by Lori Wilde
“The boyfriend who is not man enough to break up with you face-to-face.”
“That’d be him.”
“Excuse my French,” he said, “but the man is a douchebag.”
Melody laughed. “So he is.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“Of what?”
“Your laughter. Let’s go eat at Douchebag’s favorite restaurant and say rude things about him.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not? I’m buying.”
She surrendered a halfhearted smile. “The dinner was supposed to be a celebration.”
“We can still celebrate without him. In fact, I think we’ll have a lot more fun without his sorry ass around.”
“There’s nothing to celebrate.”
“C’mon.” He chucked her under the chin with an index finger, and she felt his touch clean through the center of her body. “You can’t tell me that you were that hung up on him. Major tool like that? No way. You’re far too sensible.”
The muscles in the center of her chest tightened. “You’re right. The relationship was still new, so I’m not devastated. But he sure picked the worst day in the world to pull this stunt.”
Luke slanted his head, the brim of his Stetson casting a shadow over his face. “How’s that?”
“I thought I was getting a promotion. That was the reason for the celebration.”
His mouth turned down. “But you got fired instead.”
She met his eyes. There was no judgment, only sympathy. From a Nielson? She arched an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
“I went to your office building, saw you being escorted out the front door with that box in your hands and tears in your eyes.”
Melody groaned and put a hand over her face.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” His deep voice soothed. “Some of the best people in the world have been fired. Henry Ford. Albert Einstein. Bill Gates. Square pegs who didn’t fit into round holes. Cheer up. It simply means Tribalgate didn’t appreciate your talent.”
Another compliment.
Uneasily, she dropped her hand. “Wait a minute, how did you find me here?”
He shrugged, looked guilty. “Followed you into that church.”
“You were at St. Pat’s?”
“For hours.”
“Why didn’t you come up to me there?”
“You looked like you needed to be alone.”
“So how did you get from St. Pat’s to here?”
“I heard you give the address to the taxi driver.”
“You’re stalking me?” she asked mildly in a vain attempt to convince her quaking knees she was not overwhelmed by his intoxicating scent that reminded her of too many things she wanted to forget—furtive rides on his mustang, furtive glances in high school library stacks, the night all hell had broken loose.
He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I wouldn’t call it stalking per se. I needed to talk to you. Looks like it’s a good thing I did. You’re in over your head.”
She held up both palms, bristled. “The last thing I need is some Nielson thinking he’s going to save me.”
“Don’t do that,” he chided.
“What?”
“Bring up the family feud.”
She straightened. “You’re right. This isn’t the Trans-Pecos.”
He glanced around, and pretended to be startled by the passersby. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“The multitudinous taxis weren’t a dead giveaway?”
He chuckled. “I’ve never seen so much yellow in my life. It’s getting close to five-thirty. Do you want to keep those reservations? I still need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“Let’s save it for supper.” He put his arm around her shoulder and she did not shake him off.
“Okay,” she said. “Why not?”
It had been one hell of a screwed-up day. Her family might not agree, but there were worse things in life than having dinner with a Nielson.
Chapter 3
AT the swanky seafood restaurant, Melody tried to wave away the champagne on ice that was waiting for them at the table, but Luke wouldn’t let her.
“Leave it,” he told the sommelier, then doffed his cowboy hat and settled it on the seat of the empty chair beside them.
The sommelier sniffed and looked down his nose at the Stetson as if to say, How did you get in here dressed like that?
“It costs over a hundred dollars a bottle,” Melody whispered.
He lowered his head and his voice. “You don’t think I can afford it?”
“That’s not the point. Dom Perignon is major celebration champagne. This is no longer a celebration.”
“Sure it is,” he said easily. “When was the last time a Nielson and a Fant broke bread together?”
“Probably sometime before 1924.”
“My point exactly. Our being together is something special to celebrate.”
“But then if you count those fruit chews we shared on the picnic table at Lake Cupid, it was fifteen years ago.”
His heart slammed against his rib cage, hard and loud. “Are we counting that?” he asked, surprised at how calm he sounded.
She didn’t avert her gaze. Brave woman. “Are we?”
He gulped. “Those fruit chews caused a mess of trouble.”
“They did indeed.”
He was about to tell her how much he regretted all the dark things that had transpired after their midnight teenage rendezvous, but a tuxedoed waiter arrived, and with a bow, passed them leather-bound menus, and the moment vanished.
“Any appetizers?” the waiter asked. “Tonight we have fresh caviar. It is très magnifique.” He pressed two fingers to his thumb and kissed them.
“Yeah, go ahead and bring us some of that.” Luke nodded.
“Are you sure?” Melody asked. “Have you ever had caviar?”
What? Did she think he was the most backwoods of hicks? “Yes, I’ve had caviar. Love the briny flavor.”
“Okay, just making sure. Cupid is about as far away from the sea as you can get.”
“Believe it or not, I have been out of the state of Texas.”
“But not to New York.”
“That obvious, huh?”
She shrugged, dipped her head, and offered up a teasing smile.
The waiter departed.
Luke narrowed his eyes, studied her for a long moment—slender shoulders, delicate but strong, creamy skin unblemished by freckles. A silky blue blouse clung with just the right amount of snugness to round, pert breasts.
She crossed her arms and hugged herself, delineating firm, toned biceps. She worked out. A thin gold bracelet glimmered at her wrist, expensive but understated, just like the woman in front of him, elegant and flawless. Soft blond hair curled gently down her shoulders. Her makeup was muted, except for her lipstick. Her lips were painted a dark, lush color, as deeply red as the inside chamber of a summer rosebud, at once seductive and utterly feminine.
How much she’d changed over the years. Evolved into a sophisticated creature far out of his league. Why was he here?
The sommelier returned to open the champagne. He poured a bit of the liquid into Luke’s glass for him to taste and pronounce acceptable before filling both their champagne flutes.
Melody brought the flute to her lips. Those red lips stirred something primal inside him. Once upon a time, quivering in the grips of powerful, youthful lust, he’d claimed those lips, branded them with his own.
“Wait,” he said, and extended his glass. “A toast.”
“I’m not in a toasting mood.”
“Too bad. Change your mood.”
“You’re bossy.”
He ignored that, stared at her pointedly. “To new beginnings.”
For a moment, he thought she wasn’t going to join him in the toast. That long-standing Fant-Nielson animosity? But then she lowered thick, black lashes, and raised her glass to
clink against his.
“To new beginnings,” those gorgeous lips whispered as her chocolate brown eyes assessed him.
Damn, but he admired her ability to quickly shake off adversity and move on. Of course, that same quality had left him in the dust, but still, he loved a tenacious woman.
He took a sip of the smooth, bright bubbly.
It was unsettling, sitting here so close to her. Over the years, he’d seen her around Cupid, of course, whenever she came home to visit her parents. They nodded on the street, occasionally shared a brief smile, but never alone, never up close and personal like this.
“Wow,” he said, because he did not know what else to say. “This tastes the way diamonds sparkle.”
“Poetic. You should be in advertising.” Melody stroked a slender finger down the side of her glass, wiping off the condensation.
His gaze zeroed in on her long fingers. Did she have the slightest idea how much that simple gesture affected him?
“Rumor has it that when Dom Perignon took his first sip, he said, ‘Come quickly, I am drinking stars,’ ” she went on.
“No kidding?”
“It’s a myth. Actually, the quote was part of an ad campaign.”
“What a letdown.”
“But the champagne is not.” She took a long sip, that lush red mouth closing over the delicate glass.
His tongue tingled to taste her again. Memory knifed his brain. Back then she tasted of the fruit chews—cherry, lemon, lime, grape. A veritable fruit punch. She sat in his lap, her arms around his neck, their mouths fused, as their bodies rocked together, desperate, hungry, searching for nirvana. He recalled the sharp, aching pressure in his cock and how his fingers slipped under the hem of her shorts past the waistband of her panties, seeking and finding the mystery of her dark, wet heat.
Luke felt a distinct tightening below his belt. Ah, hell, no. Don’t go there.
She set down her glass and met his gaze, yanking him back to the present. “So, what brings you to New York?”
He inhaled sharply, battled flammable emotions. Swallowed. Sucked in another breath and forced himself to think about his cattle that need branding and inoculating and castrating. Anything to keep from focusing on how much he wanted the woman sitting across from him.
“You,” he said hoarsely.
“Me?” She straightened, and a teasing light came into her smart brown eyes. “So you were stalking me.”
“I was looking for you,” he corrected. “It’s not the same thing.”
“Well, you found me,” she said, and took another long drink of champagne. “Not exactly on the best day of my life. In fact …” She tilted her head. “You might say this is the worst day of my life.”
“I can think of one that was far worse,” he said evenly, but every muscle in his body turned to cement. “It was certainly the worst day of mine.”
Her eyes clouded. “Yes, you’re right, that was much worse.”
Neither one of them articulated what “that” was, but they both knew. The day the Fant-Nielson family feud encroached on their budding teenage romance and killed it before it had a chance to bloom.
Luke cast around for something to say to shift things, but couldn’t think of anything. Luckily, the waiter showed up with the caviar on a bed of ice, and crusty toast points to serve it on.
“Would you like to hear the specials of the day?” the waiter asked as he set the appetizer before them.
“Sure,” Luke said.
In a heavy French accent, the waiter rattled off the specials.
“How much is that fish dish you mentioned?” he asked.
The waiter gave him an impervious stare and named a price that was larger than the monthly electric bill of his ranch, the Rocking N, and he almost choked on the water he’d been sipping.
“Let me pay for dinner,” Melody offered. “I was going to treat Jean-Claude anyway.”
“Certainly not.” Luke scowled. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford the meal, merely sticker shock.
“We shouldn’t have come here.”
“What do you mean? It’s a great place.” He glanced at the waiter’s discreet gold name tag. “Right, Pierre?”
“One of the finest in the city,” Pierre acknowledged.
“See there.” Luke nodded. “I’ll have the barramundi and the lady will have …”
Melody pressed her lips together as if trying not to laugh.
What? Had he made some kind of social gaffe?
“I’ll have the langoustine, please,” she said.
“Excellent choice, mademoiselle.” Pierre accepted their menus and glided away.
In between sips of champagne, they noshed on the caviar. It felt sort of surreal, eating the height of culinary gastronomy with Melody Spencer, the simple, sweet country girl he’d once kissed on a lakeside picnic table before their world had imploded.
But she was no longer that girl.
She’d moved away from Cupid. She’d grown and changed into an urbane, accomplished woman and he … well … he hadn’t changed one bit. He was still a rough-around-the-edges cowboy. They were so very different now.
“So this Jean-Claude character, was he the love of your life?” Luke surprised himself by asking. He didn’t really want to hear that she was madly in love with the guy.
She didn’t say anything at first and he studied her face, searching for some sign as to how much she felt for the man who had stupidly dumped her. He hitched in a breath, tried to look like he didn’t really care.
“No,” she said at last, simply, flatly. “Jean-Claude was not the love of my life.”
Ah, well. Ah, hell. His entire body relaxed and it was only then he realized how taut he’d been waiting for her answer.
“If he wasn’t the love of your life, why were you living with him?” Shit, just shut up, Nielson.
“That’s none of your business.”
She was right. It was not.
Her posture softened, and even though she owed him no explanation for how she lived her life, she said, “I admired Jean-Claude’s artistry and we got along well. We’d only been living together a few weeks, but I could already tell it wasn’t going to work out long-term. I just didn’t expect—”
“To have the rug pulled out from under you so ruthlessly?”
Her gaze lingered on his mouth. “Something along those lines.”
“So you haven’t yet met the love of your life?”
“If I had, I’d be sitting here with him instead of you.”
Pierre brought their meal, interrupting everything, and by the time he departed, the mood between them had changed again.
That’s the way things had always been between them. Mercurial. Mysterious. Mystifying. Maddening.
Melody shifted her attention to her plate, took a bite of her entrée, and made a face of sublime joy, as if she’d just had a most magnificent orgasm.
Damn, he wished he could be the one to put that expression on her face.
“You’ve simply got to taste this.” She leaned across the table to give him a bite of langoustine straight from the tines of her fork. Her chocolate eyes gleamed, her lips glistening from the buttery seafood, and hey, he could see straight down her cleavage.
He should rein himself in, refuse the tasty tidbit, but instead, he leaned forward, his teeth touching her fork, where her teeth had just been. Something inside him unraveled, spooling into a hot mess of desire.
“That’s delicious,” he croaked, even though he was so bedazzled by her sexy beauty that he couldn’t taste a damn thing. Because he couldn’t say what he really wanted to say. You’re delicious and I want to eat you up.
“Told you.” She laughed, and in that moment, she looked exactly like the fifteen-year-old girl he’d kissed on that long-ago Fourth of July.
He winced.
She pursed her lips. “Is something wrong?”
“I was just remembering,” he murmured.
Her gaze
locked with his. “The night you kissed me and fanned the flames of the family feud. I know because I was thinking about it too. How can I not when—”
“Let’s not talk about that.”
But it was too late. The words had been spoken aloud and the topic lay on the table between them, dark and quivering. The past was a gulf. A chasm. Hell, it was a friggin’ abyss. There was no way to get across. No building a bridge. No crossing over. The crater was simply too wide and deep. Grand Canyon–style.
In that moment Luke knew he’d made a terrible mistake in coming here.
“Are you ever going to tell me why you came all the way to New York to see me?” she asked with an uncanny ability to read his mind.
He put down his fork, dabbed his mouth with the white linen napkin. “You heard that I was elected mayor after Joe Thornton retired?”
“My mother did mention something about ‘one of those damn Nielsons’ taking office,” she said. “I guess I didn’t pay much attention because I hadn’t realized it was you. Congratulations. What inspired you to run?”
“Hell,” he said. “We couldn’t get anyone to run until I decided to step up to the plate; after that we had Greenwoods and Fants coming out of the woodwork to try and make sure a Nielson didn’t take office.”
“Small-town politics.” She waved a hand and drained her champagne, but did not meet his gaze.
He almost told her to slow down, but clearly, she’d had a pisser of a day and it wasn’t his job to monitor her alcohol intake. He knew this wasn’t her normal modus operandi. She was too much of a workaholic to ever become an alcoholic.
“I know it’s far removed from your world, but Melody, Cupid needs help and I didn’t know where else to turn.”
“Help? From me? What’s wrong?”
“This drought …” Just thinking about the toll the weather was taking on his hometown brought a lump to his throat. “It’s not just a long dry spell. We’ve had plenty of those and survived, but this time, I’m seriously worried about the future.”
“Mother did say the water levels in Lake Cupid were dangerously low and water rationing had reached critical level.”
“Low?” He shook his head. “Let’s just say that the water has receded so much that the pickup truck Pierce Hollister foolishly drove into the lake during his junior year could be driven out of there on parched earth if it would still start.”
