Double Trouble

  Two sisters. One disaster.

  First things first: I’m the bad twin. While my sister, Marcia, has the perfect family in the perfect suburb, I’ve been making my living as an Internet advice columnist and designing Web sites in my downtown loft. I always thought I had the right answer - and hair color - for any occasion. That is, until Marcia ran up loads of debt and ran out on her husband and kids, and I was left helping to pick up the pieces. Her husband, James, is a lawyer who I hate on principle alone.

  But for a guy who’s just lost his job, his marriage, and his expensive toys, he’s keeping it together - and making me rethink my feelings toward him. It’s not that he’s traded in his conservative suits for sexy jeans. It’s that he’s not giving up what’s important to him, and oh baby, I’m a sucker for a guy who hangs tough.

  That doesn’t mean I’m ready to step into Marcia’s designer shoes now that she’s gone AWOL.

  And it doesn’t mean I’m going to fall for James’s easy charm…not again, anyhow. Besides, I’ve had a lifelong policy of not being mistaken for my twin and I’m not backing down on that one now - no matter how convenient it might be for a certain sexy (and persuasive) man…

  * * *

  DOUBLE TROUBLE was originally published under the pseudonym, Claire Cross.

  Deborah Cooke also writes as Claire Delacroix and as herself.

  * * *

  Praise for DOUBLE TROUBLE

  “For a fast-paced, captivating story of romance, family relationships, and following your heart, DOUBLE TROUBLE is not to be missed.”

  Romance Reviews Today

  “A fun, funny, Sex in the City kind of tale.”

  The Romance Reader

  “This quirky, funny book made me laugh while tugging at deeper emotions.”

  All About Romance

  “[Cooke’s] cutting-edge romance proved that not all identical twins are alike while giving the reader insight into Web etiquette that is as entertaining as the story.”

  Booklist

  * * *

  Double Trouble

  by Deborah Cooke

  This re-release has had only minor corrections from the original text. It is essentially the same as the original print editions, although there are minor variations.

  Copyright 2001, 2012 Claire Delacroix, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover by Kim Killion.

  Digital Edition

  Without limiting the rights under copyright preserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  * * *

  DOUBLE TROUBLE

  by Deborah Cooke

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Excerpt from ONE MORE TIME

  Excerpt from LOVE POTION #9

  * * *

  DOUBLE TROUBLE

  by

  Deborah Cooke

  * * *

  Subject: what to do dating blues

  Yo Aunt Mary -

  Ancient uncle kicked, Mom says all 2 go 2 funeral FRIDAY NIGHT!

  =8-o

  lame.com - I could be meeting Mr. Right instead. Wah! :-(

  Yr advice?

  Hot_Chic

  –-

  Subject: re: what to do dating blues

  Dear Hot_Chic

  Go…in something sleek and black.

  The heir might need solace - and yr Fri night might not be wasted after all.

  ;-)

  Aunt Mary

  ***

  Uncertain? Confused? Ask Aunt Mary!

  Your one stop shop for netiquette and advice:

  http://www.ask-aunt-mary.com

  I propped my chin on my hand and stared at the message. Maybe I was getting bored with this gig. Aunt Mary certainly had lost a bit of her sparkle - she was sounding more like a cranky old bitch than an irreverent livewire these days.

  But then, it was only nine at night and I was just waking up.

  I saved the response without posting it to the board - just in case lightning struck in the wee hours of the morning - yawned and stretched. The truth of it was that I shouldn’t even have been out of bed yet, but I hadn’t slept well. Something had kept me awake today. Guilty conscience, maybe. Ha. Hole-digging types in the street below, more likely.

  I was still warm and fuzzy, halfway between sleep and wake. But there were lots of messages for that sage of netiquette, Aunt Mary. Time for some rocket java to fuel the keyboard merengue.

  The phone rang when I was elbowing some space on the cluttered counter for the coffee bean grinder. You’ve got to grind your own, you know, if you want a decent cup of brew.

  “Auntie Maralys? Is that you?”

  It wasn’t such a weird time for my nephew to be calling, but something about his tone made me forget my coffee. I would have bet my last buck that this ten-year-old kid was never uncertain of anything, but he sounded…lost.

  He had my attention but quick. In fact, he was giving me hives. I don’t do kids. Don’t handle dependence and vulnerability real well. The only reason I can deal with my nephews is that they’re getting older - I think of them as very small adults and it’s okay.

  Mostly.

  But now, Jimmy was doing a “make my boo-boo better voice” and I felt my bile rising.

  “Sure, Jimmy, it’s me. How’s it going?” Maybe I sounded a little more cheerful than necessary, but it seemed to reassure him.

  It certainly reassured me.

  “Houston, we have a problem,” he said, slipping into a routine we often used. In this scenario, I was NASA control and he was captain of the intrepid space voyager, Calypso. To say that Jimmy was a space nut would be the understatement of the century.

  It worked out all right - kind of a meeting of the minds in technogook land.

  “Roger, Calypso. I copy.” A problem to which I was the solution. I was already making a good guess as to what the deal might be. My sister, in case I haven’t mentioned it, is a selfish hare-brained idiot. “What are your coordinates, Calypso?”

  “Um, at the pool.”

  “You have swimming lessons tonight?”

  “Roger, Houston. Exercise maneuvers have been completed.”

  A long pause followed. Time for those latent psychic abilities to kick in. Sadly, they missed their cue. “Can you describe the nature of your problem, Calypso?”

  “Um. Auntie Maralys…”

  His voice quivered and I shiver
ed right to my toes. Just having clutchy, needy people on my phone - well, one person really, but it was enough - made me want to break and run.

  I closed my eyes and forced myself to guess what was up. Eenie meanie jelly beanie. “Have you made contact with your shuttle, Calypso?” I was thinking that my twin and I were going to have to have a serious talk if she couldn’t even remember to pick up her kids from swimming.

  “Uh, no, Houston. There is no sign of the shuttle. Rendezvous may been aborted.”

  Now, I was mad. This was typical Marcia, imposing on everyone else and scaring the crap out of her kids, just so she could…what? Get her nails done? Probably something stupid, feminine and frivolous like that.

  “And your back-up shuttle, Calypso?” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice because we all knew that James worked more hours than any human alive. “Do you have its coordinates?”

  Jimmy faltered. “California, I think.”

  I bit back a scream, then took a deep breath. It wasn’t Jimmy’s fault that morons were allowed to breed. “Okay, Calypso, I copy. Let’s review the checklist - are you currently at the scheduled rendezvous point?”

  “Roger, Houston.”

  “How long have you been at the rendezvous point, Calypso?”

  “Since eight-thirty, after class ended.”

  “At my mark, your shuttle is precisely thirty-two minutes late. Please confirm, Calypso. Mark.”

  “That is correct, Houston. Thirty-two minutes and counting.”

  “Please confirm, Calypso, whether you are on a solo mission. Your mission orders are inaccessible to me at this juncture.”

  Marcia’s boys are just two years apart, spitting images of their father, and practically joined at the hip. I always thought it was weird for them to be so close - Marcia and I nearly murdered each other when we were kids, after all - but maybe my sister found it more convenient to keep them at the same place at the same time.

  Maybe they secretly did hate each other’s guts in healthy sibling fashion. The prospect always cheered me.

  “No, Houston. Lieutenant John is also aboard this mission. His class is done, too.” Jimmy’s voice dropped with uncertainty and he sounded like a lost little boy again. “Auntie Maralys, everyone has left.”

  I damned my sister silently to hell and back, then wished that there really was something to the psychic bond between twins. At least then I could make a guess as to what Marcia was up to.

  On the other hand, I really didn’t want to know more than I already did about how she thought. My very own twisted sister. I must have beat her to the line when they were handing out common sense.

  Which was why she was married and had two kids, while I wasn’t and didn’t… and never would. These periodic crises were enough to keep my biological clock from ringing its alarm.

  Along with a lot of other things, now neatly buried in my paleolithic past, and destined never to be exhumed.

  “Roger.” I really had only one good choice, even though it was incredibly inconvenient. Almost as if Marcia planned it that way.

  Hmm.

  “Hold your position. Repeat: hold your position, Calypso. We have a technical complication on this end - there is no vehicle available for immediate rendezvous. Do you copy, Calypso?”

  “We copy, Houston.” There was Johnny. I guessed that the boys were sharing the receiver.

  “Mission control suggests you enter low orbit, Calypso, from which you can watch your designated position. In the event that your shuttle does appear, please hold your position until the second vehicle arrives to rendezvous. Repeat your orders, Calypso.”

  Jimmy did, then Johnny whispered. “The janitor’s office is right over there, Auntie Maralys.”

  “Roger, Calypso. We will rendezvous ASAP at your selected alternate coordinates.”

  “Roger, Houston.”

  “Over and out.” I flung on my battered leather jacket, ran for the door and vowed to break every bone in my sister’s body when I found her. Maybe I’d snap those perfect nails one at a time. I flagged down a cab, and the cabbie thought he’d died and gone to heaven when he discovered I was going all the way out to Lexington.

  Might as well be Canada. Or California. Haha. I could pick James up myself and give him a telling-to about the responsibilities of parenthood. That would be fun.

  As if I knew anything about it.

  The fun would have to wait though. The boys were my first order of business. I rummaged surreptitiously through my pockets and hoped like hell that I had enough cash on me for the fare.

  One thing was for sure - Marcia was a dead woman.

  * * *

  Marcia wasn’t dead, just AWOL.

  I took the kids back to Casa Coxwell and they gabbled the whole way, their confidence that the world was their oyster evidently bolstered by this return to routine. It wasn’t as if I could have them in my place. Perish the thought.

  Oh look, another hive.

  Actually, my theory was that some forgetful someone would be at the house, but every light was out in the place when we arrived. Some kind of crummy security system the lofty Coxwells had installed. Between us, we had two keys, Jimmy knew the security code, and I was only short a nickle on the fare. The cabbie decided to be generous.

  In case you aren’t sure, I don’t do kids really well. I’m not particularly domesticated myself and at least have the good sense to keep my bad habits to myself. I let the boys manage their own nocturnal routine - the world was hardly going to end if they didn’t brush their teeth this once and they were already too excited to listen to sense. They’d probably be awake half the night, but that wasn’t my problem.

  At least, I hoped it wouldn’t be. Ewwww, queasy gut. A night alone with the kiddos. I immediately looked for clues in the case of the disappearing sister.

  There was big clue on the fridge. An envelope, addressed to my brother-in-law in my sister’s neat girly-girl script.

  I eyed it for five entire seconds before I decided that under the circumstances a loss of privacy was the least of James’ troubles. After this adventure, he owed me. Not that I expected him to agree with me about that, or anything else.

  But he would never know I’d read the letter anyway.

  Unless I got caught. I popped the flap, kept an ear tuned for the reappearance of the boys, and read.

  Dear James -

  I’ve had enough of you and your problems. Pick up the boys at the pool tonight after swimming - I won’t be there and I won’t be back.

  Marcia

  Breathtaking originality. Marcia made Auntie Mary look like a literary genius. And she still signed her name with a little heart for the dot over the i. I shook my head, marveling that a thirty-eight year old woman could cling so desperately to sweet sixteen.

  Keys turned in the front door lock and I replaced the letter in the nick of time, managing to lounge in the kitchen doorway just as James stepped into the foyer.

  He stopped and stared. I smiled, the proverbial cat who swallowed the canary, and enjoyed the rare sense of having surprised him.

  Now, my brother-in-law is a good looking guy, always has been. He’s tall and lean and chestnut-haired, although now there’s a bit of silver at his temples and I’ve caught him with reading glasses once or twice. He can appear to be concerned and sympathetic - or he can show the feral watchfulness of a predator with one eye on lunch, especially in court. He’s always given me the impression of a calculating machine, zinging through the combinations and permutations and probabilities before he responds to anything.

  As much as I can relate to the math-favorable part of that, I find him a bit unnerving.

  (Tell him that and I’ll have to hunt you down and hurt you.)

  James has that ease that only men raised with money have: for example, he looks completely relaxed in his custom made Italian suits. A man of the world or something like that. He wears his clothes with an indifference to their cost, pushing up the sleeves on the cashmere sweaters my siste
r buys as though they’re sweatshirts from the Gap. He plays soccer with the boys without a thought for his imported leather loafers.

  This drives my sister bananas, she who worships designer labels and wants all garments as perfect as the day they were acquired - even if it means only wearing them for twenty minute intervals. I don’t know how she survived two sons and a husband with a perspective like that.

  Come to think of it, maybe that was why she was gone.

  Or maybe that’s why she started looking like hell while her “men” were turned out to perfection.

  Huh. Maybe that’s why she left.

  James’ manners are impeccable, a legacy from private schools, and his thoughts are characteristically tough to read. He’s one of those types who always says the right thing.

  That drives me bananas.

  I don’t think he has any emotions. He’s always struck me as the kind of man who eliminates excess baggage - like feelings. Yearnings. Hopes and dreams. Anything that doesn’t contribute to his own ongoing meteoric rise to success.

  I never could figure out why he married my sister. Unless a wife and kids were necessary accessories for the lawyer destined for Great Things - and she was as good a choice as any. They never seemed to have much in common, but maybe it was something basic between them. Like lust. Marcia used to be quite a looker, and I say that with the undue modesty of an identical twin.

  Tonight, James looked surprisingly haggard and annoyed for a man made of granite, and as I mentioned, that expression didn’t improve when he saw me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Ooo, a vulgarity. Of course, the strumpet sister had invaded the last bastion of propriety in the free world. That, at least, conformed to our usual script. His job was to make sure I didn’t feel welcome enough to hang around too long and taint the precious boys. I knew my lines by heart.