Buch lesen: «Mystery Date»

1

LEIGH VAUGHN SAT in a car with one of her best friends, staring at the imposing beach-cliff house where her mystery date was supposed to take place tonight.

As she kept staring, she swallowed. Hard.

Margot spoke from the driver’s seat. “‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’”

Leigh pulled her gaze away from the house. “What?”

“That’s the first line from Rebecca.” Margot raised a well-manicured brow, turning her light green-blue gaze to Leigh. Her high cheekbones and tousled, layered dark hair gave her a look that fell somewhere between a pixie and a wild child, but her designer knit dress was all high-class. “Don’t you get a certain vibe from this place, just like the narrator in that book did after she found out her new husband’s first wife, Rebecca, pretty much haunted Manderley?”

Leigh wished she hadn’t brought Miss Cal-U English Major with her. Better yet, she just wished that Margot would lay off teasing her about tonight. Some moral support would be nice right about now.

“It’s only a date,” Leigh said, echoing the words that had been going through her head all day. She wasn’t sure if she was just trying to shut Margot up or calm herself down.

“A date,” Margot said, a sparkle in her gaze. “In a huge Gothic house. And with a man who won’t tell you who he is.”

“Why don’t you make this sound even more intimidating, Marg? Because I’m not nervous enough.”

“Maybe you should be very nervous.” Margot gave an “ooo, how scary” look to the mansion that loomed above them at the end of the gated driveway under the dusk-burnished November sky. “When Mystery Man bought your basket at the charity auction, I didn’t think you’d actually go through with this. But you’ve surprised me, Leigh. Maybe you’ve got a little adventure in you, after all.”

Adventure.

Good God—that was what she’d come here for, wasn’t it?

She followed Margot’s gaze toward that gray stone mansion again, with its imposing balconies and arches. The man who was waiting for Leigh in there had spent $5,000 to win her basket about a month ago during a reunion for her college sorority, Tau Epsilon Gamma, and its counterpart, the agricultural business–centered fraternity Phi Rho Mu.

Leigh took in a deep breath. Even back in college, smack in the middle of the rural San Joaquin Valley, she’d never done something this crazy—not during pledging, not during all their parties...never. True, she, Margot and their friend Dani had been good-time girls, best friends enjoying their youth, but that was when the silliness was supposed to end—after they graduated and became adults.

But no. She and Margot just had to go and put on that auction at the ten-year reunion. They’d just had to hold out for the highest bids on all those baskets that contained materials for a date with the women who’d created them. Margot had called her basket Around the Girl in Eighty Ways, and after her spicy encounters with the man who’d purchased the basket—her archenemy from college, of all people—she’d ended up getting engaged to him.

Leigh had taken a sweeter route. She’d stayed true to the wholesome country-girl Tau image and named her basket “A Taste of Honey”; she’d intended to give whoever won it a down-home dinner laced with the main ingredient—and maybe more, depending who bought the basket.

But she hadn’t expected what happened next—a fellow sorority sister, Beth Dahrling, had been the highest bidder, and she’d revealed that she was acting as a liaison for a man who refused to disclose his identity.

Leigh would’ve never guessed that she was eventually going to end up in front of a mansion that belonged in some kind of “It was a dark and stormy night” book.

She slid down in her seat. “I can’t believe you got me into this, Marg.”

“Me? How?”

As Margot waited for an answer, Leigh realized that she’d been plucking at the seam of her jeans, and she stopped. Her date had requested that she “dress casual,” just as she did on the country-cooking show she hosted on the Food Network—denim, boots, yee-haw blouses and all.

And what the hell? She’d gone along with it. But now her lacy flowered blouse seemed to show too much cleavage, and her jeans clung too tightly, reminding her of what she’d felt like over a year ago when she’d still been packing extra pounds.

Margot chuffed. “You’re not squirming out of an answer to this one, Leigh. How is it my fault that you ended up in this situation? You’re the one who said yes to the conditions after Beth bought the basket.”

Right or wrong, she was so on edge that she said the first thing that came to mind. “You’re the one who made up the baskets in the first place. When we heard that Dani was going to give up on her big wedding plans, you thought of the date auction to help her raise money for her extravaganza.”

“Not that it did much good since Dani refused the money and decided to go small.” Margot lasered a knowing look at her. “You’re only ticked off because I made my basket as sexy as hell, and you didn’t want to be outdone. Say it—I’m totally right, aren’t I?”

Leigh shot her an irritated glance, but it wasn’t exactly all about Margot. She was merely stalling by sitting here saying dumb stuff and creating an argument.

But she wasn’t sure just why she was so reluctant to get out of the car. There’d been a restless growl rolling through her ever since she had heard about Margot’s hot basket and what Leigh could put in hers, too. Hell, if she were telling the whole truth, she would even have to admit that the growl had started about a year ago, when she’d dropped the weight she’d carried since she was a kid.

The growl made her stay up most nights, running her hand over her belly, circling, then going lower, trying to give herself what she’d never gotten from all the ho-hum sex she’d had before with the lights off so that her few, steady partners wouldn’t see all her bulges and cellulite.

And so that they wouldn’t call her “Cushions,” just as they had in college when she’d been pledging with Margot and Dani.

“Sorry,” Leigh finally said, absently toying with the seam on her jeans again. “I’m pretty nervous, and I’m saying things I don’t mean.”

Margot softened. “Are you sure it’s not excitement you’re feeling?”

That could’ve been it, too. “There’re just a bunch of second thoughts attacking me right now. I keep thinking that if you hadn’t been so adventurous with your basket, I probably wouldn’t have been so daring with mine. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Why didn’t I just offer an innocent little picnic at the reunion and leave it at that?”

Margot bit her lip, and Leigh could tell she was stifling a laugh. They’d always been competitive—when they were dorm roommates, when they’d lived together at the sorority house, even after college when Margot, the Girl Most Likely to Succeed, had shot to infamy with all the “single woman on the go” travel books she’d written. Margot had always made Leigh want to be better, to keep up with her, and the baskets had been no exception.

“I suppose you’re right,” Margot said. “This is all my fault. I’m an awful person for making you want to have some fun.”

A moment passed; then they both laughed and for a moment Leigh’s nerves actually mellowed.

But the sight of the mansion on the hill remained in her peripheral vision, and she didn’t laugh for long.

Seriously—what was she getting herself into?

That familiar growl gnawed through her belly, making her ache a little between her legs. Admit it, she thought. You want this.

She wanted to let go of all her chubby-girl neuroses, wanted to see what it would be like to come out of her modest closet in a big way. She wanted to go on a mystery date with her own sexy basket and the taste of honey it offered, literally with a humdinger of a meal, and figuratively with...

Oh, God, she had no idea what else was in store for her tonight.

Margot got out her smartphone, dialing it as she glanced at Leigh. “You need an extra push out of this car, sweetie.” Then she smiled brightly. “Dani? I’m putting you on speakerphone with me and Leigh.”

Dani, who rounded out their best-friend group, was laughing when she came on the line. Leigh could almost imagine her, with her curly bobbed red hair, her doe-gray eyes and her milk-pale skin. She tried not to think about the look on Dani’s face that she caught sometimes.... Was it disappointment that she wouldn’t have the grand nuptials she’d always dreamed of, ever since college when they’d nicknamed her “Hearts”? Or was it the cold feet Leigh and Margot suspected Dani might be suffering after an engagement that had lasted for years now?

“You haven’t gone into his place yet?” Dani asked Leigh.

Leigh rolled her eyes. “Aren’t you supposed to be catering for someone?”

“I’m on a break at work, just like I was when I gave you a pep talk before you left the hotel. I wish I could’ve driven down there with Margot to meet you.”

Leigh shot the phone a disgruntled glance as Margot laughed and said, “You’ve got work, and I’ve got this covered, Dan. Except I wish you were here to help me kick Leigh’s butt up this long driveway. You should see what’s at the end of it. The mansion is straight out of Jane Eyre or—”

Leigh cut her off. “Margot is having a grand old time, Dani. She’s playing on my last nerve because it’s hilarious to her.”

Margot shrugged innocently. “You’re so easy to mess with, though.”

“Just don’t listen to Margot,” Dani said. “It’s not like you’re going into an unsafe place, Leigh. Beth Dahrling said she’d meet you there, right?”

Beth Dahrling, the woman who’d bid on Leigh’s basket in place of the Mystery Man.

“Right,” Leigh said. “But I doubt she’ll be chaperoning the whole night. She’s just a friend of this guy, and she set everything up.”

“She’s a fellow sister. Plus, she told you that Mystery Man was a brother in our very favorite fraternity, and a brother would never put you in a bad situation.”

True. Riley, Dani’s fiancé and a Phi Rho Mu brother to boot, had all but promised Leigh that one of his own would never harm her. Besides, Beth would be here. Still, Riley had no idea of Mystery Man’s identity, although he’d done enough online research to try and uncover it. Margot put a hand on Leigh’s arm, and it was a comforting touch. “It’ll be a good time, you’ll see. My bet is that he’s just one of the fraternity brothers—a San Joaquin cowboy whose ranch is making the big bucks—and he’s having some fun with you. He’ll ask the TV chef to cook him dinner, and while you’re eating, you’ll have a major laugh over this whole secrecy thing.”

Leigh locked gazes with Margot, her frenemy, the woman who’d always had everything come so easily to her. The person Leigh had wanted to emulate in college and beyond, even as they went toe-to-toe with each other.

It was as if Margot saw all of that in Leigh’s eyes, and for some reason she glanced away.

This wasn’t the first time Margot had acted like this recently, and Leigh had been wondering why. Her friend had started a new book about a city girl living the country life on Clint’s cutting-horse ranch, and she had a new blog that was drawing all kinds of interest. So why did she occasionally look as if she was hiding something?

Leigh wanted to ask what was going on, but Dani was already speaking on the phone.

“Well?” she asked. “Are you going to stay in that car all night or are you going to have an adventure?”

Leigh sent one last look to the mansion, her stomach in knots...

And that growl combing over every inch of her.

* * *

ADAM MORGAN LEANED against the wall near a barred window in the top story of the rented house. He was watching the Prius that was parked at the end of the long driveway, near the open iron gates that separated him from the eucalyptus-shrouded lane that led up here.

“She’s not coming in, is she?” he asked.

Next to him, his good friend Beth Dahrling was also peering out the window. “Well, Leigh’s here, at least. I don’t think she would come this far to turn around.”

She had to be right, because he had hired a small plane, in cash, to fly Leigh down here to the Pismo Beach area from her home up in Lodi. He’d decided to have this dinner away from Avila Grande, where they’d both attended Cal-U.

For a short time, in Adam’s case.

He glanced over his shoulder at Beth, whose long dark hair was swept back into a tortoiseshell barrette. In her chic printed silk wrap dress and with her rosy-brown skin, she seemed colorful and exotic, but the melancholy expression she wore gave him pause.

“You still think this is a bad idea,” he said, a trace of amusement in his voice.

“I think it’s an odd one.” She turned her liquid-brown gaze on him. “I think all you had to do was bid on Leigh’s basket and reveal who you were.”

“She wouldn’t remember me.” He hadn’t stuck around the university long enough for there to even be a picture of him on the walls of the fraternity house, where he’d pledged for only a short time before he’d had to drop out and return home.

But several months ago, when he’d seen Leigh on TV for the first time, he’d certainly remembered her. And when Beth had mentioned the basket auction that was being held at the reunion for their connected organizations, he’d thought of Leigh as she had been fourteen years ago, laughing all the time, taking a moment to smile at the shy freshman pledge who didn’t say much to girls—the kid who’d disappeared without ever becoming an official Phi Rho Mu brother.

Beth sighed and walked away from the window. Adam turned around, folding his arms over his chest while she spoke.

“Do you blame her for being cautious about this?” she asked. “For all she knows, you could be the Phantom of the Opera in this old house.”

He dodged her comment. “I didn’t want to use any of my own homes.” Not for a one-night basket date that had sparked his imagination.

“You know damned well that it’s not your homes I’m talking about,” Beth said. “Really, Adam, this is the strangest thing you’ve ever done. In fact...”

She didn’t have to say anything else. Ever since his wife, Carla, had withered away from breast cancer two years ago, he had become a recluse, uninterested in most things that happened outside the walls of his homes, except for the many property and business investments that he’d inherited from Carla, money that kept his bank accounts flush, thanks to the way he’d multiplied the investments.

“Hey,” he said, walking over to Beth and reaching out, chucking her under the chin with his finger. “This is going to turn out all right. No worries.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Yes, it’ll turn out all right for you. This date will provide some temporary entertainment, and then you’ll move on to whatever comes next. I’ve seen it before with your women, but none of them have ever been one of my sisters.”

She was talking about the women he’d met online. Women he would talk to behind yet another wall—this one created by the computer. They provided mental fantasies for him, and that was all he’d needed for a couple of years now....

Until he’d seen Leigh on TV, wearing a red-and-white-checkered shirt that was unbuttoned down to here, her stomach bared because of the knot she’d tied above her waist, her long blond hair pinned away from her heart-shaped face and tumbling down her back as she worked in her Come-on Down Kitchen by candlelight, creating sensual country meals on her show.

She’d taken off a lot of weight since college, but he thought she’d looked just as beautiful with her curves and soft skin back then. He’d first seen her at a casual party populated mostly by his fraternity brothers and the Tau Epsilon Gamma sorority, and his heart had skipped a beat while she’d joked with her friends across the room. Her laugh had captured him in some physical way that he’d never been able to explain, but it had consumed him that night, and he’d never forgotten. And that smile she’d given him in passing—that dazzling, pure smile that had reached inside and grabbed him.... If he’d been less shy, he would’ve taken that as encouragement, but the fact that he’d never had the chance made Leigh Vaughn into a figment of his college imagination, made her into the ultimate “what could’ve been” girl.

Of course, that had been just before he was called home after his dad succumbed to a heart attack and Adam had taken up the mantle of “man of the house.”

He turned back around, moving to the window again. He could see that the car was still parked, and even now his heart flipped. But it wasn’t because of some old never-consummated crush. It was because of tonight’s scenario.

The basket.

He’d initiated all of this out of sheer curiosity. How had Leigh turned out so many years later? Did she still have the same warmth a man could feel even from across a room?

Adam gripped the window frame. He wasn’t someone who needed warmth—it was the curiosity that was driving him. That was all. And these days he could afford to appease it.

He could afford almost anything that broke up the boredom.

As he kept looking through the barred window, he could faintly see his reflection: dark hair and nearly gold eyes from his mom’s Spanish heritage, a mouth drawn tight. A man wearing a black shirt and jeans. Someone he barely recognized.

“This is only a harmless date, Beth,” he said. “For everyone involved.”

“I’ll bet Leigh’s ready to jump out of her skin. Does that turn you on or something?”

He paused. Did it turn him on to know that she was wondering who he was?

Yeah. Yeah, it did. And he liked that she would never know enough about him to contact him for another date if she got it in her head that she wanted more. He didn’t do attachments. Not anymore, not after Carla had taken his heart with her.

Beth walked away, her footsteps thudding on the polished wood floor.

“I’m going out there,” she said.

“To drag her inside?”

“I don’t know what I’ll do, but this is ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as being the executive assistant to a man who wants to stay in the shadows during his entire date.”

He laughed. His plan for dinner did sound demented. But he was in the mood for it. Besides, how was keeping a distance from his date any different from getting to know all those women online? There he could be anyone, just like tonight.

No attachments, no strings. This was the ultimate safe date...and a game, if he had to admit it. And the more he thought about tonight’s game, the more turned on he got.

Beth left the room, and Adam found himself holding his breath. He let it out, shaking his head. Carla would’ve thought he was going off-balance, too. She would’ve put her hands on her hips, asking him what the hell had happened to make him this way.

But Carla had always gotten straight to the point, even fourteen years ago after he’d returned to his family ranch, mourning his father, keeping his mother from shriveling into a depressed heap while helping her to run their cattle operation and raise his three younger siblings the best he could. Carla, seven years older and wiser, with a family so rich that they had already bequeathed her the gentleman’s ranch next door, had come calling the second day after he’d settled in.

Yes, even back then Carla had offered a neighborly hand to the eighteen-year-old who was so out of his depth that he could barely catch four hours of sleep per night. And as the years went by, friendship had turned into love, then into a happy marriage.

Then she was gone.

Through the window, Beth appeared on the driveway, her skirt swishing around her legs as she strode down to the open gate and the car beyond it.

Adam held his breath yet again, watching to see if Leigh was going to get out of that car and embark on this strange date.

Or if she was going to leave, just as everyone in his life seemed to do.

* * *

“OH MY GOD, here she comes,” Leigh said, sliding down in her car seat as she spied Beth walking down the driveway with purpose.

“Should we hide?”

The glee in Margot’s tone told Leigh that her friend was teasing her again. Too bad Dani had already gotten off the phone, because she could’ve joined in the chiding.

Beth reached the iron gate, then waved, and Margot obviously couldn’t resist one last gibe.

“‘“Will you walk into my parlor?” said the Spider to the Fly.’”

The joke was the last straw for Leigh, and with one defiant glance at Margot, she sucked it up, opened the door and got out of the damned car.

The salt-tinged coastal wind threaded through her hair as she shut the door and put on a smile for Beth as they hugged in greeting.

Margot had gotten out, too, and she embraced Beth, then held her at arm’s length.

“I always did admire your clothes,” Margot said, surveying Beth’s sleek multihued silk dress and her strappy gold sandals.

Beth smiled. “Even though you were a couple years behind me in college, I have to say that I looked up to your sense of style, too.” She turned to Leigh. “So what do you think?”

About fashion? Global politics? The Kardashians? Or about the blindest date ever?

Margot saved her from having to answer. “Sorry about the delay. Dani called about some wedding plans, and we were just going over them with her in the car.”

“Ah, yes. I hear Dani and Riley are having their ceremony on Clint’s ranch.” Beth laughed. “I mean, your ranch, Margot, now that you’re living together.”

Margot shrugged and actually blushed. Yeah, Margot, former queen of singletons, newly crowned empress of blushing.

“You heard right,” she said. “We’re hosting the wedding, and you’ll be invited.”

Then, as if she were a mom dropping off a child who didn’t want to attend a birthday party with evil clowns, Margot scooted around to her side of the car.

“And that’s my cue to scram.” She winked at Leigh. “Have fun, you.”

Beth took Leigh’s arm to lead her up to the open gates, and Margot used her hand as a fake telephone, putting it up to her ear and mouthing, Call me when you’re done!

Leigh widened her eyes at her friend, then turned around to walk with Beth up the driveway. Margot’s car motor revved, then faded as she drove away.

And that was when it became official. This was happening. Mystery date with Mystery Man.

Beth squeezed Leigh’s arm. “So Margot drove you over here?”

“She met me at the Sea Breeze Suites for a girls’ weekend, so yeah. I didn’t need the limo you offered.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

Shoot. “You’re asking if she drove me here because I was cautious about this date?”

“Exactly.” Beth laughed. “But that’s smart, really, to bring along a friend. You can trust me, though.”

“I do trust you.” But the farther they got up the driveway, the more her stomach spun. And the more her body sang with an odd, almost warped thrill.

Her, Leigh Vaughn. She’d never, ever done anything like this before, and she was liking it. A lot.

Beth was clearly trying to put her at ease. “Your date got you everything you requested for dinner, from the ingredients to the cookware.”

All the auction basket had promised was a meal featuring honey. Like Margot, Leigh had been careful in phrasing the notes in her basket, making sure that if she didn’t want the date to go too far, she wouldn’t have to live up to any wickedly spelled-out promises. But if she liked what she saw in Mystery Man and she wanted to go beyond food and give him a real taste of honey...

Every inch of her pulsated.

“How do you know him?” Leigh asked as they got to the top of the driveway, where gnarled bushes lined the lawn and the wind whistled a soft, meandering tune.

Beth had probably been expecting this question, and she launched right into an answer.

“I’m friends with him but also professional associates. Out of pure happenstance, he found my résumé online after college, and now he pays me nicely to take care of his business affairs.”

“Didn’t you get a law degree?”

“Yes, but there are a lot of legal angles to what I do for him. Contracts, boring stuff like that.”

“And who exactly is ‘him’?”

Beth laughed again. “Good try, but that’s all you’re going to get out of me.”

As they arrived at the massive carved wood door, Leigh paused.

“Why is he taking such pains to be a mystery?” she asked, hoping that Beth would at least answer this.

Beth’s smile straightened out as she hesitated, then said, “Your basket was a game, Leigh, and he’s making a countermove, continuing the game. It’s all in fun.”

A game? What kind of man played this way? And what sort of guy could afford a place like this?

She ran her gaze over that door, noticing the iron lion’s-head knocker. “He’s rich. I can tell that much.”

“He’s got a few bucks to spare. Did you run this address through the internet?”

Leigh nodded. The house was owned by a rental property that had led her and her friends to dead ends. “We assumed the place isn’t his.”

“It isn’t. He’s only vacationing.” Beth reached out to open the door, but she hesitated again.

Meanwhile, all Leigh could hear was the sound of her heart boom-boom-booming through her.

Beth spoke, her hand still in midair. “It’ll be a harmless, fun night,” she repeated. “If you go inside with that in mind, you’ll walk away happy.”

Fear—or was it something else?—zinged through Leigh as Beth opened the door, revealing a foyer with a stone floor and a yawning staircase just beyond.

Adventure. That was what Margot would’ve said this was, and as Leigh’s pulse went wild, she craved it as she’d never craved anything else in her life.

She had a good figure now. She’d been told she was actually pretty after all that weight had come off.

It was time to make the most of what she’d never had.

She stepped across the threshold, breathing in, out, trying to keep her heart in her chest.

As Beth closed the door behind them, Leigh heard a voice just beyond the foyer, to the left.

“Good to see you here, Leigh.”

A deep, dark tone.

Leigh’s adrenaline pushed her forward. She wanted to see him. Wanted to know who had paid $5,000 for the pleasure of her company.

But when she rounded the corner, she came to a halt, surprised as hell at what she found.