The Texas Christmas Gift. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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      Chapter Three

      “Not exactly what you had in mind, hmm?” Eve asked Derek as they left house number two and headed down the long curving stone walk to his car. It was a beautiful December day with clear blue skies, and warm enough that only light jackets were required.

      Derek turned to her. He had showered and shaved before meeting her, and he smelled of sandalwood and pine. “I’ve been in nice homes before, lots of them.”

      “But no open houses where free Botox injections were offered?”

      He mimed a shudder and moved closer, the sunlight picking up the mahogany in his short dark hair. “I know plastic surgery and other enhancements are popular in Dallas,” he said in a low voice. “But to do it as part of an open house...”

      “A bit tacky?” she asked wryly.

      “You got that right.” He shifted Tiffany to his other arm while he fished for his keys.

      Seeing he needed assistance, Eve held out her arms. She expected the tyke to slide into them as easily as she had the day before. Instead, Tiffany turned away and buried her face in her daddy’s shoulder.

      “Sorry,” Derek murmured.

      “No problem,” Eve returned easily. She was about to offer to help him reach his keys, but slipping her fingers into the jeans pocket adjacent to his fly did not seem like the best idea. She turned away to survey the beautifully landscaped lawn.

      With Tiffany cuddled on his shoulder, Derek fished some more. He finally got what he needed and unlocked the doors. While he put Tiffany in her car seat, Eve slid into the passenger side of the Jaguar.

      Yet another anomaly in this situation.

      Normally, she drove clients around.

      But since Tiffany’s car seat was already in his SUV, and they were apparently a hassle to put in correctly, Derek preferred to do the driving.

      He settled himself behind the wheel, grabbed his designer shades and adjusted them over his eyes. Which was a shame, Eve thought, because now she wouldn’t be able to use his gaze to intuit what he was thinking; she’d have to rely on his body language and tone of voice to try to figure him out.

      Stifling a sigh, she put on her own sunglasses to guard against the glare.

      Derek stretched his right arm along the back of the front seats, turned to make sure all was clear and reversed out of the drive. “As if that Botox party wasn’t weird enough...what was with the free massages at that first place?” He put the car in gear, then sat idling while Eve punched the address of their next possibility into the GPS built into the dashboard.

      “It was part of the promotion for the property,” Eve explained. “A way to get qualified buyers, ones who can afford a seven-or eight-million-dollar home, out to see it.”

      Derek drove off when the suggested route popped up on the screen. Shortly thereafter, he made the first turn. “The thinking being, if you actually tried out the home gym and the pool and the sport court, and then had a free massage...” He waited for a traffic jam on Mockingbird Lane to clear.

      “And a catered lunch in the gourmet kitchen.” Noticing her skirt had ridden up slightly on her thigh, Eve discreetly tugged it down. “You’d be hooked.”

      He shrugged. “It might work. If that was what you wanted.” The home had a billiard room and a home theater, swimming pool and crowd-sized hot tub.

      “I’m guessing it was too much of a bachelor pad for your taste.” Even though it had been just down the street from his ex.

      “It didn’t exactly spell family,” he agreed drily.

      Eve brought out the specs she had previously sent him. She refreshed his memory with a few photos from the sales brochure while they sat at a stoplight. “You may like the next one.”

      “Daddy!”

      Derek glanced at his daughter via the rearview mirror. She looked ready to start fussing at any moment. “Hi, honey,” he said, turning around to smile at her briefly, before picking up the conversation where they’d left off. “I hope so,” he stated СКАЧАТЬ