Lexie by Kimberly Dean Page A

looking over the silver Acura. It stood out like a sore thumb amongst all the Harleys and pickup trucks surrounding the bar. Classy femininity against blue-collar toughness. His gut knotted up all over again. He’d been hunting for her for hours, but this was the last place he’d wanted to find her.
    Well, not the last.
    He pushed the random thoughts of her being hurt or worse out of his head. All kinds of ugly scenarios had toyed with him as he’d searched for her, and they’d put him in a dangerous mood. He didn’t know what he’d find inside that bar, but at least he knew he could deal with it.
    He just didn’t know if she could.
    Easing off the brake, he sought a place to park—one where he might stand a chance of not having his car stripped for parts. It wasn’t exactly the side of town one should be in after dark, especially not someone like her.
    So what the hell was she doing here?
    The spot he found was over a block away, but at least the streetlight overhead was still functional. He parallel parked, and his gaze fell on the newspaper in the passenger seat. Lexie stared back up at him, bold, sultry and totally wrong.
    That was why she was here. The Underhills.
    He grabbed the door handle and gave it a yank. Somebody had done this to her. Touched up an old photograph, put it on a stranger’s body… Something . He knew. He hadn’t been trying to make her feel better when he’d told her he believed her. The proof was in his lap. Looking at that billboard didn’t get him hard. Therefore, it wasn’t Lexie.
    He slammed the car door shut.
    She had not done this. It had been done to her.
    And that made him mad enough to spit nails.
    Fists clenched, he strode down the sidewalk towards The Ruckus. The sound of it caught him first. Half a block away, he could feel the rhythmic thump of a bass in his chest. Even the red neon sign seemed to flicker in time with the loud rock ’n’ roll. The low roar of a crowd hit him next. The place was living up to its name tonight.
    And Lexie was in there all alone.
    He ground his teeth as he walked by a pack of motorcycles lined up one after the other. She was trying to fix things.
    “Julian, you idiot,” he spat. Of all the Underhill kids, Lexie was the brightest and most responsible. Yet her unfeeling father had pushed her to this.
    Cam planted his hand against the front door and shoved it open. A cloud of smoke hit him in the face. The lights were dim, and the haze made it difficult to see. He moved farther into the bar. The music was cranked up loud, and the bar’s patrons—and it was a compliment to refer to them as such—were worked up. A bouncer was trying to keep the rowdiest of them under control, but something had them going. Cam worked his way around a group of construction workers so he could see. The crowd was heaviest around the bar, where catcalls and wolf whistles competed with Metallica. It wasn’t difficult to see what had the boys in a lather. Two women were dancing atop the bar.
    Two gorgeous, dark-haired, gyrating… Lexies ?
    He stopped, dumbfounded.
    He would have been shocked to find one of her up there. She was too tightly wound, too professional and proper. Yet there were two of her. Two unbelievably beautiful copies singing and laughing and grinding .
    On cue, an erection pressed hard at the fly of his pants, and his attention focused on only one of the dark beauties. There she was, on the right. Quiet, nose-to-the-grindstone Lexie was working her slim hips better than the pros down the street at Erotic Heaven.
    Cam did his best not to gape. Just the idea alone would have been enough to make him break out in a sweat, yet there she was in the flesh.
    Only there were two of her.
    In disbelief, his head swiveled back and forth. The source of confusion over the billboard was solved, but it simply wasn’t possible. Everyone supposedly had a twin out there somewhere, but this double was identical.
    An identical twin.
    Oh hell. The air stuck under