going,” he said in a hoarse voice.

She gaped, hardly able to believe she’d heard him correctly. She cleared her suddenly clogged throat. “If this is about me saying I wanted to take things slow, then—”

“That’s what it’s about,” he interrupted. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and stepped back. Though the night was warm, she felt a chill where there had been warmth.

“But I—,” she began.

“Have to work tomorrow just like me,” he finished for her. “Did I tell you I’m leading a bird walk at seven in the morning?”

She shook her head. Surely he didn’t want to talk about birds, not when they were at a crossroads of their relationship.

“Yep.” He backed away toward the staircase. “Bald eagles and snipe, wild turkeys and wood storks. I need to be well-rested to spot them.”

“Mitch,” she said, hearing the plea in her voice. He must have heard it, too, because he stopped retreating.

He waited, his mouth slightly parted, his eyes intense. “Yes?”

She was suddenly unsure about asking him to stay and make love to her. Days ago, she’d been so fed up with Mitch’s lack of responsibility that she’d been ready to break up with him. He seemed different now but could a person change that much in a matter of days?

Her heart was telling her to take a chance, but maybe that was because the moonlight was playing tricks on her. Maybe tomorrow, Mitch would revert to his old ways.

“I hope you see a lot of birds tomorrow,” she said finally.

He nodded once and disappeared down the stairs. For long minutes, Peyton stood outside on the veranda, listening to his retreating footsteps, the opening and closing of the car door and the engine firing up then fading in the distance.

She still felt the imprint of his mouth on hers and the sensation of being cherished as his arms enveloped her. Despite her misgivings about his character, she had never been more attracted to him than she was tonight.

She put both hands on her head, walked over to the railing overlooking the street and gazed up at the stars.

Peyton should be grateful Mitch was finally acting like a gentleman who respected her. Why then was she tempted to wish upon one of those twinkling stars that he’d resume his mission to make love to her?

Lizabeth held tight to Grant’s hand, struggling to keep up with him as they dodged an open-air trolley cruising down Duval Street.

Her high-heeled sandals were so ridiculously impractical that a man with a lizard perched on his shoulders beat them across the street. The man took small, measured steps so the lizard wouldn’t tumble off.

Finally, Lizabeth and Mitch stepped onto the curb.

“I didn’t know cops jaywalked,” she said with a laugh.

The devil-may-care smile on Grant’s face faded faster than an ice cube in the tropical sun.

“I must have been wrong about the light being red.” A determined look crossed his handsome face. “I’ll see it doesn’t happen again. Jaywalking is against the law.”

Lizabeth hadn’t intended to sound disapproving. She’d meant that it had been fun to go with the Key West flow and cross the street against traffic, something she never would have done back home in Richmond.

The jaywalkers weren’t in any real danger, because the drivers on Duval Street expected anarchy. But Grant was a cop who did things by the book. She sighed. She couldn’t expect him to rebel.

“Sunset paintings. Get your sunset paintings here.” A man peddling his art from a sidewalk booth called out in the same musical tone as a hot-dog vendor at a ballpark.

Grant laughed in that unrestrained way he had, with the laugh starting in his stomach and rumbling upward. The jaywalking incident apparently forgotten, he tugged on her hand.

“Let’s explore.” He arched his dark eyebrows.

She nodded readily and spent the next fifteen minutes happily strolling with him through the zany street. It seemed surreal that she, boring Lizabeth Drinkmiller, was here in this vibrant tropical city with a hunk like Grant Mitchell.

“Hey, look, Leeza.” Grant gestured to a shop across the street called
All The Rage
. “Isn’t that the chain of stores you work for?”

She’d told him she worked for a fictional store with a similar name.

“I work for
The
Rage.” Lizabeth tried to think how to make the store sound more impressive. “We’re so big only major cities can contain us. Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles. . . places like that.”

“Wow,” he said, although he looked more disappointed than impressed. “I got the impression you still lived in Richmond but you must be based in Manhattan.”

She started to confirm his misconception, if only because it fit with the other delusions he had about her. She discovered she couldn’t tell him another lie, especially because she’d never even been to New York City.

“I do live in Richmond.” At his confused expression, she added, “It’s amazing how air travel can make our vast world such a small place.”

His blue eyes searched hers for long moments. She held her breath, waiting for him to yell out that she was phonier than the silicone pads she’d tucked into her bra. Instead that wide mouth of his grew wider, and he reached out to cup her cheek.

“Then I’m thankful the last plane you got on took you to Key West.” His voice lowered. “And to me.”

She was about to say air travel was so safe that more people were killed annually by donkeys than in plane crashes, but she couldn’t get the words past her suddenly dry lips.

She wet them and his gaze dropped, his blue eyes heating in the Florida sun. Although it was obvious from the way those eyes lingered on her that he found her attractive, he hadn’t tried to kiss her yet.