Texas Heroes_ Volume 1(139)
“It will be fine, Daddy. I can handle it.”
“You’re going to do this?” His voice rose, and the little girl she’d been shrank from his disapproval. “I forbid it. I’ll take care of this, Lacey. He won’t bother you again.”
Just the way her father had taken care of her other mistake, obtaining an annulment and hushing up her ill-fated elopement. He had the connections to do it.
He’d been right, of course. She and Luc could never have made it. They were too different—and that, of course, was the attraction. He was a race car driver she met during her last year in Europe. A reprobate, a bad boy all the way, he had made her blood run hot. Just like Dev.
He’d made her want to dare things she shouldn’t. Just like Dev.
Then he had taken her father’s money and vanished like smoke.
Just like Dev.
It doesn’t have anything to do with who we are now.
Was Dev right?
Her heart said no. And she couldn’t, wouldn’t make another mistake. She knew nothing about this Dev, only that a boy bearing his name had taught her about passion—and then walked away without a backward glance.
She should let her father handle it. Only he knew what had happened. Only he knew how little Dev had cared. He would handle it and she would never have to see Devlin Marlowe again.
The decision is yours. Dev gave her more credit than her own family did.
Within Lacey arose something she couldn’t name. Some tiny seed of all her wondering why she was here, what her life meant.
“No, Daddy.” She lifted her gaze to his and parroted Dev’s words. “It was a long time ago. We were just kids. He can’t hurt me now.”
“Princess, you’re wrong.” His voice carried too much force for something so far removed.
“Don’t worry, Daddy. I know you want to protect me, but I’ll be fine, I promise.”
“No, Princess. Don’t do it.”
“Why not?” She was honestly curious. “I’m not sixteen. I made my mistakes with Dev, with Luc. But I’m a grown woman now. You have to let me handle it.”
She could see a war going on behind his eyes. “It’s only a picnic. It’s for the children.”
Her father’s frown deepened and he started to speak but then shook his head. “I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Is there something I should know?”
Her father glanced away for a second, then returned his gaze to hers. Finally, he shook his head slowly, exhaling in a gust. “No. There’s nothing. Just be careful, Princess. Be very careful.”
She smiled then, to ease his mind. “A simple picnic, Daddy. I can handle it.”
She prayed she was right.
Dev leaned against the window frame and stared into the dark night outside his hotel room, unseeing. He uttered a few choice, ripe curses, raked his fingers through his hair, and shoved away from the wall to return to the desk where his laptop accused him.
The cursor blinked patiently, waiting for Dev to organize his thoughts. But all he could see was a pair of silvery eyes gone icy and imperious. Was there even a trace of soft gray velvet left inside that perfectly-groomed exterior?
Just a job. It’s just a job. You’re not a kid anymore, and neither is she.
Yanking his tuxedo shirt out of the waistband of his slacks, Dev worked at the studs, stripping the garment off his body and tossing it on the bed. Then he sat down again and used the discipline that had marked his life for years to focus on the screen before him. He knew the facts of the case; he could relate them to Lacey, carefully and with no emotion at all. That would be the best way. Just the facts, ma’am.
If only it were that simple.
Right now, he’d like to talk to Maddie. He could use a reminder of all the reasons why this case had nothing to do with him. But it was two-thirty in the morning, and the Gallaghers rose with the chickens.
And all he’d told Mitch and Boone and Maddie was that he knew who Lacey was, not all that had gone on between them years ago. If he thought the words on the screen made a long, complicated story, try adding in his own little tangent.
Okay. How would he start? Lacey, there’s this tiny town called Morning Star, where a man named Dalton Wheeler took the rap for a murder he didn’t commit—
Dev shook his head. Okay— There was a girl named Jenny who loved Dalton very much, but he vanished and she found out she was pregnant and she went away to have you and had to give you up.
Damn. It was all true, as far as it went. But how to explain to her about all the love, the heartache?
Would Lacey understand that in those days, Jenny had few options? She went away, had the baby, and the doctor took care of the adoption. Jenny never knew about the very wealthy man and his wife who staged an elaborate deception because bloodlines were so important. Margaret DeMille would never admit that the child she ostensibly went to the pure country air of Switzerland to have was not her own. That the baby girl was tiny and delicate only helped in disguising her true age when they returned to Houston.