The Rent-A-Groom (14 page)

“Well, it’s like this.” Etta propped one hand on her hip. “If you lose a man because you thought the best but were all wrong, then that’s his fault. If you lose him because you thought the very worst and were wrong, then that’s yours. And there’s nothing so sad as missing out on love for lack of a little faith.”

“I just don’t know.”

Etta gave her a bright smile. “I do. You’ll do right when the time comes, you just mark my words.”

Etta was right about one thing at least—eating did make Gina feel some small bit better. Afterward, the four-hour drive back to Shreveport that lay ahead of her no longer seemed quite such an ordeal.

Gina was ready to go at last; all she needed was to call for a bellman. She was reaching for the suite’s phone when it rang under her hand. She jumped and snatched her hand back, reluctant to answer. Only the thought that it might be the police with some further question made her pick up the receiver.

The voice on the other end came through loud and clear and familiar. Diane, only Diane. Gina let out a breath she had not realized she was holding.

“Gina? Is that you?” Her friend’s voice was taut with concern. “Thank God I caught you. I was so afraid I wouldn’t.”

“I was just getting ready to check out,” Gina said quickly. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“No, no, I’m downstairs. Do you mind if I come up? There’s something I’ve got to show you.”

“You mean you’re here at the hotel?”

“In the flesh,” Diane replied with wry amusement, apparently over Gina’s blank tone. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

As the line went dead, Gina replaced the receiver. What in the world was Diane doing in Dallas? More than that, what was so important it couldn’t have waited until she got home?

Diane was breathless from haste as she stepped into the suite. With her was her young, towheaded son whom she ushered in ahead of her with a hand in the middle of his back.

“Corey!” Gina cried with quick pleasure as she reached to give the child a hug. “I didn’t know you were here, too.”

“We rode forever and ever,” the boy said as he walked on ahead of them into the sitting room, taking in the wonders of the suite with a bright, intelligent gaze. He stopped and turned with his hands behind his back. “Miss Gina, am I in trouble?”

“I don’t think so,” she answered, smiling a little at his solemnity even as she lifted a brow in Diane’s direction.

“Wait before you answer,” his mother said. “You need to see what I’ve got here first.”

Diane took a mini-camcorder from her purse and turned it on, then stepped close. Seconds later, the theme song for a vintage cartoon could be heard,
The Adventures of Jonny Quest
that was a current favorite of Corey’s, while the visual of a TV screen with its characters flickered on the camcorder’s small viewing screen.

Gina sent Diane a puzzled frown. “What? I don’t get it.”

“Wait. You will.”

Her friend was right. The scene changed as the camcorder panned from the TV screen to the interior of a room. Two women came in view where they sat talking in low voices at a dining table with coffee cups in front of them. The lighting was dim, the action jerky, and the angle too low. Still, the pair was easy to recognize, also easy to hear.

Gina was looking at the inside of Diane’s apartment, and the two women were Diane and herself. There, on the small camcorder screen, she was laughing a little as she spoke in mock despair. “
What I really need, you know, is a rent-a-groom…”

Corey turned and walked quickly to sit on the wicker loveseat with his knees together and his head bowed. Gina glanced at him before she turned back to the screen, transfixed by what she was seeing.

 “You remember my darling son was playing with my new camcorder while we talked Saturday morning?” Diane said. “I told him to put it down, but you know how he is, a concentration so total only the voice of doom penetrates.”

“I remember,” Gina answered in dawning comprehension.

“Right. I was too interested in what you were saying to watch what he was doing. Apparently he made this video, the little rat.”

Corey turned liquid blue eyes in their direction. “I just wanted to make it work.”

“I know, sweetie,” his mother told him. “It was my fault for not paying more attention.” Diane glanced back to Gina. “Anyway, I think I’ve mentioned my brother who lives out here? Well, he came to see me in Shreveport later that same morning.”

“Your brother—”

 “While I was making a quick lunch, he and Corey hung out in the living room—they’ve always been best buds. You know that, you’ve heard Corey talk about Rory often enough. Apparently, Corey showed him the new camcorder. Rory left as soon as he’d downed his lunch, said something about chores on the ranch he had to get out of the way before a special meeting. I thought at the time that his visit seemed hardly worth the long drive.”

“He said you were beautiful, Miss Gina,” Corey piped up. “He played the video three whole times just to watch you. And he said he’d sure like to meet our new neighbor.”

A frown pleated the skin between Gina’s eyes. “But what does this have to do with—I mean, you came all this way just to show me a video?”

“Watch this part,” Diane instructed. “It’s where you say you refuse to give Bradley Dillman the satisfaction of using this famous honeymoon suite, then I tell you what a phony the man is, how I never liked him, and how much better off you are without him. I think that’s what did it.”

“I’m still not sure I understand.” But Gina was afraid she was beginning to.

“Yeah, well, when Rory isn’t at the ranch, he spends time in Austin as a special adviser to the governor on farm and ranch issues. Lately, he’s been involved with the governor’s task force against organized crime.”

“I thought you told me he was a politician.”

“It isn’t a career; he just helps out when needed. He works best behind the scenes since he doesn’t much care for the limelight.”

It made a terrible kind of sense as Gina thought of it: a task force against organized crime and an arrest for money laundering. Her job as Bradley’s accountant, and the need for information to convict him. A man who had seen her speak about a rent-a-groom, and a card that said Rent-A-Gent.

 “Why didn’t you tell me when I first called you?” Gina asked in tight distress.

Diane grimaced. “I didn’t make the connection, or I probably would have blurted it out.”

“Oh, come on; I told you what he looked like!”

“You said the man’s name was Race, remember? As for the description, now how did it go? A cross between the Sundance Kid and the angel Gabriel? Sisters don’t usually think of brothers in such terms, believe me.”

“But when I called again later, you didn’t say a word.”

“He’d contacted me by then to let me know what was going on. I was a bit concerned but, well, I knew you were safe with Rory.”

“Safe.” Gina gave a choked laugh.

“But then he rang at the crack of dawn this morning, asking for my help.” Diane gave a small shrug. “Here we are, Corey and I.”

On the small screen, the video swung back to the cartoon. Jonny Quest was talking with great excitement to a hero type with silver-blond hair, telling him something about a diving bell being used by the boy’s father, Dr. Quest. Even before Jonny called the man by name, Gina knew. She had watched Jonny Quest cartoons herself when she was Corey’s age.

Jonny Quest’s companion, like Corey’s uncle, was an undercover man of sorts. And his name was, and always had been, Race Bannister.

Race had not been hired by Bradley.

Race was not an escort.

There was not and never had been a real Race Bannister.

Diane’s brother, Rory, was her Rent-A-Groom.

:: Chapter Ten ::

“He’s waiting downstairs.”

Gina jerked her head up to stare at Diane as if she had grown horns. “Race—I mean, your brother?”

“He asked me to come and show you this video, insisted on it, in fact. He wanted you to know just how this whole thing started. If you don’t want to see him, he won’t push it, but he really would like a chance to explain.”

Panic surged through Gina. She couldn’t face Race—Rory—whatever his name was. It was one thing to suspect she had been tricked by him, but something else to know it for a certainty.

She felt ridiculous for being taken in by him and his cartoon alter ego, also for allowing herself to be used to get to Bradley. Knowing that Diane’s brother had taken his hoax to its ultimate length made her feel hot all over with shame. The last thing she needed was a reminder of exactly how and why she had fallen for his line. Or for him.

“No,” she said in compressed tones. “I don’t think so.”

“Oh, Gina, you should see him for at least a minute. He feels like such a heel.”

“He should.”

“He was just doing his job,” Diane protested. “And only think what he did for you, how he shielded you. You might have been arrested with Bradley, you know, if Rory hadn’t vouched for your innocence.”

So, it was Rory who had cleared her of wrongdoing, not her ex-fiancé. She might have known Bradley was not so altruistic. “I can’t help that, and it makes no difference, anyway. Your brother and I have nothing more to say to each other.”

“You may have nothing to say, but Rory has a few things to tell you.”

“Why should I listen? If I remember right, you warned me against him yourself the second time I phoned you.”

“I was afraid you might get hurt, I’ll admit. Rory has always been so single-minded about what he’s doing, besides being wary of women who go ape over his looks and his money. I knew you were different, but couldn’t be sure he would see it. But he did. H e does. What can it hurt to give him a chance?”

Give him a chance. Etta had said she should do that, but Gina couldn’t. She was too embarrassed and humiliated. More than that, the possibility that he might discover how she felt about him was too great a risk.

She had tried living dangerously, and just see where it had gotten her. She had no heart to try it again.

Corey, watching them with close attention, got up from the loveseat and came to stand in front of Gina. Gazing up into her face in serious concentration, he said, “Don’t you like Uncle Rory, Miss Gina?”

How could she explain to a small boy when she wasn’t sure she could sort out the morass of fear and anger, aching need and pride that shifted inside her? “Not exactly.”

“He wants you to. He said when he went away to find you that he would try hard.”

Gina smiled a little, touching the boy’s head, smoothing his hair with her fingers in an effort to soothe his worry. “You’re uncle Rory did a fine job, because I did like him. But sometimes people do things that hurt other people’s feelings.”

“I know, and they have to say they’re sorry. Then it’s all right.”

“Yes, but it doesn’t always work.”

Concern made wrinkles in his small brow. “Not even if they promise not to do it again? No even when they kiss and make up?”

A firm footstep came from behind them. Hard on it came a low, masculine voice. “Great idea, sport. I think I can handle it from here.”