The Barons of Texas: Jill

by Fayrene Preston

  His head jerked back as if she’d hit him. “If you think for one minute last night was about those damn lessons, you’re dead wrong.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It happens to matter a hell of a lot.”

  “Then, no, Colin, I don’t believe last night was about the lessons. It was just about two people on a beautiful island, surrounded by a beautiful night, who had been in close proximity to each other for several days. Something was bound to happen and it did. But now it’s over and I need to get back to Texas.”

  Silence stretched between them. Jill could feel his gaze on her, almost hear him thinking. She just wished she knew what he was thinking.

  She had known it was going to be difficult to get him to forget last night, especially since she herself would like nothing more than to go back to bed with him right now and not get up for another week. But she couldn’t betray what she was feeling by even so much as a flicker of an eyelash. She needed to get away from him, and she was running out of ammunition.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “We can leave today if you want, but not before we talk.”

  “Do you happen to know where Des is today?”

  Colin froze. Color leeched from his face. His gaze filled with black rage. His chair scraped back and he stood. “He’s at the Double B visiting his father. We’ll leave in thirty minutes. Be ready.”

  Ten

  Using one foot, Jill slowly pushed herself back and forth in the swing that hung in the gazebo. A soft breeze filtered to her through a screen of junipers. Somewhere she heard a bird call. In a distant meadow, cattle grazed.

  She was in the backyard of the Uvalde farm where her sister Tess and brother-in-law, Nick, were spending their summer. In fact, no matter what the season, they would hop on a plane and come here every chance they got.

  And after three days here, Jill had to admit, the place did have a certain charm. It also had a peace and warmth about it that she had badly needed.

  Not too far away, Tess bent to cut yet another iris from her garden to go into her already full basket of flowers. When she straightened, she looked over at Jill. “I’m going to put these in the house and bring us out some iced tea,” she called. “Does that sound good to you?”

  “Great,” Jill called back.

  Three days ago, acting on an instinct she still didn’t entirely understand, she had contacted her sister from Colin’s plane and asked if she could come and stay with them for a short while. Tess’s yes had been full of enthusiasm. And now, seeing how happy Tess was that she was there, Jill felt guilty for all the times she had rebuffed her.

  Her mind returned to Colin and their flight back to Dallas. He had broken his silence only once, by calling her on the intercom to ask if she wanted him to arrange a charter for her to take her to the Double B. She had declined, saying that she had already called Molly and asked her to make the arrangements. What she hadn’t told him was that she had no intention of flying to the family ranch to see Des.

  Hearing the screen door slam, she glanced up to see Tess, dressed in shorts and a brief top, strolling toward her with an iced tea in each hand. When she reached her, she handed her one, then sat down beside her.

  “I like your farm, Tess.”

  “Thank you. Nick and I both love it. Strictly speaking, though, it belongs to Nick’s family—well, actually his grandmother—but Nick and I are the only two who actually want to make it our second home. Nick’s sister and her family know they are always welcome, and we try to have as many gatherings as we can. As a matter of fact, since Nick’s grandfather died, his grandmother Alma usually comes and stays for a few days when we’re here, and it makes us all so happy. During the winter, we fly in for as many three-day weekends as we can.”

  Jill nodded. “Like I said, nice. Good tea, too, by the way.”

  “The mint came from the garden.”

  Jill chuckled. “It’s been hard for me to accept that you actually like to garden. I mean, you never have before. It was something we were never exposed to.”

  Tess nodded pensively. “I know, but the difference is, this is a real home, something I’d never known. Before I married Nick, I had my place in Dallas, but it wasn’t a home, not really. I was always traveling or working.” She shook her head at the memory of her past. “Now Nick and I also have our Austin home. I still work and travel, though I try to limit the latter as much as possible. And Nick has his own work. But no matter which home we’re at, it’s filled with love and the memories we’re making with every moment we spend together. I’ve learned that’s what makes a home. And—” she grinned “—we’re hoping very soon now to start turning a room in all three homes into a nursery.”

  “Nursery?” Jill asked, shocked. “Is this an announcement?”

  “I wish, but no, not yet. Soon, though. I can feel it’ll be soon.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Jill murmured sincerely. “I’m very happy for you and Nick.”

  “Okay,” Tess said, her tone suddenly brisk and businesslike, “that’s enough about me. It’s time to tell me what’s going on with you. When you arrived here, you looked pale as a ghost—in fact, almost sick. Since then, you haven’t said much except for superficial conversation, but I’m relieved to say that you do look a little better.”

  “I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been very good company.”

  “I’m not complaining. I just want to know what happened to bring you here now, at this particular time, when you’ve turned down countless other invitations. And while you’re explaining, I also want to know what you’re running from.”

  Jill studied her sister. Tess’s blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail and tied with a wrinkled ribbon that couldn’t quite manage to hold the myriad escaped tendrils. Her face positively glowed. “You know what? I’ve never seen you look more beautiful or happier. Love obviously suits you.”

  Surprise crossed Tess’s face. “You’re calling me beautiful, when you’re the acknowledged beauty in the family? Now I know the answer to my questions—you’re obviously sick.”

  Jill’s lips curved in wry amusement. “It’s true, you know. You’ve always been beautiful, but now…” She let her words trail off, and her gaze drifted away from her sister toward the garden. “Instinct brought me here. As for what I’m running from… I guess I have to say Colin.”

  Tess frowned. “Colin? Colin Wynne?”

  Jill nodded, then proceeded to fill her sister in on the bargain she and Colin had struck—and its outcome. She finished with, “So once again I’m confused. When I arrived here, I knew only one thing for sure. I’m in lust with Colin.”

  Her sister choked on a gulp of iced tea.

  With a glance at her to make sure she was all right, Jill continued, “But since I’ve been here, I’ve watched you and Nick. Tess—” she turned to face her sister “—there have been times when you and Nick have been sitting across the room from each other, and one of you will smile at the other, and I can actually feel the love you have for each other. Actually, that’s very likely what brought me here in the first place—an instinct that you and Nick have the real thing. I wanted to learn about it.”

  “Our love?”

  Jill nodded again. “To start with, the love I’ve seen between you two has simply confirmed a decision I made before I left the island. I don’t want to marry Des. He doesn’t love me and I certainly don’t love him. When I decided to try to learn how to go about getting him, I was convinced that we could have a marriage that would work for both of us on some level, even though I doubted we would actually love each other. I now know just how wrong I was.”

  “Deciding you didn’t want to marry Des must have been the equivalent of an intellectual earthquake for you,” Tess said, impressed, “but I’ve got to say, I’m very glad you came to that conclusion before it was too late. Which brings us back to Colin.”

  “Colin.” Jill shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he hates me now.”

  “Why?”

/>   “Because he wanted me to stay on the island and talk about our night together. But I knew I couldn’t do that without revealing what I felt for him, so I gave him the impression that as soon as we landed in Dallas, I was going to the ranch to use all the lessons he’d taught me to catch Des.”

  “But why should that upset him? It’s the reason he gave you the lessons in the first place. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “I know.” She gnawed on her bottom lip for a moment. “The only thing I can think of is that maybe he believes I’m going to renege on our bargain. I won’t, though.”

  Tess fished out a mint leaf from her tea and nibbled thoughtfully on it. “There is another possibility.”

  “What?”

  “He loves you.”

  Jill shook her head. “There’s no way. When we parted at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, he was ice-cold with anger.”

  “Do you care?”

  “Yeah, I do. Tess, he’s a remarkable man. On the island, I learned about his background, and it made me feel so humble.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s accomplished so much, yet started out with so little.” She paused. “He also made me feel incredibly sad that I never knew the kind of parental love he had.”

  “I understand, because for a little bit, I felt the same way about Nick.”

  “You did?”

  Tess nodded. “And you know what conclusion I reached? You, Kit and I are the only people in the world who really know that our so-called privileged life was actually a nightmare. And we each had to learn in our own way how to survive, how to make it through our childhood to become functioning adults. Our father even robbed us of each other’s comfort. Nick and Colin may not have had the material things that we had, or the money we inherited to start out like we did, but they had something a lot better. They were able to grow up knowing that, no matter what they did, they were loved unconditionally. If you look at it like that, they started out way ahead of us.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Jill said slowly, trying to assimilate what her sister had just said.

  “Oh, it definitely is. So don’t ever feel humble again, Jill. We’ve more than earned our inheritance, plus we’ve each taken our portions of the company and skyrocketed them to a success and prosperity our father never even dreamed of.”

  “You’re right.”

  Tess grinned. “Of course I am. So let’s get back to Colin.”

  Jill sighed. “As I told you, I have a bad case of lust for him.”

  Tess’s grin broadened. “Let me give you a little sisterly advice. Great sex is nothing to be sneezed at.”

  Jill tentatively returned her sister’s grin. “I learned that. But, Tess, this is what I want to know. How do you tell the difference between love and lust? I mean, you must have faced the same thing with Nick. How did you decide it was more than lust, that in fact it was true love?”

  Tess leaned over and set her glass on the gazebo floor beside the swing, then straightened and reached for Jill’s hand. Jill was so startled she nearly jerked her hand away, but Tess merely tightened her hold.

  “Listen to me, Jill. You, Kit and I were never taught anything about love, because our father never showed us any. So when it came to figuring out if I loved Nick or not, I didn’t have a clue. But in my case, I had some help. Uncle William flat out told me I loved Nick. And believe me, when I realized he was right, no one was more surprised than I was.”

  Jill’s brows drew together. “So as soon as Uncle William told you that you loved Nick, you instantly knew he was right?”

  Tess nodded. “Because as soon as he said it, I started getting these flashbacks of things that had happened during the relatively short time I had known Nick. And I finally understood that it wasn’t anything big that had happened between us that should have clued me in to the fact that I loved him, but a series of little things.”

  “Such as?” Jill leaned toward her, paying close attention.

  Tess smiled softly as she remembered. “There was the way that with just a smile he could make me go weak at the knees. The way I practically melted into him when we danced on the night of my birthday.”

  Jill gasped, but Tess went on, “The easy way he could make me want him. The way I had turned down Des’s offer to come rescue me when Nick kidnapped me and brought me here. It all added up. I just hadn’t connected love with the way I felt about him, because I didn’t know how it felt to love a man—or anyone, for that matter.”

  Jill stared at her, her eyes wide with shock. “Tess, everything you just said—I can apply every one of those things to what has happened between Colin and me, right down to and including how he makes me feel.”

  “Plus the fact that you are no longer interested in marrying Des.”

  Jill sat back. “Oh, my God, Tess. I’m in love with Colin.”

  Tess laughed with pure delight. “Then we’ve got to get you back to Dallas as soon as possible. And at our very next board meeting, we simply have to address buying our own corporate jets. We spend a fortune on charters.”

  Tears of happiness spilled down Jill’s face, and for the first time in their entire lives, the two sisters hugged.

  Jill deliberately arrived late at the charity function. She handed her invitation to the attendant at the door of the large ballroom, then nervously slipped to the side and along the wall, until she had a good view of the front portion of the room. As she had hoped, dinner was over and people were busy milling about, visiting or dancing, but she couldn’t see Colin.

  The overhead lights were off. Most of the room’s illumination came from the glowing flames of the six-inch candles clustered in the center of each round table. In addition, a ceiling had been formed from strings of cleverly intertwined, tiny white lights backed by a cobalt-blue fabric, so that it looked as if thousands of night stars sparkled overhead.

  She chewed on her bottom lip, thankful for the coverage provided by the room’s atmospheric lighting, along with the preoccupied people. She didn’t want to be noticed just yet. As a matter of fact, if she could have had her way, no one would see her but Colin. But she had determined that meeting him for the first time in five days at this event would be the best way to convince him that she loved him. The thought that she might be wrong tightened the myriad knots already present in her stomach.

  Molly had doubled-checked the RSVP list, and unless Colin had changed his mind between the time he had accepted and now, he should be here. Gnawing on her bottom lip, she slowly made her way farther down the wall toward the back of the room.

  The dress she had chosen for her task tonight was far more daring than anything he had chosen for her, though she had purchased it from the same store where he had gotten the hot-pink dress she had worn to the blues club.

  This dress was made of a remarkable liquid-silver fabric that appeared to have been poured over her body. Its cowl neckline dipped dangerously to just above her nipples. In the back, the line of the cowl continued down past her waist and stopped right above the dimples of her bottom. To help her move, the skirt was slit up one side. The dress took its shape entirely from her body, and there was no way the dress could accommodate any underwear, though heaven knows she had tried.

  She doubted she would have even had the nerve to wear the dress out of the house if it hadn’t been for the matching shawl, lined with an icy aqua silk. Currently it was draped to cover her breasts, with one long end tossed over her shoulder to fall down the middle of her very bare back.

  Suddenly she saw Colin, and her heart began its now all-too-familiar thudding. He was as devastatingly good-looking and charismatic as ever in a black tuxedo, one hand slipped with casual elegance into his trouser pocket, the other holding a drink.

  He was facing her, with three women arranged in a semicircle in front of him, and he was laughing at something one of them had said. But she could tell his laughter was only a facade. She wouldn’t have been able to realize that before their time on the island, but she could n
ow.

  Watching him, she turned hot, then cold, then hot again. Lord, could she do this? Her palms were clammy. Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure the fast rhythmic movement was visible through her skin. And if even one more physical symptom struck her, she reflected with a mixture of amusement and terror, she would probably have to seek medical help.

  But she wouldn’t allow herself to take the easy way out and confront him later in a more casual environment. She drew a deep breath and called on every ounce of courage she could muster. She had a formidable job ahead of her.

  With a small prayer, she unwrapped the shawl from around her, turning it into a mere accessory, instead of a cover-up, by draping it over her forearms and letting it fall down the back to beneath her hips.

  She started toward him and knew the moment he saw her.

  He stiffened, and his smile vanished. Curious, the three women turned to see what or who had caught his attention, and as she neared, it was their greetings that helped alleviate his conspicuous wall of silence.

  “Jill, we were wondering if you were going to make it tonight.”

  “You look wonderful. The new way you’re wearing your hair is very becoming.”

  “My word, that dress is gorgeous, though not your usual style at all. What’s happened? You must have gotten a complete makeover somewhere.”

  Still as stone, Colin trained his icy stare on her.

  She could now completely understand and empathize with Billie Holiday’s lament of unrequited love.

  Refusing to be intimidated, she stared right back at him. “Actually, yes, I did—with Colin’s help.”

  “Really?” As if choreographed, all three women looked from her to Colin and then back to her.

  She nodded. “Even to the point of buying me clothes. He thought I was dressing too primly and decided I needed to wear more revealing clothes.”

  “Softer.” The one word sounded as if it were strangling him. “And I never bought you that dress.”