The Charmer in Chaps

by Julia London

  His mother glanced up at him. “Your girl?”

  “Actually, I’m not sure,” he said. His heart had climbed to his throat, and he felt a bead of perspiration slide down his temple. They watched Ella get out and kick the door closed. Hard.

  “You better go find out if she is or she isn’t,” his mother said. “But either way, that car needs to go.”

  “Right,” Luca said. “Excuse me.”

  He strode across the lawn to the drive. Ella spotted him and moved tentatively to the front of her car. How was it possible that she looked even more beautiful than before? Even though she looked like she’d been dragged behind that SUV? Her shirt had what he hoped was mud on it, and she was wearing her rubber boots. She’d stuffed her hair up under a sunhat, and her cotton shirt was open to her breastbone.

  He stopped walking, uncertain how to proceed. He had lain awake almost every night, trying to decide if he could trust her. He loved her. But he didn’t know if he could trust her.

  They stood about three feet apart. Neither of them spoke. She looked like she was trying to, but no words came out.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked at last.

  “I ah . . .” She rubbed her nape. She looked uncomfortable. “Have you seen Buddy?”

  He swallowed. “Did you lose him again?”

  “Looks like,” she said, and dragged the back of her hand across her forehead. “Any chance you might have found three horses?”

  He stepped closer. “I’ve seen two of them. They’re here now. One of them is still running loose with Buddy.”

  “Oh,” she said softly. “That explains it.” She took a step closer. Her eyes were searching his face.

  “So, you drove over here to ask about your dog?” he asked.

  “Not really. But I suck at this, and I’m a coward at heart. I drove over here to tell you I . . .” She swallowed hard, and Luca steeled himself. I can’t do this. I’m moving to Nashville. “To tell you that I love you, Luca. I love you so much. I always have.”

  Luca’s mind went blank. He tried to take those words in, to feel them in his heart, but so many questions swirled around them. The same questions that had kept him up at night.

  She bit her lip. “I hope I didn’t say something wrong.”

  Luca didn’t know yet. “Lyle said you told him you were selling your house.”

  She looked confused. “I did?” She thought about it, then nodded. “Oh, right, I did. In a moment of frustration, I said I was going to sell it right away. I was being dramatic.”

  “Dramatic.” He took off his hat, ran his fingers through his hair.

  “But I was never moving. Or going to Nashville. Especially not after what you did for Stacy. And because, you know, what I said. I really love you, Luca.”

  “I didn’t do it for Stacy,” he said. “I did it because Blake Hurst is the biggest goddamn bully I have ever known, and I was happy to see him get his due.”

  “Oh,” she said. “What about Brandon?”

  Luca shrugged and looked down at his hat. “He won’t answer my calls, and he’s pulled out of the foundation.” It pained him to admit it, that he’d lost his best friend.

  “I am so sorry,” she said softly, and took another step forward. “After all the work you put into it? I can’t even—I am so sorry. This is my fault. If you’d never met me, you—”

  “If I’d never met you, I wouldn’t know how hard a conversation like this is, Ella. It’s not your fault. I didn’t have to do what I did. I wanted to bring that bastard down—he’s abused enough people. But I’ll tell you what is your fault, if you want to know.”

  She took another tiny step closer to him. “I definitely want to know,” she said. “But don’t feel like you need to spell it out. I mean, it’s pretty obvious you’re through with me, and I don’t blame you. Since your fund-raiser, all I’ve done is think about what I would say if I were you, and hate myself for what happened. But go ahead,” she said, and gestured with her fingers for him to speak. “I’ve been waiting for it.”

  “Thank you,” he said, inclining his head. “It’s your fault that I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in weeks. That I’ve been tossing and turning wondering how the hell to scale your walls or if I even want to.”

  She frowned. “I totally understand,” she said quickly. “And I think that—”

  He held up his hand. “I’m going to do the talking for a minute, if it’s all the same to you, because I’ve thought about this, Ella. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve got a few things to say. I don’t know how or why you got under my skin, but you did, and I can’t dislodge you even if I wanted to. I tried. Couldn’t do it.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s the—”

  “Still talking,” he said. “I don’t care that your mother is in prison or that your best friend took off with a sheriff’s gun or that you lived in umpteen foster homes before you were eighteen. I don’t even care that you’ve built a fortress around your heart, because I like a challenge, and I’m going to crawl over it. What I do care about is having you in my life. But here’s the rub—I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t believe you aren’t going to get some idea in your pretty head that things ought to be a certain way. I mean, that’s what you did, and you left me holding the bag.”

  Ella’s lips parted. “I understand, and that’s why—”

  “Nope,” he said. “Still not finished.” He was going to get this off his chest once and for all, let the chips fall where they may. He moved closer and pushed the brim of her hat back. “I’ve thought about this, long and hard. And Ella? I want to be with you. Not just for the time being. Forever. Now, I know that proposing marriage would probably send you into a tailspin of fear, but if you really aren’t packing up and moving out, then maybe, just maybe, you could see your way to dating me.

  “I will apologize up front for being a lot richer than you, and not being able to read very well, and just losing half the start-up funds for my conservation effort, so I’m kind of back to square one, and I drive a Sombra that I can’t unload because no one out here wants an electric car. Still, my idea is we date. We take it slow. And we promise each other we will not assume we know what the other can bear. If you can’t commit to that, then we need to say good-bye. Oh, and one last thing. I will always be on your side. Never against you. So if you would please just open up the goddamn door and let me in, I swear I’m not going anywhere. But I need to be able to trust you.”

  A single tear slid down her cheek. “I get it. Wait—is it okay for me to speak?”

  He nodded.

  “First, I need you to know I won’t be able to survive if you leave me. You will be the one who puts me in the ground, Luca Prince. Just so you know, I’ve thought long and hard about it, too, and I know I have these irrational fears, and I’m trying to take down my walls, but some of them are pretty damn thick. And yet, I’ve knocked part of it down. I truly have. Because no matter what, Luca, no matter what else is happening in this crazy world, I have fallen for you. Hard. I can’t even pick myself up from missing you.”

  He eyed her critically. Was it possible he had scaled a wall? “I wanna make sure I heard you right. You’re saying that you have fallen for me.”

  She nodded. “Like an asteroid. I fell the first time I saw you, did you know that? You were my first love, and you’re definitely my last love. I fell hard the moment you sat next to me in algebra class. I swooned then, and I swoon every time I see you, and not only have I fallen, I think this obsession I have isn’t as weird as I thought. I think it’s just what love is.”

  He drew her closer.

  “I mean it. I love you, Luca. I came to beg your forgiveness and tell you I love you, and then just . . . love you. I swear on my miracle dump of a house, on Buddy’s head, on Priscilla’s snout that you can trust me. I swear to you that I will never leave you holding the ba
g again. I get it now. I get what it is to be so in love and not fear it.”

  She was looking at him so earnestly that he believed her. He could see her emotion and affection in her eyes, and he believed that he had, by some miracle, finally scaled that damn wall around her heart. That was two miracles in the year—he’d learned to read. He’d learned to love. He wrapped his arms around her. “Do you mean I’ve been sweating what I would say to you all this time and you loved me all along?”

  “Every moment. Bad enough that I actually drove over here to tell you at your big fancy house, and now my car is broken down, and I’m not even completely ashamed.” She laughed. “Only a little.”

  “Ah, Ella,” he said, and sighed with relief and happiness, with a lightness he’d not felt in weeks. “Is everything always going to be this hard?”

  “Probably.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’ve had it too easy.” He wrapped his arms tightly around her and kissed her.

  “I can’t breathe,” she said when he lifted his head.

  “Better get used to it, because I’m never letting go,” he said, and kissed her again.

  Epilogue

  SUMMER

  Cordelia had Martin install a sun umbrella at the family graveyard, and she was sitting beneath it, in her lawn chair, wearing flip-flops. She had never in her life owned a pair of them, had said disparaging things about people who wore them, but there they were, staring up at her from a big bin at Walmart.

  They were pretty damn comfortable.

  “So I like her,” she said to Charlie. She could see Luca and Ella in the pool. They were having a barbecue today, a family affair, to introduce Ella to the family. “Seems pretty serious,” she said. “Luca told Hallie he’d be married by the end of the next year.”

  She flicked off her flip-flops and dug her toes in the dirt that still covered Charlie’s grave. “Her mother’s in prison. Dolly and I Googled her the other night, and you should count yourself lucky you didn’t hook up with her, pal.”

  Somewhere in the cosmos, Charlie snorted.

  “Nick seems to be doing better, but his resentment is pret-ty obvious. He tries to hide it, but he stomps around here like he’s going to put a fist through every wall. Have at it, I say. Sometimes the best way to get rid of frustration is to wail on something. I wish I’d wailed on you a time or two.”

  Somewhere in the distance, she heard a rumble of thunder.

  “It was a just a joke,” she said. “And Hallie? I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, but something isn’t right with Christopher.”

  She glanced at Charlie’s tombstone. “I know you liked him, Charlie. But I’m just saying. I get a vibe off him that I don’t like. But whew boy, try and tell that to Hallie. She gets her back up quicker than that old dog we had when we first got married. Remember him? The one that ate all our chickens?” She laughed.

  “Looks like rain!”

  Cordelia rolled her eyes, then glanced to her right. Here came Dolly, carrying her own lawn chair. She’d made Cordelia take her to Walmart to get one. She set it up right next to Cordelia.

  “Do you not see an entire graveyard before you?” Cordelia asked, gesturing to the breadth of the family cemetery. “Why do you have to sit right next to me?”

  “What’s the matter, do you stink?” Dolly asked, and plopped down. She had a bag over one shoulder and pulled it around to her lap.

  “I like my alone time, Dolly. I like sitting up here by myself for a reason.”

  “Do you hear that, Charlie? No respect,” Dolly said, and pulled two wine coolers from her bag. She held one out to Cordelia.

  Cordelia eyed it suspiciously. “Where’d you get that?”

  Dolly giggled. “Walmart! Can you believe it? They come in all kinds of flavors, too.”

  “You know what Walmart needs is a bar,” Cordelia said, and took Dolly’s offering. “Think about it—big slushy margaritas while you shop.” She unscrewed the cap from the bottle and drank. “I think I’ll write them with that suggestion.”

  The two of them were silent for a time.

  “Nothing like a family barbecue,” Cordelia said at last.

  “Got that right,” Dolly said, and tapped her bottle against Cordelia’s. “You know, we’re pretty damn lucky our kids want to be around us.”

  Cordelia watched Luca pull Ella out of the water and wrap her in his arms and kiss her. She thought her kids were lucky that they had the chance to know the strong kind of love she and Charlie had had in spite of everything. Of course, she wouldn’t say that out loud. As far as Dolly was concerned, everything that had happened to Cordelia and Charlie was Cordelia’s fault.

  “I hope they don’t put barbecue sauce on those burgers,” Dolly said. “Did I ever tell you about the food poisoning I got at the governor’s mansion? That’ll bring a barbecue to a halt, let me tell you.”

  Cordelia cast a look at Charlie’s tombstone. Thanks a lot, she mouthed as Dolly launched into her tale.

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Julia London’s next Princes of Texas romance

  THE DEVIL IN THE SADDLE

  Coming soon from Berkley Jove!

  The dreams that happen just before waking, the ones that take weird turns into hippy-dippy landscapes, are the strangest of all. When Hallie Prince could recall her dreams, which wasn’t often, as she was not a morning person and her first thought was usually coffee, it seemed she was always looking for something. Like her ballet shoes in a stranger’s house. Her phone in a foreign country. Sometimes she was in the company of people she seemed to know well and, then again, knew not at all. Sometimes she was in places unrecognizable to her but that she seemed to know.

  Sometimes, she was doing something out of character, like hiding in a warehouse, which was the dream that was waking her this particular day. She didn’t know where the warehouse was or why she was there, but she knew she was hiding from Anna, a friend she’d known long ago in New York, and had not had occasion to see in several years. She also knew that it was imperative she hide, even though she was going to be late. She was supposed to dance, she was supposed to be at the theater, but she was pressed into a small dark space, pressed up against something scratchy and sort of soft. But also hard. Soft and hard and scratchy.

  Hallie opened her eyes, and the warehouse fluttered away. She tried to blink away what looked like a caterpillar that draped over one eye, but it stubbornly held on. Oh. Not a caterpillar. A strip of false lashes.

  “Are you okay?”

  The deeply masculine voice startled Hallie, and with a gasp of surprise, she pushed up to her elbows. The scratchy part of her dream was a plaid wool shirt. The soft and hard part of her dream was apparently the body of a man. And though a tangle of hair covered half her face, she could see she’d slept in the heavily beaded gown she’d meant to wear to her wedding reception.

  But there wasn’t going to be a wedding reception, so why . . . Oh. The memory of last night slowly began to seep into her brain. Damn tequila.

  “Hallie?”

  Hallie knew that voice and slowly turned her head, pushed hair from her face. “Rafe?” Her old friend, handsome, sexy-as-hell cowboy and ex-Army Ranger Rafe? She thought he was in Chicago or somewhere.

  “Good morning.”

  A sudden image of Rafe came roaring back to her. Rafe, standing in the driveway illuminated by the headlights of her car, his weight shifted to one hip and holding a saddle on his shoulder and looking bemused. And she remembered thinking how relieved she was that Rafe had come. Rafe would fix things. Rafe knew what to do.

  Oh please, dear God, she hadn’t actually gotten behind a wheel, had she? Yes. Yes she had. But wait! She remembered—she’d never left the garage. She’d never even put the car in gear.

  Rafe’s handsome face came into view. He used to be so skinny, a scarecrow of a boy, but now he was all filled out wi
th a square jaw that was covered by the morning growth of a beard. He squinted caramel-colored eyes at her, examining her face. “You look like crap,” he said, and plucked the strip of lashes from her eye.

  “I feel like crap,” she confirmed.

  “Are you going to make it?”

  No. She was most definitely not going to make it. A swell of nausea made her whimper.

  “Oh no. Please don’t—” A small trashcan appeared in her line of vision.

  It was too late—she wretched into the trashcan. “Nononono!” Rafe exclaimed. “Oh, man!” he said desperately as she wretched, and then made a hacking noise like he was trying to keep from vomiting, too.

  When she had emptied the contents of her stomach into that can, Hallie collapsed, facedown, onto her pillow. “I thought you were supposed to be a tough army guy.”

  “I am a tough army guy. But my gag reflex is a baby.”

  She felt his weight lift up off the bed with the can. “Don’t throw up,” he warned her. She heard him go into her bathroom, heard water running, heard him muttering.

  Why was Rafe still here? What was good ol’ Rafael, the ranch majordomo’s very hot oldest son and Hallie’s lifelong friend, doing at Three Rivers at all? She thought he split his time between San Antonio and Chicago. Wasn’t he moving there soon?

  When they were children, Martin would bring his kids—Rafe, who was Nick’s age, and Rico, who was Luca and Hallie’s age, and Angie, the youngest of them all—to the main compound on weekends, and they would swim or her dad would grill burgers for them. Rafe was a lot like Nick, the steady dependable son in the family. Rico, his younger brother, was a party animal, and if he’d been around last night, he would have told her to move over and let him drive to Houston. And Angie was the squirt some adult was always shouting at them all to watch.

  Thank God it was steady Rafe who’d happened upon her last night. Hallie couldn’t begin to remember what she’d done, but whatever it was, she was pretty sure she was going to want to open the window and dive headfirst into the bushes below.