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
