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He frowned. “Did I? Let me think…Oh, now I remember. When I was closing out the register, I had another one of those crazy calls from the idiot who lives in the apartment next door to mine complaining again about my dog barking. I guess I forgot. Shit!” He smacked himself on the forehead. “I’m the idiot, aren’t I? Why, did something happen? Is that what’s wrong?”
“Michael hasn’t mismanaged anything, and fortunately nothing happened when you left the door unlocked…unless—”
“Unless what?” As his eyebrows went up, the telephone rang. “Wait, hold that thought.” Rising, he moved across the room and, with his back to her, answered the phone, then stood listening. After a minute, he turned with a gleam in his eye, raised his hand and pointed his index finger at Erica as if it were a gun barrel. “Yeah, good to hear from you, Hunter. Sure, she’s right here.”
Erica sprang off the couch as soon as she realized it was Hunter on the phone. Shaking her head and flapping her hands wildly, she mouthed, “I’m not here.” She’d spent a long and sleepless night and Hunter was the reason. Nine years and she had avoided any attempt by a man to get close enough for intimacy. But she’d been almost seduced by their conversation in the bar, then rocked to her core by that kiss. She’d been so rattled that when she got in her car, she started making plans to call him first thing and cancel their date. So, why hadn’t she?
To block her escape, Jason casually stepped in front of her, still chatting with Hunter. “So she tells me. And your timing’s perfect. You interrupted the lecture she was giving me for failing to lock up last night. But I swear, I thought I locked the damn door.”
He paused to listen, ignoring the motion Erica made to slice his throat. “Horseback riding, you say? No, she didn’t mention it. But it sounds like fun to me.” With his shoulder propped on the door frame, he crossed his ankles. “Nothing like country air and a horseback ride to clear away the smog and renew the spirit, I always say.”
The only time Jason had ever been on a horse was when he’d modeled Western gear at the Houston Rodeo. Rolling her eyes, Erica reached over and took the phone from him. “Hello.”
“Hi, it’s Hunter.”
Even braced for it, her tummy took a tumble at the sound of his voice. “Hi.” She glanced over and met Jason’s wickedly dancing eyes and instantly turned her back on him. “How are you?”
“I’m good. And you?”
“I’m fine. Busy.”
“Yeah, I guessed that. Okay, I’ll be quick. I realized after I left last night that I don’t know where you live. We can be at the ranch by eight if we leave early enough on Sunday morning, but I need your address. Are you an early riser or one of those types that sleeps in on the weekend?”
“You didn’t forget it’s next weekend, not this Sunday?”
“Not unless I can talk you into changing your mind.”
“Maybe I will at that,” she said, bending over to pick up a wad of paper on the floor. “Actually, Hunter, I’ve been thinking—”
“Don’t.” He paused, then went on before she could speak. “Don’t think of reasons not to come…just this once. If it turns out that you don’t like Lady—”
“It’s not that I won’t like your horses, Hunter. I just have so much on my plate at the moment that I don’t think it’s a good time to do…this.”
“You work hard. Give yourself a break. I guarantee when you get back home, you’ll thank me.” Then he seemed to run out of words, finishing with simply “I wish you’d come, Erica.”
Was that uncertainty in his voice? A plea? She’d pegged him from the start as a supremely confident male. He’d definitely seemed in command last night. But whatever it was she heard in his voice now, it weakened her resolve more than flashy charm or blatant flirtation ever could.
“Well…okay. But I’ll need to get back at a reasonable hour.” She gave him her address.
“In that case, we’ll get an early start. Is six too early?” he asked.
Yes, but if she was going to do this, she supposed she owed him the courtesy of going along with his plans. “Six is fine. I’ll be ready…next Sunday.” She clicked off quietly and replaced the phone in its cradle. It was only when Jason firmly cleared his throat that she turned to look at him. “What?”
He was gazing at her in amazement. “You’ve really made a date? With a man who isn’t selling fabric or insurance?”
“Don’t you have a customer on the floor?”
“No. And any customer who has the bad timing to come into the shop right now will just have to wait.” He waded through the sea of discarded sketches and sat down. “Tell me everything. Leave no detail out.”
“There is nothing to tell.” She bent and began collecting the discarded sketches from the floor. “Last night, Hunter came in just as Michael was leaving.” She straightened up, arms full of paper. “He owns a ranch near Brenham and apparently he stables a few horses. I think he enjoys getting away from the city. He must, as he’s there almost every weekend.”
“So he just dropped by the shop and asked you to spend the weekend—” He stopped with a look of consternation. “You can’t go this weekend. You have to be at the symphony gala Saturday night.”
“I’m not spending the weekend with him. I haven’t lost my mind. I told him it would have to be the following Sunday.”
“Well, kiss my grits.”
She stuffed an armload of paper into the trash can. “You are so not funny.”
Jason leaned back with an innocent look on his face and crossed his legs. “I told you he was prime stuff, not that you’ve ever paid any attention to my opinion before. But at least now I know what’s got your panties in a twist.”
“Wasting a whole morning trying to get a design right is what’s making me crazy,” she said, scooping up the photos of her client. Then, frowning, she stood looking at them. “I don’t know why I agreed to go. Maybe it was because Michael acted like such an idiot and Hunter appeared at precisely the right moment. Or maybe it was the margaritas. But I only had one.”
“Whoa. Hold it. What margaritas?” He gave a wide swipe of his arm, taking in the small office. “We serve no margaritas in here, sugar. Did you actually have dinner with him?”
“One drink. At Monty’s Bar.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But somehow I found myself talking about when I had Misha and how much I loved her. Next thing I know, I agreed to go with him to his ranch. Next Sunday.”
He studied her in delight for a minute. “Well, it’s about time some guy storms the citadel, but go back to Michael acting like an idiot. I agree he’s dull and boring, but if he didn’t bring news of a financial disaster, what makes him idiotic?”
“Having the gall to force himself on me.” She shoved the trash can back in its place beside her drafting table with more force than necessary, still outraged. “Apparently, he thinks I’m beautiful and sexy and with a little foreplay, I might be willing. His idea of foreplay was to grope me in spite of the fact that I kept saying no. I had to wrestle my way out of the office and lock him inside to keep him from throwing me to the floor and having his wicked way with me.”
Jason’s good humor evaporated. “Are you serious?”
“I know it’s hard to believe. He’s always seemed so…geekish. I fired him as soon as I unlocked the door and let him out.” Recalling the moment, she grinned. “You should have heard him yelling and kicking, banging on the door with his fists. If Hunter hadn’t come in when he did, I would have left him in there all night cooling his heels.”
“Our hero.”
“Well, he was a welcome sight at just that instant.” She lifted her shoulders in a who-knows-why shrug. “Maybe that was why I found myself agreeing to go to Monty’s for a margarita.” And then making a date to go horseback riding. And then kissing him madly on a public sidewalk. But she wasn’t about to tell Jason any more, not until she figured it out herself.
Seven
The symphony gala was well under way when Erica and Jason entered the lobby of the hotel and made their way up the wide staircase that brought them to the mezzanine level. She pulled the ends of a tasseled shawl around herself and edged a bit closer to Jason. She was nervous. It had been a long time since she’d attended an event where there would be music and dancing in a crowd of elegantly dressed people. That had been part of another life.
“I love a party,” Jason said, taking her by the arm at the foot of the stairs.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said.
“Champagne, music, all these guys in tuxes, what’s not to love?” He flashed a smile at a dashing couple strolling by. “I bet our snazzy little jacket will go for no less than fifteen hundred, what do you think?”
“I have no idea. I worry that it’ll go begging.”
“Not a chance. Wait and see.”
At the entrance to the ballroom, the attendant took their invitations and they went inside. With her stomach in a knot, she stood looking over the crowd. Men in black tuxes, women dressed to the nines, a din of cocktail chatter and laughter, all so familiar, so much a part of a life that had stopped short nine years ago. Nothing short of the opportunity to promote the Erica Stewart label could have dragged her here otherwise.
Jason spotted a familiar face, gave her a gentle nudge in another direction and said, “Let’s mingle, partner. You know more of these people than I do, even if you haven’t seen them in years.” And off he went.
Erica did indeed spot familiar faces, including the owner of the ad agency she used, several clients who’d commissioned various pieces of her art, her church’s minister and his wife, and a professor from Rice University, where she’d spoken to art students. Nursing a glass of champagne, she drifted from group to group and found, after a while, that some of her tension had faded. As long as she didn’t stop and give herself a chance to remember the last time she’d been here, she was fine.
“Erica! Erica Stewart, is that really you?”
She turned as someone caught her hand and recognized Lisa Johns, an attorney whose famous married client—a pro sports hero—was fighting a paternity claim by a stripper in a topless bar. “Hi, Lisa. Yes, it’s really me.” Erica returned her air kiss with a smile while her heart gave a little bump. Seeing Lisa would force her back in time whether she wanted it or not. It had been foolish to think—to hope—otherwise. “How are you?”
“Giving them hell every chance I get.” Lisa squeezed her hand, then stood back, taking stock of Erica. In her little black dress, short and chic, her hair pulled to one side with a diamond clip and her strappy three-inch heels, Erica knew she looked her best. “Goddamn, you’re as gorgeous as ever, more so. And making such a stir with your art. It makes my heart go pitty-pat. I’m bidding on that gorgeous jacket, not that it’ll look the way it should on me. But what the hell.”
Lisa, a defense lawyer, was as tough—and tough-talking—as any male counterpart and twice as smart. She had a reputation among lawyers for taking no prisoners. “It’s good to see you, Lisa. You’re making quite a stir yourself with your client. This time, he’s got to be worried.”
“I wish. Maybe then he’d keep it in his pants, but he’s mine and until he runs out of money or I simply kill him myself, I guess I’ll have to stay in there pitching. No pun intended.”
Erica laughed. “As his attorney, should you be saying things like that?”
“Shit, you’re family, darlin’.” She paused, took a good, long look into Erica’s eyes, and when she spoke, her tone gentled. “Tell me, how long has it been?”
“Nine years,” she said quietly. Nine years since Lisa Johns had shared an office with Erica’s husband, David. Nine years since those carefree evenings when Lisa and her current lover would pop in at Erica and David’s house to drink wine and talk, plan and dream. Nine years since it had all ended.
“Yeah. God, how time flies. Nine years.” Lisa grabbed a fresh glass of champagne from a tray-bearing waiter as he passed and took a good gulp. “You know, every now and then when I’m slogging away on a case, I’ll come across something David wrote, or some research he authored, and it’ll hit me in the tummy. It still seems so unfair, so senseless. If I could ever get my hands on the bastard who did that, I think I’d forget my calling as a defense lawyer. There’s nothing mean enough to throw at people like that, you know?”
“I try not to think about it, Lisa.”
“Jesus.” She reached over and hugged Erica. “I’m an idiot. I’ve had too much champagne. Let’s change the subject, ’cause I haven’t seen you in so long and when I spotted you across the room, I couldn’t wait to get over here.” She finished off the rest of the fresh glass, deposited it with another tray-bearing waiter and gave a big sigh. “I meant it when I said you’re looking fantastic. And it’s great your label is taking off big-time. I saw one of your quilts in a house a year or so ago. This gal had it hanging on the wall of her den, Erica. God, it was stunning, a piece of art in fabric. And those fabulous jackets you’re designing are all the rage. I’m gonna have one, I swear.”
“Come by the shop,” Erica said, smiling. “I have a couple that would look wonderful on you.”
Lisa cocked her head with a bemused look. “But I thought painting was your forte, not fabric design. I read the Zest article in the paper, but I didn’t see any evidence of your art from the pictures they took of your shop. Which reminds me, when do you have time to paint?”
“Actually, I don’t.” She managed a smile and gave her stock answer to the familiar question. “What with the shop and keeping up with demand, I’m just too busy.” Painting had once been as vital to her as the air she breathed, but that, too, was nine years past. She had discovered then that only a very few things in life were really vital for survival.
Suddenly, Lisa paused and looked about curiously. “Where’s your date? You didn’t come to this thing stag, did you?”
“No, he’s around somewhere mingling, as he calls it.” She turned, scanning the floor trying to find Jason in the crowd. And then her heart skipped a beat. Threading his way through the crowd—and the object of more than a few admiring female glances—was Hunter McCabe. Even half a ballroom away, she could see that he was heading directly to her. What was he doing here? She knew—knew—this was not Hunter’s kind of thing.
“Well,” Lisa said, following Erica’s gaze, “I don’t think I’d let that one mingle any farther than two feet from my side. Are there any more like him? I’m available.”
“He’s not mine,” she murmured, but Lisa was right. He did look good in a tux.
“Then if I were you, I’d do whatever it took to remedy that.”
Erica watched him with the eye of an artist, thinking he looked almost as good as he did in that battered bomber jacket and jeans. The truth was, he was a man who was so comfortable in his skin that he’d even look good in nothing. At that thought, she caught herself up short, because it was too incredibly easy to imagine him wearing nothing but confidence and that rakish grin.
“Hey, there.” Before she realized his intent, he’d caught hold of both her hands and pulled her toward him in a move so natural that she never thought of resisting. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he said after kissing her cheek.
Flustered, she inhaled subtle aftershave and not-so-subtle male. “I didn’t expect to see you here,” she said.
“And I may not last much longer,” he told her, looking over the crowd with something in his face—a subtle twist of his mouth—that told her she’d been right. This wasn’t his kind of thing. So what in the world was he doing here? He glanced then at Lisa. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Not a bit,” Lisa said, extending her hand with a speculative look in her eye. “I’m Lisa Johns, an old friend of Erica’s.”
“Hunter McCabe,” he said. Then, after a beat, he recognized her. “Joe Crenshaw’s defense attorney, right?”
“That would be me, yes. God bless cable TV.”
He was shaking his head, smiling. “Crenshaw’s something else. I can’t wait to open the sports page to see what he’s been up to next.”
“Me, too.” Lisa took a healthy swallow of her drink. “But, unlike you, I pray his antics are confined to the sports page and not the headlines.”
“I hear you,” Hunter said, still smiling. “I suspect you’d have to lock him in his room every night to keep him out of trouble.”
“I keep thinking he’ll grow up,” Lisa said, “but when will it happen? He’s thirty-four.” She glanced beyond them and made a face. “Uh-oh, I see I’m being summoned.” She flashed a smile at Hunter, then gave Erica a warm hug and whispered, “If he’s not your date, sweetie, he should be. Bye now.”
Erica watched Lisa make her way across the ballroom toward a tall man with iron-gray hair and an air of authority. She turned away, putting a hand over her tummy.
“What’s wrong?” Following her gaze, Hunter frowned, looking over the crowd.
“It’s nothing.” The man who’d summoned Lisa was the firm’s senior partner. And David’s mentor. If Edward Kerr realized she was here, he’d probably feel honor-bound to speak to her. She couldn’t allow that.
She turned to look at Hunter. “I’ve been circulating, as Jason calls it, for an hour. I’d like to get away from the noise for a few minutes. Would you excuse me?”
“A break sounds good to me, too. Let’s try the mezzanine. C’mon.” He settled a hand at her waist and made a startled sound as he encountered bare skin. Her dress had long sleeves and a boat neckline that came up to her throat in front, but in back it plunged almost to her waist. “Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack,” he said, eyeing the enticing line of her spine.
She knew the dress was a bit risqué, but Jason had persuaded her to wear it. This was her first appearance in public, he told her. She should make a statement. In fact, it had been Jason who had chosen the dress for her in a chic little boutique in River Oaks, telling her that if she refused to wear one of her own designs, she needed to wear something equally stunning.
Apparently, Hunter thought it was stunning.
Without another word, he guided her toward an area at the edge of the room. Several people recognized him as they wove through the crowd, but other than brief nods and even briefer smiles, he didn’t stop until he reached the wide stairs that led to the mezzanine.
She sighed with relief as the noise of the party receded. “I can’t go far,” she told him. “The auction is due to start in a little while.”
“I know,” he said, pulling her behind a huge column. “I’ve spent the last hour talking to people I don’t particularly like and listening to enough cocktail chitchat to remind me why I avoid these things. I need a minute to breathe something besides expensive perfume and hors d’oeuvres too pretty to eat.”
She smiled and decided against resisting. “If it’s that bad, why did you come?”
“I came because I knew you’d be here.” His gaze drifted over her, lingering long enough to make her skin tingle. “You look fantastic in that dress…what little there is of it.”
“I have a shawl to cover—”
He touched her lips with a finger. “Don’t even think it. I thought you’d probably wear something you designed, but now I’m glad you didn’t.”
The way he was looking at her renewed her misgivings about him. Not only was he an extremely attractive man, but he was stirring feelings in her that she hadn’t felt in years. She’d met many men and had had many opportunities to begin new relationships in the years since losing David, but she’d never been even remotely tempted. It shook her that Hunter threatened those defenses.
“Something upset you back there,” he said, studying her face. “It was when Lisa left. Want to tell me about it?”
She’d already told him more than enough about herself. “It was nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m a little tense over the auction. I know it’s a wonderful opportunity to promote the Erica Stewart label and I’m appreciative of the opportunity, but to tell the truth, I’ll be glad when it’s over and I can go home.”
One wall of the mezzanine was all glass. He led her across the floor and they stood looking out over the city. “I’ve always admired Houston’s beautiful skyline,” she said. “Are you responsible for any of it?”
He moved his gaze away from her reluctantly and pointed to a cluster of buildings due east of downtown. “See the steeple on that church way over there? Look just to the left of it. I was the architect on that building.”
“Only that one?”
“There are several others, but that’s the only one visible from here.”
“It must be thrilling to design something so…important and then to see it come to life.”
“It’s not so different from what you do, is it?”
“A quilt compared to a stunning high-rise?”
“Art is art,” he told her. “As for importance, one of your quilts will probably be some woman’s treasure a hundred years from now when my building is crumbling.”
“You are very good for my ego,” she said, smiling.
“I’m hoping to be good for a lot more than that,” he said. Again she felt a quiver of alarm, but before she had a chance to respond, he glanced at the time on his watch. “It’s time we headed back. The auction will begin in a few minutes and Jason will be wondering what happened to you.”
She let him take her arm and in moments they were entering the ballroom. Jason obviously had been looking for her. He looked relieved when he spotted her and hurried toward them. She turned to take her leave of Hunter, but he caught and held her hand.
“After the auction, there’s someone I want you to meet,” he told her, but Jason had reached them and she didn’t have a chance to respond.
“Hunter.” Jason extended his hand. “I thought I recognized you across the room earlier.” He gave them both a mock scowl. “I leave Erica to work this crowd and next thing I know, she’s disappeared and so have you.”
“I needed a minute to breathe,” she told him.
“I tried to talk her into running away with me,” Hunter said, “but she kept talking about this auction she didn’t want to miss.”
“Yeah, and if we don’t head over there right now, we will miss it. It’s just starting. She’s nervous, so she refuses to be up front and center,” he told Hunter. “Luckily, I’ve staked out a good location where we can see the action and still be almost invisible.” He turned to go, but Hunter held her in place with a firm hand on her waist.
“Don’t let her leave after the auction, Jason,” Hunter said. Then he tipped her face up and kissed her full on the mouth. “I’ll find you after,” he promised.
As they went their separate ways, nobody noticed Lillian watching from across the room.
Lillian managed a bright smile and pretended to listen while one of Morton’s associates talked. Thanks to Hunter, she’d been functioning on sheer bravado for the last half hour. Her delight in having a rare evening in her son’s company was gone. She realized, when Hunter joined her and Morton without a date, that he wasn’t at the gala because he’d had a change of heart about these worthy events. No, from the way he kept looking about, scanning faces, moving restlessly to the bar and listening to conversations with only half an ear, she knew he was there to see someone. And when he spotted Erica Stewart and began making his way across the ballroom directly to her, she knew with a sinking heart, why he’d come.
“Be careful what you wish for,” she murmured to herself.
That kiss hadn’t been casual. She saw his face. Saw Erica’s reaction. She knew Hunter had been intrigued by the artist from the moment he met her. She realized he could have been seeing her ever since. What a cruel twist of fate that would be, she thought, fingering the brooch pinned on her shoulder. But it wouldn’t be surprising. Erica was a beautiful woman. Hunter was a man in his prime. No matter how much she and Hank wished it, there was no serious commitment on his part in his relationship with Kelly. Morton was right about that.
Murmuring something in reply to a remark by Morton, she watched Erica and Jason approach an area near the stage where the auction was beginning. She looked quite stunning, Lillian thought. The little black dress was chic and sophisticated and just right for the occasion. Many eyes would be on her tonight, and with her dark hair clipped to one side, her face coolly aloof, she seemed remote and mysterious. An artist whose inner life was hidden. She would be a big hit. Lillian sighed. Why wouldn’t Hunter be captivated?