The Tycoon (17 page)

“Mom, I’ve got to go.”He walked through the rest of the condo’s rooms. Sharon was nowhere.

His mother gasped. “Drake! Stop and think about what you’re doing. I don’t know how you could do any better than Donna. I know she’s a little spoiled, but she’s from a very important family. Her daddy—”

“Mom, I know who her daddy is. Maybe he should use some of that importance to fix her problems. She’s got a screw loose and she drinks too much.”

He recalled hanging Sharon’s coat in the entry closet. He tramped to the closet, saw an

empty hanger where he had hung her black jacket. He turned around and shot a look at the entry table where he had last seen her purse. But for an original bronze sculpture and a lamp, it was bare.
Shit.

“Well you don’t have to bite my head off. I’ve never heard you be so un-chivalrous—”

For a minute, in his distraction, Drake had forgotten he was talking to his mother. “Sorry, Mom. I’m just tired of dealing with the drinking and a lot of other stuff. Last night, you heard her yourself….Look, I just got up. I’ll call you back after a bit, okay?”

They disconnected. He checked the time. 10:30. The door attendant and the concierge on duty last night would be off work now, but a log was kept of strangers who came and went in the late hours. Drake called downstairs. The daytime concierge reported that the night man had written in the log that a red-haired woman in a black jacket left alone at 3:15 a.m. in a cab.

Drake hung up, stunned.
Good God.
She had fucked his brains out, given him half a blow job, then crawled out of his bed and disappeared? Never had anything like that happened to him.

His next thought was what had she taken with her? Other than original western art, he wasn’t a collector, so he had few valuables in the condo that could be easily picked up and carried out. He went back to his bedroom and checked his wallet. His cash and credit cards were as he had left them. His Rolex lay on the bedside table. He trekked through the condo again and inventoried each room. He found nothing missing.

Dazed by the bizarre turn of events, he cleaned the coffee pot and put a new batch of coffee on to brew. His cell phone bleated. He checked caller ID.
Donna. Shit.
He had hoped to have a reprieve from this phone call until noon. He hesitated a few beats trying to decide how to handle what he knew was coming. Finally, he keyed into the call.

“Hi, sweetikins, it’s me.” She began talking before he could say a word. “Drakey, I am so sorry. I should have stopped drinking gin when you wanted me to. It will never happen again.”

“Donna, I—”

“I’m giving up gin. It just does something crazy to me.”

“Donna, listen—”

“Oh, I know. I don’t blame you for being mad. But I know you didn’t mean what you said last night.

“Donna, I did mean it.”

“I just hung up from talking to Daddy about the cabin in Aspen. My friend Mitzi—you remember Mitzi—said the skiing up there is just fantastic right now. The snow is fabulous. Perfect. And a lot of the crowd is there. Jerry and Kay, Judy and Cal, to name a few.

Her friends, not his. Most of the people he called friends didn’t have so much idle time on their hands.

“The weather’s supposed to clear up later today,” she said, “and we could fly. I’ve already talked to Daddy about using the plane.”

This was how Donna dealt with what didn’t go her way. To try to steer a wrecked train back onto the track, she used offers most reasonable people couldn’t refuse.

“Donna, I can’t do this anymore and you shouldn’t want to either. It’s not good for either one of us.”

“Aww, I know you don’t mean that, baby. We need some time alone. If we can just be alone, I know we can work everything out. I can’t think of a better place to do that than Daddy’s cabin.” Her tone changed from whiney to seductive. “You know how good to you I can be. Don’t you remember when we went up there a few months ago? The amazing romantic week we had?”

In fact, he didn’t remember the romantic part of the trip very well. What he did recall was

that he had gone trout fishing in a mountain stream and had gotten skunked.

“Hmm,” she hummed. “I can see us in the hot tub, sipping wine, watching the stars. Doesn’t that sound marvelous?”

Amazing. Fabulous. Marvelous. Fantastic. Donna’s vocabulary was rife with words like that. But what the hell did they mean? He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and finger. “It’s no good, Donna. It’s not going anywhere with us. And you need help I can’t provide.”

“Drake,” she said petulantly. “You are not going to tell me you can’t go to Aspen after I’ve already talked to Daddy and gotten the plane and everything.”

This, too, was how she dealt with setbacks. She simply passed over them. She was so used to having people kowtow to her every whim, she never heard the word “no.” His patience collapsed. His hackles rose. “Go to Aspen. Without me. As you say, a lot of your friends are up there.”

And he didn’t doubt that if one of them happened to be male and without a companion, after a few drinks, Donna would find him. He had never believed her to be faithful.

“Dammit, I’ve already told Mitzi and Conrad we’d be there,” she said. “I warn you, Drake, if you embarrass me by not going—”

“Don’t threaten me, Donna. I’ve had it. And I’m not going to Aspen. Period.”

He disconnected, threw the phone on the bed and stalked to the shower. He had intended to wait until next week to make the planned trip to Lubbock, but with the weather clearing, now suddenly seemed like a great time to go.

And as soon as he returned, he would find out who the hell Sharon Phillips really was. That probably wasn’t even her real name. And she probably wasn’t from Houston, either.

Chapter 11

Shannon awoke slowly. Visions of sugarplums were not what was dancing in her head. What filled her mind was sex. And why wouldn’t it? She’d had animal sex with one of the hottest men she had ever met and had happily let herself be thoroughly debauched. He had touched and kissed every intimate body part he could reach and she had done likewise.

She envisioned the image of him walking naked from the bathroom to the bed in all of his masculine beauty. The dark and naughty side of her wished she had stayed the night and awakened beside his warm body between his silky sheets. As much stamina as he had, she was certain this morning would have brought a reprise of the night.

Though her shades were drawn, a dull light stole into her bedroom. She could tell that last night’s storm was on the wane. Still, with everything dripping wet, today was a good day to don her sweats and cuddle under an afghan in front of TV.

Before her thoughts took her further, light raps sounded on her door and a small feminine voice said, “Are you awake, dear?”

Grammy Evelyn.
Shannon blinked herself fully awake. “Come in, Grammy.”

The wizened woman’s face poked through the doorway. Then she walked in wearing a fashionable navy blue suit with white trim and she smelled like lavender. As she came closer, Shannon saw that she wore makeup.

Uh-oh
. She was either going to or coming from church. Shannon usually took her to church herself on Sunday mornings. Last night’s excursion into fantasyland had thrown her off track. She turned to her back, gathering the covers under her chin. She was naked and the room was cold. “Oh, my gosh, Grammy. You’ve been to church already? What time is it?”

“It’s a little after noon, dear. I called Colleen. She and Gavin picked me up. I didn’t want to miss the Christmas program. It was so lovely.”

Oh, hell.
Colleen was Shannon’s older sister. Earlier in the week, Shannon and her grandmother had discussed going to the Methodist church’s Christmas program together. Immersed in all that had gone on last night, Shannon had forgotten. “I’m sorry Grammy. You should’ve gotten me up.”

She stretched and yawned, then rubbed her eyelids with her fingertips. Her eyes felt like sandpaper. She had fallen into bed without washing off her makeup.

Her grandmother took a seat on the foot of the bed, crossed her thin hands on her lap and showered her with a patient smile, meant to gently punish. Shannon loved her dearly, but she had lived with her long enough to know the clever little woman could be a manipulative, though sweet, imp.

“That’s all right, dear. I knew you needed to sleep. I took canned goods for the Camden Mission boxes. Gavin donated two big turkeys.”

Gavin Flynn, Colleen’s husband, was a lawyer of mediocre talent who handled divorces and minor lawsuits. As far as Shannon was concerned, Gavin himself was a big turkey. No small amount of friction existed between Shannon and her sister and thereby her sister’s husband. “And how are Colleen and Gavin today?” she asked.

“They’re just fine. Gavin is thinking about running for the legislature in Austin, so it looks like they’ll be going to church more often.”

“Grammy! I can’t believe you said that.”

“Good heavens, you know how important it is for a politician in Camden to be seen as a God-fearing man.”

“He must have decided which party he wants to belong to.”

“I don’t know if he’s gone that far yet.”

Membership in any of them would make him nothing other than a hypocrite,
Shannon thought
.
Still, she laughed. A sense of humor helped when dealing with Colleen and her husband. “It’s nice he has ideals he’s true to.”

“Now, now,” her grandmother admonished. “We must be open-minded toward Gavin. He’s family and we know he means well. Sometimes he’s just confused.”

And living with Colleen was enough to confuse anyone
. “Humph,” Shannon said.

Now that she was conscious, she became aware of tenderness between her legs. Even with Grammy Evelyn sitting on the foot of the bed, she couldn’t keep from remembering the earlier hours. She had crashed without showering. Could her grandmother smell sex?

“You must have gotten home very late, dear.”

“Later than I intended.”

“I thought so. I had to get up a little after midnight to let Arthur into the house and you still weren’t home.”

A shiver passed through Shannon as more memories assailed her. Around midnight, she had been naked and wantonly posed on Drake Lockhart’s kitchen island in a position that would challenge a gymnast, begging him for more.

Arthur was her grandmother’s tomcat. Grasping the opportunity to change the subject, Shannon said, “Didn’t Christa come by and try to get Arthur back in the house?”

Christa Johnson was Shannon’s best friend. They had gone all through school together. Since Shannon’s return to Camden, they had become fast friends again. She often came over and looked in on Grammy Evelyn if Shannon couldn’t be home in the evening. Christa didn’t expect a favor in return and she wouldn’t accept pay, so Shannon gave her and her boys every ticket she came by to various events around town and in Fort Worth and she sprung for a video game occasionally.

“Oh, yes. She and her boys came, but we couldn’t find him.”

Shannon frowned. “I thought Arthur didn’t like cold weather. Why was he outside so late?”

“Oh, you know Arthur. He probably got interested in some little female somewhere and forgot the time.” Her grandmother looked down at
The Dress
that lay on the floor beside the bed. “Oh, my. Your pretty dress.” She bent forward and picked it up.

Shannon hid a catch in her breath.
The Dress
looked a little less glittery today and she had no idea if it smelled like sex. She wanted to grab it away from Grammy Evelyn, but she didn’t want to throw off the covers and bare herself. Lord, she might have hickeys all over. “It’s okay, Grammy. Just leave it. I’m getting up in a minute. I’ll take care of it.”