The Tycoon (45 page)

Drake heard anxiety in her voice. After Pic had thrown the Christmas tree into the yard, the whole family except for his grandmother and Dad had roared away from the ranch like a parade on steroids. Knowing his siblings, they might not call Mom for weeks. “Not yet. I’ll call them today though. Don’t worry. I’ll smooth things over. Listen, Mom, we didn’t get around to eating yesterday. Why don’t I pick you up and we’ll go somewhere for Christmas dinner.”

****

For Shannon, Christmas had come and gone uneventfully, with the traditional turkey and trimmings at Colleen and Gavin’s house and cousins from Austin seen only on holidays. Colleen showed no hint of the cattiness that had underscored most of their conversations for years. Shannon suspected the explanation was as simple as her wanting their grandmother and cousins to see her as a gracious hostess.

From her collection of jewelry, Grammy Evelyn had given Colleen an aquamarine pendant for Christmas. Colleen had gushed over it. Shannon had felt no envy. Colleen’s craving for
things
, and not just
from their grandmother, had a malevolence to it Shannon had never understood.

With most businesses in town closed, Shannon didn’t open Piper Real Estate either. Yesterday, when leaving Colleen and Gavin’s house, she and Grammy Evelyn had invited their Austin cousins to visit and have lunch before they returned home. Today, Shannon planned on spending the morning helping Grammy Evelyn bake fancy chicken potpies in little individual dishes.

And underlying all of it was her anticipation of tomorrow. After today, Christmas was over. Perhaps the owner of her five-acre corner would return from his vacation. By tomorrow night, she would know if the was the new owner of the five-acre parcel that would change her life.

The cousins’ visit turned out to be an exercise in patience. They were from Grammy Evelyn’s side of the family and Shannon scarcely knew them. They were closer to Grammy Evelyn’s age than hers and she had little in common with them. She thought they would never leave. The whole time they sat at the table talking, she had to force herself not to leave her chair and pace.

Tuesday morning, she was in her office early and waiting for a phone call from the Dallas Realtor. By lunch, she still hadn’t heard from him. By mid-afternoon, she could stand it no longer. She called.

“Sorry, honey,” he told her, “but another offer came in late last Friday.”

Mental snarl. She hated being called “honey” in a business conversation. She was as much a professional as he was. “And you didn’t call me and let me know you received it?”

“Come on. I’m not obligated to call you. It was hectic last week.

“Can you tell me what the offer is?”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Can you tell me who’s trying to buy it, besides me, that is?”

“Hey, I thought you were a professional. You ought to know I can’t do that either.”

Shannon had known the answer to both questions before she asked them, but she had hoped the agent might be as unethical as some of the other high-roller types she had met. She made a loud sigh, venting her frustration into the receiver. “This is really important to me.”

“Honey, all real estate deals are important to somebody. But okay, I’ll tell you this. You’ve been outbid. That’s it. That’s all I’m sharing.”

“Okay, thanks,” she told him. “I’m going to put in another bid.”

“It had better be today,” he said in a warning tone.

“I’ll get back to you. Just wait for my new bid.”

She hung up, leaving him to fret. He would wait. He might not be obligated to pass information on to her, but he was obligated to get the best deal he could for his seller.

This was a revolting development to say the least. Whoever it was who wanted that piece of property, he or she couldn’t possibly want it or need it as much as she did. She called her loan officer. He agreed to back her up to a point. She wrote a new offer, upping her bid, and faxed it to the Dallas Realtor. To her dismay, she was now engaged in a bidding war.

She could still find something to be upbeat about. She’d had a good, quiet Christmas with no drama and she had New Year weekend with Drake to look forward to. All she had to do now

was endure asking her sister to look in on Grammy Evelyn.

****

On Wednesday, Shannon began to expect Drake’s call. Hadn’t he said he would return to Fort Worth on Wednesday? The call from
Unknown Number
came late in the day.

“Run into any problems getting away for the weekend?” he asked.

“All taken care of,” she answered.

“I was thinking of ordering something good for dinner and watching a movie or two.”

“Hm, dinner and a movie, huh?”

He chuckled. “I’ll choose the food. You can choose the movies.”

“Great,” she said brightly.

He told her he would drive to Camden and pick her up on Friday afternoon. Or he would send a car or even an airplane. In the end, she laughingly told him none of that was necessary. She hung up happy and not because she cared so much about celebrating New Year’s Eve. Joy danced all through her because he hadn’t forgotten. And he hadn’t found someone else he would rather spend the holiday with. She was forced to acknowledge just how much she wanted to hear from him and see him again and it had nothing to do with
just sex
.

You’re such a sissy fool
, her cranky alter-ego hissed.

Still, she picked up the phone and called her sister.

****

She left for Fort Worth mid-afternoon on Friday. Only Christa knew her true destination. In her bag, she had several movies. Two westerns she thought he might like and two chick flicks for her, although she doubted they would spend much time in front of the TV set. After all, ten days had passed since they had seen each other sexual tension teemed even in her SUV.

On the outskirts of town, she passed
her corner
and a note of anxiety tweaked her. She would know in a matter of days, maybe even hours.

When she reached Lockhart Tower’s marble lobby, she found him waiting for her. In the elevator, they made out all the way up to the twenty-eighth floor. “Ten days is too long,” he mumbled between tongue-dueling kisses.

“Mmm,” she agreed.

Minutes after closing his condo door, they were in his bed for a blistering episode. Afterward, she lay in his arms, her cheek pressed against his firm, warm shoulder and her smooth legs tangled with his hairy ones. “I had a feeling this was going to happen, so I shaved my legs.”

He ran his arch up and down her calf. “Feels good.” He smoothed a hand over her bottom and pulled her closer. “All of you feels good.” His hand came out from beneath the covers and he rubbed his nose hard and quick.

“Is my hair tickling your nose?”

He wrapped one of her russet curls around his finger. “I like your hair. It suits you. It can tickle my nose all it wants.”

“Thank you. And my hair thanks you.” She placed a kiss on his shoulder. “After you said we were staying in, I let it dry naturally and gave it its freedom. No hair products, no flat iron. What you’ve got tonight, cowboy, is the real me.”

“Works for me,” he said. “I like things that are natural. And people.”

People couldn’t get more natural than me
, she thought. “When I was a little girl, my hair was so curly, my dad called me Orphan Annie.”

“I’ll bet you were a cute little kid.”

She snuggled closer, rested a hand on his chest and heaved a huge sigh of contentment.

“What was that about?” he asked, rubbing the back of her hand with his fingers.

“Nothing. I just feel good. The holidays are over. Everything will settle down and I can get my team back to thinking about work.”

“Since it’s a new year, I want to say something,” he said.

Uh-oh
. A tiny tremble zipped across her mid-section. A serious statement after boiling sex was never good thing. “Oh? Do I need a stiff drink to hear it?”

He replied with a little laugh.

Her quip about a stiff drink had been a joke. She never tried to drown her setbacks in alcohol, but now she wondered if she might need it. She paused for a few beats, steeling herself for what might come next. “Then go ahead and say it.”

He pushed the strand of hair he had been playing with behind her ear. “How do you think this just sex idea is working out?”

“It hasn’t had much of a chance.”

“Is it still what you want?”

She angled a narrow-lidded look at him. “Is this a trap?”

“We don’t want feelings to get in the way, right?”

She back-pedaled, her own words slapping her in the face. Of course, she wanted him to feel something. And if she said she felt nothing, she would be lying. “We don’t have to take it to extremes. We can feel
something.”

“That’s
my
contention. A few emotions make the sex better, don’t you think?”

“You’re confusing me. You picked me up and brought me home with you when you had no idea who I was. And it was for sex. No emotions. I thought you did that all the time. What are you trying to tell me?”

He, too, propped himself on his elbow and faced her.

“That I don’t like wasting time on superfluous bullshit. Thinking about how I want this weekend to turn out has been giving me hell since before Christmas. So here’s where I am. We got off to a bad start. I don’t like this just sex idea. I think it’s a façade anyway.”

She frowned. “A façade?”

“I don’t think that’s how you really feel. I want us to give this a chance. To see if it’s real. And to be up front and honest with each other. But if we can’t do that, or if I’m wrong about us, we just admit it now and stop. I won’t call you anymore.”

She wasn’t prepared for such a frank conversation. “Why can’t we stick to what we talked about in the restaurant? Last Tuesday was good. We enjoyed each other and didn’t get all caught up in feelings.”

His head shook. “When I was twenty-five, I would’ve gone for an hour or two fucking and going on my merry way until the next time. But I’m not that kid anymore.” His amber eyes bored into her. “I can’t imagine that you really mean that’s what you want from me. Or from any man.”

“No! I don’t. Honestly, I don’t. I don’t know what I want.”

He cupped her jaw in his palm, leaned and tenderly fastened his lips to hers. When he pulled back, his eyes locked on hers, the crease between his brows deepening. “I’m a man who lives by his instincts, Shannon. In all parts of my life. At the hotel that night, it wasn’t just a pickup. There was something else there or it wouldn’t have gone as far as it did. I promise you

I’m not a fool whose dick dictates his behavior. I might’ve been once, but not anymore.” She heaved a sigh and turned to her back, stared at the ceiling. She hadn’t been thinking of the night at the Worthington Hotel until he mentioned it, but now Donna Schoonover waltzed into her mind and how she had appeared to be his girlfriend, his fiancé or something one minute and the next minute she wasn’t. Shannon had always suspected that whatever happened between them after they left the party had been instigated by Drake. If someone with as many positives as Donna Schoonover had couldn’t hang onto him, how could Shannon Piper?

“Do we have to talk about it on New Year’s Eve?” she asked meekly.