Superb and Sexy (Sky High Air #3)(12)

This made Brody even more tense, as did the fact that she was back to being a platinum blonde and wearing the sprayed on jeans.

What the hell? She looked like the kick-ass Maddie he knew, but she did not sound like her, not with the uncertain tone and stance that suggested she could be bullied and intimidated.

The Maddie he knew would never give anything away, certainly not a single vulnerability, and she sure as hell never let anyone bully or intimidate her.

Never.

He was missing something, and the niggling of it rumbled through him.

“I know you won’t tell a soul,” said the man through the speaker. “Just as I know you’ll get back here. You have a job.”

“I’m…no longer interested.”

“Get reinterested. Fast.”

“But—”

“Okay, let me make things clearer. Get back here, or I’ll send someone for you. And you won’t like that, believe me. You know you won’t.”

At Sky High, Maddie would have cut the guy off at the knees, if not the balls, and Brody waited for her to do just that. Instead, she shuddered in fear. “No, please. Don’t.”

Okay, f*ck this, he thought and strode across the room toward her.

She whirled and at the sight of him, let out a terrified little squeak that stopped him short.

“Brody?” she whispered, hand fluttering up to her throat like a damsel in distress, which confused him all the more.

“Who’s Brody?” the man on the phone demanded.

Brody slowed his steps, not liking the way she was retreating from him, backing up against the counter. He’d figured she’d slug him or do anything in her usual take no prisoners way. Instead she was cowering to the tile, eyes huge on his. “Brody’s my…”

“What?” the cell phone commanded. “He’s your what?”

“I forgot to tell you. I’m…married.”

Dead silence all around.

Well, except for Brody’s heart, which skidded to a stunned stop, then began a heavy, hard beat that threatened to give him heart failure.

Married?

“Yeah,” Maddie said, eyes still locked on Brody. “And he makes enough money for the both of us, so I don’t ever have to work for you again, Rick. And if you’re smart, you’ll just let me go.”

Brody was still on the married portion of that sentence. What the hell was she talking about? She dated occasionally, he knew. He hated it. But he’d always taken some comfort in the fact that when she did date, she rarely repeated a guy.

But married? That required a lot of repeating, and he would have definitely noticed that.

“You’re married,” the man on the phone said in clear disbelief.

“Yes.” Maddie’s eyes were still locked on Brody. “And Brody doesn’t like the islands, so we can’t come back. Sorry.”

Jesus. Why would she say she was married to him?

“You’re the one who’s going to be sorry if you don’t get back here to Stone Cay,” the man said, and the following click, along with the aggression and fury in the sound, echoed through the kitchen, distinctive and succinct.

Brody stared at the woman who his eyes were telling him was Maddie while his brain screamed otherwise, but then she did something even more extremely un-Maddielike.

She put the cell phone in her pocket and burst into tears.

Absolutely struck stupid by all of it, he moved as if underwater, reaching for her, pulling her into his arms.

“Maddie’s going to kill me,” she cried against his chest.

He went still as stone as her tears soaked into his shirt, then stared down at her. Maddie was going to kill Maddie?

What the hell?

But she just leaned on him and sobbed. Only Maddie had never leaned on him, not once. As far as he knew, she’d never leaned on another soul. What she also did was stand her ground, always.

Then something even more shocking happened, if that was possible. Another woman stepped into the room, the mirror image of the Maddie in his arms.

She wasn’t sobbing, nothing close, and he divided a glance between them, suddenly feeling better, a whole lot better, in fact, because he wasn’t crazy, he was simply stupid.

The other Maddie, the real Maddie, walked right up to him, and not quite certain what she intended, he drew in a breath because she had a reputation for leading with her right hook, or a hard smack upside the head.

But she ignored her “husband” entirely and simply pulled her twin out of his arms and hugged her close.

“Identical,” he murmured and shook his head. Damn, he’d been schooled, hard.

Looking over her sister’s head, Maddie met Brody’s gaze. She was au natural in a way he’d never seen her before, her auburn hair down and loose, no makeup, somehow more beautiful than he’d ever seen her. She was also completely together, extremely so, and he wondered how the hell he’d ever mistaken her sister for her.

“Thanks for getting the physical therapist,” she said dryly.

“There is no physical therapist. You were trying to get rid of me.”

Her mouth tightened.

“Admit it.”

“Leena,” she murmured, still looking at Brody. “Wait for me upstairs?”

With a nod, Leena pulled free and left the room.