by Arlene James
“I am not turning my life inside out for a temporary thing like…this.”
“Temporary?” Anger sparked off him. “That’s how you think of us?”
She turned her back on him, uncertain why tears were gathering in her eyes. “I’ve always said so, haven’t I?”
“Then let it be temporary.” Seizing her by the shoulders, he turned her to face him. “Just come with me for now. Better yet, commit the next few weeks to wherever this takes us.”
A few weeks of this sweet torture? Longing assailed her, but that she wanted it so much was reason enough to shake her head. “No.”
He cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her face, plumbing her eyes with his gaze. She closed them. “You’re afraid I’ll change your mind,” he pronounced softly. She denied it, as she must. “You are,” he refuted gently, “and you should be. Because I will.”
Dear Reader,
Well, if it’s true that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, you’re going to need some fabulous romantic reads to get you through the remaining cold winter nights. Might we suggest starting with a new miniseries by bestselling author Sherryl Woods? In Isn’t It Rich?, the first of three books in Ms. Wood’s new MILLION DOLLAR DESTINIES series, we meet Richard Carlton, one of three brothers given untold wealth from his aunt Destiny. But in pushing him toward beautiful—if klutzy—PR executive Melanie Hart, Aunt Destiny provides him with riches that even money can’t buy!
In Bluegrass Baby by Judy Duarte, the next installment in our MERLYN COUNTY MIDWIVES miniseries, a handsome but commitment-shy pediatrician shares a night of passion with a down-to-earth midwife. But what will he do when he learns there might be a baby on the way? Karen Rose Smith continues the LOGAN’S LEGACY miniseries with Take a Chance on Me, in which a sexy, single CEO finds the twin sister he never knew he had—and in the process is reunited with the only woman he ever loved. In Where You Least Expect It by Tori Carrington, a fugitive accused of a crime he didn’t commit decides to put down roots and dare to dream of the love, life and family he thought he’d never have. Arlene James wraps up her miniseries THE RICHEST GALS IN TEXAS with Tycoon Meets Texan! in which a handsome billionaire who can have any woman he wants sets his sights on a beautiful Texas heiress. She clearly doesn’t need his money, so whatever can she want with him? And when a police officer opens his door to a nine-months-pregnant stranger in the middle of a blizzard, he finds himself called on to provide both personal and professional services, in Detective Daddy by Jane Toombs.
So bundle up, and take heart—spring is coming! And so are six more sensational stories about love, life and family, coming next month from Silhouette Special Edition!
All the best,
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
Tycoon Meets Texan!
ARLENE JAMES
Books by Arlene James
Silhouette Special Edition
A Rumor of Love #664
Husband in the Making #776
With Baby in Mind #869
Child of Her Heart #964
The Knight, the Waitress and the Toddler #1131
Every Cowgirl’s Dream #1195
Marrying an Older Man #1235
Baby Boy Blessed #1285
Her Secret Affair #1421
His Private Nurse #1482
** Beautician Gets Million-Dollar Tip! #1589
** Fortune Finds Florist #1596
Tycoon Meets Texan! #1601
Silhouette Books
Fortune’s Children
Single with Children
The Fortunes of Texas
Corporate Daddy
Silhouette Romance
City Girl #141
No Easy Conquest #235
Two of a Kind #253
A Meeting of Hearts #327
An Obvious Virtue #384
Now or Never #404
Reason Enough #421
The Right Moves #446
Strange Bedfellows #471
The Private Garden #495
The Boy Next Door #518
Under a Desert Sky #559
A Delicate Balance #578
The Discerning Heart #614
Dream of a Lifetime #661
Finally Home #687
A Perfect Gentleman #705
Family Man #728
A Man of His Word #770
Tough Guy #806
Gold Digger #830
Palace City Prince #866
* The Perfect Wedding #962
* An Old-Fashioned Love #968
* A Wife Worth Waiting For #974
Mail-Order Brood #1024
* The Rogue Who Came To Stay #1061
* Most Wanted Dad #1144
Desperately Seeking Daddy #1186
* Falling for a Father of Four #1295
A Bride To Honor #1330
Mr. Right Next Door #1352
Glass Slipper Bride #1379
A Royal Masquerade #1432
In Want of a Wife #1466
The Mesmerizing Mr. Carlyle #1493
So Dear to My Heart #1535
The Man with the Money #1592
ARLENE JAMES
grew up in Oklahoma and has lived all over the South. In 1976 she married “the most romantic man in the world.” The author enjoys traveling with her husband, but writing has always been her chief pastime. Arlene is also the author of the inspirational titles Proud Spirit, A Wish for Always, Partners for Life and No Stranger to Love.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter One
“You’re going to London?”
Avis smiled patiently at the clipped tone of her adult stepson and pushed back a silky, dark-brown curl which had escaped the butterfly clip at her nape, maintaining a soft and even inflection from long practice. “Yes. The flight leaves at three.”
“Today?”
“This afternoon.”
Ellis frowned at his coffee cup and folded his arms. “Well, that’s just peachy.”
He had arrived on her doorstep completely uninvited two days earlier. She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised, but it had been months since she and her friends Valerie Blunt Keene and Sierra Carlton had unexpectedly inherited just over a million dollars each, and Avis had naively believed that all of the kooks and moneygrubbers were already out of the woodwork. Apparently Ellis had needed some time to overcome his great resentment of her before the smell of hard cash could lure him to her door. Now here he sat on the other side of her breakfast table, a thirty-year-old self-described musician watching his opportunity to work her latent guilt wing its way across the ocean.
“Had I realized you were coming…” She let that thought hang, implying that her plans had been made before his arrival instead of during the predawn hours of that very morning. Perhaps if he hadn’t made her so very uncomfortable she would not have taken such a drastic and unprecedented step, but the truth was that she did not want to play hostess to her truculent stepson.
Avis sighed internally. The world had turned upside down since Edwin Searle had passed away. No one had realized that the irascible old rancher had hoarded millions, certainly not the three women who had shown him little more than common courtesy and found themselves heirs to his estate. No one had been more shocked about that than Edwin’s greedy nephew, Heston Searle Witt, w
ho also just happened to be the town mayor.
Heston had gone out of his way to make the lives of the heiresses miserable since the reading of the will. Val was now happily married to Ian Keene, the town Fire Marshal, and they were expecting a child, but Avis shuddered to think what Heston would be saying about Sierra’s situation, Sierra having only just revealed news of her pregnancy to a group including her very surprised boyfriend Sam. Avis felt a moment’s uncertainty about her decision. Sierra might need her emotional support. On the other hand, Sam and Sierra seemed too happy about their impending marriage to care what Heston might say. They were being married quite soon in a private ceremony. They wouldn’t miss her for a while, perhaps a long while.
Irritation flashed over Ellis’s lean face. “I guess that’s what I get for acting on impulse.” He worked his narrow jaw consideringly. “How long do you suppose you’ll be gone?”
“I really don’t know,” she replied smoothly, dipping a spoon into a cup of raspberry yogurt. It was the absolute truth. When she’d booked the flight around 2:00 a.m., she’d purposely left the return trip open-ended.
A muscle flexed in Ellis’s jaw. “Can’t your partner—what’s his name? Colie?”
She looked down. Was it her fault if Ellis assumed the trip was business? “Coeli. Peter Coeli.”
“Can’t he handle this?”
Avis spooned the yogurt into her mouth, swallowed and carefully said, “He has too much to do already.”
A respected real estate developer in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex area, Pete had responded positively to Avis’s proposal to join her in some modest development in the small town of Puma Springs, forty or so miles southwest of Fort Worth. Together they had rebuilt a burned-out office building on the town square and lured a convenience-store chain with its attendant jobs to a prime location on the highway. Pete had quickly offered her a limited partnership, and she had accepted, maintaining office hours in Fort Worth three days a week.
Lately the situation had become a little strained as Pete’s manner had turned more and more flirtatious. He was a nice man whom she considered a friend, but as a widow of four years and now a woman of means, Avis treasured her independence. An ingrained gentility made it difficult for her to purposely hurt another’s feelings, but she now considered that her impromptu decision to visit London might serve two objects. Three really. Not only would she escape Ellis, she’d put some distance between herself and her business partner, plus she had to admit to herself that this would fulfill a lifelong dream.
Avis had always wanted to see London. She imagined seeing Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey, envisioning Big Ben in the background. Belatedly, she realized that Ellis was speaking.
“So I thought I’d look for work in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.”
Avis blinked. “I thought Austin was the great music scene.”
He shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yeah, but I sort of need a new venue. You know how it is. Same old same old kinda robs you of your spark.”
So that’s how he intended to play this. She looked down at her yogurt and said gently, “I guess you’ll be apartment hunting then.”
“Sure. Eventually.”
She dipped her spoon again and sweetly asked, “Staying with friends in the area?”
His face blanched, then pulsed bright red. “I don’t actually know anyone else in the area.”
“Oh, dear.” She laid aside her spoon. “I hope you weren’t planning to stay here. I’m only two years older than you. People will talk. You know how small towns are.”
“But you’re my stepmother,” he argued.
“Was,” she corrected faintly. “Oh, Ellis, I’m sorry, but it’s just not possible.”
Ellis pushed back from the table, saying bitterly, “I always knew you didn’t want me around.”
Avis tamped down an uncharacteristic spurt of impatience and imbued her voice with every ounce of compassion and empathy that she possessed. “That’s not true, Ellis. When your father was alive, I would have welcomed you at any time. He missed you.”
“He could’ve come home.”
“You know that’s not true.”
“It would have been if he hadn’t met you.”
Avis sighed, aloud this time. She couldn’t deny it, but shouldn’t Ellis have come to some kind of peace with the situation after twelve, almost thirteen, years? When he’d first arrived, she’d hoped that he meant what he’d said about wanting to mend fences, but she’d quickly realized that was not the case. Ellis had hated her even before he’d met her, and that emotion still simmered just beneath his sullen surface.
She didn’t blame him, actually, but what good could come from his punishing her? This was all about the inheritance. So long as she had struggled to eke a living out of her late husband’s modest hobby shop, her stepson had been content to bank his resentment, but her incredible good fortune of being named in Edwin Searle’s will must have been more than he could bear.
London not only seemed more compelling all the time, it was beginning to look like an absolute necessity, for Ellis’s sake as much as her own.
She laid aside her napkin, eyes averted. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Ellis, and I wish I had more time to talk about this with you, but I must be at the airport by one.”
“I could use some cash to get back home on,” he told her bluntly.
She bit her tongue to keep from asking what had become of the two hundred fifty thousand dollars in life insurance he’d been awarded after Kenneth’s death. Instead, she walked out of the kitchen and down the hall to the bureau in the entry, where she habitually left her purse. As she removed her wallet, Ellis walked up behind her. She quickly extracted a sheaf of bills, turned and pressed them into his hand.
“It’s all I have on me at the moment, almost three hundred, I think. I hope that helps. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get dressed.”
Ellis stuffed the cash into the pocket of his jeans and made a begrudging attempt at politeness. “I could drive you if you like.”
“No need,” she replied with a smile, moving toward the stairs. “Besides, it’s over an hour opposite to the direction you’ll be traveling.”
“Whatever,” he mumbled, heading for the guest room.
Avis shook her head as she climbed the stairs. Ellis might have seen thirty birthdays, but emotionally he was still seventeen. She couldn’t help wondering if, had things worked out differently, his father might have been able to help Ellis grow up. The weight of that worry burdened her, but it was a familiar yoke, and she knew too well that nothing she could do now would lighten it. Ellis was Ellis, and that was that.
She turned her mind to the coming trip and felt a surge of excitement. Perhaps it was good that Ellis had come. He had given her the impetus to fulfill that dream. She and Kenneth had never had the money to travel together. Once the decision had been made, she hadn’t been able to curb her excitement. Her bags were already packed. Now all she had to do was get herself ready. She started with a long, hot shower, mentally reviewing her “to do” list. Her passport, acquired some months ago, had to come out of the key safe in her downstairs office. She would likely need her laptop, too, since she and Pete really did have deals working, though nothing she couldn’t handle via e-mail and telephone. On the way to the airport, she should stop off at an Arlington electronics store and pick up a voltage adapter so she could use her various personal appliances in England. Most importantly, she had to make a couple phone calls.
After blow-drying her thick, shoulder-length hair, glossing her full lips and applying a touch of taupe shadow and black mascara to play up her dark-blue eyes, she chose a smart knit pantsuit in an icy shade of lilac that seemed just right for the first Monday of April and made the most of her creamy pink complexion. The slim tunic top with its keyhole neckline and loose, bracelet-length sleeves lent the illusion of added height to her 5’6” frame and played down her more than ample bust line, while the long, flowing pants promised comfort
and a lack of bagging over the long transatlantic flight. A matching handbag and mules with gently pointed toes, a corded, low-slung belt and simple amethyst earrings completed the look, but she also took along a soft taupe cloak, with a hood in case of rain, to combat the cooler temperatures she was bound to encounter in Britain.
She spent the better part of an hour on the telephone, first with her good friend Gwyn Dunstan, who got the whole story, and then with her business partner Pete, who was shocked but evidently encouraged to hear that she “did have an impulsive bone after all.” When she finally dragged her bags down the stairs, it was to find Ellis gone without so much as a farewell. She was not really surprised, but his abrupt departure did not change her mind about the trip.
After retrieving the necessary items from her office, checking the windows and appliances and rinsing the few breakfast dishes, she locked up and went on her way. Even as she negotiated the long drive to the airport, she enjoyed a growing sense of excitement. For the first time since the inheritance she was truly indulging herself.
She had been very sensible to this point, making her money work for her, keeping her expenditures within strict limits, protecting as much capital as possible and planning for the future. Now she was about to make a lifelong dream come true, and if she was doing it alone, well, she’d always been alone, really, even during her eight-year marriage. At twenty-seven years her senior, Kenneth had seemed wise and charming in the beginning, a respected professor at the University of Texas, but in the end he’d been more a dependent than a mate, especially after they’d discovered the cancer. Fully half her marriage had been consumed by that insidious disease and its debilitating effects. In the years since his passing, she’d been concerned with just keeping body and soul together—until Edwin had changed everything for her.
She had a real career now, and she was surprisingly good at it. With careful planning and execution, she could see her holdings grow exponentially. Never again would she have to worry about making a mortgage payment or babying her rattletrap car, which she had immediately replaced after receiving the inheritance. Old habits died hard, however, her new coupe was sporty but inexpensive. It had taken her some time to get to a place where she could allow herself something as carefree as this trip, let alone splurge on first class. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to bypass the cheaper rates of remote parking.
