“You’ve thought of everything.”
Florence frowned. “Not quite. I’m sorry this happened to you. I never imagined you’d be hurt helping me with the church program. You don’t have to worry about today,” she added. “I called the minister, and he has volunteers again.”
“Do you know if my car is ready?”
“You’ll have to ask Chase about that.”
“He didn’t leave for work?”
“No. He always spends some time with the horses in the morning, especially when he’s trying to figure things out.”
“Figure things out?”
“He’s making changes, and I’m not sure he’s used to the idea of them yet. I know I’m certainly not. I’m going to miss not having him in the guesthouse, and I know his father will, too. I just hope Warren doesn’t explode when Chase tells him what he’s going to do.”
“I hope he doesn’t either. That won’t be good for either of them.” She did not have fond memories of Warren Parker, and Florence seemed to sense that.
“Chase’s dad isn’t the ogre Chase makes him out to be sometimes. He’s just very old-school and set in his ways. But he has a good heart, and he wants the best for Chase.”
“He always wanted that,” Lucie agreed, thinking about the plans he’d had for his son when Chase was twenty-one.
“Hmmm,” Florence said to that, and that was all. “I’ll leave you to your breakfast. Do you remember your way to the barn?”
“I do.”
“Well, good. I’ll be in my study if you want to say goodbye before you leave.”
And with that, Florence left the room.
The food called to Lucie and she ate with a hunger she hadn’t had in a while. Afterward she dressed, wishing she had fresh clothes. But she’d be back at her place soon.
A half hour later, she was finding her way to the barn, hoping Chase was still there. When Lucie found him, he was...mucking out stalls! She grinned as she approached him.
Seeing her expression, he laid the pitchfork aside and put his hands on his hips. “What?”
“This isn’t quite what I expected you to be doing.”
“Horses have needs, too, and clean stalls are one of them. At my own place, I’ll probably be doing this even more than I do it here. How are you feeling?”
“Like someone put me in a milk shake mixer.”
He chuckled. “Vanilla, strawberry, or chocolate?”
“Chocolate all the way.”
He sobered and came toward her. When he reached her, he asked, “Are you sure you’re all right? I can take you to my mother’s private physician. He’d keep the visit quiet.”
“There’s no need. Really, Chase. I’ll keep icing my shoulder and I’ll be fine. Is my car ready?”
“Tomás has to wash it down yet. The truth is, I’m not sure you should be driving. Why don’t you let me take you back to your apartment, and he can bring your car in and park it later?”
She was about to protest when he shook his head. “Don’t tell me it’s too much trouble. Those are words you use too often.”
When he was standing this close, she couldn’t think straight. “Maybe part of the problem is I don’t want to owe you anything.”
Really close now, he let his hand drift to her shoulder, then up her neck into her hair. “I don’t think of owe or not owe when it comes to you.”
She could hardly push the words out, but she wanted to know. “What do you think of when it comes to me?”
He nudged her closer, and she didn’t pull back. “The same thing I was thinking of last night while I lay in the guesthouse and you were at my mom’s. Which was probably a good thing because when I’m with you, Lucie, I want to take you to bed again. That’s the long and short of it. Our fire didn’t burn out ten years ago.”
No, it hadn’t, but how long could it sustain glowing embers? She and Chase were being pulled in different directions. How could any fire last that way?
“I thought about coming to your room last night,” he said honestly. “Even if it was just to hold you through the night.”
“My guess is, we wouldn’t have just held each other.”
His eyes blazed with that fire they were just talking about. “You’re right. That’s why I didn’t come. I didn’t want to take advantage of you being vulnerable.”
She felt all too vulnerable around him. But when he laced his hand through her hair and came in for a kiss, she didn’t protest. Chase’s kisses had always been filled with excitement and fervor, and demanded an answering response from her.
When his tongue swept her mouth, she held on to his shoulders as if her life depended on it. As his thumb caressed her cheek, his tenderness swept over her with repercussions she didn’t even have the sense to consider. She remembered his kiss all those years ago—the very first one. She recalled how she’d trembled as soon as his lips touched hers, how his coaxing ardor had led her to press against him, the way she was pressing against him now. His jeans weren’t that much of a barrier against his passion. Feeling it, she knew she’d welcome satisfaction as much as he would. Chase’s arms were as possessive as his tongue was seductive.
He’d just laid fresh hay in the stall next to this one. She’d seen it.
What was she thinking?
A truck door slammed outside, and with that noise, the web of passion around them was torn asunder.
Chase released her, then shook his head and muttered, “Whew. We keep that up, we’ll light the barn on fire.”
“If we keep that up, we’re both going to get hurt.”
Chase’s gaze raked over her face. “Why didn’t your engagement work out?”
She blinked because the change of subject was so abrupt. But the truth was, she didn’t really want to talk to Chase about it.
“It just didn’t. I’m sure you’ve dated women and then decided they weren’t right for you.”
“I’ve never gotten as far as an engagement. That’s serious. What made you decide he wasn’t right for you?”
“For one thing, I was traveling and we had distance between us.”
“That’s not insurmountable if two people care.”
He was going to probe and probe until she gave him something, she just knew it. “He lied to me. He went clubbing and wasn’t alone when he did.”
“Honesty is everything,” Chase agreed. “But there was something else, wasn’t there?”
“Chase, I don’t see why we need to talk about this.”
“Tell me the reason you broke up with him wasn’t because of the fire we’d experienced. Maybe you just couldn’t match that and you didn’t want to accept less.”
Was that the true reason her relationship with Terry hadn’t worked? Maybe with Chase she would have felt sexy, coy and flirtatious. Maybe with Chase—
Flustered now from him delving too deep, she shot back quickly, “You don’t have much ego, do you?”
“This isn’t about ego, Lucie. I know I’ve been looking for that same kind of passion ever since.”
“We were young...with raging hormones.”
“And what’s our excuse now?” he asked wryly.
“Maybe when we know we can’t have something, we want it even more. Isn’t that human nature?”
Chase glanced around the barn, and then he looked back at her. “Maybe it is. I’d better get you back to your apartment and I’d better get to work. Dad will return within the next few days, and I want to make sure everything at Parker Oil is ready for my departure.”
“You’ve decided on your replacement?”
“I have. Jeff will be perfect. I just have to organize the paperwork with all his accomplishments, so Dad can see my point. Do you need to go back to the house before we leave?”
“I really s
hould say goodbye to your mother. She was so kind.”
“All right, then. I’ll finish this last stall and meet you in front of the house.”
As Lucie left the barn, she felt as if she’d been dismissed. She didn’t like that at all, but she knew what Chase was thinking. He had a lot of hard work ahead of him. He would be trying to juggle a new venture while still keeping his foot in at Parker Oil. She’d be building an orphanage in Guatemala. A night in bed, or a tumble in a stall, wouldn’t make divergent life paths suddenly coincide.
Lucie couldn’t help feeling defensive on the ride back to her apartment. She and Chase could always find things to talk about, but the sexual tension between them was difficult to deal with. This day, conversation didn’t come easily. She was aware of his solicitous glances every once in a while, and in a way she resented them. She’d been taking care of herself just fine for the past ten years. If she had a sore shoulder, she’d take care of it. He didn’t have to worry.
But he didn’t seem to believe that.
By the time they neared her apartment building, she couldn’t wait to hop out of his truck. However, about a half block from the building, Lucie noticed a red car with a news station logo on the window. She murmured, “TXLB. I wonder if he’s in the lobby.”
“TXLB?” Chase asked. “The TV station?”
“Yes. The reporter’s car is parked right back there.”
“I’ll be doing an interview with Norton Wilcox at TXLB for his talk show About Austin in about ten days. The station’s highlighting the horse rescue. I’m going to reveal all my plans and hopefully encourage public support.”
“Wilcox is the reporter who phoned me for an interview. But then he began hanging around. He doesn’t want to take no for an answer. He keeps showing up, hoping I’ll change my mind.”
“He didn’t give me a hassle. But then, I said yes to the interview because it will help my cause. Maybe I could act as a buffer for you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t need a buffer. I’ll handle him.”
As they neared the entrance to the garage, Lucie said quickly, “Keep on going.”
As Chase passed the garage entrance, he asked, “Why?”
“Just go around and let me out a good block away. I’ll double back.”
“Okay, so you don’t want a buffer. But if you need me to act as your bodyguard to lead you to your place, I will.”
“I don’t need a bodyguard. And unless you want your life turned as topsy-turvy as mine is, we need to do this my way. Just think about Amelia and all those tabloid photos. Do you want your face plastered on the front of one of those? Do you want this reporter associating you with me and digging up our marriage?”
“I don’t like this, Lucie. I don’t like letting you off a block away. You were hurt yesterday, whether you want to admit it or not.”
She sighed. “I’m a little sore, that’s all. Please, Chase, just do this for me.”
As he rounded a corner to take the detour around the block, his jaw drew tense and his lips tightened into a straight line. Finally he agreed. “All right. I’ll do as you ask under one condition.”
“What?” she asked warily.
“Call me as soon as you’re inside your apartment. Not five minutes later, but as soon as you’re inside.”
“That doesn’t sound like a condition. It sounds like an order.”
“You are a very frustrating and stubborn woman.”
“And you’re reaching into territory you shouldn’t be.”
“Maybe so,” he agreed without apology.
She could see he wasn’t going to back down. He might not let her out of his truck if she didn’t agree.
“I’ll call you as soon as I’m inside, I promise. I’m going to walk straight into the lobby and deal with whatever I have to deal with. You can expect my call in about five minutes. This is a good spot. Just let me out here.”
Chase pulled over to the curb a block down from her apartment complex. Neither of them said a word as she climbed out. She did so quickly so no one would notice, and soon she was incognito in a line of pedestrians going their separate ways. She didn’t glance back over her shoulder. She didn’t see if Chase pulled away. She guessed he would, though. That was the smarter thing to do. But he might just drive around the block again until she called him.
Picking up the pace, she neared her apartment building and took a long, deep breath. Irv was standing at his counter and she immediately recognized the other man standing there with him—Norton Wilcox.
After he’d called for an interview, she watched his spot on the evening news. That hadn’t changed her mind about sitting down with him. Irv was frowning, but Wilcox was smiling. It was one very fake smile, but it was an attempt. Wilcox had on-air anchorman good looks, or at least he thought he did. His hair was brushed to the side and gelled. He was wearing a suit with an open-neck shirt and no tie. The casual professional look. She wished her clothes hadn’t seen her through an accident, but she squared her shoulders and stood as tall as she could.
Wilcox’s blue eyes were alert as Lucie walked toward him. He studied her down to the purse in her hands.
“Hello, Lady Fortune Chesterfield,” he said in an ingratiating way. He extended his hand. “It’s good to meet you in person. I’m Norton Wilcox from TXLB. I called you a week ago to ask you for an interview, but you declined. I’ve been trying to connect with you since then, but I keep missing you.”
Being as civil as she was able, she said, “Yes, I declined because, as I told you then, I’m not looking for publicity.”
“Your charity could use it.”
“That’s possibly true,” she agreed, awarding him the point. “But I’m not on a fundraising mission.”
“What mission are you on? Rumor has it you’re looking for office space for the Fortune Foundation. Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
“No interview, Mr. Wilcox.” She didn’t know if the foundation was ready to go public until the programs were up and running.
His smile slipped from his lips. “Where were you already this morning? Looking for office space? I ran down a lead that you’d contacted a real estate agent. Or maybe something personal came up?”
The worst thing she could do was become defensive. In her sweetest voice, she answered, “I had an early errand.”
His face took on a look that said he was determined to search out the truth. “You weren’t here last night either when I asked your doorman to buzz you.”
Keeping her composure, she stated blandly, “I must have been in the shower. Have a good day, Mr. Wilcox.”
Then she walked quickly to the elevator, punched the button and was grateful when the door swished open. The doors closed and she sagged against the back wall. She’d dodged that bullet. So far so good as far as Chase was concerned, she hoped.
Once inside her apartment, she took her cell phone from her pocket, found Chase in her contact list and pressed the number for his cell phone. When she did, she remembered his expression as she’d left his truck. She remembered their conversation in the barn. She remembered their kiss.
He answered immediately. “Are you in your apartment?”
“I am and all is well.” Though she knew it really wasn’t for one very important reason. She was falling in love with Chase Parker all over again.
There was momentary hesitation on his end. “Hold on a minute. I’m going to pull over and park. I like to concentrate on my conversations.”
Just what did he have to concentrate on? This conversation was over, wasn’t it?
“I’m parked,” he said. “So the reporter left?”
“I hope so. I made it into the elevator and I imagine Irv got rid of him.”
“He’ll be back if he’s good.”
“Maybe.” She sighed. “I
can always pull some strings and quiet him, but I don’t want to have to do that, at least not yet.”
Suddenly Chase asked, “How would you like to run around with your wig on again tomorrow?”
“We’d be tempting fate.”
“No, not with what I have planned.”
“And what would that be?” In spite of herself, she was interested. In spite of her better judgment, she liked being with him.
“The South by Southwest Conference is in full swing. No one will recognize us in a crowd at the music venues, especially if we wear disguises. If you wear a wig or a baseball cap, you’ll be good.”
The thought of being free enough to enjoy a music festival intrigued her. “And what disguise will you wear?”
After a moment, he answered, “I’ll find a fake mustache and wear cheap boots.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “I know I shouldn’t do this.”
“But you want to.”
Yes, she wanted to. She thought about the reporter, about having her every move scrutinized. What if she could escape that for a day? “All right,” she agreed. “But this time I have a condition.”
“Uh-oh.”
She could tell he wasn’t happy about that. “If your foreman brings my rental car back later today, I’ll drive myself tomorrow, and I’ll meet you on a back street. I really don’t think you should be seen anywhere near here.”
“You have a sore shoulder.”
“By tomorrow, it’ll be even better than it is today.”
“I don’t like meeting you on a back street,” he protested.
“We have to meet somewhere where there aren’t any security cameras. Convenience stores have them, grocery stores have them, big box stores have them.”
“Your knowledge base is a little different than most people’s,” he grumbled.
“I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you pick the location, since you’re familiar with Austin. Just pick a street where we can both park. I don’t care how far we have to walk. I just don’t want to be noticed.”
“As soon as I’m at my office, I’ll check a map and I’ll email you.”
“That sounds good. And wish me luck today. I’m hoping to find the right space so I can start the paperwork and get the Fortune Foundation office set up.” She’d made another list and was determined to find the right space.
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