From Texas, With Love. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ didn’t look so darn sexy, with the faint shadow of an evening beard covering his face. She told him smugly, “Not very likely.”

      “If you say so.”

      Their eyes met. A sizzling attraction flowed between them. “Are you about done?” Samantha asked hotly.

      “With sealing up the place?” He deliberately misunderstood the question—just to annoy her, she was fairly sure. “Yep, but not,” he qualified, his gaze trailing over her hair, face and lips with disturbing thoroughness before returning to her eyes, “with talking sense into you.”

      SAMANTHA ARCHED A BROW. “You are not going to get me to change my mind.”

      Determined to have his way on this whether she liked it or not, Will suggested, “How about we make a deal then? I’ll take Mickey Mouse here out of this apartment and set him free in a park on the way to the airport if you come to Texas with me.”

      “That’s not a bargain,” she declared with a tight smile, getting another trash bag out from under the sink.

      “Could have fooled me,” Will quipped.

      She opened the bag up and began throwing away cereal boxes with the bottoms eaten out of them. “That’s blackmail.”

      Will had never failed to complete a mission. He wasn’t going to do it now, even if she had forgotten how to trust. Seeing a pretzel bag that had been munched on, too, he added it to the trash. “So you admit you’re afraid of mice.”

      She stared at him for a long moment. “I like to keep my distance from anything that skulks around where it has no business being.”

      Meaning him, Will thought with a smile. He shrugged. “Okay. See ya.” He picked up his jacket and headed for the door.

      She rushed after him. “Wait.” Her fingertips brushed his arm.

      He turned, inhaling the faint scent of lavender again.

      As he had hoped, practicality overrode pride. “I’m not going to be able to talk a cab driver into letting me into his vehicle with a live mouse in a trash can. It’s just not going to happen. Not in New York City. Not tonight.”

      Will draped his jacket over his shoulder, then stroked the corner of his mouth with his thumb, prepared to make this either as difficult or as easy as she wanted it to be. “Not a problem for me,” he told her carelessly. “I’ve got a limo idling at the curb.”

      Her lips pursed in a pretty scowl. “I hope Howard is paying for that.”

      No doubt about it, she wanted retribution. “He is. And,” Will added, “he’s prepared to do a lot more by way of penance. All you have to do is come to Texas with me and see him.”

      She shook her head. “Like I said, not an option.”

      “Then we’re at a standstill, aren’t we?”

      She paused as if to consider her options, then finally laid on the charm. “Are you sure you can’t just…take care of this for me?” she asked sweetly, flipping back her lustrous hair.

      Figuring she didn’t try the femme fatale routine very often, Will remained steadfast. He shook his head. “You know the terms.”

      Samantha folded her arms and leaned toward him, far from oblivious to the way her stance was lifting the soft curves of her breasts. “And you know I can’t agree to those terms, on principle.”

      “Then you’re just flat out of luck, aren’t you?”

      She released a long-suffering sigh and pursed her lips again. “Look.” She moved one hand in a graceful gesture, not about to give up. “You seem like a nice man.”

      Who was about to be played by one hell of a Texas beauty. “So you said,” Will drawled.

      The smile she gave him was infinitely seductive. “Can’t you just convince my brother that I don’t want anything to do with him and let that be that?”

      Wishing he could act on instinct, forget his mission and make a move on her, Will shook his head. There would be no hauling her into his arms and kissing her, now or any other time, he warned himself sternly. No blurring of boundaries. No action on his part that would give her an excuse to run the other way from the only family she had left.

      “Surely if you told Howard how opposed I am to any reunion, he’d believe you. And let this ridiculous notion of his go.”

      Will once again shook his head. “That’s something you need to tell Howard yourself, face-to-face.”

      Her lower lip took on a kissable pout. “I can’t go to Texas because I don’t have the money to come back.”

      Will had already suspected that she was short of cash. “Howard said something about you being let go from your job last September.”

      Her cheeks turned pink with humiliation. Looking more miserable than ever, she dropped the temptress act and shoved a hand through her thick, glossy brown hair. “My brother knows I was laid off by the advertising agency?” she probed.

      Will edged closer. “Yep, which is part of why Howard wants to see you so badly. He wants to make sure you’re all right.”

      Samantha scowled. “He wants me to settle in Texas.”

      Will could see her there, too. In jeans, boots, a snap-front Western shirt and a hat that was all attitude. With family nearby. He closed the distance between them, not stopping until they were nose to nose. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

      “Yes.” The look in her eyes grew turbulent. “All the best advertising jobs are here.”

      Will leaned toward her ear and whispered conspiratorially, “So don’t move back there.” Ready to play peacemaker if it would end the decade-long feud between Howard and Samantha, he advised, “Just go see him. Tell him you’re no longer family and never will be again, if that’s what you want. When you’ve said your piece, I’ll fly you back here from Texas.”

      Samantha scoffed. “I can guarantee you he won’t pay for that.”

      Will gave a careless shrug. “Doesn’t need to—I can fly one of my jets here whenever I want.”

      “You have more than one?” she asked in an interested tone.

      “Six,” he confirmed, happy to see that she appeared as impressed as he was by his hard-won success. “And ten pilots,” he continued, “although a couple of them only work part-time.”

      He could see she was on the brink.

      “You should do this, Samantha,” he urged, using every bit of persuasion in his arsenal. He cupped her shoulders lightly. “Family is important.”

      She exhaled deeply, unbearable sadness coming into her pretty eyes. Then she stepped away, undeterred. “I just wish I had one.”

      Chapter Two

      “Second thoughts?” Will asked, emerging СКАЧАТЬ