him know she was no pushover. “And just as prickly, honey. Better stand back. You don’t want to get stuck.”
His face darkened. “Now you listen here…”
But just as suddenly as the cowboy had appeared in her line of sight, he now faded away, because someone bigger and more impressive had come into the picture, and everything else seemed to melt around them. She felt his presence before she saw him and she pulled in a quick breath, almost a gasp. Slowly, she raised her eyes.
Sure enough, it was the man she’d seen coming in the doorway a few minutes before—the man she’d been so sure could not have anything to do with her or her life. He was standing before her, holding out a bedraggled red rose, and asking her a question. Her mind seemed to go blank. She swayed. And she couldn’t hear a word he was saying.
“What?” she asked numbly, looking up at him as though she were blinking into the sun.
Max was caught between interest and annoyance. He wanted to get this over with and get out of here, but he’d already bungled things. He’d managed fairly easily to find this pretty lady with the head full of blond curls and a frilly little black dress. Her attire revealed a figure that was full and rounded in all the right places and legs that made looking worthwhile.
But the problem was, he couldn’t remember her name. His mother had said it often enough, over and over, whenever she told the old story of how the Triple M Ranch had been swindled from her family. This was the daughter of the woman who had done his mother dirty—but what was her name again? Something-something Kerry, wasn’t it?
“Miss Kerry?” he repeated when she didn’t hear him the first time.
“Oh!” she said, looking shell-shocked. “You can’t be— I mean— Are…are you…?”
“Exactly.” He waved the rose at her and nodded toward the one she held. “I was hoping we would have some time to get to know each other tonight,” he said smoothly. “However, sadly, it is not to be. Sorry to do this to you, but something has just come up and I’m going to have to take a rain check.”
“Oh.”
He stopped, nonplussed. She seemed rather sweet and she was definitely embarrassed. Not what he was expecting. Was she taking this as a sort of rejection? Well, he supposed that made sense from her point of view. But instead of the arrogant siren he’d imagined from the tales his mother told, a woman whose ego probably had too hard a shell to be bruised in any way, she took this personally. Did she think he’d taken one look and decided she wasn’t worth wasting time on? Despite everything, he didn’t want to hurt the woman.
“My mother sends her best wishes,” he said, his gaze flickering appreciatively over her pretty face. Interestingly, she wasn’t his usual type. He tended to favor fashion models—long, cool ladies who were decorative and yet mature enough to know the score. Young innocents wanted to fall in love all the time. That sort of clingy attachment was neither in his nature nor in the cards. He’d spent a lifetime observing the human condition. In his opinion, falling in love was for suckers who were in denial and hoping for a fairy tale. He considered himself too hard-nosed to fall for such nonsense.
But there was something appealing about this young woman just the same. She looked intelligent and quick, even though she was gaping a bit. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of blue, framed by thick, dark lashes and accented by a pert nose that seemed to have a dusting of freckles just for spice. Her hair, the color of spring sunshine, was a stylishly tangled mass that kept falling over her eyes, making her reach up to push a way through in order to see him clearly.
Hardly what he’d expected. From what his mother had told him, he’d been sure he was going to dislike her intensely. Now he wasn’t so certain.
“I’m hoping we’ll be able to do this another time,” he said, actually meaning it. “May I call you tomorrow?”
“Oh,” she said again, her lovely crystal eyes enormous as she stared at him. “I…I guess so.”
Her vocabulary wasn’t extensive. Or maybe he’d been a bit too brusque. His friends and employees had accused him of that more than once, and he regretted it. He didn’t mean to be rude.
But he had no time for this. Shrugging, he gave her a cool smile and turned for the exit. He was almost out the door when he remembered the stupid rose in his hand. She might as well have it. After all, what was he going to do with it?
Turning back, he found her still watching him, wide-eyed. Something about the look in those huge blue eyes…
“Oh, what the hell,” he said impetuously. Leaving her behind would be like telling a puppy you didn’t want him to follow you home. “Why don’t you come along? We’ll stop and grab something to eat somewhere else.”
He congratulated himself right away. It was a good idea. Yes, that way he had the original obligation out of the way and yet didn’t do any damage to the hope of a future relationship. At the same time, he wouldn’t feel quite so guilty when he called his mother later. Brilliant!
“I…well, maybe…” Cari cleared her throat.
She wasn’t sure why she couldn’t seem to get a full sentence out. This wasn’t like her. But the fact that the man was so diametrically different from what she’d pictured had completely thrown her for a loop and she was taking some time to get over her shock. For the moment, she seemed to be putty in his hands, and the next thing she knew, she was hurrying out of the club with one of those same hands planted squarely between her shoulder blades. She was going with him, or so it seemed. She glanced back, not sure of the wisdom of heading into the dark of night with a stranger.
But he was Mara’s husband’s cousin. At least, that was what her friend had claimed.
The funny thing was, as she looked back at the noisy club, she thought she’d caught a flashing glimpse of a red rose being carried by a tall, sandy-haired young man with glasses. But everything was happening so quickly, she hardly registered that sight. And her companion tended to fill up her attention. So she went along with him, half skipping in her wobbly high heels to keep up, as they hurried to his long, low and very flashy car.
“Oh, my gosh,” she said as he opened the door to the passenger’s seat for her.
“It’s a Ferrari,” he said, frowning slightly. “Surely you’ve seen Ferraris around town. I thought Dallas was crawling with them.”
She nodded as she sank into the luxurious leather. “Of course. I’ve just never been in one before,” she told him, then winced. Maybe she should have kept that to herself.
He lowered himself into the driver’s seat and leaned forward to punch the address they were aiming at into the GPS, then turned to look at her with one slick eyebrow raised. “From what I’ve heard of your background, I would have thought fast cars and living in luxury were right down your alley.”
She frowned at him, puzzled. Did he have her mixed up with some other blind date? “Who would have told you a thing like that?”
He gazed at her for a moment, then shrugged, looking reasonably adorable in his faux bewilderment. “Texas,” he muttered, starting the car. “This place always surprises me.”
And that statement surprised her. She was about to mention that Mara had said he’d grown up outside of Galveston, but her power of speech got lost as she noticed again just how incredibly good-looking this man was. Everything about him screamed wealth and power. His suit had probably cost more than her secondhand car. His gorgeous black hair, his wonderful tanned skin, the way his thighs swelled against the fabric of his slacks, all created a picture guaranteed to set off the female heart rate. His shirt was open at the neck, revealing more tanned skin and just a hint of crispy, crinkly chest hair. If she were the swooning type, she’d be out cold by now.
But she wasn’t, she reminded herself sharply. Not her style at all. And there was another thing. All this embarrassment of hunky male riches didn’t add up somehow. Mara’s husband was basically