The Texas Billionaire’s Bride

by Crystal Green

  At any rate, it would be obvious to the Foleys that Melanie was more than just a nanny, and she had no idea how they might react to Zane’s interest in an employee.

  But when he opened the door to the dining area for her and their arms unlinked from each other, Melanie asked herself if he even was planning to tell them about their relationship.

  What if she’d overestimated what she had with Zane?

  She lifted her chin a notch and walked into the room.

  The Foley men turned toward her: suave yet earthy, dignified in a way she only hoped to be.

  Clasping her hands together in front of her, Melanie tried not to shrink into herself, even though she felt like the girl from Oklahoma again.

  Had a makeover been enough?

  “Melanie,” Zane said, still standing close, but feeling too far, “this is my family.” He gestured to his dad, a handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair and a charismatic glint in his eyes. “My father, Rex.”

  The patriarch came forward, extending a hand as he drawled, “Ms. Grandy, I want to thank you for all the fine work you’ve done. Zane tells us how Livie’s come around under your care.”

  “Please call me Melanie. And thank you so much, Mr. Foley.”

  “Please, it’s Rex.”

  As she shook hands with him, she thought about how much she liked the man’s mellow tone. He had a way about him that made her feel as if she’d known him for years.

  Then Zane gestured to a brother who wore a sidelong grin, and if she hadn’t already been so enamored of Zane, she would’ve given this tall, dark charmer of a man a second glance.

  “This is Jason,” Zane said.

  Ah, the voice on the phone, Melanie thought, recalling the day she’d overheard Zane talking about the McCords and the Santa Magdalena Diamond.

  When Jason greeted her, he acted as if he were about to kiss Melanie’s hand, before mischievously peering at Zane and making everyone laugh.

  “Be good, you old Casanova,” their father said to Jason.

  Melanie laughed right along with them.

  Then Zane introduced the youngest brother, who cut a lean figure dressed in the cowboy version of a suit, with a bolo tie and fancy Stetson. With his soulful eyes, Travis seemed to be the quietest of the bunch.

  And as the group fell into small talk, Melanie indeed saw that he was a man of few words. Yet, he seemed the most observant, she thought, noticing that Travis had been the only one who’d really assessed her.

  But—no. There was no way in the world that he could’ve pegged her for the imposter she felt like.

  Trying harder than ever to be the new Melanie, she joined the conversation, which had turned into sibling-flavored jests about how long the brothers could last out in the heat with their full suits, and if the cooling system in the main tent would keep them from wilting.

  When Livie came into the room, she was warmly greeted by her granddad and uncles, yet she gravitated to Melanie, as Zane stood close enough again for his arm to brush hers.

  That was when everything brightened up.

  I’m theirs, Melanie thought.

  And that’s all the identity she needed.

  With the event in full swing, the Foleys greeted guests left and right, while the aroma of wood smoke filtered the late-afternoon air, riding the breeze that stirred the oak and willow leaves.

  Interspersed among the trees, tents covered the lawn, some of them boasting games that had been set up to raise money for the hospital, some holding wine and food tastings, one bursting at the seams with a country-and-western band that had filled a temporary dance floor.

  But most folks were mingling in the huge main tent, where a podium had been set up for the scheduled auction and presentations, one of which Zane would be giving. Around the floor, linen-covered tables had been set up for the coming dinner.

  Currently, Zane was watching Melanie from across that tent as she and Livie chatted with a young socialite who was cradling her infant son. His daughter was clearly love-struck, and Melanie and the other woman were laughing over Livie cooing at the baby.

  It felt as if half of Zane was right there with them. His family.

  He found himself smiling just as they were, but little by little, it faltered. And the reason was obvious, because it’d been gnawing away at him for a while now.

  He just wished he could bring himself to say those three magic words to Melanie: I. Love. You.

  But every time he almost did, a creeping panic would quiet him down. “I love you” was a commitment—one he’d made to a woman before, and look how that had turned out….

  “Yup,” said a voice he recognized all too well as Jason’s as he joined Zane, “he’s a goner.”

  Zane glanced over, discovering that his brother was standing next to Travis and their dad—and they were all giving Zane curious, amused looks.

  Travis merely drank his beer while their father reached over to grasp Zane’s shoulder and give him an energetic paternal shake.

  “She’s a beaut, that nanny of yours,” their dad said. “I’d be staring at her, too.”

  “When did you two start…?” Jason said, using a hand to insinuate the rest.

  “That’d be none of your business.” Zane took a gulp of his single-malt scotch on the rocks. He’d known this grilling would come someday, when his family saw how nuts he was about Melanie. He’d just been hoping to put it off a little longer.

  But how could he, when his craving to be with her was so apparent that it practically shouted itself to all of Texas?

  “Well, now,” his father said. “I’m sure I speak for each of us when I say that it’s just good to see you happy, Zane, whether or not you want us to know it yet.”

  “Damn good,” Jason echoed.

  Travis nodded slightly, still quiet, but Zane thought that might be because of this whole ranch mess with the McCords, which was probably weighing on his mind.

  Uncomfortable with a spotlight on him, Zane made an attempt to step out of it. “Thanks, but I feel compelled to point out that I’m not the person who’s grinning the most around here.”

  He gestured to Jason, and his brother lifted his eyebrows.

  “Yeah,” Zane said, relieved that he’d succeeded in getting the attention off him. “I’m talking about you.”

  Jason acted casual. “And why would I be grinning all that much?”

  Like they didn’t know.

  Jason had been updating them on his plan with Penny McCord, and in private, Zane, Travis and their dad agreed that it seemed as if the guy was invested in the scheme way more than for the sake of gaining information about Travis’s ranch. Forget that “the plan” hadn’t yielded much of anything so far; Jason had “run into her” at a coffee house recently, and was talking about arranging yet another so-called casual encounter.

  “I’d suggest,” Zane said, “that there be no more wedding run-ins or random coffee dates before this thing goes too far.”

  “It won’t,” Jason said in his confident manner. “In fact—”

  Without saying a word, Travis held up his hand, silencing everyone, his gaze on a trio of well-heeled people who’d just entered the tent.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” their father muttered when he saw them, too.

  There, near the cocktail bar, were the last folks Zane had been hoping would show up.

  “McCords,” Jason said.

  The eldest brother, Blake, walked just ahead of the rest, and when Zane spied him, he couldn’t believe that there were people around the state who had the guts to compare Zane and the McCord golden child. Certainly, both were “arrogant,” both were leaders of their siblings. But it was idle talk, all the same.

  Behind Blake came Tate, a doctor who’d just returned from Baghdad, where he’d worked with the International Medical Corps. Although he didn’t seem as easygoing as he’d once been—where was his infamous grin and the upright way he used to carry himself?—he was still escorting his girlfriend, Katerina Whitcomb-Sal
gar, a stunning heiress with dark hair and eyes, who filled out her dress like a movie star.

  Not that Zane noticed her so much—he was zeroed in on Blake in particular.

  There was a growl to Travis’s voice. “What’re they doing here?”

  Zane answered. “Blake and Katie are both on the hospital board of directors, and naturally Tate would come along with his girlfriend.”

  Across the tent, the trio stopped at the bar, where Tate seemed to distance himself from the others, staring at nothing in particular, while Blake remained at Katie’s side, ordering for her, then making sure she got her drink first.

  Zane’s dad spoke. “Looks like Tate better pay more attention to Katie than he’s doing right now. His brother seems more interested in her than he is.”

  It wasn’t long before Tate’s wandering gaze found the Foleys on their side of the tent.

  None of them acknowledged each other, as Tate returned to Katie and Blake, where he and his brother began to talk.

  Blake glanced at the Foleys, and this time Zane made a mocking toast.

  The other man did the same before his group moved a few feet from the bar, Blake turning his back on the Foleys to face Tate. When Katie left them to greet some other members of the board who were already seated at the dining tables, it wasn’t Tate who tracked her with his gaze.

  It was Blake.

  Zane filed that away.

  Soon, other partygoers blocked the McCords from view, and it was tough to see them from that point on.

  “Hard to believe,” Jason said, “that someone as decent as Eleanor McCord gave birth to that bunch.”

  As the brothers agreed, Zane noticed that his dad didn’t say anything.

  Actually, Zane thought that maybe there was something…odd…about the brief expression that had colored his father’s gaze.

  Was he remembering the young love he’d held for Eleanor before Devon McCord ruined it?

  His dad caught Zane watching him, and the older man rested a hand on Jason’s arm and began guiding him out of the Foley circle.

  “I believe we’ll make the rounds,” Rex said. “Besides, I’d like to freshen my drink.”

  “Have at it,” Zane said, watching as his dad and Jason entered the crowd of cocktail dresses and suit jackets, the latter of which were gradually coming off as the party went on.

  That left Zane and Travis alone, and his younger brother visually swept the room, not addressing Zane head-on.

  “Melanie seems to be a natural with Livie,” he said.

  It was a real change of subject, and Zane assumed that his sibling was only bringing it up because he’d had enough of the McCords for now.

  He tried to find her and Livie amongst the throng, yet failed. Maybe she’d taken his daughter outside to play some of the charity games.

  “During her final interview,” Zane said, “I told her she appeared too good to be true, but her records are clean—and I’d have been a fool to ignore her reference from a personal friend. And that reference was right about Melanie. She really is an outstanding…” he tripped over the word “…nanny.”

  Travis sent Zane a long, hard look.

  “What?” Zane asked.

  “Nothing.” Travis shook his head and drank his beer.

  Then he excused himself, saying that he saw an old friend and wanted to say hello.

  As Travis left, Zane kept an eye on his brother, wondering what the hell his comments had been about. Travis’s reticence even burned him a little, because this was Melanie—the best woman Zane had ever…

  Loved?

  God, why did that notion rattle him every time?

  But he knew: Danielle. History repeating.

  He should’ve been over it, but he wasn’t.

  Zane finished his drink, and was just about to leave his spot, when Livie jumped in front of him, all smiles and snow-cone blue around her mouth.

  No matter what kind of mood he might’ve been in, he laughed, and Melanie showed up with a facial wipe, as if she’d been chasing Livie around with it.

  “Come here, you,” she said to the girl.

  Exasperated, Livie closed her eyes and raised her face so Melanie could clean her up. Meanwhile, in diamonds and silk, Melanie grinned at Zane.

  Her love for Livie—and for him?—shone through, and he wanted to kiss her, right here, right now. Wanted to thread his fingers through her blond hair and bring her close, tasting her, consuming her.

  “This party is going off well,” she said when she was done with Livie.

  The girl spotted another child her age close by and shyly wandered over while both he and Melanie began to follow, their steps slow, unhurried.

  “Thanks to you and the staff, the event’s going to haul in more than ever,” he said, meaning it as a compliment.

  But when her cheeks went pink, he realized that she’d paid more attention to being lumped together with the other employees than in what he’d actually been saying.

  “Hey, now.” He halted them both near Livie at the side of the tent, where she’d sat down on the grass near the other girl, who introduced herself to Livie by showing her a doll she was playing with.

  Zane touched Melanie’s arm, fingertips on skin, sending voltage through her. “You know what I meant.”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling, even though he could tell it was forced. “I know.”

  All the voices around them seemed to drop off into nothing as Zane looked into her eyes, the blue capturing him.

  His future. His Melanie.

  Not caring who saw, he slipped his hand to the small of her back, where her dress dipped.

  Her flesh, silky warmth.

  “You’re tempting me to take you right out of here,” he said softly.

  Her smile went dreamy, and it perked up his heartbeat.

  They kept walking until they heard a familiar chuckle, and Zane almost took his hand away from her.

  But he didn’t.

  Instead, he kept it right where it was, claiming Melanie, for anyone to see.

  Jason was still laughing as Zane and Melanie halted near his brother and his father. The other two seemed to be sharing some kind of private joke.

  When their dad saw Zane, he assumed a “you’re not going to believe this” glance, including them in the conversation. “Odd what you hear during a party when people think their conversation’s being covered by all the chatter around them.”

  Zane got a bad feeling about this.

  “If you’re thinking,” Jason said to Zane, “that we sidled right up to the bar, unseen by Blake and Tate, you’d be right.”

  Their father had the grace to look sheepish. “We only overheard them for a short while, and not on purpose…at first.”

  “I hope they didn’t see you,” Zane said.

  “No. The McCord boys went off to join Katie before they even looked our way.”

  Clearly, Jason had only been continuing his information-culling “plan,” and with the possibility of some progress in that area, Zane’s fingers tightened on Melanie’s back.

  It made him talk before he really thought about what he was saying.

  “If you don’t mind,” he whispered, leaning toward her so only she would hear, “this is business. I’ll find you in a bit.”

  Her spine straightened, and he caught a pained cloud in her gaze as she murmured something about Livie, then left before he realized what had just truly happened.

  Business. He’d dismissed her because of it, and she knew it.

  Was she wondering if she came in second to office hours and the McCords?

  Surely she realized how he truly felt about her—even if he hadn’t told her in so many words….

  Jason continued, totally unaware of Zane’s muddled emotions.

  “If we had any doubts about money troubles in the McCord camp,” his brother said, “we shouldn’t anymore.”

  “Blake McCord didn’t say anything outright,” their father added. “He’s damned proud, and he seeme
d reluctant to even be talking about it to Tate.”

  Zane watched from afar as Melanie stood next to Livie while his daughter played with the other little girl.

  He wanted to be there.

  But he had to see to the McCords, too. Business was…more important than anything?

  “Zane?” Jason asked.

  He glanced back at his brother and dad, who were gauging him as if he’d dropped his brain somewhere on the floor and hadn’t ever picked it back up.

  “I’m listening,” he said, but he sounded as distracted as he felt.

  As his father kept measuring up Zane, Jason went ahead.

  “We couldn’t hear very well, only a phrase here and there, but Blake and Tate mentioned the Santa Magdalena Diamond, all right. Something about how it relates to Travis’s ranch and the land deed that Grandpa Gavin lost to Harry McCord in that poker game. So, as you can tell, Zane, my instincts were right. Never doubt a man with a plan.”

  Zane didn’t even have time to chuff before his dad added, “It sounds like there’re some clues on that deed that lead to one of the property’s abandoned mines.”

  “The Eagle,” Jason said, referring to the name given to just one of the five mines. “But, again, that’s all we could hear, so I don’t know how they got from point A to B and so on.” He grinned that lady-killer grin. “I’ll find out, though.”

  With Penny McCord, Zane thought.

  Jason was, by now, scanning the crowd in his charming, cocky way, as if it was time to move on, meet some women, go from there. “Blake mentioned their sister Paige’s name along with the words ‘diamond’ and ‘mine’, and I figure, since she and Penny are twins, they’ve got to be close. Penny’s going to know something about whatever scheme Paige is cooking up along with her brothers.”

  “Good, Jace,” Zane said. “That sounds reasonable.”

  But once again he was looking away from the conversation, just like his brother, and it had nothing to do with anyone but Melanie. Yet, she and Livie weren’t in the same place anymore.

  They were gone.

  A pang got to him, but it wasn’t just because he already missed her.

  When he caught up to her, how was he going to explain his attachment to business at her and Livie’s expense?