Yvonne Lindsay – Lone Star Holiday Proposal (страница 2)
It certainly hadn’t been easy, she thought as she moved through the store and let her hand drift over the highly polished oak sewing table she’d picked up at an estate sale last week—but it had been worth it.
Now all she had to do was hold on to it. A ripple of disquiet trickled down her spine. Her landlord, Mellie Winslow, had been subdued yesterday when she’d visited Raina but had said she was doing everything she could to ensure that her father’s company, Winslow Properties, didn’t sell the Courtyard.
Raina needed to know this wasn’t all going to be ripped away from her a second time. She didn’t know if she had it in her to start over again. Losing her store on Main Street, and most of her underinsured inventory of antiques, had just about sent her packing from the town she’d adopted as her own four years ago. She had to make this work, for herself and for her little boy.
No matter which way she looked at it, though, she still couldn’t understand why anyone would be interested in buying the dried-up and overused land, let alone an oil company. If only Samson Oil—who’d been buying land left, right and center around Royal—would go away and let her have the peace and security she’d been searching for her whole life. Heck, it wasn’t even as if they seemed to be doing anything with the properties they’d bought up. At the rate Samson Oil was going, Royal would become a ghost town.
“Mommy! Look!”
Raina turned and smiled at her son, Justin, or JJ as he was known, as he proudly showed off the ice cream cone her dad—his namesake—had just bought him. JJ was three going on thirteen most of the time, but today he was home from day care because he’d been miserable with a persistent cold. He was back to being the little boy who wanted his mommy and his “G’anddad” most of all. The theory had been that he’d rest on the small cot she had in her office out back, but theory had been thrown to the wind when JJ had heard his beloved granddad arrive to help Raina move some of the heavier items in the store.
Looking at JJ now, she began to wonder if she’d been conned by the little rascal all along. The little boy had protested his granddad’s departure most miserably, but he was all smiles now with an ice cream cone and the promise of a sleepover on the weekend.
“Lucky you,” she answered squatting down to JJ’s eye level. “Can I have some?”
JJ pulled the cone closer to him, distrust in his eyes. “No, Mommy. G’anddad said it mine.”
Raina pouted. “Not even one little lick?”
She saw the indecision on his face for just a moment before he proffered the dripping cone in her direction. “One,” he said very solemnly.
Raina licked off the drips before they hit the floor and theatrically sighed in pleasure. “That’s so yummy. Can I have more?” she teased, reaching for JJ’s wrist.
“No more, Mommy! Mine!” JJ squealed and turned and ran, laughing hysterically as Raina growled and lumbered playfully behind him.
Through her son’s shrieks of delight, Raina heard the bell tinkle over the main door, signaling a potential customer.
“Justin Junior, you stop right there! No running through the store,” she called out, but it was futile. JJ was barreling away from her at top speed.
She rounded the corner just in time to hear a muffled “oof!” as JJ ran straight into the man who’d just entered the store. The man was wearing a very expensive looking suit, which, she groaned inwardly, now wore a fair portion of JJ’s ice cream cone, right at the level of the man’s groin. JJ rapidly backed away. The stranger looked up, a startled expression on his face as his eyes met hers. A frisson of something she couldn’t quite put her finger on ran between them like a live current. It unnerved her and made her voice sharp.
“JJ! Apologize to the gentleman, right now.”
She couldn’t help it—even though it was her fault for chasing him, she couldn’t prevent the note of censure that filled her voice. And she still felt unsettled by that look she’d just exchanged with a total stranger. A look that left her feeling things she had no right to feel. Raina dragged her attention back to the disaster at hand and searched around for something to offer the man to help him clean up.
The only pieces of fabric she had close by were a set of handmade lace doilies from the early twentieth century. She certainly couldn’t afford to lose inventory, but then again, nor could she afford to lose a potential customer either.
JJ turned his little face up to hers. His blue eyes, so like her own, filled with tears that began to spill down his still-chubby cheeks. His lower lip began to quiver. He dropped what was left of his cone on the floor and ran to her, burying his face in her maxi skirt as if he could make himself invisible.
“Hey, no harm done,” the man said, his voice slightly gruff and at odds with his words.
Raina definitely noticed a hint of Texas drawl as she glanced from her son to the customer, who, despite that initial look of shock, now appeared unfazed by the incident. He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out an honest-to-God white handkerchief. Was that a monogram in the corner? Raina didn’t think they had such things anymore.
“I’m so sorry, sir. Here, let me,” she started, reaching for the cotton square.
“Might be best if I handle this myself,” the man replied.
Oh, heavens, she was such an idiot. Of course he’d have to handle it himself. It was
“JJ, can you go fetch me the tea towel that’s hanging up in the kitchen?” she asked her son. “And no running!”
It was too late. JJ raced away as if he couldn’t wait to put distance between himself and the mess he’d created.
“Kids, huh?”
The stranger finally smiled and Raina looked up at him—really looked this time—and felt a punch of attraction all the way to the tips of her toes. Before she could answer, JJ was back and, ridiculously glad of the distraction, Raina used the cloth to wipe up the residue from the floor and then wrapped up the cone in the towel to deal with later. Her customer had likewise dealt with the mess on his trousers.
“See, all cleaned up,” he said, rolling up the handkerchief and shoving it in his pocket again.
Raina cringed at the cost of getting all that fine tailoring back into pristine condition again. “But the stain. Please, let me get your suit dry cleaned for you.”
“No, seriously, it’s no bother. Is this your boy? JJ is it?”
She nodded and watched as the man squatted down so he was at eye level with JJ, who had cautiously turned his head around when he’d heard his name. She couldn’t help but notice how the fabric of the stranger’s trousers caught snugly across his thighs and, despite hastily averting her gaze, she also couldn’t stop the disconcerting rush of acute feminine awareness that welled inside her.
“Hey, JJ, no harm done, except to your ice cream. I’m sorry about that, champ.” When Raina started to protest that he had nothing to be sorry for, he merely put up one hand and kept his attention on her little boy. “Are you okay?”
JJ nodded.
“But you lost your ice cream. Maybe I can talk to your mommy about buying you another one. Would you like that?”
Again Raina went to protest but the man shot her a glance and a smile that made her hush. As embarrassed as she was by what had happened, she found herself prepared to follow his lead.
JJ nodded again and the man put out one hand. “Good,” he said with another smile. “Sounds like we have a deal. You want to shake on that?”
Raina felt a tug of pride as her son extended his grubby little hand to be engulfed in the stranger’s much larger one. But pride was soon overtaken by something else as she noticed the man’s hands. They were tanned and broad, with long fingers and neatly kept nails. Definitely an office worker, she surmised, and not from around here, but—oh boy—there was that swell of attraction again. What on earth was wrong with her? After Jeb, she’d sworn off men. She couldn’t trust her own judgment anymore.
The man rose to his full height, which dwarfed Raina’s own five foot seven by a good several inches. He held out his hand toward her.
“Nolan Dane, pleased to meet you.”
Automatically Raina took his hand but realized her mistake the moment she did so. A sharp tingle of electricity sizzled up her arm the second their palms met.
“I... I’m R-Raina. Raina Patterson.”
She groaned inwardly. Great, now she sounded like a complete idiot. Her heart skittered in her chest as she noticed he was still holding her hand. She gently pulled free and fought the urge to rub her palm on the fabric of her skirt. “Welcome to my store, Priceless. Were you looking for something in particular? Perhaps I can help you,” she asked, forcing herself to put her business voice on.
* * *
His first reaction to her had been instant, visceral and totally unexpected. Now Nolan could barely tear his eyes from her. She looked so much like his dead wife, Carole, it was uncanny. Her shoulder-length hair was the same shade of glossy brown that hovered between dark chocolate and rich espresso. She had the same shape of chin and brows. But it was only once he looked more closely at her that he saw the differences that set them apart.