“If you’re going for the red—” he reached around her and picked up a matching pair of crimson lace gloves “—you might want to add these with it.”
“I’m not going for the red. It’s not for me, and I see you’re still butting into other people’s business.”
“Just yours.”
“I don’t need your advice.”
“Really?” He leaned close, so close that she could feel the whisper of his warm breath at her temple. “Then what do you need?”
You. Me. Naked.
The answers rushed through her head and sent a wash of heat through her. “I think it’s time for me to go home. I’ve got a stack of briefs to go over.”
“Brief.” He leaned back just enough to give her some breathing room. Thankfully. “Now there’s the right notion.” He reached past her to finger a purple pair of thong panties. His arm brushed hers and electricity shot through her body, the same way it always had whenever he’d touched her.
“Eden,” she called out to the woman standing at the far end of the bar. “I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow if I get out of court in time.”
“Sure thing, sweetie.” Eden waved her off and resumed filling the punch bowl.
Dallas arched an eyebrow as she gathered up her purse. “Still playing the Big Time Lawyer?”
Unfortunately. She forced the notion aside. Sure, the hours were long, the cases consuming. But being a partner in one of the most prestigious firms in Austin had its perks. She had her own parking spot, a private secretary, and most of all, the satisfaction of knowing she was continuing the grand Merriweather tradition. Like his father and grandfather before him, her father had been one of the best criminal trial lawyers in the South. He’d had a thriving practice in Austin, commuting to and fro until a few years back. A heart attack had forced him to slow down and he’d settled into life as a judge in his hometown of Cadillac.
It was slow, but not slow enough. Marshall Merriweather had a mild heart attack just a few weeks ago, which was why Laney had taken two weeks of vacation time and come home. To see for herself that her father took his doctor’s advice and started to relax. That, or retire. As stubborn as her father was, Laney knew she couldn’t force him. But she could hire the best legal secretary available to help with his caseload. She’d already contacted an employment agency in nearby Sharp County and had a full day’s worth of interviews set up for tomorrow.
She slid from the bar stool. Dallas’s fingers closed over her arm just as she was about to make a quick getaway. “Don’t forget your lingerie.”
She ignored the tingling where his skin met hers and concentrated on gathering up her purchase. “For the last time, it’s not mine.”
“Whatever you say.”
“It’s not.” She wasn’t sure why she felt so compelled to persuade him. Reputation, she told herself. She didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. Even Dallas.
Especially Dallas.
“Red is definitely your color.”
“I told you—”
“But I like purple myself. You ought to try these.” He fingered the purple thong panties he’d singled out earlier. “Those old biddies down at the country club would ostracize you for sure if they got a glimpse of these. You’d definitely ruin that Miss Priss image you try so hard to maintain.”
Laney narrowed her gaze. “Are you naturally this obnoxious, or do you have to practice at it?”
He shrugged. “What can I say? You bring out the best in me, darlin’.”
She wanted to say something, but nothing snappy came to mind. Not with him standing so close and zapping her common sense. She shook her head and turned on her heel.
“Sweet dreams, Melanie Margaret…” His voice followed her, a deep, husky sound that stirred the heat in her belly almost as much as her annoyance.
Almost.
But Laney had promised herself a long time ago that she would never, ever be a slave to her lust for Dallas Jericho.
Never again, that is.
She’d fallen victim once before, a moment of weakness that had nearly cost her everything. Her pride. Her self-respect. Her reputation.
It would never, ever happen again.
DALLAS JERICHO HAD NEVER considered himself a devout man, but as he watched Laney walk away from him, her head high and her back stiff, he knew without a doubt that a higher power existed.
Only a divine being could have created something as downright delicious as a woman. This particular woman.
Gray linen tugged and pulled against her hips, molding to Laney’s bottom with each step, causing his groin to tighten. He’d always loved to watch her walk. They’d lived on opposites sides of town, but the route from the school, down the main strip through town had been the same. He could still see her headed home, her long, blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, her cheerleader skirt swishing with each step. He’d been so hot for her back then, which was why he’d done his best to convince her otherwise.
In the name of pride, of course.
He’d put himself on the line once, hoping against hope that a girl like Laney could actually like a guy like him. She’d turned him down for the eighth-grade homecoming dance, proving what everybody had been telling him since he’d been old enough to spell his last name. Namely that girls—nice, wholesome, good girls like Laney Merriweather—didn’t waste their time on the son of the town drunk.
Bick Jericho had not only made a reputation for himself with his boozing and carousing, but he’d forever marked his three sons. The Jericho boys had been labeled “bad” well before any of them had ever thought of taking a drink. It was no wonder that Dallas and his two older brothers had started to live up to everyone’s expectations. Dallas had been a hellion through middle and high school, and he’d been headed down the same road after graduation. Then Bick Jericho had wrapped his car around a telephone pole after a particularly heavy night of boozing.
Dallas had watched them lower his father into the ground and vowed to change his ways. But while he could work his way through school and get his degree, open his own construction business and put his own carousing ways behind him, he couldn’t change the blood that flowed through his veins. He was Bick Jericho’s son, and no matter that Dallas now lived a respectable life, for some people it just wasn’t enough. People like Judge Marshall Merriweather, his sexy-as-anything daughter, and their hoity-toity friends down at the elite Cadillac Country Club.
Even so, he wanted her. He had way back then and, if the sudden thunder of his heart was any indication, the effect had only intensified.
“Penny for your thoughts.” Eden Hallsey’s voice pushed inside his head and drew him around. She took one look at his face, and said, “On second thought, my fire extinguisher’s out back and I don’t have enough water on tap to put out what’s burning in those big green eyes of yours.” Her gaze went to the doorway where Laney had just disappeared. “She looks good, doesn’t she?”
He shrugged. “Older.”
“Exactly. Older and more mature. More filled out and shape—”
“Do you have my order ready?” he cut in, eager to get off the subject of how well Laney filled out those slacks and that blouse and…
He shook away the vision and tried to ignore the growing hard-on making his jeans a mite tighter than was comfortable. “We’re pulling a late shift over at the Dixon House and my crew is hungry.”
His guys at Triple J Construction weren’t the only ones with an appetite. Dallas himself wanted sustenance. A different sort than the six-foot submarine sandwiches Eden’s bar had become famous for.
He had a hankering for a curvy blonde with deep blue eyes that glittered in the moonlight when he stroked the underside of her soft, round breasts…
Eden gave him a knowing wink. “Be right out.”
He slid into the seat Laney had vacated and tried to ignore the scent of her perfume that lingered in the air. Of their own accord, his nostrils flared and he found himself drinking in the subtle aroma of warm
woman and musky perfume that lingered in the air.
Christ, she even smelled the same. Worse, she affected him as intensely as ever. Just one whiff of her and he wanted another. And another.
Crazy. It had been ten friggin’ years. Plenty of time for Dallas to have gotten over his damnable crush on her. A crush. That’s all it had been. At least that’s what he tried to convince himself whenever his memories got the best of him and he found himself thinking about her. Wanting her. Needing her.
Just as the thought hit him, his cell phone rang.
“Jericho, here.”
“I’ve got one word for you—aqua.”
“Mr. Dixon?”
“And not just a plain, ordinary aqua,” the man rushed on, confirming Dallas’s question. Claude Dixon was always more interested in what he himself had to say, rather than what came out of anyone else’s mouth. He was one of a new breed migrating from the city into the surrounding hill country. A wannabe cowboy, as the locals liked to call them. Suit types who’d watched one too many Bonanza reruns and were eager to escape the stress of their busy lives by playing Hoss on the weekends. The problem was, Claude and all the yuppies like him brought the city with them. Rather than settling on a traditional spread and actually getting their hands dirty, they built oversize, posh houses with tennis courts and swimming pools, and called them ranches.
Not that Dallas was complaining. Thanks to the recent influx, he’d watched his business grow from a one trailer construction operation to a major company with development projects throughout the surrounding six counties.
“Alyssa Jackson has a similar shade of mauve in her country kitchen and her bunkhouse,” Claude continued. “So it’s out of the question for us to stick with that color. Why, we entertain the same group of friends. Whatever would they say?” Without waiting for a response, he rushed on. “Katherine wants the pale, summerset-blue aqua featured in last month’s center layout in Texas Elite. So you have to change it. Now.”
Dallas ignored the twinge of anger that rushed through him, along with the urge to tell Dixon what he could do with his new tile, his new house, his indecisive wife and the latest copy of his highfalutin’ magazine. But whether Dallas liked it or not, he’d made a promise. Sure, the Dixons kept breaking their end of the agreement with constant changes. But that didn’t mean Dallas had to break his. He’d given his word as a businessman that he would bring the project in on time and he intended to do just that. Satisfaction was his motto, even if Katherine Dixon decided on polka-dot tile.
“That’s catalog number 9067892—”
“Wait a second,” Dallas cut in. “Let me get something to write with.” He fished in his pocket for a pen, then glanced around for a stray piece of paper, a cocktail napkin, something.
Seconds ticked by before his gaze finally lit on a wadded-up piece of paper sitting in a nearby ashtray. As he snatched up the trash and unfolded it, Laney’s scent grew stronger and his nostrils flared again.
A crush, he told himself yet again. A crazy, friggin’ crush that was best forgotten.
“Shoot,” Dallas said, forcing his thoughts away from Laney and her scent and the unsated lust for her still pulsing through his veins, and concentrated on scribbling the number Dixon recited to him.
“Are you sure this time?” He asked the same question he’d asked the last time, and the time before that when Dixon had changed his mind.
“Positive. Alyssa Jackson is much too busy with her charity groups to read Texas Elite, though I’m sure she subscribes.” A click sounded as Dixon hung up. Dallas took a deep breath, forced his fingers to loosen around the cell phone and dialed the number for his foreman at the Dixon site.
“Stop laying the tile,” he told Charlie Peterson.
“But we’re already done.”
“Then start pulling it up. The Dixons changed their mind.”
“Imagine that.” A colorful curse erupted on the other end of the line. “We’ve already put in three days laying this pink crap.”
“It’s mauve, and the customer is always right.”
“Usually, unless the customer is a nutty, uppity fruitcake like Claude Dixon. He thinks that just because he has money, he can change his mind faster than that Madonna woman changes her hair color. Why, if it were me, I’d take a piece of this tile and shove it right where the sun don’t shine.”
But it wasn’t Charlie. Nor was it his name nor his reputation at stake.
“Just pull up the tile,” he said before hitting the off button.
He folded the paper and shoved it, along with his cell phone, into his pocket just as Eden walked up.
“Happy eating,” she said as she handed him two large brown bags and took the money he offered her. “And don’t be such a stranger.”
“I don’t mean to be, but I’ve got my hands full.”
“I heard you’re doing the new Dixon place. Lucky for them. Not so lucky for you. Claude’s a butthead at times.”
“Try all the time.”
“But he’s a butthead with a full pocket, so it makes him a little bearable.”
The urge to argue hit him hard and fast, but he resisted. Eden was right and it was a smart man who recognized it. He’d fought the truth for a very long time. But he was older and wiser now. He wasn’t a naive kid who thought a two-dollar corsage would be good enough for the town’s golden girl, even if there had been a time when that girl hadn’t been so different from him. When she’d known the same poverty. The same hopelessness.
She’d found a way out and left her past behind her, while Dallas had had to make do with his. Still, he’d always felt connected to her. So much so that he’d put his pride on the line for her.
A bitter smile twisted his lips as he remembered the wilting violet he’d bought at the market just an hour before he’d worked up the nerve to ask Laney to the homecoming dance. She’d said no, of course, and so the violet never made it out of the plastic bag. Instead she’d worn a two-violet corsage with ribbon and tiny gold things given to her by the captain of the junior high football team.
And damned if she hadn’t looked so pretty his heart had actually flipped. A reaction that had sent a bolt of anger through him. And so, he’d dumped punch on her.
That one action had started the animosity that had continued throughout high school and kept them at each other’s throat, right up until the night before Laney had left for college.
Things had been different that night. She’d been different. And for a few sweet moments, he’d come close to living out his ultimate fantasy—Laney Merriweather. Naked and panting and moaning and his.
All his, if only for a night.
CHAPTER TWO
“THIS IS DEFINITELY the stuff fantasies are made of.” Laney fingered the red bra she’d purchased and tried to ignore the burst of longing that shot through her.
Okay, it was pretty. But she wasn’t the red bra type. Or the pink. Or the neon green. Or any of the other colors Karen had put on display.
Being a Merriweather was about pride and dignity and maintaining self-respect—and no self-respecting Merriweather would be caught dead wearing racy lingerie. While most mothers worried over the proverbial clean underwear, Laney’s mother had been more concerned with her daughter being scraped off the pavement wearing something tasteful and befitting the daughter of the town’s oldest family.
Laney fingered the lace once more, ignored the twinge of longing and folded the tissue paper back into place. This was not for her, no matter how much Dallas Jericho had insisted otherwise.
Dallas.
He’d been the most handsome boy at Cadillac High School—and the most irritating. She couldn’t remember a day gone by where he hadn’t been there taunting her, teasing her and driving her absolutely insane. He’d sat behind her in English class and pulled her hair. He’d sat in the front row at each and every football game and made catcalls while she’d cheered. He’d even shot a spit wad at her while she’d done her darndest to spell proliferous and
continue the grand Merriweather tradition of never failing at anything.
He’d made her high school years miserable, and she’d lusted after him anyway.
Then and now.
Not that she was going to act on the attraction. She was going to keep her distance and her perspective and her reputation. In real life, that is.
As for her fantasies…
Fantasy being the key word, she reminded herself. She could dream all she wanted. After all, Dallas made one hell of a Tarzan. And a tall, dark and delicious cowboy. And an even more scrumptious pirate.
But remembering…That was something she wasn’t about to do. No thinking about the one night when she’d thrown caution to the wind and discovered what it had felt like to be held and touched and kissed by Dallas Jericho.
She shook her head, freeing herself from the memories. No, remembering was definitely out.
“THAT’S RIGHT…” Dallas sat at his desk—and recited the catalog number for the new tile. “I need the shipment sent out first thing tomorrow. Same day service.”
“Sure thing, but it’ll cost you,” the man on the other end of the phone told him.
“Just get it here.”
After giving the necessary information for the order, Dallas hung up the phone, leaned back in his chair and wiped his tired eyes. It was late and he needed to turn in, but a big empty bed didn’t hold much appeal.
Not after he’d crossed paths with Laney Merriweather for the first time in ten years.
It might well have been ten minutes. His reaction to her was as fierce as ever. As crazy. She was still way out of his league.
The moment the thought struck, he forced it away. Maybe they weren’t an exact match, but it had nothing to do with Laney being better than he was. Things had changed. Dallas wasn’t the poor kid who lived in the run-down house with the gutter hanging from the porch eaves.
His gaze spanned the surrounding office and a sense of pride filled him. The room, like the rest of the sprawling ranch house that sat on several hundred acres just outside of town, boasted the best of everything, from the handwoven southwest rug covering the hardwood floor to the simple, but expensive brown leather sofa that sat against the far wall. It wasn’t anything fancy like the houses over on Main Street, particularly the sprawling Victorian where Laney had grown up. This place was one hundred percent country—very big and tasteful and well-furnished. And more importantly, it was his.
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