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It took only minutes for Cara to reach the Lone Star Country Club. As always as she pulled up in front of the impressive four-story pink granite building, a swell of pride filled her heart.
The resort and country club was part of her legacy, built partially on Carson land by her grandfather and a neighbor, J. P. Wainwright, in 1923. In the intervening years the country club had become world renowned for its luxury, many amenities and top-notch staff.
But Cara’s pride lasted only a moment, quickly swallowed by the imminent need to talk to her sister.
She parked her car beneath the covered portico and jumped out. “Hi, Larry,” she said to the awaiting valet.
“Ms. Carson, nice to see you again,” he said as he took her keys from her.
“I shouldn’t be too long,” she said, then flew through the doors that led to the huge lobby. She nodded and smiled to the people she knew as she hurried to the elevators.
Body Perfect, the ladies’ spa and beauty salon was located on the second floor. The receptionist greeted her in surprise. “Cara!” She frowned and looked at her computer screen. “I didn’t realize you had an appointment this evening.”
“I don’t. I just need to speak to my sister,” Cara replied. “Can you tell me where she is?”
“She has an appointment for a massage with Heidi in fifteen minutes, and I think she was going into the sauna before her massage.”
“Thanks,” Cara said, then rushed toward the changing room just outside the sauna.
As she changed her clothes and grabbed one of the white, fluffy body towels provided, she thought of that moment when she’d opened her door and seen Sheik Omar on her front porch.
She wouldn’t have been more stunned if the Easter bunny had been standing there in all his floppy-eared splendor.
Omar had asked for her hand in marriage. Cara’s stomach clenched. Suddenly the harmless little deceit she and Fiona had indulged in for the past year didn’t seem so harmless anymore.
Fiona would know what to do. Fiona was good at extricating herself from trouble. Cara opened the door and stepped into the steamy mists of the sauna.
She instantly spied her sister, prone on one of the benches, a hand towel covering her face. She was thankful there was nobody else using the facility at the moment.
“Fiona,” Cara said as she poked her sister in the side.
Fiona yelped and grabbed the towel from her face. “Cara, what are you doing here?” she asked in surprise. She sat up and faced Cara.
The two women were identical twins. The only difference was the location of their beauty marks. Cara’s was just above her lips on the left side and Fiona’s was just above her lips on the right side. Mirror images.
“We’re in trouble,” Cara said without preamble. She sat down next to her sister on the bench. “Guess who showed up on my front doorstep ten minutes ago?”
“I can’t imagine.” Fiona raked her fingers through her damp hair.
“Sheik Omar Al Abdar.” Cara watched as her twin sister’s green eyes widened in shock. “He asked me to marry him, Fiona.”
Fiona stared at her another moment, then threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, this is just too amusing!”
Cara swallowed a sigh of irritation. Fiona never took anything seriously. “Fiona, the man proposed to me, but he thinks I’m you.”
Fiona eyed her sister curiously. “What on earth did you write in those letters to inspire a marriage proposal?”
Cara shrugged. “Just stuff,” she replied. Her dreams, her hopes, her innermost thoughts—that was what she had written to Sheik Omar, and at the end of each letter she had signed her sister’s name.
Fiona waved a hand dismissively. “Well, I’m certainly not going to marry any sheik,” she exclaimed. “Besides, if I remember correctly, Sheik Omar is old.”
“He isn’t old,” Cara instantly protested, thinking of the man she’d seen only minutes earlier. “He’s only thirty-eight.” And he’d looked as fit and as virile as any twenty-year-old, she mentally added. “He’s quite handsome and he wants to have lunch tomorrow to discuss our future together.”
“So, have lunch with him and keep your mouth shut.” Even through the steam, Cara could see the bright sparkle of her sister’s eyes. “Oh, Cara, have a little fun with this!”
“I couldn’t do that,” Cara said softly, although Fiona’s words held a provocative appeal. “He should know the truth.”
“Why? Why does he need to know that I got tired of writing him letters and you kept up the correspondence with him?”
She grabbed Cara’s hands in hers. “Your life is such a bore. I’m not saying you have to actually marry him, but you’re twenty-seven years old and have never had anything exciting happen in your life—other than that dreadful incident last year in school. Wouldn’t you love to have a great story to tell your grandchildren someday?”
The “dreadful incident” was what had prompted Cara to decide not to renew her contract as an English teacher at the high school for this year.
“The way my love life is going, I’ll probably never have grandchildren,” she replied softly.
“Of course you will,” Fiona exclaimed. “You’re the type who will eventually fall madly in love and settle for a life of simple domesticity, complete with kids and a dog.”
Cara grinned. “You make it sound like a fate worse than death.”
“It’s fine for other women.” Fiona grinned impudently. “I just have loftier ideas for myself.” Her grin faded and once again she reached for Cara’s hands. “Go for it, Cara. How many times in your life are you going to be able to be engaged to a sheik?”
Cara said nothing, for a moment remembering the warmth of Omar’s hand around hers, the sweet appeal in the depths of his eyes. Would it be so terrible to pretend for just a couple of days to be Elizabeth Fiona Carson instead of Elizabeth Cara Carson?
Certainly she would love to get an opportunity to talk in person to the man whose letters had so touched her heart. She would love to spend just a little bit of time being somebody special in his life.
“Go for it. I’ll even make it easier on you,” Fiona said, pulling Cara from her inward thoughts.
“What do you mean?”
Fiona took the hand towel and dabbed at her forehead. “I’ve been so utterly bored the past couple of weeks that I’ve been toying with the idea of taking a little vacation. First thing in the morning I’ll hop a jet to Paris for a week or two. That way I’ll be out of town and there will be no chance that Omar will realize you aren’t me.”
Cara was silent for a moment, thinking of all the reasons she shouldn’t indulge in such a subterfuge, yet unable to still the sweet anticipation that rushed through her as she realized she was going to do it.
“And, Cara, if you are going to be me, please do me justice,” Fiona said dryly. Then she placed the towel over her face and once again stretched out on the bench.
Just for a couple of days, Cara told herself minutes later as she showered, then dressed once again. She would pretend to be the woman Omar had been so taken with at the cotillion, the woman whose signature she’d signed to the dozens of letters she’d written him.
Just for a couple of days she wanted the opportunity to shine in somebody else’s eyes. In Omar’s eyes. Eventually she would tell him she couldn’t marry him, and he would return to Gaspar none the wiser.
It seemed a foolproof plan, but Cara had a feeling the only fool in the whole plan might just be her, for even contemplating such an adventure.
As Cara Carson left the Lone Star Country Club, two waitresses in the country club’s Yellow Rose Café went on break together.
“So, Daisy, do you have any big plans for the rest of the weekend?” Ginger Walton asked, as the two sat down at the small table in the break room.
Haley Mercado, who for the past six months had been pretending to be Daisy Parker, smiled at Ginger. The auburn-haired, blue-eyed young woman had, in the past couple of months, become a good friend. “Yeah, I’m working tonight, then I’m working tomorrow night.”
Ginger laughed. “Me, too. At least working all these hours keeps us out of trouble, right?”
“Right,” Haley replied, although nothing could be further from the truth in her case. She was in a world of trouble.
Working undercover for the FBI, Haley was not only pretending to be somebody she wasn’t, she was also tied emotionally and by blood to one of the most powerful families in the Texas Mafia. And that was just the beginning of her woes.
“Just think,” Ginger continued as she opened a bag of potato chips. “Maybe someday we’ll be here waiting tables with tired feet and sore backs and our Prince Charmings will waltz in and take us away from all this.”
Haley snorted in appropriate Daisy-like fashion. “Honey, I gave up on the notion of Prince Charming a long time ago,” she exclaimed in the thick accent she’d adopted for her new persona.
“Not me,” Ginger replied, a dreamy expression in her eyes. “I’m not looking for a man to take care of me or anything like that,” she hurriedly added. “I’ve been taking care of myself for a long time. But it would be nice to have somebody special to share my life with, somebody who adored me as much as I adored him.”
Ginger’s words stirred a memory in Haley, one she rarely allowed to surface in her mind. A single night of passion spent in the arms of the man she’d loved from afar for years. Her heart ached as she thought of the consequence of that night.
She shoved away the memory, knowing that to indulge herself in thoughts of the past and that man would only make her life now more difficult. And things were difficult enough already.
“Where does Harvey have you stationed for tomorrow night?” Ginger asked.
“The Men’s Grill,” Haley replied.
“Lucky you, the tips are always good in there,” Ginger replied.
Yeah, lucky me, Haley thought. She’d already told her contacts at the FBI that she was assigned to the grill the following night. That meant when she came to work the next evening she’d be wired, and her goal would be to record any conversations that might take place that could bring down the Mafia.
The temporary Men’s Grill was the place where power was wielded, deals were made, and bargains were sealed. In the smoky confines of the private bar and restaurant, “the family” met to conduct business.
“The family” included members of her family, the Mercados, and part of her deal with the FBI was that she would help tumble the Mafia in exchange for immunity for her father, Johnny, and her brother, Ricky.
However, there was one man Haley hoped to bring to his knees. Frank Del Brio. His very name caused a chill of fear to race up her spine. Fear coupled with rage.
Since the death of Carmine Mercado, the head of the “family,” there had been rumors that her brother was the logical choice to take his place. Haley had also heard rumors that Frank Del Brio was acting as if he was already the new don.
But that wasn’t why Haley wanted to see him arrested and locked up for the rest of his life.
Frank Del Brio had briefly been her fiancé. It had been because of him that she’d had to fake her own death and was now working with the FBI. He’d been responsible for her estrangement from her family, for the plastic surgery she’d undergone to transform her features and for the murder of her mother.
“Hey, am I paying you two to sit in here all night?” Harvey Small, the manager of the Lone Star Country Club, stuck his head into the break room. “Break is over. I need you on the floor.”
“Back to the salt mines,” Ginger said. She crumpled up her empty chip bag, tossed it into the nearby trash container, then stood.
“Yeah, no rest for the wicked,” Haley said, also standing.
Maybe tomorrow night she would get the information the FBI needed and the mob would be busted. Frank would be thrown in jail, and Haley could reclaim her life. She could be reunited with all the people she loved.
And maybe tomorrow night Frank Del Brio would recognize her beneath her disguise and all would be lost. She shoved this frightening thought out of her head as she and Ginger hurried back to work.
Two
She dreamed of him all night long. She dreamed of Sheik Omar Al Abdar and a beautiful foreign land called Gaspar, which he had described in one of his letters as a gemstone afloat on the sea.
In those dreams of Omar, he had gazed at her with his beautiful eyes and told her that he loved her more than anyone else on earth, and he called her Cara instead of Fiona. She’d awakened with a fierce longing, wishing that her dream would become a reality.
It was just before noon when Cara stood before her bathroom mirror, checking her reflection to make sure she looked all right for lunch with a sheik.
The dreams had stirred a wistfulness inside her, a longing to see the country that Omar had written about so eloquently in his letters, a longing to spend time with the man who had written such beautiful words.
The woman in the mirror who stared back at her wore a small frown. She had searched through her closet, trying to find something to wear that might be something Fiona would choose. But Fiona and Cara had completely different taste in clothing.
Fiona was like a brilliant flower, partial to vivid colors and cutting-edge styles. Cara was far more conservative, bland and boring. Her frown deepened, and she consciously smoothed it away and smiled at her reflection.
She’d found the jade-colored dress in the back of her closet with the tags still attached. She’d bought it on a whim, although it wasn’t her usual conventional style. The scoop neckline was a little risqué for her and the flirty skirt was definitely shorter than what she normally wore. The dress was more the type that Fiona would wear, which was why she had chosen to wear it today.
A wave of guilt swept through her and she turned away from the mirror. She was consciously planning on impersonating her sister for the first time in years.
As children they had occasionally fooled people by pretending to be each other. Those were childish games with no real consequences. But she and Fiona weren’t children anymore, and her impersonation of Fiona had prompted an important man to travel thousands of miles to propose.
Just for a couple of days, she told herself. Surely there was no harm in continuing the pretense for a couple of days. What memories these days would provide her in the future!
Her heart leaped up to her throat as a knock fell on her door. A quick glance at her watch told her it was time for Omar to pick her up.
She just hoped she could pull this off. She grabbed her purse from the sofa and she was surprised to open the door and see not Omar, but rather a short, thin man.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Carson. My name is Rashad Aziz. I am the personal assistant for Sheik Al Abdar. He is awaiting your company for lunch.”
Cara smoothed a hand down the skirt of her dress and nodded. “I’m ready to go,” she replied.
The little man smiled in delight. “Ah, a rare woman—one who is ready on time.” He escorted her to the waiting limo. When she was safely ensconced in the back, he shut the door, then took a position in the passenger seat next to the driver.
She wished Rashad had joined her in the back of the limo. Perhaps he might have chatted with her and she wouldn’t be thinking about what a huge mistake all this was.
As the limo pulled out of the Carson property and headed toward town, Cara told herself again that everything would be all right. She was certain the sheik wouldn’t remain in town long, that he would need to return to his country fairly quickly.
In the meantime she could enjoy a couple of dates with him, then turn down his marriage proposal. He would entertain fond memories of Fiona, and Cara would have wonderful memories of being dated by a handsome sheik who had shown in his letters his gentle, kind nature.
Dating had always been difficult for her. Although Mission Creek had more than its share of handsome, eligible bachelors, most of them at one time or another had dated Fiona. And Cara had made it a personal decision never to date a man who had dated her twin sister.
Cara never wanted to worry about being a second choice, a pale imitation of what the man wanted but couldn’t have. She never wanted to wonder if the man was dating her because she was a replica of her sister.
However, Fiona’s fickle dating style made it difficult for Cara to find men her sister hadn’t dated.
Omar hadn’t dated Fiona. He knew Fiona only through her letters. Letters Cara had written. Granted, he’d spent several hours with Fiona at a cotillion six years before, but it hadn’t been a date.
That night Fiona had played the role of belle of the ball, flitting from man to man in true Scarlet O’Hara fashion. Cara had, as usual, blended into the woodwork, watching the festivities rather than participating in them.
She had been introduced to Omar that night, but knew he probably didn’t remember her at all. Her gown had been a pale pink and she hadn’t tried to compete with her sister for male attention.
She’d watched him that night—watched him watching Fiona—and she’d thought him one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen.
Her heart beat faster as the limo entered the small town of Mission Creek. Ahead she could see the Brighton Hotel, and knew the eight-story luxury building was where they were going. Not only was it exorbitantly expensive with a five-star rating, but also it was the only hotel in the small town of Mission Creek aside from the accommodations at the Lone Star Country Club.
As the limo pulled to a halt before the gold-trimmed glass front doors, a uniformed valet stepped forward. Rashad jumped out of the car and waved the valet away.
