by Stacy Gail
The two people turned in surprise, but thanks to her irritation Parker had eyes only for the reed-thin, birdlike woman. She had to be somewhere deep into her sixties, if the harsh lines around her pursed, sucking-on-lemons mouth were any indication. Not even the breeze playing through the trees could shift a hair of the woman’s helmet-style hairdo, and the dye-dark brown color of it clashed mightily with the gentle chiffon yellow of her skirt suit.
The sour pucker of the woman’s mouth deepened. “Excuse me—”
“Oh, of course I will excuse you,” Parker said without missing a beat, offering a vicious grin. The razor-to-jugular feel of it sweetened her mood. “But I don’t know if the citizens of this town would excuse you, if they’d heard that last remark. Do you know why?”
“I...I beg your pardon, Miss—”
“This particular ruin reminds me of similar structure over in Europe,” Parker went on, talking over the other woman until her lips nearly disappeared. She thought she heard a muffled snort from the man, but she was too intent on her point to glance his way. “There was an eighteenth-century church in Dresden, Germany, by the name of Frauenkirche—The Church of Our Lady. Ever heard of it?”
The older woman’s arched a brow. “Why would I have heard of such a thing?”
“Because it’s important. This glorious Baroque structure was destroyed down to its foundation during the Second World War, but the people of Dresden never forgot it. Like Thorne Mansion, it was their center, an embodiment of the community’s personal history. No, it was even deeper than that—it was a reflection of their truest identity and all the magnificence they were capable of achieving. It took sixty years, not to mention the fall of the Berlin Wall, but they began to rebuild. Fourteen citizens banded together, and with almost no help from their local politicians—who ranged from indifferent to disdainful over what they thought was a trivial matter—this grassroots group swelled in numbers until people from all over the world contributed to Frauenkirche’s reconstruction. It was completed in 2005, and I believe the vast majority of the scoffing politicians were voted out of office. Which is as it should be,” Parker said, and at last her smile slipped away to reveal just how outraged she was. “After all, self-centered politicians who refuse to understand what’s important to their people should lose the right to represent them, wouldn’t you agree?”
The woman in yellow looked like a sun about to go supernova. “Young lady, who do you think you are?”
“Parker Radclyffe, arguably the best conservation architect currently in that specialized field. And no, not just any ordinary architect with a slide rule can slap up a building like Thorne Mansion, the most magnificent Italianate structure I’ve seen outside of Europe. This type of reconstruction is my specialty. It’s taken me around the world countless times because, to put it bluntly, you’re right about my credentials. I am the best at breathing life back into dead buildings. And no again,” she added with another smile, because she was just twisted enough to enjoy poking an angry bear with a short stick, “I’m not a man. I’ve never been one, nor do I ever intend to be.”
“Thank heaven for small favors.” At last the man spoke, moving into her line of sight with his hand outstretched. “How do you do, Parker Radclyffe? I’m Chandler Thorne.”
“My new client.” Content with the amount of holes her eyes had drilled into the other woman, Parker at last turned to Chandler Thorne while sliding her hand into his. Without warning, her heart tripped into a somersault the moment her gaze locked with his.
Oh my.
She knew her powers of concentration were good. But they had to be off-the-charts astounding for her to have overlooked such raw masculinity standing a mere few feet away. She should turn in her membership as a red-blooded woman for not noticing a set of broad shoulders that had been created for the sole purpose of knocking any female under the age of ancient completely senseless. And while her eyes adjusted to the greatness of those shoulders, her brain was busy registering the subtle elegance of his tapered torso, lean hips, and long, muscular legs.
If he’d been a building, she would have wept at his flawless design.
And yet for all that perfection of his physical framework, it was his eyes that made her forget how to breathe. He probably called them hazel. In fact they were the richest color of cognac around the rims, growing lighter near the pupil as if a pale gold flame glowed at his very center. They were large and widely set, lending his features an almost poetic air. His sculpted cheekbones cast shadows on his hollow cheeks, and his mouth might actually have been the most perfect Cupid’s bow that nature had ever produced.
Just staring at that mouth gave her a near out-of-body experience. She could almost feel those lips closing over hers, opening them with a conquering thrust of his tongue, the cool silk of his waving dark brown hair sifting through her fingers while passion fireworked like madness...
As his hand tightened on hers, Parker realized she was staring at him like he was a buffet and she’d just come off a weeklong hunger strike. The sun must have fried her circuits.
“Well.” Pleased she sounded somewhere in the ballpark of normal, Parker slid her hand from his and told herself she only imagined his reluctant release. “It’s a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Thorne.”
“Make it Chandler.” If she thought the sun was hot, it was nothing compared to the open-flame sizzle of his smile. “In every sense of the word, the pleasure is all mine, Parker.”
* * *
Chandler was hot. Like spontaneous-combustion hot. He couldn’t tell if it was the temp spiking past the century mark, his perpetual war of wills with Mayor Patricia Weems, or the pocket-sized redhead who appeared like some kind of fiery elemental sprite. But there was something that had him cooking from the inside out as he led his new architect into his office.
His new architect. Parker Radclyffe. The unashamedly feminine Parker Radclyffe.
Sometimes life could be very, very good.
While they seated themselves on either side of his desk—the editor-in-chief’s desk of the Bitterthorn Herald—Chandler took his time drinking her in. In all humility, he considered himself a connoisseur of women. From the time he realized girls were different from boys, he’d never been shy about expressing his appreciation of those differences. Luckily for him, it was a sentiment that had been reciprocated. As a descendant of Bitterthorn’s founding fathers, having the last name Thorne had attracted more than a few girls in his teen years. Since he’d been in unspoken competition with all the other local studs, he’d been happy to take advantage of whatever edge his name gave him. But even when he’d left the small pond of his hometown to study journalism at Northwestern, one of the best journalism schools in the country, he’d never been lonely. Hell, he’d even been engaged for a while to a Lake Shore Drive princess who believed he lacked ambition to get out of Bitterthorn. There was very little he didn’t know about women.
As for his new architect...
There was nothing subtle about Parker Radclyffe. Silken coils of dark red hair tumbled in a wild riot to her shoulders. His fingers itched to pull on one, bratty little-kid style, to watch it spring back into place. Her eyes were that magical color that existed between cornflower and navy, tilted just a bit at the corners to match slanted brows that gave her an air of a wicked pixie bent on mischief. There was a liberal dose of freckles across the bridge of her tip-tilted nose, and there was a reddish flush staining her white-rose complexion that traveled all the way down her neck and even past the neckline of her blouse, where more freckles dusted down into the delightful shadow of cleavage.
The fever prickling his skin soared higher at the sight of that lovely freckled territory. Guess he had the answer to where this influx of head-swimming heat came from.
“So. Parker.” He watched her lift her hair from the nape of her neck. Grimly he locked his muscles in place, to keep from
moving behind her so he could blow cool relief over her fevered flesh. “Welcome to Texas.”
Her smile was lightning-quick. “Thanks. Is it always this hot?”
“This is only June. Wait until August. That’s when you realize Bitterthorn is the place where hell comes to practice being hot.”
“Note to self: Be out by August.” Dropping her hair, she slanted him a chagrined look. “If I embarrassed you earlier, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize.”
“Apologize?” For what, being adorable? He’d certainly forgive her for that.
“Ignorance irritates me.” Her brows pulled together until she looked more like a vengeful faerie queen than mischievous imp. “Every building here has profound significance. Yet that puckered-up person shrugged it off as if that history—her history—was nothing.”
“If it had been named the Weems Mansion instead of Thorne, she would have cared one hell of a lot.”
“Glad to hear she has some respect for those who’ve gone before her, even if it is self-centered. Did she marry into the Weems name, or does she use her family surname?”
“Oh, Mayor Weems never married. Perfectionist that she is, I suspect she’s never found anyone who was good enough.”
“I thought I heard you call that woman Mayor.” The look on Parker’s face was priceless, like she had a bad taste in her mouth but was too polite to spit it out while in front of him. “Please tell me that’s some weird pet name you have for her, and not her actual role in this town.”
“We don’t have what you would call a pet-name type of relationship.” The very thought made him want to gag. “Patricia Weems has been mayor of Bitterthorn for nearly thirty years. That almost makes her royalty in the eyes of some.”
Parker was the picture of a woman who had plenty to say about that before she gave her head a curl-bouncing shake. “What Mayor Weems is to this town doesn’t concern me. Unless,” she added with a diabolical glare that promised all sorts of vengeance if crossed, “she’s going to find a way to be a problem for this restoration.”
“I already have all the permits in place, as well as the state’s Historical Commission matching the private funds that have been collected to pay for the restoration. Legally there’s nothing she can do, short of rescinding the permits, and I don’t think she’d be that open in her hostility. Too politically incorrect, especially after that little Dresden church history lesson.”
“Why is there hostility at all?”
Chandler shifted a shoulder. “You’ve heard of the Hatfields and the McCoys?”
“Of course.”
“Bitterthorn has its own feud—the Thornes and the Weemses. For generations the Weems family has hated the Thornes for being top of the heap. And the Thorne family has always had a knack for rubbing their noses in it.”
“Including you?”
“I try not to rub Mayor Weems in any way.” He could imagine rubbing Parker, though. At the risk of going up in a puff of heat and smoke, his mind wove together an all-too-vivid picture of Parker’s skin flushing for a far different reason. Though she kept herself veiled in practical khakis and a cool, loose-fitting top, he could see hints of a knockout body, the pert globes of her breasts not too small, and the swell of her hips ripe enough to make his hands itch to dig into them as he set her astride his body to ride him into a world of incoherent madness...
Stifling a grimace, he shifted in his seat when his pants grew too tight for comfort.
“An actual generational feud.” With her pansy-blue eyes sparking with interest, Parker leaned forward until he could see that even the pale swells of her breasts were freckled. Who knew freckles could be such a crazy turn-on? “You have no idea how that hits all my yummy spots.”
God help him, she did not just say that, did she? “I aim to please.”
“How did this feud start? How far back in history does it go?”
“I’ve always assumed it was hate at first sight, and passed down from one generation to the next like heirloom china.” Her lashes couldn’t possibly be real. As lush as a kid’s, yet as sexy as a fantasy. He’d never thought there was any such thing as bedroom eyes. Now he knew better.
“There has to be more to it than that.”
“My grandfather once mentioned that his dad, Declan Junior and the son of this town’s founder, Declan Senior, blamed the Weems family for the death of his aunt, Addie. But I don’t know the specifics, and now the feud seems to be a matter of habit more than anything.”
“I bet there’s an interesting story behind it.”
As far as he was concerned, the only interesting thing in the room was her. “You love history, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t be able to do my job as well as I do if I didn’t. I’ve even been accused of preferring a building’s history to the people who built it. It’s an accusation I loathe, but there are times when it might be accurate.”
For a moment he toyed with the idea of telling her about his own house, a work of art if there ever was one. “You’re not a people person?”
“Didn’t my earlier conversation with your esteemed mayor give me away?”
“The only thing I saw was the perfect architect for Thorne Mansion.”
“True enough.” Her smile flashed again with such confidence his whole body pulsed in a way he’d never felt before. Curiouser and curiouser. He had no idea confidence could be so sexy. “Before my six weeks are up, I’ll be well on the way to re-creating your frontier palace. Its very essence, its reason for being built in the first place, will be reborn.”
“I can’t wait.” For a lot of things, he couldn’t wait. “If you need anything more besides the photos and information I’ve already given you, just let me know. Where are you staying?”
She brought out her tablet to tap its surface a couple of times. “A place called the Lunar.”
Oh shit. “You can’t stay there.”
“It’s the only hotel I could find in Bitterthorn.” She hesitated. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”
He thought of sugarcoating it, but there was no point. She’d find out eventually anyway. “It’s got a reputation.”
“A reputation?”
“Yes. A well-earned reputation, since it’s the only motel in thirty miles.” He took a breath and dived in. “The locals here call it the Nooner.”
Surprise widened those pansy eyes before she laughed out loud. His entire body clenched at the sound. “That’s absolutely perfect.”
Chapter Two
So, this was the Nooner.
Blinding white pea gravel crunched under Parker’s feet as she locked up her car, but the sound never registered. Her attention was glued to a 1950s Googie-style flat-roofed front office, complete with nouveau metal buttresses at the building’s corners and front entrance. It was gaudy, dated. Weather-beaten and sun-faded. Norman Bates would have been right at home.
She adored every inch of it.
Behind the front office, two long rows of rooms with numbers on their doors stretched toward an unkempt tree line. These buildings were set parallel to each other in a silent standoff, with a dusty common space sandwiched between them that was too narrow to be used for parking. Parker noted the identical peaked rooflines, the timber and adobe walls, the smaller windows and all the external electrical lines feeding into the twin structures. Each room had its own air-conditioning unit poking out of the windows, telling her there was no central air, virtually unheard of in modern-day Texas.
But these twin buildings had nothing to do with modern-day Texas. They had once been bunkhouses, she’d bet her next commission on it. No doubt they’d been built when Texas was wild, cattle was king, barbed wire was the devil’s invention and oil wasn’t even a glimmer in the world’s ravenous eye. Those bunkhouses had probably seen their fair share of raucous times, an
d if what Chandler said was true, those times just kept coming for this property’s latest incarnation. Considering this was the only motel in town, the Lunar—or Nooner, as the case may be—was the only place a secret tryst could be pulled off with any amount of comfort.
Though just how secret a tryst could be in a town as small as Bitterthorn was anyone’s guess.
A bell over the motel’s office door chimed as Parker stepped inside. Cool air enveloped her until every cell in her body sighed in relief. An elderly man sat behind the front desk, his snow-white hair combed into place with a vengeance. His short sleeve button-down shirt was ironed to within an inch of its life, and the cowboy boots he had propped up on the counter were so polished she doubted a speck of dust would dare to settle there.
Despite the bell announcing her arrival, the man didn’t look up from the sports magazine he held. As she stepped up to the counter, she saw it was the swimsuit edition that had his attention so avidly wrapped up, and she grinned. Nobody could compete with the swimsuit edition.
“Excuse me.” When he still didn’t acknowledge her existence, her grin faded and she cleared her throat loudly. He didn’t move. Her brows drew together as her twitchy temper began to stir. Small-town characters were all well and good, and she appreciated eccentricity as much as anyone. But she’d run into this sort of thing way too many times in her travels to let it get the best of her. “Excuse me.”
The old geezer flipped a page.
Oh hell, no.
“I said, excuse me, sir!” And for added effect, she gave a firm tap to the brass bell sitting on the counter.
The sharp ping had the man jumping out of his chair, the magazine flying out of his hands to get whacked by a spinning overhead fan. “What?”
“Whoa.” Parker took a step back, hands outstretched to either placate or ward off an attack, she wasn’t sure which. “Sorry, I was just trying to get your attention. It seemed like you didn’t hear me, so—”
