Texas Heroes_ Volume 1(145)

Did she own anything casual? She reached for her Tory Burch wrap skirt and a simple gray silk t-shirt.

The phone rang.

Glancing at the clock, Lacey touched her stomach. She yanked both garments off their hangars and walked to the phone. “Hello?”

“Lacey, darling. How are you today?”

Oh, no. “I’m fine, Mother. How are you?” Sandals. She’d wear sandals. Sandals were casual.

“You sound out of breath.”

“Oh, I’m just—” Out of her mind, that’s what she was. Insane to have agreed to this picnic. “I’m exercising, Mother. May I call you back?”

“Why…yes.” The voice went frosty. “I suppose that will be all right. How much longer do you have left? I must leave in forty-five minutes for bridge.”

“Oh, dear. I’ll probably miss you, then. I just now got started. What did you need?” Please hurry, Mother. Lacey pulled the phone away from her ear as she slipped on her top. “What?”

“I said, are you all right? You sound distracted.”

“Fine…just fine. I, um—I’m warmed up and didn’t want to let my muscles cool.” Lacey frowned at herself in the mirror. The color wasn’t right. Casting a frantic glance at her closet, she was headed across the floor when the doorbell rang.

“Is that your doorbell?”

“No—uh, yes. I guess it is. Listen, Mother, I’ll talk to you later, all right?”

“Go answer it and I’ll wait. I need to talk to you about this picnic. Darling, it’s simply not suitable. You know nothing about this man.”

The doorbell rang again, twice this time. No woman can be ready in thirty minutes.

“Mother, I’m sorry. I’ll have to talk to you later. Have a good time at bridge.” Knowing she would pay for it later, Lacey hung up the phone and grabbed her skirt, fastening it around her waist as she ran to the closet and slid her feet into high-heeled, strappy sandals.

Casting a glance at the mirror, she frowned. No lipstick. Hair barely dry.

He was knocking this time. Lacey made a face at herself in the mirror and headed for the door.



The door burst open, and there she was, color high in her cheeks and breathing hard.

She was gorgeous.

And rattled.

For a moment the pain of the past receded, and he couldn’t resist teasing. “Sure you’re ready?”

There it went, that regal lift of the chin. “I told you I’d be ready,” Lacey replied tartly. “I’ll get my things.” She turned and walked with unhurried grace down the hallway. He was too busy admiring her legs—God, those legs—to notice at first that her shirttail was only half-tucked in the back.

Dev grinned. Then he closed the door behind him and looked around. What he saw surprised him.

Mostly he saw the Architectural Digest spread he’d expected. A lot of whites and creams, high windows and open spaces. It could have been sterile, except that here and there were bold splashes of color. Reds and purples and golds in fat pillows and lush paintings hinting at the passion he’d found inside the ethereal virgin princess.

He wanted to see more, to prowl her bedroom, to find out if the passion still lived inside the woman she’d become.

But it didn’t matter. This was business. Passion hadn’t kept her from betraying him.

She returned with the picnic basket and a quilt, a tiny excuse for a purse dangling from her shoulder, lipstick applied and shirt tucked inside the narrow waist. Her legs seemed to go on forever.

He took the basket from her. “You didn’t need the lipstick. You look fine without it.”

The princess started, then quickly recovered. But her eyes, those silvery, witchy eyes, studied him for a long breath. One hand grazed her stomach lightly.

A surge of something like guilt assaulted Dev’s conscience. He’d seen her touch her stomach like that before.

“Do you feel all right?”

She looked startled. “Yes, of course. Why do you ask?”

Dev nodded at her hand, and she dropped it to her side as if burned.

“I’m perfectly fine.” Frost crackled in her tone. “Shall we go?”

He studied her carefully, noting the line between her eyebrows, the slight pinch to her face. He’d learn nothing if he alienated her. Keep it light, Dev. Nice and easy.

“Your chariot awaits, milady.” Only a trace of sarcasm escaped as Dev reached for the doorknob. “After you.”

Lacey skirted the doorframe as she preceded him. He was so…physical. Too physical. The boy had been more than she’d known how to handle. The man…

Dreamboat, Missy had called him. She wasn’t wrong. Perhaps not classically handsome, but Dev was undeniably magnetic. In a tux, he’d been striking, but she wasn’t sure that she didn’t prefer him in today’s more casual attire, jeans and a golf shirt. His raven’s-wing black hair was cut short, but one lock of it was as rebellious as the boy she’d once known, tumbling down on his forehead in a way that made her fingers itch to touch it.