But Jeremiah hadn’t needed anyone to save him. He’d only distanced himself from the family, preferring the nightlife. Preferring to succeed where his father still hadn’t—in having no strings attached to his pleasures, in finding happiness that way.
Value. For a few hours, he could matter to someone, and that very idea was what kept him going.
Ally had apparently been waiting for a more dramatic response from him, but when he didn’t provide it, she said, “You don’t care about what people are saying?”
“Why should I?”
“I would care.” She paused. “Some say that you take after your dad in the lothario department.”
Jeremiah withstood the blow. “There’s a big difference between me and my father.”
“And what’s that?”
He laughed, low and tight. “I’ve never had anything to do with married women…especially a sister-in-law. I’d never do that to Tyler.” He hesitated. “Or to Chet.”
She tilted her head, and Jeremiah found himself talking when he shouldn’t have been.
“I guess I’m still getting used to the fact that Chet and I are brothers, not cousins.”
“I hear he’s having a hard time, too.”
Jeremiah shrugged, but he knew that in reality Chet was spinning out of control in his own way, losing himself in work, just as surely as Jeremiah did sometimes when that free-falling sensation grabbed onto him—a feeling that he was separate from everything, everyone.
Irrelevant, even.
But when Ally kept looking at him—not away from him—he actually found something to latch onto.
Long eyelashes, deep blue-green eyes that he could float in…
“I believe you,” she said. “You wouldn’t hurt anyone like that. You’re not that kind of man.”
Then she faced forward again.
Jeremiah wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. Had she just said something nice about him?
Well, I’ll be.
“I’m not sure my dad got together with my aunt Laura because he intended to hurt others,” he said. “They were idiots, that’s all. They weren’t thinking in the least, just…feeling.”
His last words seemed to hover, like a faint chill under the shade of the trees.
“We all feel,” she said.
It was as if he’d been encased in a box, the lid slamming shut, keeping the most vulnerable areas of himself packed away.
He’d “felt” once, with a woman who reminded him of Ally in a way—sweet, steady and much too good for the likes of him.
He brought the Jeep to a stop, put it in neutral with the parking brake on, and she stiffened in her seat, as if expecting trouble from him.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not about to make a pass.”
“I didn’t expect one.”
Right. She still had those goosebumps on her arms.
“You seem a little skittish around me, Ally. Or are you just that way in general?”
“I’m not skittish about anything.” Her spine seemed to gain even more steel.
What would it take to melt her? Everyone had a finessing point, a button to push, an abracadabra moment that opened her up. As an heiress who’d lost so much lately, could Ally be swayed by what she couldn’t afford anymore?
Diamonds? Trips to Europe?
Jeremiah wasn’t sure, because she was tougher to read than most.
But, while he was here in the country, he might as well find her abracadabra.
“What if,” he said, “after this weekend is over, we had dinner together?”
“Why?”
Not the answer he’d been hoping for. “Why not?”
“You don’t do casual dinners.”
He laughed. “You think I go into everything with an agenda, is that it?”
“They don’t call you a shark for nothing.”
Zing. She got him.
“I was just thinking of taking you somewhere nice, like Chez Gisele in Dallas,” he said. “We could discuss that Galveston property. Or,” he said, grinning, “we could have a hell of a business discussion here.”
Ally still looked straight ahead. “I see where you’re going with this, and it’s not just about any business deal.”
Jeremiah leaned back in his seat, surrendering. For now.
She seemed to notice, relaxing slightly until she saw the expression he was wearing, no doubt one of consideration.
“What now?” she asked.
“Just wondering. What did Marco Terelli have that other men don’t? How did he get into your good graces?”
At the mention of her ex-boyfriend, Ally seemed to withdraw into herself.
“It wasn’t what he had,” she said. “It’s what I thought he wanted. But we found out that we were on different timetables.”
What she thought he wanted?
Jeremiah recalled last evening, when he’d witnessed Ally staring out the window of the lounge, seeming so wistful as she watched the children outside.
All his inner playboy alarms rang simultaneously.
But as a slight breeze floated her scent to Jeremiah, the heat combed through him again, taking him over. He wanted to reach out, grasp a stray lock of her hair between his fingers, test the silk of it, imagine how it would feel against his bare chest as she nuzzled him.
She unbuckled her safety belt, obviously intending to ditch him.
“I think it’s time for me to start walking again,” she said.
This time, she was deadly serious about being let out of the car.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
He tried not to let the heaviness in his chest get him down as he automatically exited the Jeep and went around to the other side to offer a hand as she stepped down.
But just as soon as he assumed the role of a gentleman, she slipped to the driver’s seat.
“Maybe you need some cooling off,” she said, indicating the creek. “The water should be bracing this time of the morning.”
And, with that, she started up the vehicle and drove away.
As she disappeared at a curve on the road, behind some trees, Jeremiah pushed back his cowboy hat.
Okay then. She hadn’t dismissed him outright. As a matter of fact, she’d given him tit for tat. Maybe she’d even been…
Flirting?
Doubtful. She’d taken some pains to point out the differences between them and they stuck to Jeremiah like a stain now that he had nothing here but the quiet chirp of birds and the gurgle of the creek.
He started to walk out of the woods, feeling as if he was back in the shadows, unable to leave the darkness behind.
After Ally returned the Jeep to the garages, explaining that Jeremiah Barron had decided to take a walk by the creek and had handed his ride off to her, she started her day in earnest.
Thank goodness she had a lot of hostessing to do. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish anything but think about their encounter. Even hours later, after she’d greeted the arriving guests who would be staying in the rooms and then made sure they were settled, her skin was still alive with the memory of Jeremiah sitting in the seat next to her.
As she thought of what he might’ve had in mind when he’d scooped her into the Jeep and taken her off to the private woods, her blood fizzed.
What if she’d just relaxed and allowed herself to scoot closer to him?
Now as she came down the grand staircase, her belly flip-flopped and she hoped no one would notice her high color once she got outside, where the Texas-style barbecue was already in progress.
Forget Jeremiah Barron, she told herself. He had no place in what she wanted out of life.
Just inside the door, she smoothed down the red-and-white gingham blouse she was wearing with her blue jeans and boots. She’d woven her hair into a low braid, and she wasn’t exactly the elegant socialite right now. Maybe she’d even played down her looks so that Jeremiah would take a second glance at her and completely lose interest. Besides, this wa
s how she’d look from now on—a woman who’d been taken down a peg or two, but one who was going to be a lot happier, even without all the money.
When she opened the door, the expansive lawn greeted her with its rush of kids running around, its tent pavilions decorating the green. She didn’t see Jeremiah at first and, relieved, she went toward the barbecuing area, where the aromas of hickory and beef wafted in the air.
Aunt Jess had put herself in charge of the caterers, so Ally left her to it, then checked inside the main tent, where an adults-only cocktail gathering was going strong. Donors—both those who had paid an exorbitant amount to stay in rooms on the Howards’ property and those who had just come in for tonight’s event—greeted her in their cowboy getups.
When Rich and Stef Howard, the owners of the property, saw Ally from across the tent, they waved, and she went to them.
Stef, a dark-haired, doe-eyed beauty, showed off her belt buckle, with its solid silver coils curving in sinuous patterns. The Howards could very well afford items like this with the money they made from oil.
“See what I’m auctioning off later tonight?” she asked.
Her husband, a tall, tanned man in his new jeans and short-sleeved checkered shirt, hugged his wife to him. “Stef had it custom-made after she designed it.”
“It’s amazing,” Ally said.
“And it should fetch a pretty price,” Rich said. “Hopefully the rest of the auction, plus the plate charge and the room rentals, will do the rest.” The Help for Children Foundation, which reached out to homeless kids, was their pet cause. “We don’t know how to thank you for all your hard work, Ally.”
If only they realized how hard she’d worked to make up for what she could’ve once given in cash to the charity.
Stef said, “Your parents would be so proud of you.”
Ally smiled, squeezed Stef’s arm, then made her way to the auction tent, where the auctioneer was warming up. Afterward, it was off to the barbecue area with all its rented picnic tables, and then to the open field where the kids’ games had been set up.
Children—from the sons and daughters of donors to the ones that the foundation aided—were everywhere. They laughed while riding the ponies, jumped up and down at the game booths, which featured carnival-type balloon games and ring tosses that gave out stuffed animals as prizes. They ran in foot races and gunnysack races.
Emotion closed Ally’s throat as she watched it all.
Their gaiety made even a residence that wasn’t hers into a home, and as Ally saw a little girl with blond curls running by, her heart just about broke with wanting.
No matter what Aunt Jess said, Ally knew she was going to have a happy family of her own. Even if she had to raise a child all by herself—if she was lucky enough to be chosen by a birth mother—then she would’ve found something to complete her existence. She wasn’t naive enough to believe that raising a child would be all lollipops and laughs, but she was ready for even the hard times. It would be worth every tribulation and smile.
She watched the little blonde girl arrive at a fortress of hay bales, where kids were lassoing straw horses and—
Ally’s pulse burst when she saw the last person she expected to be enjoying himself around kids circling a lasso over his head and then effortlessly snagging a straw horse before hauling it in.
Jeremiah.
Shouldn’t he be in the cocktail tent?
But, no, there he was, bending down to the newly arrived blond-curled moppet, tipping back his hat and showing her how to hold a rope. Then, when he picked the girl up and helped her to lasso a straw horse, he cheered with the child, whose face glowed as if she had succeeded in the task all by herself.
Ally warmed and, when Jeremiah turned around and saw her, the warmth turned into a conflagration, piercing her, making her ache.
Their gazes locked, as if something had clicked and, for once, he didn’t have a rake’s lowered tilt to his expression. He seemed…happy.
Just plain happy.
But then, just as Ally was starting to look at Jeremiah Barron in a different light, something snapped.
A moment of realization in him?
But why? What was so bad about Ally seeing him like this?
He put the little girl back down, leaving her with the rope, as he turned around and walked toward the cocktail tent.
Jeremiah’s mind was stretching apart, as if it didn’t know which way to go.
Why should it bother him that Ally had seen him goofing around with the kids? Didn’t Tyler often tell him that he was nothing more than an overgrown child himself?
Maybe it was in the way that Ally had been watching him, with such expectation. She probably thought that she’d caught him in an unguarded situation, that he’d revealed something about himself that no one really ever recognized about him.
But she was wrong. All Jeremiah had done was make a detour over to that lasso station, thinking it might be fun to show the critters a thing or two about roping. It didn’t mean he was good at babysitting or relating to anyone beyond his social set.
It didn’t mean he was going to suddenly get married and have a bunch of rug rats and live happily ever after, either, as his father had so triumphantly proved could never happen with men like them.
Jeremiah entered the cocktail tent, hoping that Ally wouldn’t follow. Then he ordered a stiff whiskey.
It didn’t take long for him to get back into his comfort zone, thank God, especially when a long-legged oil-field heiress in jeans, with big hair under her Shady Brady, cornered him near the bar.
“Fancy seeing you here,” said Bonnie Taylor.
She ran a gaze over his boots, jeans and long-sleeved Western shirt as if she’d never seen him garbed like this before. But she probably hadn’t. Jeremiah usually attended designer-suit functions. However, he knew Bonnie well, in more than one way. Even so, tonight her curves and brandy-rich voice didn’t do it for him.
Jeremiah downed his whiskey and gestured to the bartender for another.
“Ooo,” she said. “It’s been one of those days, has it?”
“That and more.”
“What’s bothering my boy?”
Her possessive pillow talk didn’t sit well with him, and he realized that, for the first time in his life, he wasn’t in the mood for a sure thing.
Bonnie got the drift. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the type to take rejection lying down.
“You already have someone scribbled on your dance card tonight?” Then she laughed. “Of course you do. Why did I even ask? Like father, like son.”
Jeremiah clutched his glass. For a second, he almost gave into her taunting, itching to pull her to him and show her…show everyone…that even if he was like his dad in some ways, he was better at the games they played.
Then Bonnie cleared her throat, and he glanced up to see her eyeing the tent’s entrance.
Ally had come in and, damn him, he must’ve had a blazing poker tell on his face, because Bonnie said, “Mystery solved. I saw you approach Miss Pristine at the Red Cross event about a month ago. You’re making a play now, aren’t you?”
“Good try, but I’m here to pursue some business with the Howards, among others.”
“Yeah, well, have fun.”
Bonnie meandered away and, before Jeremiah could prepare himself, Ally had bellied up to the bar, too.
Didn’t she know enough to just steer clear, especially after this morning?
“I’ll have what he’s having,” she said to the bartender.
“You know this is the hard stuff,” Jeremiah said. It was beyond him to ignore her.
“Do you think I’m a puritan?” she asked as the server gave her the beverage. “I drink socially.”
“I guess you do.”
He prayed she wouldn’t say anything about the kids, but he might as well have hoped for world peace instead.
“You’re quite the cowboy,” she said. “You had those children eating out of your hand.”
; “They’re impressionable.”
“Has anyone ever told you that you get along pretty well with children?”
The note in her voice matched the yearning he’d seen in her yesterday, and it lured him.
Or, maybe it just intrigued him, just as everything else about her did for the time being.
Ally was smiling at him, and damn it all if he didn’t go a little weak in the knees.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” she said, “but you might end up making someone a good husband and father someday.”
Why did it sound as if she was testing him?
He built his shields back up right quick, especially because the words sounded so familiar: Harvard, back when he’d been young. A twenty-year-old girl named Nancy, with curly black hair, dark eyes, smooth olive skin and a smile almost like Ally’s.
You’re good deep down, Nancy had once told him. You don’t want people to know it, but I do.
A few months later, she wasn’t saying stuff like that anymore. And Jeremiah had had no choice but to accept that he was what he was—there’d be no changing it, and anyone who tried to do it to him was going to be sorely disappointed.
He could’ve played along with Ally’s assumptions—pretending he was the good man she thought he could be, just to get her to come closer to him again, then even closer until he had her.
But the thought made Jeremiah’s stomach turn. It was one thing to enjoy his women, but fully another to set out to break Ally Gale just so she would give in to him.
He tipped his glass to her, adopting that grin of his, feeling much more comfortable now, even as her own smile faded.
“Don’t make the mistake of believing you saw something you didn’t, Ally.” And he downed the whiskey.
Ally faced away from him so that he couldn’t witness her own expression, even though he knew exactly what he’d see.
He always knew, and that’s why he ordered another drink, just like the playboy he was.
Chapter Three
The only thing that kept Ally’s spirits high throughout the rest of the barbecue was the amount of money the auction and event raised for the kids.
But her mind lingered on Jeremiah.
Taming the Texas Playboy Page 3
