“A business meeting?” Deanie asked as she gathered up several tubes of lipstick that had spilled out of her purse.
“I’m meeting someone. The someone.” His brown eyes started to shine and he paused, his hand stalled on Deanie’s new sundress which had spilled from the bag. “She’s the most wonderful someone in the world and the most patient. I swear, I don’t deserve the likes of Mavoreen.”
“Mavoreen Rosenbaum?” When he nodded, Deanie blurted, “You’re the billionaire.”
His eyes took on an excited gleam. “Do you know her?”
“We met on the plane.”
“And she mentioned me?” When Deanie nodded, he smiled. “Isn’t she an extraordinary woman? A pearl among old, corroded oyster beds. A diamond swimming in a sea of cubic zirconia.”
“Mavoreen?”
He stared at Deanie, his expression serious. “I know she might not be the most beautiful at first glance, but she’s got this confidence. You know, I’ve dated supermodels. Actresses. Wealthy women with the best plastic surgeons. They all had looks, but nothing to back it up. They were beautiful, but they didn’t feel beautiful. Mavoreen feels it, and it makes her beautiful.” He shook his head. “I really should get going. I don’t want to keep her waiting any longer than necessary. I’ve written a poem for her and I can’t wait to read it.”
Deanie smiled as she watched the man disappear into the lobby.
It seemed as if Mavoreen wasn’t all that delusional after all.
“Are you ready, ma’am?”
Deanie turned at the sound of the cab driver’s voice.
She wasn’t delusional either. Maybe Mavoreen had beaten the odds, but she was the one and only. For the most part, exceptional men like Rance didn’t fall head over heels for not-so-exceptional women like Deanie.
Not then.
And certainly not now.
Deanie climbed into the cab.
THE UNEASINESS RANCE had felt stayed with him as he gave his statement to the security officer and fielded several phone calls from Shank and the real estate attorney. It took a half hour before he finished with everything and returned to his hotel room, and he felt every agonizing second.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” he called out when he opened the door.He stepped inside the room, only to find it empty.
His hat still sat on the nightstand next to the bed. He set the bouquet of roses he’d picked up downstairs on the tangled mass of sheets. Visions of silky arms and long legs wrapped around him flashed in his mind. Heat skimmed over his flesh, but it didn’t warm the fist of coldness that had settled in the pit of his stomach.
Turning, Rance made a visual search of the room again, all the while fighting against the truth that niggled at his gut.
She was gone.
Maybe not. Maybe she’s in her own hotel room waiting for you.
But he knew she’d left even as he dialed the front desk. He felt it in the slow thud of his heart and the ache in his chest and the damned loneliness that wrapped around him and tightened like one of those giant snakes he’d tangled with during his last competition.
“You just missed her, Mr. McGraw,” the concierge said. “I loaded her into a cab myself. She’s halfway to the airport by now.”
Rance let the receiver slide into place, his arms suddenly heavier than they’d felt in a long, long time. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt tight. His gut ached and he couldn’t seem to catch his breath. For the first time, he understood how Deanie had felt that day he’d left her behind.
Her hurt. Her disappointment.
The realization gripped him for several heart-pounding moments, and then he did what she hadn’t done all those years ago when he’d been the one to leave.
He went after her.
13
“WHERE ARE YOU GOING?” Rance’s voice slid into Deanie’s ears as she took her boarding pass from the attendant at the terminal desk.
“To Eden. As planned.” She started toward the doorway that opened up onto the runway.The plane sat several feet away, the door open, the portable staircase firmly attached. People climbed the stairs, boarding the plane that would make its next stop in Eden before returning to Miami.
“Deanie.” Her name sounded a heartbeat before he caught her arm in a firm grip and brought her whirling around to face him. “Stop. Just stop.”
“I can’t.” She did her best to look anywhere, everywhere but into his mesmerizing gaze. “They’re boarding.”
He caught her face between his hands. “We need to talk.” Determination glittered in his eyes, along with something else.
Something fierce and possessive and…
No.
It couldn’t be.
She fought down the hope that blossomed inside of her and held tight to the anger and humiliation she’d felt the day he’d stuffed his suitcases in the back of Clay’s old pickup and climbed into the passenger’s seat without so much as a backwards glance.
Her brother had driven him to the airport that day where he’d boarded a plane for Texas AM and the football scholarship that awaited him. She’d watched the truck turn into a cloud of dust on the horizon and then she’d cried so hard her eyes had been swollen for days.
But her heart had hurt even longer.
Because she’d let it, she reminded herself. She’d practically handed it to him on a silver platter to do with as he pleased.
Not this time.
She’d offered her body last night, but her heart was still her own and she intended to guard it, to fight for it.
“Look, Rance, you don’t owe me anything. I’m a big girl. I know that last night was just sex.”
“It was just sex.” His hands fell away from her face and he caught her free hand with one of his. “Incredible sex. The best sex of my life.”
“Meaning?”
“You can’t get on that plane.” When she started to protest, his fingers tightened around hers. “You don’t need Camp E.D.E.N. You’re a sexy, beautiful, desirable woman. The past twenty-four hours proves it.”
“Maybe, but now it’s over. You get on with your plans and I get on with mine. Isn’t that what you had in mind yesterday? Deal with me and get on with your life?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what?”
“It’s not that simple anymore.”
“It is.” She blinked back the tears that suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. “Let go. Please.”
His grip loosened, but he didn’t release her. “I’m not going to Australia. I’m going back home to Romeo.”
“And?” She fought against the hope that refused to let loose of her.
He was going home.
Now.
Finally.
Meanwhile, Deanie was headed for Dallas and the rest of her new life.
“Didn’t you hear me?” He touched her cheek with his free hand. “I’m moving back to Romeo.”
Strong fingers played across her cheek and she barely resisted the urge to turn her face into his palm. “What about Extreme Dream?”
“I’ll still be a partner. A silent partner.” He let his hand fall away and shook his head. “I can’t do it anymore. Alligator wrestling isn’t for me. Just like football wasn’t for me. Not really. I was good at it, but only because I was strong and determined and I could take a man down in no time flat. And that,” he told her, “came from rolling around in a rodeo arena all those years while I was growing up. Football was just convenient. A way to use the skills I’d already developed.” His gaze darkened. “It was a way out. My only way out, but it wasn’t my passion.”
“Steer wrestling,” she said and he nodded. “So you’re going back to Romeo to wrestle steers?”
“In a manner of speaking. I made a few phone calls this morning and I bought the old rodeo arena.”
“That’s about to be a shopping center.”
“Not as of twenty minutes ago. The new owner has already accepted my offer.” His eyes glittered with that wild, passionate li
ght she remembered so well from their childhood. “I’m going to renovate the entire place and host rodeo events. During the down time, I’ll utilize it as a training facility for cowboys of all ages and offer different classes for the various events.” He grinned and her heart fluttered. “Kids can practice out there just the way Clay and I used to do.”
The statement stirred a memory and Deanie saw herself sitting on the sidelines, watching Rance and hoping with all of her heart for a wave or a smile or even a friendly nod of his head.
The image morphed and the young girl transformed into an adult. Deanie saw herself now, sitting there in her fancy sundress and higher-than-should-be-legally-allowed high heels. But even though she was grown up and different, she still wore the same desperate look of longing for a man she loved with all her heart.
A man who didn’t love her back.
“Good luck to you,” she told him, swallowing against the lump in her throat. “I hope everything works out.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t you hear me? I’m going home. I’ll be right there in Romeo. We’ll see each other every day.”
“No, we won’t. I live in Dallas now. I’ve got a job there and I already leased an apartment—”
“So break the lease. You don’t belong in Dallas. You hate traffic and concrete and malls. And Dallas is loaded with all three.”
“I’ve actually developed quite a fondness for malls. I’ve been to the one in Austin at least six times over the past month. I’m sure I’ll get used to the rest.”
“The way you’ve gotten used to the do-me shoes.” He glanced down at the flip-flops she’d slid on in her rush to checkout of the hotel and make her flight.
“I’m in a hurry and I can’t walk as fast in them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like them. Or that they hurt my feet in any way, shape or form. I’ve really got to go.” She pulled away from him and headed across the pavement toward the staircase that led to the plane.
“Don’t do this, Deanie. Don’t get on that plane. Please.” The word was soft, but it packed a powerful punch that she felt between her rib cage. “You belong in Romeo.”
She did.
She knew it deep down inside and it stirred her fear and panic and made her pick up her steps.
Because Deanie didn’t want to go back to her old life. She didn’t want to find herself back in Romeo, lusting after a man who didn’t love her. Things would be a little different now because he returned that lust—the past twenty-four hours proved it—but everyone knew that lust faded.
She didn’t want to wind up sitting on that corral fence, waiting and hoping for him to glance her way.
“You belong with me.”
His deep, desperate voice stalled Deanie just shy of the first step. Her fingers tightened on the hand rail and her breath caught and she knew what he was going to say even before the words slid into her ears.
“I love you.”
“Love?” She turned on him. “We’ve been together all of twenty-four hours and now you think you love me?”
“We’ve been together a lifetime and I know I love you.” His fierce gaze caught and held hers as he crossed the distance to her. “I’ve always loved you, I just didn’t realize it.” He came up to her, so close that his shadow blocked the sun that blazed overhead. “I was too lost in my own problems. Too mad at the world because I’d lost my parents and my home. But I still had you. You were there for me. You made me want to wake up every morning because I knew I’d see you on the bus. I knew you’d be there.”
All the pain and heartache she’d felt in the past paled in comparison to the pure joy that rushed through her at that moment. She wanted to think that he was just saying the words to stop her from getting on the plane, to fulfill his promise to her brother.
But she knew better.
She’d felt the proof last night when he’d held her so tenderly, so possessively in his arms. And she saw the proof now in the fierce light that gleamed in his gaze.
He really and truly loved her.
And she loved him.
She always had.
She’d loved him more than she’d ever loved anyone or anything. More than her favorite horse or a brand-new computerized transmission. More than her pride. More than her ego. More than herself.
The realization hit her as she stood there in his shadow, the hot pavement seeping up through the soles of her flip-flops.
“I love you, too,” she told him, and then she turned and mounted the steps leading to the plane.
“You’re running away,” he said, but he didn’t reach for her. His voice followed her up the steps. “You’re scared and you’re running.”
He was right. She was running.
But not from him.
Deanie was running from herself. From the tomboy who’d never been good enough personally or professionally or sexually.
She would always be running unless she changed the things about herself that had marked her for failure from the very beginning. She had to finish what she’d started.
Wiping frantically at a tear that squeezed past her lashes, she ignored the concerned look of the flight attendant as she topped the staircase and walked on board the plane. A few seconds later, she sank down in a window seat and took a deep, shaking breath.
She’d done it. She’d walked away this time, and taken her heart with her.
So why did she feel as if someone had reached inside of her and ripped it out?
Wiping at a sudden flood of hot tears, she blinked frantically and tried to focus on her surroundings. The plane looked the same as the one she’d been on yesterday, from the cheesy heart-shaped cutouts to the red and white streamers in honor of Valentine’s Day.
Today.
Deanie was no worse off today than she’d been on any other V-day in her past, yet she felt even emptier. Lonelier.
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all…
Yeah, right.
She chanced a glance out the window to see Rance standing where she’d left him, staring at the plane, his fists clenched, his body taut, as if it took all his strength not to barrel up the steps after her.
It was an image that stayed rooted in her mind as she fastened her seat belt and waited for takeoff.
“DO YOU MIND if we sit next to you?”
The question drew Deanie from her thoughts and she glanced up to see an elderly woman wearing a beige polyester pantsuit and a matching scarf.The plane had just turned to taxi down the runway. The aircraft trembled as it moved across the pavement and the woman held the back of one seat to brace herself. She smiled, her face crinkling, and Deanie found herself reminded of Miss Margie and all the other senior ladies who’d been her loyal customers over the years.
Her chest tightened.
“My husband and I both have terrible allergies,” the woman went on, “and the lady sitting on our row has cat hair all over her sweater.”
“I don’t mind at all,” Deanie said just as the flight attendant walked up to them.
“Take your seats, please,” the young woman said. “We’re about to taxi the runway.”
“We’re just about to.” The old woman signaled to her husband who still sat a few rows back. “It’s okay, dear. Hurry up and don’t forget to bring my purse.” She angled sideways and took the seat next to Deanie. “There.” She fastened her seat belt. “Now I can breathe again. So,” she turned to Deanie. “Are you headed to Eden or back to Miami?”
“Eden. I got off to take a breather yesterday when we reached Escapades and the plane took off without me.”
“How terrible. But hopefully you enjoyed your stay at Escapades. It’s a beautiful island. My husband and I always stop off on our way to Eden.”
“You’re headed there? I didn’t think they allowed couples. I thought it was strictly for individuals.”
“It is. We’re not students, dear. We’re instructors. I have a masters in social psychology from the University of California at Berkeley, and Mar
vin, my dear sweet husband, has his doctorate in human sexuality. We teach a seminar on the sexual excitement of public exposure.”
“Come again?”
“Streaking, dear. Our seminar is about streaking.” Just as she said the words, her husband collapsed in the seat next to her.
Deanie stared at the familiar face that turned toward her—a face she’d seen not a few hours ago, along with all the rest of him—and realization hit her.
There had been two streakers at Escapades, and they were now both sitting next to her.
“Streaking?” Deanie cleared her throat and tried not to blush as she smiled at Dr. Marvin. “How, um, exactly does that fit with the whole getting in touch with your own sexuality premise?”
“For some individuals, there is no pleasure in actual intercourse. Some people are just too inhibited to share such an intimate act with a partner. Right, Marvin?” He grunted, settling back into his chair as if all were right with the world and Deanie hadn’t seen him in his birthday suit.
“Or maybe,” the woman went on, “they simply don’t have an available partner. Or, as is our case, maybe they’re just too old to enjoy traditional sex. Marvin, dear that he is, hasn’t had an erection in a long time. Likewise, I can’t even remember what an orgasm feels like. But that doesn’t mean we have to lead boring lives sexually. We can still feel the same rush of excitement that we used to without actual doing anything.”
“Except streaking?”
“Exactly. The thrill of being out in the open can stimulate the heart and bloodstream as much as an actual sexual encounter.”
Deanie thought back to last night and the beach and Rance. She’d been out in the open and very excited even before she’d touched him and he’d touched her. Likewise, she’d been completely turned on when he’d touched her earlier at the pool.
But it was one thing to get worked up over the possibility of discovery and quite another to strip naked and openly flash her goodies to anyone who happened by.
Or, in Professor Marvin’s case, to openly flop it at anyone who happened by.
Tall, Tanned & Texan Page 15