She looked back. “I can take care of myself.”
“I believe you—but do you really want to tackle three at once?” His patience was…maddening.
Then his eyes went hard, locked on the sight over her shoulder. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled.
She turned and saw the boys back away, though one of them still postured. “The bitch can’t do that to our friend.”
Her rescuer, as he clearly saw himself, merely arched one eyebrow. “I’d say she already has. If you still need to tangle, let’s take it outside. We don’t want to disturb the fun everyone else is having.” Though he never stopped smiling, his eyes would make anyone pause.
The kid still had to bluster. He pointed at Laken. “You’d better keep her in line.” He whirled and returned to his friends.
When Laken started to follow, her companion grabbed her elbow. She tried to shrug him off, but though his hold was careful, it was like iron bands. His hands were big, his fingers long and strong.
She was a sucker for lean, strong man hands, and his made her lady bits sigh.
Still, she lifted her eyes to his, her displeasure clear. “I can drop you, too.”
A smile flashed. “I don’t doubt it, but why don’t you let me buy you a cup of coffee instead?”
“The coffee here sucks. I’ll take tequila. I’ll buy you a drink for thanks, even though I didn’t need your help.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“I’m not an alcoholic, sugar. I just don’t like being somewhere else in my head.” An odd look skated over his features almost too quickly to catch.
“Whatever.” He was too much. Too…real and vivid. She wasn’t in the mood for real. “Look, thanks for trying to help me. I could have handled them, but—” She shrugged. “You were nice to bother.”
He laughed. “I didn’t try. I did help you.” His eyes sharpened. “You don’t have to be afraid of me.”
She snorted. “I’m not afraid of anyone.” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t you smirk at me. It’s true.”
“Was I smirking?” He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed a soft, warm kiss to her knuckles, his gaze on hers the entire time.
When she tried to yank it away, he clasped her fingers before he would let go.
“Look, this has been nice and all, but—” She started scanning the crowd. “I came to dance.”
“You came because you were bored out of your mind.”
Her head whipped back. “You have no idea why I’m here.”
His expression was challenge clad in velvet. “Then why don’t you have coffee with me and explain, sugar?”
“Don’t call me sugar. And I don’t want coffee. I want—” She scanned his body insolently. Man, he was built. Not one an ounce of fat and an acre or two of muscle. She wanted to climb him. Nip his beautiful mouth just a little too hard. Dig her fingers into his hair and take him for a long, slow ride.
He could do it, she could tell—give her that ride she was itching for.
But he was looking at her with a tinge of amusement, with too much knowing.
Still, there was heat, too. She could have him if she wanted.
“Not tonight,” he declared.
She didn’t play ignorant. “I say when it’s time.”
He chuckled, even as his eyes seared her clean through. “The men you know let you push them around?”
“I do what I want. Take what I want.” She stuck her chin in the air.
He bent and nipped it. Cruised across her jaw, then breathed a low murmur straight in her ear. “I’m not afraid of you, sugar. Now let’s go for coffee, or I’ll be saying good night.”
She couldn’t repress a shiver as his warm breath wafted over her flesh. Touch me. Taste me. Come upstairs with me. Those were what she wanted. Not coffee.
But he was already too blasted bossy.
That was her job, calling the shots. She drew back, locked her eyes on his. “It’s too late for coffee,” she said in a husky tone that always worked magic. “I’d never sleep.”
He looked at her for a very long time, endless moments in which she had the disturbing sensation that he saw far too deeply into her.
That would not be tolerated, either. She shrugged. “Guess it’s good night, then.”
He held her gaze for another span.
Then he nodded with a faint smile full of something she couldn’t read. “I guess it is, sugar. You be careful now, hear?”
“Careful is boring.” She turned on her heel and vanished into the crowd.
When she glanced back, he was parting the crowd with his broad shoulders, headed for the door.
He didn’t look back.
Fine. Good, actually. She didn’t need the trouble.
But after one more set, she stopped dancing.
The night had lost its luster.
* * *
Michael Cavanaugh strode down the sidewalk on South Congress, thinking he’d made a lucky escape. He was already in Austin, tempting fate, and he didn’t need any trouble.
Trouble was exactly what that woman would be. Oh, no question, she was hot as hell, sexy enough to bring a dead man to life and almost certainly good for a night a man would never forget. Tall and whippet-lean, toned and endless legs, dark blue eyes filled with hell-raiser defiance and promises of scorching sex. His body was aching with the need to go back. To have what she promised with those lush lips, those warrior goddess breasts, those endless legs he could nearly feel wrapped around his waist while he—
He halted on the sidewalk and clenched his fists. Willed his unruly body to settle the hell down.
No. No distractions. He was still coming to terms with the bombshell his mother had dropped after his father had died a few months earlier. In a moment of grief, his mother had let the massive secret slip.
A brother. After an entire life alone. His father had never been told, had never even known that Michael’s mother had been married before.
Had left a child behind.
He’d loved his mom—still did, really. She’d been a wonderful mother, but he’d lost all respect for her. Had kept her at a distance as he struggled with who she really was. How did you walk away from your own child? Had the high life Allan Cavanaugh had provided for her been worth carrying around the knowledge that you’d left your son behind?
And how was he to feel, knowing he’d had a good life at that boy’s expense?
Boy. A man now, five years older than Michael’s thirty-one. That his name was Ian was the only other thing his mother had relayed before she’d clammed up. That, and the fact that Ian had been born in Texas.
So Michael had hired a private detective to search for the big brother Michael had longed for most of his childhood, his pampered childhood filled with everything material he could want. And love, too—his parents had showered him with love, even though they’d disagreed with his choices. Becoming a veterinarian when he was supposed to follow his surgeon father’s example into the upper echelons of medical royalty had not been in their game plan. No, that included the thriving practice, the beautiful wife, the two point five children, the country club membership…
Yet here he was, driving a muscular SUV with a three-legged dog as his only companion, an itinerant vet who’d finished a gig at a wildlife refuge and accepted another one in Austin, simply because it would place him nearer the brother who likely had no idea Michael existed.
If his brother still lived in Texas, that was.
This job was subbing for a vet whose father was dying. The practice handled everything, large animals and small, and Michael was house-sitting on the vet’s property just outside town.
Even if—when he found Ian, because he wasn’t giving up until he did—Ian knew Michael existed, he might not care. Their mother admitted that she’d run away and never reached out to the child she’d left behind.
How could a mother do that? Her actions called into question everything Michael had believed about
her. And what did you say to that brother when you knew you’d stolen the mother a five-year-old boy had probably grieved over?
She’d been wrong, so very wrong to leave that child behind.
But if she hadn’t, he himself wouldn’t exist.
A tangle, for sure.
Which was why he didn’t need the complication of the hellion he’d escaped by a whisker.
If only he hadn’t seen that one flicker of vulnerability beneath her bravado.
Maybe he’d imagined it.
Regardless, he had enough rough seas ahead. He didn’t need a woman who’d call down the lightning and thunder, who’d stand in the storm and laugh at the danger.
Nope. Trouble could just go find someone else to play with.
He had plenty of his own to stir up.
* * *
The crisp morning air of the first real taste of fall buffered the despair that always settled into Sylvie’s soul as she entered these doors.
Hope House. What naïve soul had thought that name could uplift anyone within these walls? Sylvie grimaced. No, it was those outside they sought to uplift…to give hope to those who visited the hopeless. This care facility for Alzheimer’s patients was the last stop before the grave, and it was the grave that held the only true hope for those lives trapped by this brutal disease.
She walked down the hallway toward her mother’s room, nodding at nurses accustomed to her early-morning routine. She’d settled on this time of day to come visit her mother, a space when some of the residents were still sleeping, their night moans and cries eased by deep slumber.
Some of them. Not all of them. But often, her mother’s best hours were those just after dawn. She seemed to like waking to see Sylvie beside her bed, even though she didn’t know Sylvie was her daughter.
And even if it was a bad morning, visiting early gave Sylvie the whole day to recover.
She pushed open the door and entered quietly, picking up the chair and moving it to her mother’s bedside. For a moment, she just stood there, looking at the woman who’d given her life.
Margo Everett’s silver-blonde hair had turned a beautiful white. The bone structure that had made her a rare beauty hadn’t relinquished its power. Sleeping like this, she looked so much like the mother Sylvie once knew that Sylvie always had the feeling maybe this day would be the magic one. This would be the day she got her mother back from the long nightmare. Sylvie would play Prince Charming’s role and bring Sleeping Beauty back to life.
And they’d laugh again and share stories and make plans for a trip to Houston or Dallas to hit the museums and galleries, have lunch at some tiny bistro that would remind Margo of her native Paris. There, Margo would utter wicked pronouncements about that doyenne’s hair, the comme il faut perfection of the other woman’s jacket, the lack of imagination that rich American women thought spending obscene sums on the latest fashions would cover.
As much as mother and daughter, Sylvie and Margo had become friends. After all the years they’d been alone since Richard died when Sylvie was ten, they’d survived Sylvie’s adolescence, the terrible financial struggles, the battles between two strong-willed women who often let stubbornness overrule love.
They’d had so few years to enjoy simply being two single women with respect for one another. Too few years before Margo began losing her way home and forgetting their lunch dates.
Sylvie held onto the illusion for just one more moment, cherishing the memory of the woman who’d been as much best friend as mother. All right, Sylvie. Enough fantasy. Lift your head, straighten your shoulders, and face the day, Margo would have told her. The old Margo. The one she’d miss for the rest of her life.
With one trembling hand, Sylvie stroked the hair of the woman who’d replaced her mother. Aware that her traitorous heart still hoped for the miracle, she held her breath as Margo’s eyelids fluttered.
Then there they were. Not the old, sharp, snapping blue eyes, but the cloudy new orbs of a stranger.
“Who are you?”
Sylvie’s hand closed around the thin fingers. She pasted on a smile to mask a cracking heart. “My name is Sylvie. How did you sleep?”
The gaze searched hers. “Do I know you?”
Sylvie shook her head. “No. I’m just visiting.”
“You won’t hurt me?” The voice trembled slightly.
Sylvie frowned. “Has someone hurt you before?”
The eyes looked inward. “I—I…no, I don’t think so. But I had this dream…”
“What kind of dream?”
“There was a little girl with blonde hair. She wore a gray velveteen dress with a white collar and a broad pink sash. I—I wanted to talk to her, but she kept running away.” The gaze switched to Sylvie’s. “She made my heart hurt.”
The woman who had been that little girl with the pink sash shoved ruthlessly at the tears that threatened. “Maybe she couldn’t help herself. Maybe she wanted to talk to you, too.”
“You think so?” Then a laugh, a faint echo of the throaty laugh of Margo, the real Margo. “What a foolish girl. I was standing right there, waiting.”
Sylvie squeezed the hand with the bones of a bird. “Maybe when you sleep again, she’ll know that.”
“I hope so.” A sleepy smile tilted the pale lips. “Maybe I’ll go back to sleep and talk to her now. That’s all right, isn’t it? What did you say your name was?”
Stroking the white hair again, Sylvie leaned over and pressed her lips to the woman’s forehead. “Sylvie. Sleep well, then. Sweet dreams,” she said in imitation of Margo’s nightly admonition.
The stranger smiled. “Thank you. Goodnight, Sylvie.”
Releasing the frail hand, Sylvie turned and walked blindly toward the door. As she walked down the hall, staring at the carpet, blinking furiously at useless tears, she sent back the words she so wanted to say. Words that would only confuse the now-old woman in that room.
Please come back to me, Mama. Just once.
I need you.
* * *
Ellie juggled the warm pan of cranberry bread between arm and waist, transferring her tackle box of paints to free a hand to knock harder than she’d been able to do with her elbow.
She smiled. It was such a lovely day she couldn’t be mad at Saxon, even if she’d knocked twice already. He probably had the music too loud to hear her.
She banged harder this time, wishing she’d brought something to shield the warm pan from her skin. “Come on, Saxon. I brought goodies,” she muttered.
The door swung open suddenly, music blasting out so loud she wanted to cover her ears.
“What the hell do you—?” Saxon glowered at her, but Ellie could barely see past the bare chest, a smear of yellow paint on the bronzed skin above one nipple. His eyes were bloodshot, his hair wild as though he’d run a mixer through it.
“Oh, hell,” Saxon groaned. “Don’t tell me it’s Thursday. I don’t have time for this.”
All the excitement Ellie had felt fled. How dumb. She’d mistakenly imagined that a bachelor who lived in his studio would appreciate home-baked bread. She’d acted like a stupid homeroom mother.
Suddenly embarrassed almost to tears, Ellie turned without saying a word and headed back to her car. Why had she ever thought this would work, just because he hadn’t growled at her the last two times? Granted, he hadn’t said much of anything at all, but he’d let her paint in silence, given her some invaluable pointers, and seemed to be growing accustomed to her presence, at least.
A big hand grabbed her arm and whirled her around. She had to fight to keep the bread pan from sliding to the ground.
“What do you want from me? I’m leaving. Isn’t that what you want?” She shoved the bread pan at him. “Here—this is for you. I hope you choke on it.” She didn’t lose her temper often, but she was on a roll now. “Don’t bother trying to return it. Maybe that pathetic excuse for a kitchen can use some new provisions.” She turned back toward her car.
“Ellie.” His
voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry.”
She stopped, not sure she’d heard him right. Saxon? Sorry? The words were incompatible. She didn’t turn around.
“Listen—” She could almost hear him raking those long fingers through his hair. If she weren’t so embarrassed, she’d smile. But anger still simmered…anger at getting angry…anger at being unwanted…anger at—
“I’ve been up all night painting. I lost track of time. I’m—come on, Ellie. Turn around and face me.” His tone lowered. “Please.”
First sorry, now please? She resisted the urge to see if the sun was still in the eastern sky or if the world had turned upside down.
She turned around, swiping angrily at tears with the hem of Wyatt’s flannel shirt. But she didn’t say anything, just looked at him.
He moved from foot to foot, and she looked down, seeing his bare feet on concrete still chilly from the night.
“Go on inside. I guess I don’t really hope you choke on the bread.”
He smiled faintly. Ellie resisted the flutter of her heart. Good gravy. If he really, truly smiled, she’d…well, it just did things to him, that was all. Dangerous, beautiful things to that fierce face with all its angles and hollows.
“Come inside with me.”
She studied him. “Maybe this isn’t working out, Saxon. It was a nice try, but you don’t really want to be teaching anyone, do you?”
Eerie blue eyes studied her. Then he shook his head. “I never said I was a teacher. Sylvie—”
Ellie smiled ruefully. “You don’t have to explain. I know how Sylvie is when she gets her mind made up.”
They shared a moment of mutual appreciation. Then he spoke again, his words cautious. “Has it been so bad?”
Ellie couldn’t help her snort of laughter. She glanced down at the ground, then back up at him. “I had a root canal once. It was worse.”
Then an amazing thing happened. Saxon Gaillard laughed. Full and robust, a laugh filled with a lust for life that made Ellie’s insides feel funny.
He took one step toward her. “Ellie, I never said I was a teacher, but I—” His eyes cut to the side, then he forced them back to her. “It’s—okay, having you around. And I don’t want you to stop painting.” He cleared his throat, probably already tired from the most words she’d ever heard him say at one time. “I’ll make coffee. Will you stay?”
The Book Babes Boxed Set (Texas Ties/Texas Troubles/Texas Together) Page 7