No hanging porch gutter or peeling paint or leaking ceiling. He’d come a long way.
So why the hell did he feel like the same horny teenager with the battered leather jacket who’d lusted after her from afar?
He didn’t get a chance to dwell on the question. A shrill ring nearly busted open his eardrums and he bolted to his feet. He reached the front door, opening it to an ancient-looking woman wearing a pink crocheted sweater and matching coral lipstick.
“Dadblame it, it’s broken again,” Eula Christian declared as she punched madly at the alarm system.
“It’s not broken. You entered the wrong combination.”
“Nonsense. I know this thing like the back of my hand. It’s 6249712.”
“That’s 6248712.”
“When did you change it?”
“I didn’t change it. It’s always been an 8.”
“Nonsense. As the good Lord is my witness, I punched in a 9 yesterday and it worked.”
“It couldn’t have worked.”
“Are you doubting the good Lord?”
“No, ma’am. It’s just that—”
“Listen here, Dallas Zachariah Jericho.” She pinned him with a scolding stare. “I don’t take too kindly to folks blaspheming my creator, and doubt is blasphemy if I ever heard.”
“Is that a new sweater you’ve got on?”
Her tirade stopped as she glanced down. “Why, this old thing? I’ve had it for ages.”
“Well, it’s awful pretty.”
“It is my favorite.” She smiled. “It’s the color, you know. I just love coral.”
“Coral is all you. Say,” he glanced at his watch. “Aren’t you missing Walker, Texas Ranger?”
Eula shoved her glasses up and peered at her own watch. “My, my you’re right.” She blew out an exasperated breath. “But I’ve still got to unload the dishwasher. And then there’s the laundry in the dryer that needs folding.”
“I hear Chuck Norris is going to fight without his white shirt tonight.”
Her eyes widened behind the bifocals. “No shirt?”
“And no boots. Seems he gets interrupted by some art smuggler while he’s in the shower.”
“The shower?”
“And not one of those single stall jobs. This one’s a double deluxe with sliding glass doors so he’s got plenty of room to flex his muscles.”
Excitement leaped into her eyes for a split second before her face fell. She fingered a fresh ink stain on his plaid work shirt. “You don’t have any clean shirts for tomorrow. I’ve been meaning to get to that stack in the hamper all day today.” The same way she’d meant to get to his pants yesterday. The same way she’d meant to dust the living room the day before that. And vacuum the day before that.
As a housekeeper, Eula Christian, with her arthritic knees and her poor eyesight and her bad memory, wouldn’t come close to winning the Merry Maid Olympics held over in Kendall County every June. But as a person, she’d walked away with the gold more times than he could count.
He stared down at the woman who’d fed him on more than one occasion when his dad had been too drunk to see straight, much less work, and the cupboard had been bare. She hadn’t had much, but what she had had, she’d graciously shared. She was a good woman with a good heart and he’d promised himself a long time ago that he would pay her back one day. And Dallas always kept his promises.
“I’ll muddle through with what’s in the closet. Besides, it’s too late for decent folks to be slaving away doing laundry.”
“It is well past quitting time.” She cast one last glance at the now silent alarm before frowning. “The next time you change that code, make sure you tell me. I almost went deaf.”
He opened his mouth to tell her for the umpteenth time that he hadn’t changed anything, but all that came out was “Yes, ma’am.”
Dallas watched Eula hobble toward the living room before he headed back to his office. Quitting time was for decent folks, not workaholic construction bosses. He still had to call his foreman and give him the new delivery information. Then he had to finish the expense sheets he’d just exceeded. Then…The list went on and on.
He drew in a deep breath and settled back down at his desk, determined to get his mind back on the job. Just the job. He wasn’t going to think about Laney, or how sexy she’d looked tonight, or how he’d wanted to reach out and touch her and kiss her and—
Wait a second.
His thoughts skidded to a halt as his gaze snagged on the wrinkled paper he’d written Claude Dixon’s new order on at the bar. The words My ultimate fantasy jumped out at him and stalled the air in his lungs.
Then again, it really wasn’t the words, written in neat black ink with an efficient underline, that stopped him cold for a long, breathless moment. It was the triple M embossed on the top of the sheet of paper and the faint scent of warm, sexy woman that wafted through his nostrils. Before he could stop himself, he lifted the paper to his nose and took a deep breath. The aroma grew stronger, confirming the truth.
It was her notepaper.
Her words. Her fantasy. Her fantasy man.
Her fantasy man?
It couldn’t be. Even as he read the description, he told himself it was just wishful thinking. Sure, he had a tattoo in that exact spot on his bicep—a souvenir from one wild night spent drinking in Austin over summer break—but it had to be coincidence. Laney couldn’t stand him. Sure, she’d lusted after him. Once. While the night was still fresh in his mind, he’d been certain she hadn’t given it a second thought. After all, she’d chickened out at the very end and left him with a massive hard-on.
While he still wanted her after all this time, no way did she want him.
Or did she?
The truth sank in as he read and reread the paper. She did. She really wanted him.
But even though she would allow herself the attraction in her most private thoughts, she wouldn’t act on that attraction. Her hands-off attitude tonight confirmed that.
She was Judge Merriweather’s daughter, and he was the youngest offspring of no-good, no-account Bick Jericho. There would be no happily ever afters between a woman like Laney Merriweather and a man like Dallas Jericho. But lust…
Maybe. Maybe not.
There was always the possibility that he was wrong, that someone else had written the words, that Laney despised him every bit now as she had way back when. That’s why she’d stopped things before they’d gone all the way. Because she’d come to her senses and realized she didn’t want to make love to him.
Or maybe she’d wanted it too much and that fact had scared her into putting on the brakes.
Maybe…
There was only one way to find out.
“THAT TAKES CARE OF THE Morgan review. Do you have the notes on the McCracken Estate? After that I’ve got those four small claims cases and then the Johnson cow dispute and—”
“Dad.”
“—the Montgomery/Withers property dispute and—”
“Dad.”
Judge Marshall Merriweather glanced over the top of his black spectacles. “Yes, dear?”
“Slow down.”
“I’m sorry if I was going too fast. Should I repeat the last—”
“Slow down as in take a deep breath. You’re supposed to stay calm and relaxed.”
“I intend to. I’ll just pencil that in between the small claims cases and the property dispute.”
She walked behind him and snatched the organizer from his hands. “There are no small claims cases. I handed those over to Cheryl Miller.”
“Cheryl Miller?”
“Judge Walters’s legal assistant. She’s volunteered to help ease your caseload until I can hire an assistant for you. Dad,” she appealed to him, her voice softer as she touched a tuft of his snow-white hair. “You have to take Dr. Willaby’s advice to heart.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? Why, I could be trying cases with the best of them over in Austin if I had the notion, but the
man said slow down, so I’m slowing. I sit and listen to small town problems, when I used to be arguing major cases in the city. Besides, a few land and cattle cases aren’t that stressful.” His eyes brightened with excitement. “A far cry from that capital murder trial your firm just took on. Have they decided who’s going to lead the defense team?”
She averted her gaze and busied herself collecting case files from his littered desk. “Not quite.”
“It’ll be you, dear,” her father said with confidence. “Why, do you know a Merriweather’s been part of the legal team for every capital murder case this state has seen in the past twenty years? Everyone knows we Merriweathers make the best defense lawyers. They’re sure to ask you.”
They had asked, but Laney hadn’t accepted. Yet. She would, of course, no matter how hopeless the case or the fact that the man was as guilty as a stray dog with a stolen steak hanging out of his mouth. Everyone, guilty or not guilty, deserved a good defense. Besides, Laney wasn’t about to break a twenty-year tradition. She was a Merriweather, in all the ways that counted. Once she settled things here, found her father a good secretary and returned to Austin, she would take on the case and continue doing what she did best. Even if it did cause her a major headache.
She blinked her eyes against a sudden blinding shot of pain to her temples. The signs of her daily migraine. Oddly enough, she hadn’t felt the all-too-familiar sensation in the three full days since she’d been home. Before she could dwell on the fact, her father’s voice drew her attention.
“Where’s the McGrath brief?”
“Being read by someone else.”
“Who?”
“Me. I’ll read, summarize and hand everything over to you later.”
“What are you doing?” he asked as she grabbed the stack of files she’d gathered on his desk.
“Relieving you of some of these other cases.”
“But those are mine,” he said with all the possessiveness of a kid holding onto his last sucker. “They’re priority.” He tried to stop her, but she stepped out of his reach.
“Not anymore. This—” she retrieved a color brochure from her pocket “—is your only priority right now.” She handed him a color brochure for Monty’s Lake and another for Port Aransas. She might well have handed him a pair of eyebrow tweezers and a makeup mirror.
“What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Pick where you want to fish this weekend.”
“Fish?”
“That’s right. You love to fish.” Or he used to. She could remember weekends spent fishing down on the pier at Monty’s Lake. She would dangle her feet in the water while her father told her of those rare moments when he’d fished with his own father. When the man hadn’t been arguing some groundbreaking case, that is. Those times had filled her with warmth and erased her earliest memories of the house over on Baker Street where she’d spent the first six years of her life, until Judge Marshall Merriweather and his wife had taken her in after her parents had abandoned her.
The judge and his wife hadn’t been able to have their own children, so they’d adopted and Laney had been the lucky adoptee. One day she’d had nothing but the clothes on her back. The next, she’d had a real home.
She’d been forever grateful, and had vowed to make them proud. To make them and everyone else in town forget that she wasn’t a real Merriweather, but the poor, unwanted child from the most run-down shack over on Baker Street.
She’d done just that. Throughout her childhood, she’d done everything in her power to put as much distance as possible between the girl she’d been and the lady she wanted to be. She’d spent her time studying, determined to be as smart, as educated as every other Merriweather before her. She’d watched her new mother diligently, learning the appropriate way to walk and talk and eat. She’d made friends with the elite of Cadillac and stayed away from any and everyone who reminded her of Baker Street.
Almost.
An image, of vivid green eyes, a killer smile and enough male heat to send her body into major meltdown rushed to the forefront of her mind.
Dallas Jericho.
She’d felt the attraction even as a child—the intoxication of his smile, the warmth of his eyes, the understanding, the connection.
Those six years she’d lived on Baker Street, Dallas had been her nearest neighbor and the only kid in her kindergarten class who hadn’t made fun of her when she’d shown up wearing the same threadbare jumper day after day because she’d had nothing better. Her parents, both alcoholics, had blown what little money they’d had on drink. Dallas’s own father had been addicted to the bottle, and so he’d sympathized.
Not that he’d ever said the words. He’d been too tough to say anything nice. But his actions had spoken much louder than any words of comfort he might have offered.
She could still remember sitting on the school steps, her stomach growling while she watched the other kids eat lunch. Her parents had been on a binge for the past week and the cupboard had been empty. She’d gone to school with nothing that day. Dallas hadn’t had much himself, just one banana and a soggy mayonnaise sandwich, but he’d shared both with her. She’d liked him from then on.
Even after she’d traded Baker Street for the nicest neighborhood in town, the like had continued, much to her dismay. She’d wanted to erase her past and pretend she’d never gone to bed hungry or cried herself to sleep because she’d been an outcast. Most of all, she’d wanted to forget how good that mayonnaise sandwich had tasted and how thankful and happy and protected she’d felt for those few moments as she’d sat next to Dallas on the schoolhouse steps.
She’d tried. She’d gone her own way, plunging into a new way of life and leaving behind the old. She wore the nicest clothes and walked the halls with the other “haves” while Dallas spent his time with the “have-nots.” He’d been a rebel and an outcast with his shabby jeans and holey T-shirts and kiss-my-ass attitude. They’d been worlds apart back then, but every time he’d looked at her, the memory of the schoolhouse steps had bubbled up and she’d felt a consuming warmth. So consuming that when bad boy Dallas had crossed the line between the haves and the have-nots and actually asked her to the eighth-grade dance, she’d come so close to saying yes.
Too close.
Not wanting to risk her parents’ disapproval, she’d turned him down. But it had been hard. And the best thing she’d ever done. Her rejection had been enough to anger Dallas and so he’d stopped being nice to her. That very night he’d dumped punch all over her and started the feud that proved her only saving grace throughout high school.
Her hormones had raged so fiercely back then and if he’d been nice…She would have given in to her lust for him long before the night of her going-away party.
She pushed the sudden image of Dallas hovering over her, his bright green eyes glittering down on her, to the farthest corner of her mind and tried to concentrate on what her father was saying.
“…don’t know about this.”
“Well, I do,” she said, turning her full attention to the brochures. “This is just what the doctor ordered. Monty’s Lake has some of the biggest freshwater bass in Texas. But if you want to do some saltwater fishing, Port Aransas is the place.”
“They’re each three hours away from here.”
“And?”
He shook his head and removed his glasses. “I can’t go that far away for the weekend.”
“It’s not a weekend. It’s a full week. Next week.”
“Next week?”
“Actually it starts this Friday.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, then shook his head. “That’s out of the question. I’ve got work to do. I’m hearing two cases Monday morning. I’ve got mediation on Tuesday. I’ve got an arbitration hearing on Wednesday. I’ve got—”
“—me,” she finished for him. “You’ve got me. A more than capable assistant until I find you someone permanent. I’ll reschedule your hearings and reassign the mediation to someo
ne else. I’ll take care of things.”
A smile tilted his lips as he reached up to push a strand of hair behind her ear. “You are more than capable, aren’t you? How did your mother and I get so lucky?”
But Laney was the one who’d gotten lucky. They could have picked any child, but they’d chosen her, despite where she’d come from. Who she’d come from. For that she owed them. She always would.
She tapped the brochure. “So which one is it going to be?”
“Neither.”
“That’s not an option.”
“Freshwater,” he finally said after a scratch of his temple and another pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Your mother used to love grilled trout.”
Her mother. That was a lot of her father’s problem. He’d already been an overachiever, and once her mother had died, the drive had intensified. He’d picked up his pace the past few years, focusing on work rather than his grief.
“Mom wouldn’t want you to push yourself so hard.”
“Your mother knew what sort of man I was when she married me.”
“Stubborn?”
“Goal-oriented.”
“Why set goals if you won’t be around to achieve them?” Her voice softened. “She wouldn’t want you working so hard, and neither do I.” She gathered up the brochures. “I’ll make all the arrangements. You leave first thing Friday morning. In the meantime,” she took the file folders from his hand. “You’re officially relieved of duty until your one o’clock hearing about the Jackson’s goat.” At his blank look, she added, “Mr. and Mrs. Jackson are fighting over custody.”
“Ah, yes.” He smiled. “You know, you’re liable to die of boredom before you get back to Austin.”
“I think I’ll survive. Besides, child custody cases have always fascinated me, even if the child in question has four legs. As for you, take a nap. Take a walk. Relax.”
Midnight Fantasies Page 17