Texas Heroes_ Volume 1(159)

One glistening drop of chocolate lingered at the corner of her mouth. Dev fought the bittersweet temptation to lean across and kiss the chocolate away.

Instead, he forced himself to take a bite of his own, but he might as well have been eating sawdust. It didn’t matter, though. He’d eaten a thousand of Shorty’s donuts. Lacey’s delight was more than enough.

So they talked and drank coffee and ate more donuts than either could count. Shorty popped over and visited between batches, but mostly Dev and Lacey talked about everything under the sun.

Everything, that is, but themselves, perhaps she as eager as he to avoid the minefield of their past, of the differences between them. She kept their breakfast talk superficial, switching topics with the ease of an accomplished hostess…but as time wore on and the first touch of giddiness faded, she inched back into being more Margaret DeMille’s daughter than the woman who’d run across the lawn in high heels. He wished he could figure out how to bring the jailbreak girl back.

Then the first deliveryman showed up, and they could stave off real life no longer. The magic island of the night was vanishing as dawn approached.

In silence, Lacey rose and worked at the ties of her apron, but Dev could see that his hasty knot was about to defeat her. “Here, let me.” He turned her back toward him and tried to maintain his distance. The ball was over…and he was about to turn back into a pumpkin.

His fingers grew clumsy, and it took him far too long. He could tell by her rigid posture that the real world was sinking back into Lacey’s consciousness too fast, the knowledge of what she’d done at last hitting her.

“Just a minute more,” he muttered, and wished they had hours. Finally she was free and he had no excuse to touch her again.

As she lifted the apron over her head, she avoided his gaze. “I’ll take this back to Shorty.”

He could only stand and watch.

Lacey spoke with Shorty for a few moments, then lifted to tiptoe and kissed his cheek. Behind her back, Shorty smiled sadly at Dev.

He saw it, too.

In a reverse kind of Cinderella story, the almost-real girl who’d laughed with them…was turning back into a princess.



On the drive back, Lacey sat still and quiet, and Dev could think of no way to bring back the ease of those few precious hours.

Pulling into her drive, Dev knew he shouldn’t have done it. He had only complicated things more by stealing her away, by discovering that she could be real. That she had a clever humor carefully hidden under all those layers of politeness.

Lacey might not understand it, but far more deadly than her beauty was the giggle that should have belonged to a teenage girl. Something had happened inside his chest each time he heard it.

Damn. He liked her.

That was something he’d missed the first time around. He’d started out using her to get revenge on her father, then fallen too quickly into hormone-drenched teenage lust. Somehow, the desire for revenge had faded as lust had turned to something more tender when he wasn’t looking.

He’d never taken the time to find out if they could be friends before his revenge had reversed its blade and skewered him. Now, of course, friends were all they could be—at least, until he found the right way to break the news without breaking her heart.

He was more certain than ever that she didn’t know the secret that could explode her whole world. Being a DeMille was something so intertwined with who she was that she never lost sight of it.

But he had to hand it to her. Even when faced with something like Shorty’s place, she hadn’t turned a hair, had been gracious and warm to Shorty himself. She continued to surprise him.

Yet now she seemed to be absorbing the impact of what she’d done. What she’d thrown away. As he stopped the car, the transformation was complete.

And he hated it.

“Well…” Lacey turned to him, extending one elegant hand. “Thank you for breakfast.”

He resisted the urge to growl and ignored her hand. “Sure thing. Anytime you want to go slumming, Princess, just give me a call. I know all the dives.”

Hurt skipped across her features. She turned away quickly, grasping the door handle. “I’d better go inside.”

The more composed she became, the more Dev fumed. He wished he could cancel this damn job, but he didn’t trust anyone else to do it. Dev wanted to turn back the clock, get back the woman who’d made a jailbreak, who’d turned donuts with glee.

He shouldn’t want that. This was business, and damned complicated business at that. He was here to deliver a message, that was all. There was probably no painless way to deliver it, so maybe he should quit trying.

Or maybe he would just let Maddie and Boone show up on her doorstep, after all. Turn this over to them and walk away.