“You’re up early,” Amelia said without preamble. “Going to look at more office spaces?”
“I wish I was. I mean, I will be. I mean—”
Lucie heard a shout...a deep male voice.
Amelia called, “I’ll be right there, Quinn. I’m on the phone.”
He must have shouted something back.
“It’s Lucie,” Amelia called back. “Can’t you get Clementine her breakfast?” A pause. Then Amelia asked Quinn, “She tossed all the cereal on the floor?”
Obviously this wasn’t a good time for Lucie to have a talk with her sister, not about something as serious as a marriage Amelia knew nothing about.
She said, “Amelia, I’ll talk to you later when you’re not so tied up.”
“Lucie, really, if you want to talk, I’m sure Quinn can handle this.”
“No, it’s okay. You two give my niece a big kiss from me. I promise I’ll hug her soon. Have a good day.”
“I’m coming,” Amelia called to Quinn. “You, too,” she said to Lucie, meaning it.
Lucie stared at the phone after she ended the call. Maybe her brother Brodie could help, in more than one way. He might be able to give her some professional advice. He was a publicist who would know how to handle this news, especially if it got out.
But when her call went through to Brodie, all she got was a voice mail message. Next, she tried her brother Jensen. He didn’t have voice mail and he didn’t pick up.
That left one person she could call. Her brother Charles, who was still in London. She found his number in her contact list and pressed Send.
“Hello, Lucie,” he said cheerily. “You’re up early.”
It was around noon in London. “I have reason to be. Do you have time for a chat?”
“With you? Sure. What’s wrong?”
“Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“You’re my sister. I know the tone of your voice. Spill it.”
Charles was the youngest son, a bit of a playboy and charming. He sometimes had trouble being serious, but he was now as he waited for her to talk about whatever it was she needed to discuss.
“Do you remember when I went to Scotland when I was seventeen?”
“Of course I do. There was a ruckus when you were sent home. My sister, who was usually an angel, the perfect sibling, had gotten herself into a mess. Mom and Dad did some fast pedaling with the press, if I remember correctly.”
“You mean, they managed to squelch the story that I was sent home from a trip because of a boy.”
“That about covers it.”
“Actually, no, that didn’t cover it. Now don’t say a word until I finish telling you everything.”
“My lips are zipped.”
Was she making a mistake telling Charles? She hoped not. “Promise me you will tell no one else until I say you can.”
“Lucie, you’re starting to scare me.”
She plunged in. “I didn’t just have an affair with Chase Parker in Scotland, I married him,” she blurted out. “But when we were caught, his father flew in, didn’t give either of us a chance to breathe and started paperwork for an annulment.”
Charles whistled.
“I’m not done,” she protested.
“Still zipped,” he assured her.
She rolled her eyes. “Chase found me and came to see me yesterday. The annulment never went through. We’re still married.”
She wasn’t exactly sure what she expected from Charles, but she definitely didn’t expect his burst of laughter.
“Oh, my gosh! Miss Goody Two-Shoes got herself into a mess. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Stop it,” she warned him, “or I’ll hang up right now.”
His laughter simmered down to a smile in his voice as he coaxed, “Ah, you wouldn’t hang up on me, not your favorite brother.”
“Charles—”
“Oh, Lucie. So you made a mistake and it was never rectified. That doesn’t mean it can’t be now. A good lawyer will straighten it out. What does Parker say?”
“He says he has lawyers on it, that I should call him if I need to talk, that we’ll figure this out. Charles, if this gets out to the press, Mum will be mortified. Think of the scandal. I was engaged while I was still married. All my work at the orphanages will be looked at as some hypocritical jaunt. I can’t stand the idea of it.”
“The paparazzi are one matter,” Charles agreed. “But Chase Parker is another. Are you going to call him to talk about it?”
She remembered her dream. She remembered all the feelings that went with it.
“I don’t know,” she said in a low voice.
“Lucie, are you telling me everything?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you feel when you saw him again?”
She went back to that moment yesterday, and she didn’t want to admit what she’d felt.
“Aha!” Charles said.
“What do you mean, ‘aha’? I didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly. It was never over with this man, was it?”
“Of course it’s over. It’s been ten years.”
“Sometimes our hearts don’t count time. More than anything else, Lucie, you’d better figure out what you want. You can’t face the world with news like this with any uncertainty if it does get out.”
“I have to think. I need some time.”
Suddenly Lucie’s bedside phone rang. From caller ID, she could see that it was Irv downstairs.
“Is that your phone?” Charles asked.
“Yes, I have to get this. It’s the doorman. Someone must be downstairs. I have to go. Promise me, Charles, you won’t breathe a word of this.”
“I promise.”
She ended the call with her brother and picked up the phone. “Yes, Irv?”
“Mr. Parker is here to see you. Shall I send him up?”
“Tell him to give me five minutes,” she said, suddenly out of breath.
“Yes, Lady Lucie. I’ll make sure he gives you five minutes.”
She didn’t have time to do much, but she did have time to brush her teeth. She was wearing pink-and-white-flowered sleep pants and a pink tank. No time to think about clothes. She ran a brush through her hair and grabbed a long pink satin robe, belting it tightly.
There was a knock at her door.
She ran to it and looked through the peephole. It was Chase. Today he was dressed more casually. His chambray shirtsleeves were rolled up, and he’d left his suit jacket somewhere. She undid the chain lock and then the dead bolt. When she opened the door, she just stared at him.
Breaking out of whatever spell that came over her when she looked at him, her senses returned. “Did anyone see you down there?”
“No one was around but your doorman.”
“We have to be careful, Chase. If we’re seen together, there will be questions and gossip. If anybody finds out Irv is buzzing me to let you up, someone will investigate.”
“I get it. We’ll have to work something out,” he said, as if seeing each other might become a common occurrence. Because of paperwork? Because of resolving their situation, of course.
“We can’t be seen together here,” he reiterated. “I understand that. But certainly there are ways you go out when you don’t want to be recognized, right?”
“I have a wig.”
He nodded. “Come to breakfast with me. I know a hole in the wall, otherwise known as a truck stop, where you won’t be recognized and neither will I. There’s wonderful food there. We can talk about all this and what we’re going to do.”
She thought about it. Sometimes she did feel as if she were a captive in her apartment. Having a normal life was tough in her position. In her
family, it had always been that way. Maybe that was why she’d been so reckless in Scotland when she met Chase. She just wanted to be normal. Since then, she’d accepted the fact that her life would never be that.
However, today—
“We can’t just walk out of here together,” she warned him.
He took his phone from his belt, tapped on his picture gallery and handed her the phone. “That’s a photo of my truck. It’s a blue pickup. I’ll drive into the parking garage and meet you up on the third level. Will that work?”
“That works, but I need at least ten minutes to get dressed.”
He looked her up and down. “I don’t know. What you’re wearing works for me.”
She blushed, and his grin and the sparkle in his eyes told her he was remembering when her being dressed in her robe or without her robe would have been just fine.
But that had been another time and place.
“I’ll meet you up on the third level, parking row C,” she confirmed.
“Got it,” he agreed, then went to her door and opened it. As he left, however, he threw another look to her that told her that, dressed or undressed, he still found her attractive. Just what was she going to do about that?
Fifteen minutes later, Lucie had her wig firmly in place, her sunglasses on her nose and all her wits about her. She would not let Chase rattle her. She couldn’t. There were too many consequences if she didn’t control this situation.
Finding Chase’s truck easily, she opened the passenger door and climbed inside.
Chase gave her a smile, nodded and started the engine. As he exited the parking garage, turned and drove down the street, he cut her a sideways glance. “You look hot as a redhead.”
So much for not being rattled by him. She didn’t respond.
She didn’t recognize the route he took, but then she didn’t know the city all that well yet. Ten minutes after they’d left the parking garage, he pulled up next to a gas station where several semis were fueling up. There was a restaurant attached—the Lone Star Diner.
Lucie had dressed in a more casual way than she usually did. After all, she didn’t want to be recognized. She’d worn jeans and a T-shirt and a blouse on top of that. Her auburn wig was curlier and fuller than her own hair and the chin-length strands brushed her cheeks. She had to hurry to keep up with Chase’s long strides as he led her into the diner.
“It’s totally impersonal,” he told her. “The waitresses rotate shifts, so the same ones are never on at the same time.”
“Do you come here often?”
“There are times when I like to be nameless, too. When I agreed to stay at the ranch, I told my mom I wouldn’t be there for regular meals. I didn’t want anybody keeping tabs on my comings or goings. So I drop in here now and then. The waitresses seem to have a high turnover. I haven’t run into the same one twice.”
All of that was good to know, not that she’d be coming back here again.
“The thing is,” he said in an aside to her, “this isn’t a royal kind of place.”
“I’m not a snob, Chase.”
He sobered. “That wasn’t an insult. I was just teasing.”
Yes, her sister and brothers teased her, but no one else did. She wasn’t used to it.
There were a few stools open at the counter, but Chase led her to a booth in the back, and she was glad of that. He was definitely aware of her need for anonymity.
The waitress arrived immediately and Chase said, “Two coffees and lots of cream for her.”
When the waitress moved away, he asked, “You still take it that way?”
“I do. But, you know, Chase, I’m not used to a sterling carafe to pour it from. When I go to developing countries to help with orphanages, sometimes I physically help to build them. My life isn’t all silver spoons and Big Ben.”
After a long, studying look, he nodded. “Noted. I won’t take the tabloid stories about you seriously anymore.”
“I’m surprised you read them.”
“Only when you’re on the cover.”
So he’d been curious about her and what was going on in her life? She was curious about him. “So, tell me what you’ve been doing for the past ten years. In Scotland, you explained you’d never work for your dad because he was manipulative and hard, and he had to control everything.”
“Yes, I told you that. After Scotland, I joined a construction crew, but I found I missed the horses on the ranch. So I signed on as a trainer at a quarter horse spread. I liked the work, and I liked being separate from my family.”
“But then?” she prompted.
“But then Dad had a stroke. At first we thought his one side would be completely paralyzed. But it’s amazing what rehabilitation can do now. I helped him with it. He’s so stubborn and independent that we set up a home gym. My mom asked me to live there and watch over him. When he went back to work, she asked me to be his right-hand man there again.”
“He didn’t ask you?”
“Are you kidding? He always expected me to work there, so that’s where I’ve been the past five years. But it’s time for a change. It’s time for me to leave. My plans are in the works. That’s where the loan and me finding out about our marriage have come into play.”
Because Lucie had known Chase before, she felt she could read into his expression and his words. He’d felt trapped for five years, and he couldn’t wait to break free. Now, however, he was trapped in a marriage he’d assumed had been dissolved.
“You want out. You want to be free.”
His gaze locked to hers. “Don’t you?”
She did, didn’t she? In a month, she’d be in Guatemala working on a new orphanage. In a month, Chase would be putting his plans into action. At that time, they’d be going their separate ways. That was the plan, wasn’t it?
Gazing into his eyes, she wasn’t so sure.
Chapter Three
Lucie sat beside Chase in his truck as they drove back to her apartment. She folded her hands in her lap, and she could swear they were trembling a little. Why was that?
After their initial dip into what she was doing and what he was doing, they’d talked about mundane things. Maybe because both were afraid to go too deep into anything...maybe because the tension between them was evident to them both. There was tension for lots of reasons—regrets, resentment, something unfinished. Most of all, sexual tension remained. When his knee had brushed hers...when her fingers had tangled with his, reaching for a creamer...
Touch was taboo.
Suddenly Chase said, “You said you’ll be in Austin for a month. Is that a solid deadline?”
“Yes, it is,” she answered. “I’m meeting my mother in Guatemala on the first of April. She has set up introductions to officials who can get the ball rolling as far as construction goes.”
“You have a site picked out?”
“We do.”
He changed the subject a bit. “So you’re officially a Fortune?”
“Yes, I am. When my mother found out about her heritage, that she had a long-lost sister and brother, she changed her name to Josephine Fortune Chesterfield, and I changed mine. It seemed right. Her sister and her family have come to mean everything to Mum. Now that Jensen and Brodie and Amelia all live in Horseback Hollow, our visits can become more raucous than royal.”
Chase chuckled. “Would you say your family’s become closer?”
“Amelia and I have definitely become closer. I know that seems odd, with her living in the United States and me living primarily in England. But when we were growing up, there always seemed to be a wall between us. I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe because we had nannies and were at boarding school. Maybe because our lives were very formal.”
“With her married to a cowboy, is her life as formal now?” Chase
asked.
“Quinn is down-to-earth. With their baby, Amelia’s just like any new mom. Maybe we all just seem more human in Texas. I don’t know.”
When Chase drove into the parking garage, Lucie was almost sorry. In spite of the tension, she’d enjoyed breakfast and all of their conversations. He was more mature now, with a broader view of life than he’d had at twenty-one. She could tell he wasn’t as impulsive and he thought things through. He wasn’t so wild, though she could still see deep passion in his eyes. His father’s stroke had apparently changed his focus on life. Now he seemed to know what he wanted for his future.
Chase said, “I’ll park and walk you back to your apartment.”
“It will be safer if you don’t do that,” Lucie informed him. “You can watch me until I’m in the elevator if you’d like, but then I’ll be safe from prying eyes or from a stray reporter. The wig and the clothes help, but anyone who spies on me regularly could probably identify me. We don’t want anyone to identify you with me.”
Chase was silent as he drove up to the second level, through the garage and around the bend and then followed the exit sign to another ramp. No cars trailed them. No one with a camera was evident. Chase should probably change the level he parked on if they ever did this again.
There was no reason to do this again. Legal documents could be sent back and forth by courier.
Instead of just pulling up outside the glass doors that led into the elevator bank, Chase slowed, braked and then backed into a parking place.
“What are you doing?”
“If I’m going to stay until you get on the elevator, I don’t want to block traffic.”
That made sense. She fingered her purse, a simple, natural leather bag that didn’t snag anyone’s attention. She knew she had to look at him. That was only proper. But she also knew that when she did, she’d get caught by the dark, knowing expression in his eyes.
Stalling, she unfastened her seat belt, but then she angled toward him and realized he was already gazing at her. “I enjoyed breakfast.”
“The chocolate chip pancakes there are the best.”
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