Tycoon Meets Texan!

Auteur

Arlene James

Lezers

17,3K

Hoofdstukken

Auteur

Arlene James

Lezers

17,3K

Hoofdstukken

Chapter One

“You’re going to London?”

Avis smiled patiently at the clipped tone of her adult stepson and pushed back a silky, dark-brown curl which had escaped the butterfly clip at her nape, maintaining a soft and even inflection from long practice. “Yes. The flight leaves at three.”

“Today?”

“This afternoon.”

Ellis frowned at his coffee cup and folded his arms. “Well, that’s just peachy.”

He had arrived on her doorstep completely uninvited two days earlier. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised, but it had been months since she and her friends Valerie Blunt Keene and Sierra Carlton had unexpectedly inherited just over a million dollars each, and Avis had naively believed that all of the kooks and moneygrubbers were already out of the woodwork. Apparently Ellis had needed some time to overcome his great resentment of her before the smell of hard cash could lure him to her door. Now here he sat on the other side of her breakfast table, a thirty-year-old self-described musician watching his opportunity to work her latent guilt wing its way across the ocean.

“Had I realized you were coming…” She let that thought hang, implying that her plans had been made before his arrival instead of during the predawn hours of that very morning. Perhaps if he hadn’t made her so very uncomfortable she would not have taken such a drastic and unprecedented step, but the truth was that she did not want to play hostess to her truculent stepson.

Avis sighed internally. The world had turned upside down since Edwin Searle had passed away. No one had realized that the irascible old rancher had hoarded millions, certainly not the three women who had shown him little more than common courtesy and found themselves heirs to his estate. No one had been more shocked about that than Edwin’s greedy nephew, Heston Searle Witt, who also just happened to be the town mayor.

Heston had gone out of his way to make the lives of the heiresses miserable since the reading of the will. Val was now happily married to Ian Keene, the town Fire Marshal, and they were expecting a child, but Avis shuddered to think what Heston would be saying about Sierra’s situation, Sierra having only just revealed news of her pregnancy to a group including her very surprised boyfriend Sam. Avis felt a moment’s uncertainty about her decision. Sierra might need her emotional support. On the other hand, Sam and Sierra seemed too happy about their impending marriage to care what Heston might say. They were being married quite soon in a private ceremony. They wouldn’t miss her for a while, perhaps a long while.

Irritation flashed over Ellis’s lean face. “I guess that’s what I get for acting on impulse.” He worked his narrow jaw consideringly. “How long do you suppose you’ll be gone?”

“I really don’t know,” she replied smoothly, dipping a spoon into a cup of raspberry yogurt. It was the absolute truth. When she’d booked the flight around 2:00 a.m., she’d purposely left the return trip open-ended.

A muscle flexed in Ellis’s jaw. “Can’t your partner—what’s his name? Colie?”

She looked down. Was it her fault if Ellis assumed the trip was business? “Coeli. Peter Coeli.”

“Can’t he handle this?”

Avis spooned the yogurt into her mouth, swallowed and carefully said, “He has too much to do already.”

A respected real estate developer in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area, Pete had responded positively to Avis’s proposal to join her in some modest development in the small town of Puma Springs, forty or so miles southwest of Fort Worth. Together they had rebuilt a burned-out office building on the town square and lured a convenience-store chain with its attendant jobs to a prime location on the highway. Pete had quickly offered her a limited partnership, and she had accepted, maintaining office hours in Fort Worth three days a week.

Lately the situation had become a little strained as Pete’s manner had turned more and more flirtatious. He was a nice man whom she considered a friend, but as a widow of four years and now a woman of means, Avis treasured her independence. An ingrained gentility made it difficult for her to purposely hurt another’s feelings, but she now considered that her impromptu decision to visit London might serve two objects. Three really. Not only would she escape Ellis, she’d put some distance between herself and her business partner, plus she had to admit to herself that this would fulfill a lifelong dream.

Avis had always wanted to see London. She imagined seeing Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, envisioning Big Ben in the background. Belatedly, she realized that Ellis was speaking.

“So I thought I’d look for work in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.”

Avis blinked. “I thought Austin was the great music scene.”

He shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yeah, but I sort of need a new venue. You know how it is. Same old same old kinda robs you of your spark.”

So that’s how he intended to play this. She looked down at her yogurt and said gently, “I guess you’ll be apartment hunting then.”

“Sure. Eventually.”

She dipped her spoon again and sweetly asked, “Staying with friends in the area?”

His face blanched, then pulsed bright red. “I don’t actually know anyone else in the area.”

“Oh, dear.” She laid aside her spoon. “I hope you weren’t planning to stay here. I’m only two years older than you. People will talk. You know how small towns are.”

“But you’re my stepmother,” he argued.

“Was,” she corrected faintly. “Oh, Ellis, I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible.”

Ellis pushed back from the table, saying bitterly, “I always knew you didn’t want me around.”

Avis tamped down an uncharacteristic spurt of impatience and imbued her voice with every ounce of compassion and empathy that she possessed. “That’s not true, Ellis. When your father was alive, I would have welcomed you at any time. He missed you.”

“He could’ve come home.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“It would have been if he hadn’t met you.”

Avis sighed, aloud this time. She couldn’t deny it, but shouldn’t Ellis have come to some kind of peace with the situation after twelve, almost thirteen, years? When he’d first arrived, she’d hoped that he meant what he’d said about wanting to mend fences, but she’d quickly realized that was not the case. Ellis had hated her even before he’d met her, and that emotion still simmered just beneath his sullen surface.

She didn’t blame him, actually, but what good could come from his punishing her? This was all about the inheritance. So long as she had struggled to eke a living out of her late husband’s modest hobby shop, her stepson had been content to bank his resentment, but her incredible good fortune of being named in Edwin Searle’s will must have been more than he could bear.

London not only seemed more compelling all the time, it was beginning to look like an absolute necessity, for Ellis’s sake as much as her own.

She laid aside her napkin, eyes averted. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Ellis, and I wish I had more time to talk about this with you, but I must be at the airport by one.”

“I could use some cash to get back home on,” he told her bluntly.

She bit her tongue to keep from asking what had become of the two hundred fifty thousand dollars in life insurance he’d been awarded after Kenneth’s death. Instead, she walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bureau in the entry, where she habitually left her purse. As she removed her wallet, Ellis walked up behind her. She quickly extracted a sheaf of bills, turned and pressed them into his hand.

“It’s all I have on me at the moment, almost three hundred, I think. I hope that helps. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get dressed.”

Ellis stuffed the cash into the pocket of his jeans and made a begrudging attempt at politeness. “I could drive you if you like.”

“No need,” she replied with a smile, moving toward the stairs. “Besides, it’s over an hour opposite to the direction you’ll be traveling.”

“Whatever,” he mumbled, heading for the guest room.

Avis shook her head as she climbed the stairs. Ellis might have seen thirty birthdays, but emotionally he was still seventeen. She couldn’t help wondering if, had things worked out differently, his father might have been able to help Ellis grow up. The weight of that worry burdened her, but it was a familiar yoke, and she knew too well that nothing she could do now would lighten it. Ellis was Ellis, and that was that.

She turned her mind to the coming trip and felt a surge of excitement. Perhaps it was good that Ellis had come. He had given her the impetus to fulfill that dream. She and Kenneth had never had the money to travel together. Once the decision had been made, she hadn’t been able to curb her excitement. Her bags were already packed. Now all she had to do was get herself ready. She started with a long, hot shower, mentally reviewing her “to do” list. Her passport, acquired some months ago, had to come out of the key safe in her downstairs office. She would likely need her laptop, too, since she and Pete really did have deals working, though nothing she couldn’t handle via e-mail and telephone. On the way to the airport, she should stop off at an Arlington electronics store and pick up a voltage adapter so she could use her various personal appliances in England. Most importantly, she had to make a couple phone calls.

After blow-drying her thick, shoulder-length hair, glossing her full lips and applying a touch of taupe shadow and black mascara to play up her dark-blue eyes, she chose a smart knit pantsuit in an icy shade of lilac that seemed just right for the first Monday of April and made the most of her creamy pink complexion. The slim tunic top with its keyhole neckline and loose, bracelet-length sleeves lent the illusion of added height to her 5’6” frame and played down her more than ample bust line, while the long, flowing pants promised comfort and a lack of bagging over the long transatlantic flight. A matching handbag and mules with gently pointed toes, a corded, low-slung belt and simple amethyst earrings completed the look, but she also took along a soft taupe cloak, with a hood in case of rain, to combat the cooler temperatures she was bound to encounter in Britain.

She spent the better part of an hour on the telephone, first with her good friend Gwyn Dunstan, who got the whole story, and then with her business partner Pete, who was shocked but evidently encouraged to hear that she “did have an impulsive bone after all.” When she finally dragged her bags down the stairs, it was to find Ellis gone without so much as a farewell. She was not really surprised, but his abrupt departure did not change her mind about the trip.

After retrieving the necessary items from her office, checking the windows and appliances and rinsing the few breakfast dishes, she locked up and went on her way. Even as she negotiated the long drive to the airport, she enjoyed a growing sense of excitement. For the first time since the inheritance she was truly indulging herself.

She had been very sensible to this point, making her money work for her, keeping her expenditures within strict limits, protecting as much capital as possible and planning for the future. Now she was about to make a lifelong dream come true, and if she was doing it alone, well, she’d always been alone, really, even during her eight-year marriage. At twenty-seven years her senior, Kenneth had seemed wise and charming in the beginning, a respected professor at the University of Texas, but in the end he’d been more a dependent than a mate, especially after they’d discovered the cancer. Fully half her marriage had been consumed by that insidious disease and its debilitating effects. In the years since his passing, she’d been concerned with just keeping body and soul together—until Edwin had changed everything for her.

She had a real career now, and she was surprisingly good at it. With careful planning and execution, she could see her holdings grow exponentially. Never again would she have to worry about making a mortgage payment or babying her rattletrap car, which she had immediately replaced after receiving the inheritance. Old habits died hard, however, her new coupe was sporty but inexpensive. It had taken her some time to get to a place where she could allow herself something as carefree as this trip, let alone splurge on first class. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to bypass the cheaper rates of remote parking.

Had she realized how difficult it would be negotiating the shuttle bus ride to the correct terminal with a whole carload of luggage, she might have changed her mind and parked in close. As it was, she doggedly pushed and pulled and toted, determining with every step not to let the inconvenience spoil the mood, until she got herself and her belongings to the ticket counter. From there on out, it was smooth sailing.

The counter clerk apologized for not being able to wave her through passenger security screening, as had apparently been the case with first-class passengers in the past, but Avis assured the woman that she didn’t mind standing in line like everyone else. The whole thing took less than eight minutes, anyway. Little more than an hour later, she was following a pretty flight attendant with a long, golden ponytail down a wide concourse.

She stepped onto the jumbo jet with great curiosity and a quiet sense of awe. A few other passengers were already settling into place in the cabin. One man, a tall, handsome fellow with artistically tousled dark-blond hair already looked quite comfortable with a folded newspaper in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. Everything about him proclaimed money, from the expert cut of his expensive suit to the Italian leather briefcase at his feet and the air of nonchalant authority spiked with complete confidence. As the flight attendant led Avis to her seat, he looked up from his newspaper. Surprisingly dark eyes swept over her, and her skin prickled as if electrified. She swept her gaze around the spacious cabin but couldn’t help glancing at him again. He smiled slightly before going back to his newspaper, and heat bloomed instantly in her cheeks.

“Number six,” the flight attendant said, stopping next to a comfortable leather chair. “The seat next to yours is empty, so feel free to take the window seat, if you like.”

Avis smiled, feeling foolish. “Thank you.”

Before the words were even out of her mouth, the attendant stepped across the aisle, hovered solicitously close to the dark-eyed stranger and inquired, “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Tyrone?”

The voice that answered her was deep, urbane and flavored with the faint spice of an accent. “I’m fine, thank you.”

“My pleasure, sir. Call if you need anything, anything at all.”

He lifted his glass in a wry salute and watched as the lithe blonde swayed down the aisle to greet the next, and as it happened, the last first-class passenger to board the flight.

Avis lifted a brow. Apparently some passengers were more first-class than others. Well, he was an attractive man. Extremely attractive.

She shook her head at such errant thoughts as she divested herself of her paraphernalia. The briefcase containing her laptop went onto the seat nearest the aisle. She tucked her handbag beneath the empty berth in front of it and draped her coat over the arm before seating herself next to the window.

The attendant returned to trade a pillow and blanket for Avis’s wrap, which she promised to hang in a forward compartment where it could be retrieved handily at landing. Avis politely refused the offer of a glass of white wine and sat back to await take-off. As she did so, a sense of quiet satisfaction crept over her. She breathed deeply, relaxing, and felt exhilaration begin to build. It was a heady feeling, one she had never felt before.

No, wait. She had felt this before, this sense of being where she should be at the very moment she should be there, of being poised on the edge of a grand adventure. The memory crystallized for her.

It had happened on the third or fourth day of her second week at college. After days of confusion and uncertainty, she had finally found her bearings and known exactly where she’d been going as she’d walked briskly across the busy UT campus. The class to which she’d been heading, Natural Biology, had promised to be one of her least favorite, but had been required core curriculum for the sensible Business Management degree upon which she’d set her sights. Yet, she had felt then this same serene affirmation that filled her now. She had known that she’d made the right choice, was in the right place, doing the right thing. Even the sense of loneliness that she’d carried with her since the age of eleven, when her parents had been killed in a traffic accident, had briefly receded. In that moment, everything had seemed possible, even those dreams she had dared not voice.

It hadn’t lasted.

The problems and choices of everyday life, not to mention biology, had soon swamped her, pulling her off course time after time, until finally her dreams were dashed upon the hard rocks of reality and consequence. Was it possible that she might actually find herself upon the right path, or was this just that moment of sweetness before the rug was yanked out from under her again?

History told her that it would most likely be the latter, but a hope that she hadn’t realized she still possessed held out for the former. She laid her head back against the seat, content to rest in the moment in which she found herself, anticipating the excitement to come.

They were still loading the rear compartment when the Adonis across the aisle laid aside his newspaper, leaned forward and in that low, deep voice stated baldly, “You like to fly.”

She turned her head, smiled politely and admitted, “I expect to.”

His dark eyes flickered as he computed this information. “You have never flown before?”

“No. This is my first time.”

She looked away, disturbed by the unwelcome distraction of senses alerted to anything but the anticipated experience. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply and silently, reaching for that rare moment again. Before she found it, the great engines of the jet rumbled faintly to life, and excitement slammed her heart against the walls of her chest. Gripping the curved ends of the armrests with her fingers, she realized that the clicking sounds she heard were the results of the other passengers fastening their seat belts. Delighted, she searched for and found both ends of her own. After sliding the buckle into the clasp, she pulled the belt tight across her lap and tried not to grip the armrests again.

An announcement was made over the intercom system. The only words Avis understood were “take-off” and “nine hours.” Then the flight attendants directed the attention of the passengers to television monitors mounted to swing arms which pulled up from the sides of the seats. A video detailing emergency procedures played, but Avis could barely pay attention as the plane began slowly backing away from the terminal. She sat forward with great anticipation, gripped by an almost childlike zeal.

A low chuckle to her left told her that her embarrassing eagerness had been noted. She sat back determinedly. As the video finished, another announcement was made, this one very short. To her frustration, she didn’t catch a single word. That’s when her traveling companion spoke up again. She could hear his smile in his voice. It sounded…indulgent, knowing.

“According to the pilot, we’ve had a bit of good luck and will only be fifth in line when we reach the take-off queue.”

As if to punctuate his pronouncement, the engines abruptly idled back. Deflated, she flashed a look in the stranger’s direction. He abruptly leaned sideways and reached a long arm across the aisle, offering his hand and a very radiant, very white smile.

“I am Lucien Tyrone.”

Something about that name sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place it. Nevertheless, good manners made her stretch across the empty seat beside her. His warm hand gripped hers tightly. An intense physical awareness rippled through her, making her tongue stumble over the syllables of her own name.

“A-Avis L-Lorimer.”

The flight attendant hurried toward them. She smiled at Lucien Tyrone, but she reached for the briefcase which Avis had left on the seat next to her. “Let me stow this for you before take-off.”

“No, allow me,” Lucien insisted, releasing Avis to take the briefcase from the hands of the flight attendant.

The attendant huffed slightly, then re-glued her smile and turned away. Avis tried not to widen her eyes at the very pronounced sway of her hips as she swiftly retreated.

“Let me know when you want this back,” Lucien said, his lightly accented voice laced with delicate humor, the briefcase disappearing under the seat in front of him.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you. Uh, my laptop is in there, by the way.”

“Ah. So this is a business trip?”

“Not exactly.”

“But you can’t completely leave the office behind, eh?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“I only ask since you seem to be traveling alone.”

She smiled but wisely did not confirm that, but then she didn’t have to. It was obvious that she had boarded the plane alone.

“Perhaps you are meeting someone?”

“Yes,” she lied, not quite able to meet his eyes.

He pursed his lips slightly, then said in a very relaxed, casual manner, “If this is your first flight, then I must assume you haven’t visited London before. If that is where you are stopping.”

“No. I mean, yes. That is, I have not visited London before, and that is where I’m…stopping.”

A lazy smile tilted up one corner of his mouth. “You will adore London. I promise you.” He said it as if it was a solemn and very personal vow.

Suddenly, without warning, the engines revved and the huge jet surged forward. Avis caught her breath, hands once more gripping the padded armrests. The beguiling man across the aisle laughed as the aircraft picked up speed and she caught her breath.

They raced on and on, faster and faster, until the massive vehicle shuddered and rattled. Then she felt a lift, surprisingly gentle, only to find herself abruptly pressed back into her seat as the nose of the airplane pointed skyward. She looked out the window and saw the ground falling away. Elated, she pulled in a breath of pure freedom.

They climbed for a long while, and she rode it out with enthralled relish, feeling her cares and burdens lighten as she traded sky for earth. Just before the big jet leveled off, something compelled her to turn her gaze across the aisle.

Lucien Tyrone smiled, his dark eyes glinting with satisfaction, indulging himself vicariously in her thrill, and then she was in that moment again, that rare instant when all is right with the world. Long seconds passed before she could make herself turn away, but even then the strange new sense of hedonistic fulfillment lingered.

Some dreams, it seemed, really did come true.