The Tycoon (32 page)

Bill Junior turned her then and kissed her, his hands moving down to her bottom and pressing her against him with his strong arms. In spite of herself, she slid her arms around his middle and pushed closer, his starched shirt rasping her bare breasts. She could feel how hard he was, which only made her visualize him naked and want him more.

His tongue thrust deeply into her mouth with a sexual rhythm. It was a devastating kiss. Tender, as he had always been, but firm and controlling. And arousing.

When he lifted his mouth, he looked into her eyes. “I love you, Betty. I always have.”

Then why do you cheat on me?
a part of her wanted to ask, but a greedier part didn’t want to lose the moment. He hadn’t often said the words, “I love you,” but she believed he did have those feelings, which made up for many of his flaws.

“I think you still love me,” he went on. “I don’t blame you for what’s happened. I know most of it’s been my fault.”

He was right on both counts. She still loved him, perhaps in a different way, but loved him nonetheless.

“Let’s go to bed,” he said huskily. He scooped her into his arms and she didn’t object. At this point, what harm would it do? After all, they were still married and they had explored nearly every corner of sex. And besides that, she loved making love with him.

He carried her toward her bedroom. He knew the way to that part of the house, too, because he had been there as many times as he had been to the kitchen.

And that was another problem, dammit. She had left him, tried to divorce him, but she still wanted him and she couldn’t deny him anything.

Chapter 19

Drake sat at the drafting table in the workroom that adjoined his office, trying to study a blueprint of Lone Star Commons. It had been giving him fits for weeks. Usually, architects and engineers resolved the types of problems that faced him, but they had been wrong on so many issues, he no longer trusted their suggestions. With Lockhart Tower and the old Sears building, he had established a reputation for cutting edge innovation and high quality. He refused to allow pedestrian ideas on one apartment complex in a bedroom community take away from that, so he had personally taken on the review of the plans for the apartment complex.

He’d had so little sleep his eyes burned. He had even resorted to the glasses he was supposed to wear, but seldom did.

But he couldn’t concentrate. The parking lot episode in Camden wouldn’t leave him alone, especially the end:

…Why aren’t you on the damn pill…I don’t need to be. I haven’t had sex in two years…. No one goes two years without sex….I do….

The front door opened. He checked his watch. Debra, his middle-aged assistant of several years, came into the workroom. He looked up and said, “Good morning.”

“Same back. What time did you come in?”

“Six.”

Removing her coat, she gave him a cautious look. “You look a little peaked, bossman. Are you sick?”

He braced his elbows on the drafting table and rubbed his eyes. “Stayed out too late with some friends.”

“I can tell.” She carried her coat into the supply room. “Did you make the coffee?” she Called back to him.

“Yeah. Drank a lot of it, too.”

She came out and picked up his empty mug, carried it over to the coffeepot, refilled it, then put on another pot.

His cell phone bleated. He yanked it off his belt and checked Caller ID. Instead of Shannon, he saw Pic’s name. Then he realized Shannon didn’t have his number. By design, the calls he made from his private cell left no callback number. He used his Blackberry for business, but only his family and good friends were able to reach him on his private cell phone.

He keyed in to the call. “Hey, Little Brother. You’re up early.” He left his stool, walked into his office and plopped into the chair behind his desk, relieved to escape the tall backless stool at the drafting table.

“When am I not up early?” Pic said. “I wanted to call you before I leave the house ’cause I won’t be back in ’til noon. I heard from Blake. They got some lab work back on Kate’s fire. The accelerant was charcoal lighter fluid.”

Surprised, Drake frowned. “Barbecue stuff?”

“That’s what they said. They figure it started in that little pile of hay flakes at the end of the stalls.”

“Do they have a suspect?”

“Nope. Nada. Dead end for now.”

“Shit, they’ll never be able to trace lighter fluid to one person. It’s for sale everywhere.”

“Common as a loaf of bread. You heard anything from the insurance company?”

“I don’t expect to until they finish their investigation. You know how it goes during the

holidays. Nothing has any urgency. But I’m expecting to see results after Christmas. They won’t have any excuses.”

“Kate told me she thought she had the barn and equipment insured for a million dollars,” Pic said, “but I know she doesn’t have a good head for stuff like that. Is that the amount the insurance company told you?”

“It’s a million-dollar policy all right. But they’re balking on the value of those horses.”

“Fuckers. Didn’t I tell you that’s the way it was gonna be. How would they feel if it was
their
horses?”

“It’s the way the game’s played,” Drake said.

“When you coming down?”

“Next Wednesday.”

“How long you planning on staying?”

“About a week. I’ll need to get back up here before the thirty-first.”

“I thought I’d bring Mandy out for Christmas dinner,” Pic said. “Since her dad passed on, you know, she doesn’t have anybody in town anymore.”

“You don’t have to explain anything. Just bring her on out. Listen, Pic, I was planning on asking Kate for any written records she might have related to those horses. You know, bloodlines, registration docs, receipts for breeding fees. That kind of stuff. We need to try to establish the value of Proud Mary. If we can do that, we can put a value on her colt and maybe the other two, too.”

“I’ll tell her,” Pic said. “Well, I gotta get going. Got a lot to do. See you next Wednesday.”

The minute he disconnected from his brother’s call, his thoughts swung back to Shannon and the fact that she didn’t have his phone number. He walked out to his assistant’s desk. Debra was his trusted right hand. She kept up with his bank accounts and credit cards, paid his bills, knew most of the ins and outs of his business and quite a bit about his personal life.

“What’s a good present to give to someone you just met and things went a little off the rails?” he asked her. “If you want to make her like you?” he added.

She looked at him across the rim of her half-glasses, blinking. He didn’t doubt she was surprised. He could count on his fingers the number of times he had bought presents for women, other than the obligatory ones, like birthdays and Christmas, and she knew it.

“Flowers are always good,” she said. “And they’re fairly harmless.”

“Roses?”

“Sure. Why not? Maybe not red ones, though. Red ones might, you know, send the wrong message. But peach or pink, maybe. Sweet, but noncommittal.”

He couldn’t keep from giving her a low laugh. “Well, I’m not sweet, but maybe it’s time I got committal.”

“Lordy me, I can’t believe I just heard that. She must be some chick.”

He laughed again. Debra knew him better than most of the women he had dated. And she knew his screwed-up history in the social part of his life.

He chewed on his lower lip a moment, trying to decide, then returned to the workroom for his coat. As he passed Debra’s desk, he said, “I’m going to that flower shop up the block. I’ll be back in a minute.”

As he walked through the doorway, he heard her mutter, “Will wonders never cease?”

****

Slow to pull herself together, Shannon arrived at her office midmorning. She knew she looked as if she had been hit by a truck. She had barely gotten through her grandmother’s questioning and fussing over her and now her team members and Chelsea looked at her with curious expressions. She offered no explanation.

What had been a dull headache had turned into a bass drum behind her eyes. Her stomach burned from the citrus in last night’s margaritas. She survived the rest of the morning on doughnuts Kelly had brought in, ibuprophen and TUMS.

Several tasks awaited her, so she had little time to consider what to do about Drake. She suspected that just because she had told him she didn’t want to get involved with him didn’t mean she wouldn’t hear from him again. She had seen how determined he was.

At noon, she went home for lunch with Grammy Evelyn. They sat at the small round table in the dining room and munched on non-spicy chicken salad sandwiches and sipped soothing hot tea. Her grandmother was an expert at chicken salad.

When she arrived back in her office, she no sooner stepped into the reception room than Chelsea was in front of her, her eyes alive with excitement. “Shannon. Look on your desk.”

Shannon gave the receptionist a curious look, then walked to her office and peeked in. In the middle of the desk blotter, framed by the vivid green of fern fronds and dainty white baby’s breath, stood a bouquet of yellow, not-quite-open rosebuds.

Ker-plunk!
A rock dropped in her stomach. Instantly, a memory of the evening in Drake’s bed in Fort Worth flew into her mind….
A real redhead….With a yellow rose of Texas tattoo.

“Wow,” she said, schooling herself to react normally and not reveal that an erotic memory had thrown her off track for a second. She walked into the office, bent over the bouquet and sniffed a rosebud.

“A florist from Fort Worth delivered them,” Chelsea said, her heightened energy almost stirring the drapes. “There’s a card.”

Kelly and Terry rushed in and skidded to a halt in front of her desk. “Open the card, open the card,” Kelly said.

“We started to peek at it ourselves,” Terry chimed in, laughing, “but it’s sealed. You must have made some client extremely happy.”

“Or maybe you’ve got an admirer you’re not telling us about?” Kelly said.

Hoping she was succeeding in hiding her own excitement, Shannon found the small sealed envelope pinned to a stem and opened it.

Can we start over? Pick up where we left off in Fort Worth? Before I went to sleep. Call me….D.

A phone number followed. Shannon stared at it. Was this the
Unknown Number
from which he had called her before daylight? That phone call now seemed as if it had occurred days ago. Now her heart was tapping in a full-fledged pitty-pat. She quickly slid the small note back into its envelope and dropped it into her purse.

“Well?” Kelly demanded. “Who sent them?”

Kelly was just naturally nosy. “Oh, they’re from the guy I showed property to yesterday. No big deal. He’s just saying he appreciates my making the effort this close to the holiday.”

It was only a partial fib of convenience.

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Terry said. “Yellow roses this time of year? That had to cost him extra. And that vase looks like real cut crystal, too. A hundred bucks easy.”

“Yeah,” Kelly agreed. “I should pick up such a customer.”

Shannon hid a smile as she gingerly touched a bud. To Drake, a hundred dollars was coffee