Never Tell

“Hmm, that’s good,” she said. “Tart-sweet and smooth as silk.”

“It hits the spot,” he agreed.

“The margaritas are so good here. In fact, Jason and I often stop after we close the shop. I can only have one, though. Two and there’s no way I would be able to do any work when I get home.”

“What kind of work is waiting for you at home?”

“New designs. For the jackets, there’s always next season to be working on. The quilts are not seasonal, but I can duplicate a design only a few times, so I have to keep coming up with new ones. I’ve been amazed at how well they sell, but it means I feel pushed to keep ahead of the demand.”

“Couldn’t someone else work at the shop? Besides Jason, I mean. That would leave you free to create new designs during the day.”

“Not really. My studio is upstairs, which is where a lot of the actual physical labor is done and, to tell the truth, it doesn’t seem like work. But I don’t like selling so much. That’s Jason’s thing.” She shrugged and smiled. “I’m cranking out the product and he sells it. For us, it’s been a winning combination.”

“Let me get this straight,” he said, hitching his chair forward. He’d like to take her hand, but he sensed she’d shy away from anything approaching intimacy. “You spend your days at your studio above the shop, then you work on creating new designs in the evenings at home. When do you have time to socialize?”

“I guess I don’t have much of a social life.” She was sitting with elbows on the table, holding the margarita loosely in both hands, but as he leaned closer, she eased back, pushing at her dark hair and tucking a strand behind one ear. “It’s not the way many people would choose to live, but it suits me.”

“My mother mentioned one of your creations will be auctioned at the gala next weekend. That should generate even more demand.”

“It’s incredible. I don’t know how that happened, I really don’t. I had a call from the auction chairperson just out of the blue. I was thrilled as it certainly is a golden opportunity.”

“No inside connections, huh?”

“At the symphony?” She smiled. “No. I haven’t even been to the symphony in years, not since—” She stopped and, with a stricken look, quickly reached for the napkin and touched it to her lips. When she raised her eyes to his a moment later, they were calm and clear. “Are you a fan?”

“Not really. My mother used to nag me about going, but I liked baseball better.” He decided not to try digging out the reason for whatever that look meant, at least not right now. “You’ll be there when they auction your jacket, I assume?” When she nodded, he added, “Do you have a date?”

“A date?”

“An escort. You’re not going alone to the gala, are you?”

“Oh, no. Jason and I are going together. He’s almost as excited as I am.”

“You and Jason are very tight.”

“We are.” She twirled the stem of her drink and smiled. “He’s not only my business partner, but he’s also my best friend. In fact, the shop was his brainchild. I’d still be designing in the spare bedroom of my house and squirreling everything away in a closet if he hadn’t practically shoved me out of that house and back into the real world.”

“What was going on that you’d retreated from the real world?”

She stopped and actually pressed her fingers to her lips. “I’m talking too much. I don’t—it’s the margarita.” She fiddled with her napkin, hesitating so long that he thought she wouldn’t say any more. He guessed she’d probably gone through a rough divorce and he wondered at the stupidity of a man to let a woman like her get away.

“It was a dark time for me,” she explained finally. “I’d thrown myself into designing to keep from…simply dying.” She gave a soft laugh. “That sounds pretty melodramatic, but that was how I felt at the time.”

“Was it a nasty divorce?”

Her face went quiet and sad. “No.” After a second, she looked up at him. “Could we change the subject?”

“I have an idea.”

She gave him a skeptical look. “Okay, so long as we change the subject.”

“It’s changed.” He held up both hands. “You come to the gala with me and let Jason find himself a real date.”

“Thanks, but I think I’ll stick with my original plan.” She gave him a smile as if to take the sting out of her refusal.

“Why am I not surprised?” he said dryly. Leaning back, he laid an arm over the back of the seat. “But just so I have the full picture here, you’re not involved with anyone right now, are you?”

She took a tiny sip of her drink. “Under the circumstances, anyone who was seriously interested wouldn’t be very long, would they?”

“Depends on the circumstances.”

Her smile faded as she studied the remains of the margarita in her glass. “My days are crammed with the demands of my work and the shop, Hunter. That’s my life now and I like it as it is. It only makes sense that good relationships blossom when a couple has the luxury of time to spend together, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess that does make sense.” Kelly and her expectations flashed in his mind. He wasn’t spending enough time with her for a relationship to blossom—to use Erica’s word—and he wondered at his lack of motivation to make that happen. He wondered at the strength of his desire to get to know Erica and knew his curiosity about Kelly had never been as keen. The thought made him uncomfortable. Just being here doing what he was doing made him uncomfortable, but he was doing it, anyway.

“Mom mentioned you’re going to be named one of Texas Today’s Twenty Women to Watch,” he said. “Congratulations. I know a few professional women who would kill for that.”

“Well, I don’t think I’d commit murder for it, but I was pretty happy.” Taking a sip of her drink, she again licked a tiny salt speck from her lips. She looked away, her gray eyes thoughtful. “Speechless would be a better word,” she told him dryly. “I don’t know how it happened and I’m not sure I deserve it.”

Was she serious? He studied her face. Or was she simply being modest? That wouldn’t surprise him, but there seemed something more than simple modesty behind her words. “What does that mean? Of course you deserve it. They don’t come up with that list by pulling names out of a hat. You’ve earned it with your art and the commercial success you’ve made marketing it.”

“With Jason’s help, don’t forget,” she said with a tiny smile. Then, as she traced the rim of her glass, her smile slipped away. “He says I’m imagining things, but from time to time, I’ve felt that more than a couple of the lucky breaks I’ve had are—” She gave him a quick look. “Don’t laugh, but it’s almost as if I have an unseen patron, someone who, every now and then, gives me a little boost.”

“What counts as ‘a little boost’?”

“Well, the auction opportunity at the gala, for example. And the spread in the Sunday paper is another. You don’t get those perks out of the blue.”

“Word of mouth is a powerful thing. Your art is upscale, which means it appeals to an upscale crowd, people with taste like my mother. Hank said he heard her mention how much she admired you, which is how I decided on the Erica Stewart jacket for her birthday. A word here, a word there, and your label is hot. Enjoy it while you can. Make the most of it.”

“I—we intend to.” She leaned back with her fingers linked loosely on the stem of the almost-done margarita. “Who’s Hank?”

“You’re not the only one with a partner and Hank’s mine. Hank Colson. We’re co-owners of a ranch near Brenham. Do you ride?”

“Sure, cars, planes and bikes,” she said, reaching for a pretzel.

He chuckled. “Horses. Do you ride horses?”

“Not in a long, long time.” The troubled look in her gray eyes was gone. Now he saw only amusement as she played with the pretzel.

“But you know how?”

“I do. In fact, when I was a teenager, riding was a passion. I actually had a horse.”

“Was that here in Texas?”

“Right here in Houston,” she replied, raking crumbs off the table onto her napkin.

“So you have family here?”

“Not anymore. When I was sixteen, my parents got a divorce and both remarried, Dad first, two years later. Keeping a horse takes time and effort. It turned out to be more bother than either of them could manage at the time.” She glanced at her watch, quickly finished off her drink and stood up.

“And that’s the last time you were on a horse?” He was on his feet now, too.

“That’s it,” she said with a wry shrug. “I missed it, missed Misha—that was her name. But I got over it…after a while.”

“So, are your parents still here in Houston?”

“No. My father and his new bride moved to Austin, and as soon as I graduated from high school, my mother remarried and moved to Dallas. They both started new families.”

“And where did that leave you?”

“Left behind?” She said it with a short laugh, but as she was turned from him, reaching for her jacket, he couldn’t see her face. “Hey, it was no big deal. I got over it. Besides, blended families are the norm, not the exception. I survived.”

“I bet it was about the time you had to give up your horse that you discovered art.”

She gave him a startled look. “I didn’t discover art when I was sixteen. Riding was a passion, but art was an obsession. And since I was dealing with a lot of pain then, it became more important,” she confessed, then added ruefully, “To tell the truth, I probably would have glommed on to just about anything to escape reality. Little did I know—” She stopped, almost biting her tongue. “It’s the margarita. And no lunch. That must be why I’m telling you all this,” she said, with a look of chagrin. “I haven’t thought about Misha in a long, long time, or what I felt when my parents divorced.”

Judging by the look on her face, he guessed she’d revealed more about herself than she intended. It made her all the more appealing to him. He reached into his jeans pocket for his wallet, took out a couple of bills and dropped them on the table. “You say you were sixteen when you had Misha?”

“Yes.”

“I’m guessing she was a mare, smallish?”

“Yes.”

He reached over and took the jacket from her. “I’ve got just the mount for you at the ranch, lady. In fact, that’s her name—Lady. Not very original, but she’s a sweet-tempered little mare and she’ll take you for a ride that’ll be so smooth you’ll think you’re at home in a rocking chair.”

“And when would I find time for that?”

“Sunday. Nobody works on Sunday.” Taking his time, he settled the jacket on her shoulders, then did what he’d wanted to do from the moment he’d first met her. He lifted her hair from the collar of her jacket and let it curl around his fingers, just for the feel of it. And just for a heartbeat, he let himself breathe in the scent of it.

Then she was moving away, adjusting the jacket, brushing at the front of her denim skirt, settling the strap of her purse on her shoulder. At the door, when he moved to open it, she glanced up into his eyes. “We never got around to talking about your work,” she said. “Does it gobble up as much of your time as mine does?”

“It would if I let it,” he told her. “But I make time to go to the ranch. Nothing like being on one of my horses, my hat on my head, the wind in my face. God, it’s heaven.”

“Spoken like a true Texan.”

“Born and bred.”

They were on the sidewalk now. She turned and gave him her hand. “Thanks for a very pleasant hour. I don’t usually talk so much.”

“You didn’t give me an answer about Sunday. Will you go out to the ranch with me?”

“I—”

“Don’t say no. You’ve already turned me down for the gala, but you can make it up to me by letting me pick you up Sunday morning, bright and early.”

“After being up till all hours after the gala? I don’t think so.” She paused, seeing his expression. “I haven’t been on a horse in at least a dozen years, Hunter. I don’t even know if I still know how to ride.”

“It’s like riding a bike. You never forget. And we’ll make it next Sunday.” He tipped her chin up. “C’mon, you’ll love it, I promise.”

She gave a soft laugh, rolled her eyes and, for once, didn’t pull away. “Okay. I guess.”

His reaction then was instinctive. Looking down at her, at the curve of her pretty mouth and fantasizing how it would taste ever since she’d taken the first sip of that margarita, he just went with instinct. He bent and kissed her. He meant it to be quick and casual, a slightly less-than-serious salute to the hour they’d spent together. But that was before he found her lips so warm and soft…and tasting of margarita…and something a thousand times more potent. With both hands plunged into her hair and holding her just where he wanted her, he forgot to be brief. Or casual. And the fact that she fell right into the kiss with him made it worth the risk of rushing her. It also made it almost impossible to stop.

But they were on the sidewalk. All around them, bar patrons came and went. He broke the kiss…reluctantly. Set her down on her heels—she looked dazed, her eyes wide. He found he still held her chin and he rubbed his thumb over that tantalizingly curved lower lip before letting her go. But he took his time about it.

“I’ll call you,” he said, then watched her as she ran to her car.

He called his mother on his cell phone from the car. While it rang, he rubbed a hand over his mouth, where he could still taste Erica’s lip gloss. He shifted in his seat to accommodate a helluva hard-on and gave a short, incredulous laugh. What the heck had just happened? It was a simple kiss, done on impulse. A spur-of-the-moment thing that had turned into more than he’d intended. If they’d been in a private place instead of on a public sidewalk, he didn’t know what it would have led to. He only knew that he hadn’t felt such a deep and elemental desire for a woman, especially one he hardly knew, since he’d first discovered girls in the eighth grade and fastened his adolescent craving for sex on Cindy Walker.

“Hello?”

“Mom.” He shifted the phone to his other ear and signaled to enter the on-ramp to the interstate. “It’s me, Hunter.”

“I know. Caller ID is a wonderful thing.” There was a smile in her voice.

“Mom, do you still have tickets to that symphony gala you mentioned when I brought your gift over?”

“Why? You aren’t thinking of going, are you?” She was clearly surprised.

“I might.” Glancing over his left shoulder, he crossed two lanes of the crowded interstate. “Can you get me a ticket?”

“Just one? If you’re going, you’ll want to bring someone, won’t you?”

“Oh. Well, I guess. Sure. Two, then.”

“I take it you haven’t checked with Kelly to see if she’s free?”

“No, but it’s not her kind of thing. No horses.” He kicked the SUV into passing gear to get around an eighteen-wheeler. “About the tickets. Do I need to pick ’em up before that night, or what?”

“I’ll leave them with someone at the door. I’ll let you know who when I get a name.”

“Leave it on my voice mail, will you, Mom? It’s this Saturday night, right?”

“Yes. And you have really left it late to ask Kelly.” There was a note of concern in her voice. “I hope she’s free. Oh, I’m just thrilled that you’ve decided to go. Some of my friends haven’t seen you in ages, Hunter.”

“Uh-huh. Are you wearing your Erica Stewart jacket? It’s the kind of thing you’d wear to an event like this, isn’t it? It adds a little pizzazz to wear something from an artist whose stuff just happens to be up for auction, don’t you think?”

She took so long to reply that he thought he lost the connection. “Hello?”

“I’m here,” she murmured. “And I haven’t really thought too much about what I’ll wear, to tell the truth.”

“Well, that’s a first.” He merged smoothly into the exit lane. “I’ve spent a few years watching you get all decked out for occasions like this, and I remember you fretting for days over what to wear. Wear that jacket and you’ll turn a few heads.”

“I’m beyond turning heads by a few years, Hunter,” she said dryly.

“No way, you’re gorgeous and you’ll still be gorgeous when you’re ninety.”

“Thank you, son.”

He thought he heard a catch in her voice. “Gotta go, Mom. I’ll send a check for the tickets. And hey, thanks.”

Lillian clicked the phone off and stood with it in her hand, thinking. It was a toss-up to decide which was more unusual—Hunter’s sudden and unusual interest in going to the symphony gala, or his interest in what she might be wearing, which was also sudden and unusual. He’d never before expressed the slightest interest in what she wore. Like countless moms before her, she’d long ago become used to being almost invisible to her son as far as her physical appearance went.

It was that damn jacket.

“Who was that on the phone?”

She blinked and turned to face Morton, who stood in the arched entrance to the den with a half-finished drink in his hand. “It was Hunter.” Realizing she still held the phone, she replaced it. “He wants tickets to the symphony gala. Two tickets.”

“What’s the problem? You’ve been trying to drag him to one or another of your artsy affairs for years, so now he’s going. Why do you look as though it’s bad news?”

“He wants me to wear the jacket.”

“What jacket?” He watched her walk past him to the bar and pull a wineglass from a line of stems suspended from a rack beneath the counter.

“The Erica Stewart jacket he gave me for my birthday.” After dropping ice into the glass, she poured only a scant shot of gin before adding a wedge of fresh lime. She was trying to limit her drinking. It’s numbing effect had become too inviting lately.

“Is that what’s making you look so glum?” Morton finished his drink and moved behind the bar to pour himself another. “You said you loved it when Hunter gave it to you. So, wear it. Make him happy. God knows, you’ve never hesitated to put Hunter’s happiness above your own before.”

His jealousy of Hunter was a familiar bone of contention between them, but Lillian wasn’t in a mood to take him on just now. “He wanted two tickets, but I don’t think the other one is for Kelly. When I mentioned he’d waited until it was pretty late to ask her, I had a feeling he hadn’t even thought of asking her.”

“Meaning he’s got some other woman in mind,” Morton said, recapping the whiskey bottle. “Doesn’t surprise me. It’s been your and Hank Colson’s fantasy that those two would get together someday, but if that was what Hunter wanted, he’d have done it by now. No red-blooded thirtysomething puts off marrying if he’s found the woman he wants.” Using a swizzle, he noisily stirred the fresh drink. “Kelly’s a nice gal, smart and fairly attractive, but I don’t see him putting a ring on her finger.”

“It’s her. That’s why he’s suddenly interested in going.”

“Kelly? You just said—”

“No. Erica.” She walked to the window and stood looking out.

“Erica?” He stared at her, the swizzle going still in his hand. “You lost me. We’re talking about Kelly, aren’t we?”

“Erica Stewart. The artist. Didn’t you hear it in his voice when he brought me the gift? He couldn’t stop talking about her. He was…dazzled.”

“Dazzled.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, following the lights of a neighbor’s car across the street. “I’m imagining things. I’m seeing a disaster where there’s nothing. I’m jumping to a ridiculous conclusion. But I just have this dreadful feeling, Morton. What if he—”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Lillian, get hold of yourself. He’s got tickets to bring a date, and if it was her, he’d have mentioned it since we could hardly shut him up when he was over here talking about her last week. You’re right about that, at least. Besides, he’d only met the woman that day and she’s been on the agenda for the symphony thing forever, which means she’s had her plans made forever.” He crossed the room and picked up the remote for the television set. “It’s time for the news. Sit down and relax. Forget about Erica Stewart. The woman’s ancient history as far as we’re concerned.” And with that, he clicked the remote, tuned in the local station and settled back to view current events in Houston and the crime of the day.

Six

Erica cocked her head and studied the look of a jacket she was designing for a client. “No…no…no…” she mumbled, reaching for an eraser. She carefully removed the neckline she’d sketched in a minute ago. Third try and it was still wrong, totally wrong, she thought with disgust. She sat for a minute, then took up her pencil again and drew a few more lines to see if a mandarin collar would work. She knew before she’d made half-a-dozen lines that it was wrong, too. With a muttered curse, she flung the pencil in a nearby tray, ripped the sheet from her sketch pad and crumpled it in both hands. It hit Jason in the chest, dead center, when he appeared at the door.

“What is the matter with you?” he demanded, wading through a sea of balled-up paper on the floor. “You’ve been in here scribbling and muttering to yourself all morning. Take a break. Make yourself a cup of tea. Chill out.”

“Tea won’t help,” she growled, and shoved back off her stool. Looking around, she found the photographs of the client whose jacket she was designing. “Look at her,” she said, thrusting the prints at him. “I’ve tried boxy, I’ve tried slightly nipped at the waist, I’ve tried classic blazer, but nothing seems right. She’s expecting something nice, something flattering, and everything I’ve dreamed up looks like something she could have found on Harwin Street.”

“Natalie Rodrigue,” Jason said, studying a photo. “It’s not the jacket, sugar, it’s the client. Coco Chanel couldn’t design a jacket to make the woman look good.” He sat on her stool and crossed his legs. “It doesn’t matter what you come up with, she’s gonna be so proud to wear an original Erica Stewart that she’ll think it’s gorgeous. She’ll think she’s gorgeous.”

Erica studied another photo. “Maybe no collar at all…” Then, with a curse, she flung it away. “I hate the fabric she chose, anyway. I wanted her to pick the flat black silk, but she wants brocade. It’ll make her look as big as…as—”

“As she is?”

She gave a short laugh. “I guess that’s the problem.” She bent down and began gathering up wads of paper. “One of these days, I’m going to be brutally honest with a client and just say flat out, ‘Spend your money on a piece of jewelry instead of a jacket that will do nothing to flatter you. At least you can pass diamonds on to your grandchildren.’”

“Okay, sugar, spit it out. What is wrong with you? And don’t bother telling me it’s nothing. I haven’t seen you so agitated since we were negotiating for this building and the landlord forced a five-year lease on us.”

“Because there was no guarantee we’d be in business that long and we’d both mortgaged most of our assets.”

“Considerable for you, but peanuts for me.”

“Which you had to borrow from your mother, God bless her.”

“Off the subject, Erica. What’s bugging you today? And don’t give me that garbage about the creative process being stressful. You usually turn out jackets and quilts at the same pace as a rabbit giving birth. For which I’m thankful, as it’s the source of our bread and butter, but you don’t usually have a face like a thundercloud and you don’t usually have any difficulty making a client look elegant.”

She chose to interpret that as an insult. “Well, if my work is the next thing to assembly-line trash,” she muttered, “maybe I should look for another line of work.”

He actually turned pale. “My God, don’t even joke like that, Erica. And you know that’s not what I meant.” Leaving the stool, he caught her by the arm and led her to a small couch set against the wall. After urging her down, he took a seat facing her. “Now, tell Daddy Jason all about it. When I left the shop last night, you were in a huddle with Michael Carlton.” He stopped abruptly. “Oh, Jesus. Have you lost all your money? Is that it? Has that goof-ball blown your nest egg and you’re penniless?”

“No, but that reminds me, Jason. Did you realize you failed to lock up when you left the shop last night?”