by JoAnn Ross
"I think you can count on that," Tara assured him. "If the food tastes even half as good as it looks, I have a feeling I'm going to be a regular." Passing the other tables, she'd been impressed by the appearance and aromas of the other diners' meals.
"We aim to please," Nick assured her. "And later, if you feel like some exercise to work off your meal, Randy and Mallory will be giving some country dance lessons downstairs."
Tara guessed Randy and Mallory were the couple who'd been whirling around the dance floor in the bar. "I'll keep it in mind," she murmured, having no such plans.
"Liar," Gavin said when they were alone again.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
He laughed, enjoying the challenge her guarded tone presented. "You have no intention of dancing with me." Despite her renewed coolness, he reached out and took hold of her hand. "I'm making you nervous again."
"That's not it at all." She refused to give him the satisfaction of tugging her hand away. Better to pretend that his touch meant nothing to her. "I just don't relish the idea of making a fool of myself."
"It's not that difficult. If you'd surrender your need to control everything for just a little while and let me lead, it'd be a snap."
Since it was true, she decided not to challenge his remark about her need for control. "I should have suspected from your accent that you'd be familiar with country music," she said instead.
"It's like mother's milk to us down-home Texas boys. It's also about as much fun as you can have standing up," he coaxed.
After the kisses they'd shared, Tara thought there was definitely room for argument on that point. "I'm not used to following."
"Now why doesn't that surprise me?" His lips curved and the light in his eyes was surprisingly friendly. Tara felt herself relaxing for the first time with this man.
"I'll think about it." Heaven help her, as the enticing music filtered up the stairs, she found herself actually considering the idea. After all, if Brigid could do it…
"You do that." He lifted their linked hands to his lips and brushed a kiss against her knuckles. "The night's still young."
His gaze, rife with masculine intentions, met her guarded one, and held. The way his pupils darkened in the flickering light from the candle between them, Tara realized that once again they were sharing the same thoughts. Thoughts too intimate, too sensual, for such a public place.
Her mind clouded, her blood heated, her heart raced. She couldn't remember ever being so affected by the mere presence of a man. Even Richard, who'd broken her heart, hadn't had the power to make her feel as if she were drowning.
In a blinding moment of realization Tara knew that she'd been wrong. Richard couldn't have broken her heart because, in truth, she hadn't given it to him. All he'd done was publicly humiliate her, which at the time had seemed horribly painful.
But this man… She stared at his mouth, which she imagined she could still taste, and realized that no matter how much she might deny it, her life had unalterably changed the day she'd decided to come to Whiskey River to claim her inheritance.
10
So intent was she on trying to sort out her whirling thoughts, Tara failed to notice the arrival of a pretty brunette at their table.
"Hi," she said with a friendly smile that reminded Tara vaguely of a cheerleader. "Can I get you guys something to drink?"
Her mind still wrapped in a warm sensual fog, Tara merely stared up at her.
"Tara?" Gavin felt more than a little satisfied. He'd wanted a reaction and he'd gotten it. Of course, he hadn't counted on the rush of tenderness he felt as confusion flooded into her eyes and vulnerability softened her exquisitely lovely features.
She blinked. A slow, distracted blink that pulled at a thousand unnamed cords inside him.
"Would you like a drink?"
His tone was warm and gentle, calming and exciting her at the same time. It was the voice of her dreams. She could have listened to it forever.
"I think…" What was wrong with her? She made decisions worth millions of dollars every day. And now, all it took was a hot look from a sexy man who couldn't be more wrong for her to wipe her mind as clear as glass.
She gave herself a stiff mental shake. "I'd like a glass of merlot, please," she said.
"Merlot for the lady," Heather said, writing the order down. "Gavin? The usual?"
Gavin decided that something a little more special than draft beer was required on a night that seemed destined to alter a guy's life. "I'll have what the lady's having. In fact, why don't you bring us a bottle?"
"Sure. You want a wine list?"
"Nah. Just tell Nick I want the best he's got."
"You got it." With the promise of a hefty tip dancing in her cornflower blue eyes, Heather practically skipped away from the table.
"Have I told you that you look gorgeous tonight?" Gavin asked when they were alone again.
"I believe you mentioned it." The admiration in his dark gaze made her feel unreasonably nervous. Needing something to do, she spent an inordinately long time spreading the white napkin over her lap.
"If your great-grandmother looked anything like you do sitting here in the candlelight, I can definitely imagine why all the men in Ireland were supposedly in love with her."
She glanced up at him with surprise. "All right, that cinches it. Obviously you and Brigid really were friends." She knew her grandmother, while outwardly gregarious, had still held family secrets close.
"She was at a point in her life when people tend to look back. I guess she found me a good listener."
Once again Tara felt a pang of guilt that she hadn't been there to listen to her grandmother's stories. Never mind that she'd heard them all a thousand times.
"What did she tell you about Moira?"
"That she was the most popular actress of her day, as beloved in her country as Lily Langtree was in Great Britain. That, although she never married, she enjoyed the company of men as both friends and lovers. And that her free-spirited behavior was the theme of more than a few Sunday sermons."
"I've always admired Moira's courage," Tara said. "She was thirty when she got pregnant with my grandmother, which was, back then, an age when females were considered spinsters."
"It must not have been easy for her. A single woman alone in a time and country dominated by men."
"I think, from stories Brigid told me about her, that she actually enjoyed playing the role of rebel." Tara absently toyed with the lace cuff and wished, as she so often did, that she possessed just a tad of Moira's flair for living life to the fullest.
"There was, of course, an uproar from pulpits from Galway to Dublin. Children born out of wedlock were not unheard-of, even in nineteenth-century Ireland. But other women—proper women—didn't flaunt their behavior. And, of course, it didn't help that Moira refused to display regret for her sin."
"Gotta admire a woman of conviction."
Before Tara could answer, Heather returned with the wine. Gavin pronounced it fine; Heather filled their glasses and, after taking their orders, disappeared again.
"Brigid told me she came to this country when she was an infant," he said, picking up the conversation where they'd left off.
"That's right." Tara took a sip of the ruby wine and felt herself beginning to relax again. "After Moira, in her own inimitably rebellious style, refused to name her child's father."
"I'm surprised he didn't come forward to support her." He would have, Gavin thought. Whatever the cost. Of course, it was just such behavior that had landed him in hot water.
"He may have wanted to, but I can easily envision Moira refusing the offer," Tara allowed. "According to Grandy, her mother was unrelentingly independent. After all, if threats of excommunication couldn't get her to the altar, I'm not sure what difference a proposal would have made. If there was one. But I don't think there was, because my grandmother never mentioned it."
"Yet surely shotgun marriages weren't that uncommon?"
"Probably not. But we Delaney women seem to have a knack for falling for guys who aren't real big on commitment." Tara sighed as her mind flitted back to Richard. "Perhaps Moira decided being a happy single mother was preferable to being miserable spending her days with a former lover who felt trapped into matrimony."
"Not all men consider marriage a trap," Gavin felt obliged to point out as he thought of Trace and Mariah. He also conveniently neglected to add that only days ago he'd referred to it as a less-than-desirable institution.
"True." Tara smiled as she thought about her own parents. "My mother and father have a wonderful marriage. But I think they're the exception, rather than the rule."
"Anyway," she said, getting back to the subject of her colorful great-grandmother, "according to family lore, when rumors started about who the child's father might be, and the names of innocent men who were merely friends began being bandied around, Moira decided the time had come to seek her fortune in America."
"On the Great White Way."
"She had an incredibly successful career on Broadway. In fact, she was still headlining in her seventies. Brigid followed in her theatrical footsteps, becoming a singer. But she never enjoyed the spotlight."
"Which was why, when a handsome cowboy performing in a rodeo at Madison Square Garden invited her to travel to Arizona with him, Brigid headed west," Gavin said, proving once again that Brigid had felt close enough to him to share her personal history.
"That's right. Unfortunately, although she hadn't inherited her mother's love of performing, she ended up choosing the same type of man. After the rodeo here in Whiskey River, the cowboy moved on to Canada to ride bucking broncs at the Calgary Stampede."
"She could have gone with him," Gavin ventured.
"I suppose. Or, more likely, he never asked." Tara shrugged. "She always claimed she was destined to live here. Apparently, she felt instantly at home the first moment she stepped off the Santa Fe passenger train at the depot. So she stayed in Whiskey River and raised my mother, supporting them both with the proceeds of her writing and her herb business."
"Brigid told me that your mother broke with tradition by marrying. But your name is still Delaney."
"My mother kept her family name and passed it down to me." Tara smiled. "Some traditions are too strong to mess with."
He smiled back and she couldn't help noticing that it held considerable charm.
He took another drink of wine, eyeing her over the rim of the glass. "Do you have any idea," he asked, his voice dropping to its lowest registers, "how much I want to drag you beneath the table and risk getting us both kicked out of here?"
She opened her mouth to insist that it wouldn't be all that easy, then decided there was no point in trying to lie. Because, heaven help her, although the conversation about the Delaney women had proven a welcome distraction, she couldn't help wondering when he was going to kiss her again.
"It's Brigid," she insisted. "She's been pulling the strings from the beginning."
"I agree she might have been doing a little matchmaking by setting us up to meet in the first place. And insisting you stay in the house a month is a little suspicious. But believe me, sweetheart, your grandmother has nothing to do with the way I feel about you."
"That's what you think," she muttered. Strangely, talking about their shared desire succeeded in shattering the sensual mood, for now. More than a little relieved, Tara sat back and turned the conversation to Gavin's books.
Two hours later, after steaks so tender they practically melted in the mouth, baked potatoes piled high with sour cream and garnished with chives and peas that tasted as if they'd been grown in a local garden, they were lingering over coffee and the best white cheesecake she'd ever tasted.
As Gavin sipped his coffee and looked at her across the table, he wondered if she had any idea how striking she was. She might not be larger than life, like her famed great-grandmother Moira, or outgoing and free-spirited like Brigid, but she definitely had inherited the Delaney women's ability to charm.
He'd been drawn, against his will, to Pamela. He'd also been, for a brief, soul-wrenching time, obsessed with that singularly amoral woman. But he'd always felt edgy around her. And although he wanted Tara no less than he had that first moment he'd seen her—and she still continued to represent one helluva risk—he found himself beginning to relax around her. To enjoy just being with her, watching her, listening to her.
Although he'd heard the story of her runaway fiancé, he still couldn't believe that all the available men—and probably a lot of the unavailable ones—in San Francisco weren't constantly coming to blows, trying to win this woman.
Obviously, he decided, spending your days in the business jungle weakened a guy's natural instinct for claiming a mate. Fortunately, Gavin's instincts were working just fine.
He was thinking about taking her home and sharing some hot, sweaty sex when a couple stopped beside their table.
"Noel." He stood and embraced the woman clad in corduroy jeans and a flowing tunic woven in a traditional Navajo pattern. No small feat, since the advanced state of her pregnancy created a formidable physical barrier. "I swear, you get more gorgeous every day."
Watching Gavin bestow such easy affection on another woman caused something that felt uncomfortably like jealousy to stir deep inside Tara.
"You are such a silver-tongued devil, Gavin Thomas." The woman's delighted laughter reminded Tara of silver bells.
"It's the truth," Gavin said. The smile was still on his face as he turned to Tara. "Tara, may I introduce the sexiest pregnant woman in Whiskey River. Noel Giraudeau. Noel, this is—"
"Tara Delaney." Noel held out her hand. "I've only lived in Whiskey River a few months, but your grandmother and I had grown very close."
As she shook hands, Tara felt the unmistakable force flowing outward from Noel's fingertips and knew that there was a great deal more to this woman than met the eye. She exchanged a quick, startled look with Noel, whose own calm gaze silently assured her that she was not mistaken.
"Brigid had a lot of friends." Tara repeated what she'd been saying for days.
"Yes. She was a remarkable woman. And she loved you very, very much." Noel toyed absently with a dangling silver-and-turquoise earring as she slid a speculative gaze Gavin's way. Apparently receiving an answer to her unspoken question, she then turned toward the tall chestnut-haired man standing beside her.
"This is Mackenzie Reardon." The glow in her eyes and in her cheeks as she looked up at him had Tara regretting her earlier tinge of jealousy. Obviously, Noel Giraudeau had no designs on Gavin.
"Reardon?" He was a very attractive man, Tara decided, with his intelligent green eyes, square chin and broad shoulders. But his smile didn't affect her the way Gavin's did. And the touch of his hand as his fingers briefly enclosed hers, failed to heat her blood. "Are you any relation to Thatcher Reardon?"
"He's my father."
Tara thought she detected a faint resemblance, but it was more in the easy self-confidence both men shared than outward appearances. "Are you an attorney, too?"
"No, I'm in the newspaper business. I own the Rim Rock Record."
"Mac used to be city editor of the Chicago Sun-Times," Noel revealed with obvious feminine pride. "But he decided to give up the rat race and return home to his roots."
He laughed and slipped his arm around what remained of Noel's waist. "And you've no idea how glad I am that I did."
They exchanged laughing looks filled with such love that Tara felt as if she were intruding on a private moment.
"Giraudeau," she murmured as the name sunk in. "Aren't you—"
"The pregnant princess," Noel filled in the tabloid headline cheerfully. "That's me. In the flesh." She laughed as she ran her palms over her bulging stomach. Tara couldn't help noticing that she was not wearing a wedding ring. "And so much flesh, too."
"And every inch of it beautiful," Mac assured her.
Although Tara was not a follower of celeb
rity gossip, a person would have had to have spent the past few months on another galaxy not to have heard the story of Princess Noel Giraudeau of Montacroix's broken engagement to her childhood sweetheart.
Noel had always been described as the ice princess, in comparison to her sultry older sister, Chantal, and her uncharacteristic behavior had garnered more than a little attention from the paparazzi. When she'd turned up in America, pregnant and unmarried, the news sent shock waves rippling throughout the world.
"Your coffee's getting cold," Noel said. She placed a hand on Tara's arm. "I'd love to have a chance to chat. Why don't you come to tea Friday afternoon? About three?"
"I'd love to have tea with you, Princess."
"Oh, please." Noel rolled her expressive blue eyes. "Royalty is definitely out of place in Whiskey River. Please call me Noel." She took a small embossed card from her purse. "Here's the address of my gallery. You can't miss it. It's on Main Street, between the newspaper office and the mercantile."
"The Road to Ruin." Tara had seen it when she'd come out of the mercantile.
"It's a long story," Noel said with another of her light silvery laughs when Tara mentioned having been intrigued by the gallery's name. "I'll tell you all about it Friday."
She went up on her toes and brushed a light kiss against Gavin's cheek. "Good luck," she whispered for his ears only. Then she left the dining room, hand in hand with Mackenzie Reardon.
"Well, I certainly never would have expected to meet a European princess in Whiskey River," Tara said.
"As Noel said, royalty doesn't carry much weight here."
"She seems nice."
"She's the best." Gavin smiled, recalling her encouraging words.
Tara wondered if he knew the princess was blessed with the gift of second sight. "Are she and Mackenzie Reardon going to get married?"
"If he has anything to say about it. Noel keeps insisting she wants to wait until after the baby's born. It'd be my guess that she's worried he might not understand all he's taking on, but all you have to do is look at the guy to tell he's head over heels in love with her."
