Page 154 of Our Little Secret

“Is there anything else?” Neal asked, making his way to the door.

“Are you kidding?” Eli paused at the bottom of the stairs, setting the champagne bottle on the console table next to an Immaculate Heart of Mary figurine. “Leah doesn’t know what it means to pack light.”

Leah snagged the bottle of champagne, carried it into the kitchen, and placed it in the refrigerator. “Let’s open this later, after we settle in.” Then, to her husband-to-be, “Come on upstairs!” Her mouth twisted into a naughty grin. “Let me show you to your—er, our room.” She cast a questioning glance at Brooke. “And that’s—?

“I set you up in Mom’s old bedroom,” Brooke replied dully. This couldn’t be happening. The thought of Leah and Gideon/Eli sleeping together and making love in their mother’s room made her stomach turn over.

But worse than that was the fear, the feeling that at any moment he could do something rash. Something dangerous.

How far would he go?

“Ah.” Leah was nodding. “I figured.” She took Eli’s free hand and led him up the stairs. Neither one looked back.

CHAPTER 34

Don’t freak out! Don’t freak out! For God’s sake donotfreak out!

But Brooke felt her entire world imploding. Gideon was here? Posing as Eli Stone? Intending to marry Leah? After leaving the bracelet and putting up a spy camera?

She felt as if she might hyperventilate.

“I don’t know about you,” Neal said to Brooke, “but I could use a drink.” He turned to the hutch by the dining room, where one lower cupboard had always been used as a liquor cabinet. Crouching and rooting around inside, he said, “Well, shit! All that’s in here is peppermint schnapps. Oh no! Wait a second! What’s this? Here we go!” He let out a long whistle as he stood to dust off a blue bottle. Eyebrows lifting, he said, “Bombay Sapphire! As you know, I make a mean martini.” He eyed the bottle and muttered, “Let me see.” Then searched again. “May the gods of booze be with us and . . . ah yes!” He pulled out another bottle and wiggled it. “Vermouth! Now we’re in business.” Grin stretching, he looked up at her, “Want one?”

She shouldn’t. It would be far better to keep her wits about her, but she couldn’t stand it and she needed something,anythingto help her calm down and slow her heart rate. “Sure,” she said, throwing caution to the wind. “And while you’re at it, make it a double.”

“Your wish is my command.” Neal found a small pitcher, rinsed it out, and chipped ice from the frozen mass of cubes in the freezer with the ice pick while Brooke opened a fresh jar of olives. “Note to self,” Neal said, “pick up more ice.”

“Or make some. It’s Christmas tomorrow, remember?”

“And this is Christmas Eve—oh, hell.” He handed her a glass and they clinked rims. “Merry Christmas.”

“You think?”

“We can try.”

“Right.” She touched the rim of her glass to his again but knew she was lying. She might fake it for the family, but the last thing this Christmas was going to be was merry. Inside her mind was screaming, her heart palpitating from the shock of seeing Gideon again, but she had to think, to figure out what to do, rationally. Calmly. Without freaking out.

Yeah right.

She took a swallow and felt the welcome warmth of the gin on her throat.

“What do you think about Eli—the new guy?” Neal asked, scowling into his drink.

I think he’s a lying scumbag capable of God knows what!She remembered Gideon with the gun, how she’d felt he was going to kill her on the deck of his sailboat. But she couldn’t mention any of that. Instead, she settled for, “Don’t trust him.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Three if you count Marilee.”

“Yeah, I know.” Neal took a swallow of his martini. “She looked as if she’d seen a ghost when he walked in. Well, so did you.”

I did!“It was a shock.” She took another swallow and tried to gather her wits about her. Why would Gideon play this charade? Why change his name? Why try to infiltrate the family? Why go to such lengths of deception? Why go as far as marry Leah under an assumed identity? None of this made any sense.

“Yeah,” Neal said and finished his drink in one long swallow. “I just don’t get it. Leah never said anything.”

“To you?” Brooke said. “You’ve been talking to her?”

“To Marilee.” But the way he said it made her wonder. She remembered their fight when she’d confronted him about the loans to her sister, about the lien Leah had signed against this very cabin.