When Lucie checked her watch, she saw the day was moving ahead without her, and she really had to get on with looking at properties. After goodbyes to Viv and Ella, she called the real estate agent who was advising her. They agreed to meet at the first location on Lucie’s list and then tour the others together afterward.
By late afternoon, while Lucie sat in the car on her way back to her apartment, she was quite discouraged. None of the spaces had seemed quite right. She was becoming more and more sure that she might also have to help find satellite locations for the actual kids’ programs themselves—summer lunches, music, art, sports. Building a community center might be a possibility, unless the foundation could find already established and deserving programs to fund.
Barry pulled up in front of her apartment building. She was tired and all she wanted to do was soak in her tub. After she climbed from the car, Irv came to meet her at the curb. That was unusual, since the doors had an electric sensor.
He said quickly, “Just in case you wanted to get back in your car and go in the other direction, I wanted to warn you, the man who was here this morning is waiting at my desk.”
Lucie stood at the curb and peered through the glass doors into the lobby. Her heart began to beat in triple time. The man at Irv’s desk was Chase Parker. She couldn’t tell exactly how much he’d changed from when he was twenty-one. After all, he’d be thirty-one now. But she could tell he was still as tall and straight-shouldered. The Western-cut jacket he wore fit him impeccably, his black jeans and boots just as much so.
He turned toward her now, and that tilt of his Stetson told her some of the young man still remained.
“It’s fine, Irv. Apparently he has some business with me, and I have to see what that is.”
She squared her shoulders, forgot her fatigue and started forward to meet her past head-on.
Lucie walked through the glass doors and approached Chase, thinking his dark hair was still the color of the finest imported chocolate. His dark brown eyes seemed to take in everything about her all at once. Even in that wonderfully cut jacket, she could tell he was more muscular than he’d been at twenty-one but not too bulked up. He was long and lean and still looked like everything good about Texas.
Before Lucie took another step toward the unknown, she turned to Irv who’d come in behind her. “Not a word of this meeting to anyone, not anyone.” After all, Irv knew Chase’s name from the business card. If the press associated their names, if reporters started digging, a new scandal could erupt.
“Not a word, Lady Lucie. You know you can count on me.”
“Thank you, Irv. You don’t know how much I appreciate that. Was that reporter around here at all today?”
“I didn’t see him...or the news van.”
She nodded and stepped up to Chase. She felt as if all her composure had slipped away, though she knew that was crazy. After all, she’d practiced that her entire life.
With that stiff upper lip Brits were accused of having, she said simply, “Chase?”
“You’ve grown up.” His gaze traveled over her suit, seemed to linger on her tiny waist, then idled on her long, straight brown hair. She wondered if he could see all the questions in her hazel eyes. She wondered if he had any idea of what seeing him again did to her—increased her heart rate and brought back vivid pictures of the two of them together, but, most of all, squeezed her heart until it hurt.
He nodded to the corner beside the elevators that was away from the doors, Irv’s counter and everyone else for the time being. She walked with him and stood beside a potted palm.
Before she could ask a question, he inquired, “Do you know how hard it is to track you down, even though you and your family and your stories are spread across the tabloids?”
Lucie was flummoxed. So he’d kept up with articles in the tabloids as if they were true.
He went on. “I thought you were in London. Then I found out you were in Horseback Hollow. After consulting a PI, I learned you were here in Austin, where my father’s company is located. If you only knew how much time I wasted—”
After all these years, he was acting as if seeing her was an emergency. “My life is full of people and activities, as I imagine yours is.”
“I don’t globe-trot. I was beginning to have visions of my traveling to some developing country to see you.”
“Would that have been so bad?” she asked, sensing his agitation but still not understanding any of it.
He took off his Stetson, ran his hand through his thick hair and shook his head. “None of that came out right. I read the stories about your work with orphans and refugees. I know you and your mother are selfless in your cause. But I had to find you.”
“Why such urgency?”
“Because...” he started. He leaned close and lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’re still married.”
Copyright © 2016 by Harlequin Books S.A.
ISBN-13: 9781488002304
Back in the Saddle
Copyright © 2016 by Karen Templeton-Berger
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