The Rebel Tycoon Returns

She captured his hand and held it to her cheek. “Thank you, Chris.”

He knew whatever else happened between the two of them that he wasn’t leaving Royal until Macy was the beautiful flirt she used to be. Confident of herself and her ability to attract every man in the area—especially him.

Three

Macy left Chris after dinner to powder her nose. He was a little intense and she wasn’t as ready for him as she might have been, say, four years earlier. Chris had changed in his time away from Royal and her. And she hoped she’d changed as well, but she had the feeling that her changes hadn’t taken her as far forward as Chris’s had taken him.

“Macy?”

She glanced up in the mirror and saw Abby standing in the doorway. Her friend looked fabulous as always and Macy knew she should stop comparing herself to every woman in the room at some point, but she had no idea when and if that would happen.

“Hello, there. What are you doing here?” she asked Abby.

“Promoting myself to become the next president. I can’t let any time slip by. How’s dinner?” Abby asked.

She shook her long red wavy hair. Her blue eyes had always made Macy envious. She’d always wanted pretty eyes like that instead of the green ones she had. But after her surgeries she was very happy with her eyes now.

Macy blushed and then shook her head. “Nice. Dad stopped by and read Chris the riot act for not using his company, but Chris calmly stood his ground. I’ve never seen anyone handle Daddy like that.”

Abby laughed and slung her arm around Macy’s shoulders. “It’s about time. You okay?”

“Yes,” Macy said, then realized that she was telling the truth. She hadn’t felt like this in a long time. She wanted to laugh for no good reason and just shout at the top of her lungs that life was good. “I really am.”

“Good,” Abby said.

Macy left the ladies’ room and went back to their table. She saw that Chris was talking to a tall handsome African-American man that Macy didn’t know. She wasn’t sure if she should approach the table because they seemed engrossed in whatever they were discussing, but Chris glanced up and waved her over.

“Zeke, this is Macy Reynolds, Harrison’s daughter, Macy this is Zeke Travers. He and I went to college together.”

Zeke Travers was solid and muscular with a shaved head and dark brown skin. He had kind eyes and smiled when he glanced over at her.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Macy said, holding out her hand.

“You as well,” Zeke said. “I’ll let you get back to dinner. Drinks tomorrow?”

“You’re on,” Chris said.

Zeke left and Macy watched him go. Brad Price walked straight up to Zeke, and Macy could tell he wasn’t happy. The sounds of raised voices could be heard throughout the room and everyone watched them.

“What is going on with them?” Macy asked. She couldn’t help herself—she was naturally curious about the spectacle the men were making. Brad pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and waved it at Zeke.

“I have no idea,” Chris said. “I’ll try to find out more from Zeke tomorrow when we have drinks.”

“I sound like a small-town gossip, don’t I?” she asked. She wished she wasn’t nosy, but she always had been. She liked knowing what was going on in other people’s lives.

“It’s the nature of Royal to talk,” Chris said. Brad looked beet-red with fury. Whatever was upsetting him it had to be serious. She’d never seen Brad in such a state before.

“I hope he’s okay,” Macy said. She and Brad weren’t close friends or anything, but she knew him from Texas Cattleman’s Club events when they were children.

“Who is?” Abby said, coming up to their table.

“Brad,” Chris said, gesturing to the two men who were arguing.

“He’s probably just learned that I am making serious inroads to becoming the next president of the club,” Abby said with a confident grin.

“Are you?” Chris asked, arching one eyebrow at her and giving her a hard stare.

“Indeed I am. And you are …?” Abby asked.

“Forgive my manners,” Macy said. “Abigail Langley, this is Christopher Richardson. Abby is going to be the next president of the club. Chris has been asked to come up with a development plan for the new headquarters building. He owns his own development company out of Dallas.”

Abby and Chris had run in different circles in high school. Well, to be honest, Abby and Macy had run in different circles. Macy’s life had been cheerleading and parties at TCC and Chris had fallen in with her crowd by being a football star. Abby and she hadn’t had much in common then.

The two shook hands and Abby took a seat in the chair recently vacated by Zeke. Of the three people they’d had at the table she was happiest to have her good friend there now. She wanted Abby’s opinion on Chris. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust her instincts when it came to men—wait a minute, it was exactly that she didn’t trust them.

She’d been engaged to a man who’d left her the minute she wasn’t the Texas beauty she’d always been. She didn’t want to chance getting hurt again.

And though this was only a dinner date, it was with Chris Richardson. The boy she’d defied her father to date. He’d always been attractive to her. Not just physically, though there was that.

“Macy?” Abby asked, startling Macy out of her thoughts.

“Yes?”

“I asked if you thought that Chris and I would work well together when I’m president,” Abby said.

She had to give it to Abby for being persistent and determined. There wasn’t a person in Royal who didn’t know what Abby’s intent was. She was focused one hundred percent on becoming the first female president of the Texas Cattleman’s Club. “Yes, I do.”

Abby smiled at her friend and then reached over to squeeze her hand before getting up. “I’ll leave you to your dinner. It was nice meeting you, Chris.”

“You too,” Chris said.

Abby left and Macy sat back in her chair. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to come to dinner at the club. It’s such a hub for everyone.”

“You really haven’t been out for a while?” Chris asked. He took a sip of his drink and leaned forward when he talked to her. It was a very intimate thing to do and made her feel as if they were the only two people here tonight.

“For years.” At first she’d been horrified and so traumatized by everything that had happened that she’d been afraid to leave the house. Then she’d wanted to go out, but the few forays she’d made had shown her that people stared. She hadn’t been strong enough for that.

“Well, how do you think it went then?” Chris asked. “Your first dinner out in years.”

“I think it went well,” Macy admitted. “It’s also my first date in years.”

She’d been hiding away at her father’s ranch trying to pretend that she’d just moved from her hometown. It had been hard being so badly injured in a place where she’d known so many people. She had needed to just blend in and that wasn’t possible in Royal, so she’d started staying home.

“I’m glad,” Chris admitted. “I’m not happy about the circumstances that led to it, but I’m very honored to be the first man you’ve been out with.”

She didn’t want to let this mean too much. Chris wasn’t in town looking for a small-town girl as his wife, and she knew she was vulnerable right now. But she had enjoyed herself and their date and, if she was honest, she’d have to say she hoped he’d ask her out again.

“I’m glad it was you too,” she said. “You have made my night, and celebrating my first day free of bandages couldn’t have been nicer. Thank you, Chris.”

“It was truly my pleasure, Macy.”

The feeling of being in a fishbowl when he went out in Royal was very different from what he usually felt in Dallas. In the big city, no one noticed who he was with, but tonight he was very aware that most of the town knew he and Macy had had dinner together. The gossip had defined who he was and had served to make him want to be better than his dad. He’d been only too happy to shake the dust of this town from his feet.

“I’d kind of forgotten what Royal was like.”

“I bet. Don’t miss it much, do you?” she asked as he paid the bill and they sat for an extra minute to talk and drink the Baileys that Chris had ordered for them.

“I miss my mom,” he admitted. “She’s Royal born and bred. I’ve tried to get her to move up to Dallas but she won’t do it, keeps trying to make me move back here instead.”

“What about your dad?” Macy asked.

“Nah, he was a Yankee,” Chris said with a laugh. “East Coaster who fell in love with the oil industry thanks to the movie Giant. Mom used to tease him that he came to Royal looking for Liz Taylor.”

“Your mom is pretty enough. Did he think he’d found her?” Macy asked.

“Yes, I think he did. They had a happy marriage until he passed.”

“I was sorry to hear about your loss,” Macy said. “Did you get the flowers I sent?”

“I don’t know. Mom handled all that,” he said. That entire time was still a blur for him. He hadn’t been old enough to have made his peace with his dad. He had been getting closer to forgiving the old man for all the things he hadn’t done for him. Things that a boy had wanted but a man knew weren’t really important. “Why didn’t you come to the funeral?”

His dad had died when Chris had been a junior in college. It had changed his perspective and sharpened his desires to make his life different. He’d stopped being such a frat boy and focused more on his studies.

“I didn’t think I’d be welcome,” Macy said. “But I remembered meeting him and how sweet he’d been to me. He was a nice man. Your parents were always so funny at dinner, teasing you and treating you like … the apple of their eye.”

“Only when we had company. They had plenty of fault to find when we were alone.”

Unlike her dad, who’d forbidden Macy to see Chris, his parents had adored her and really treated her well when she’d come to dinner at his house. But Chris and his dad had butted heads a lot, something his mom had said was due to the fact that they were both stubborn as mules. Chris suspected it was more likely that they both wanted different things for him.

“Ready to go?” he asked, changing the subject.

“I guess so. I’ve really enjoyed tonight, Chris,” she said. In fact, she couldn’t remember a date she’d enjoyed more in her adult life. Benjamin had been a coworker of hers and they’d kind of fallen into dating because all their friends were coupled up. They had found each other by default, she thought. Maybe that was why they hadn’t lasted.

“Me too,” he said, his voice a rich deep baritone that brushed over her senses like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day.

He put his hand on the small of her back as he directed her through the dining room toward the outer doors of the club. He liked the feel of her under his hands. They’d been too young when they’d dated before to get into anything other than heavy petting. And he remembered her teenage body in a bikini from the summer, but that was all. He wondered what she looked like now.

She stopped and started laughing as she saw the sea of pink flamingos.

“What’s so funny?” Chris asked.

“The flamingos. I can’t believe they showed up here,” Macy said. No one was supposed to know who exactly had placed the birds, so she had to pretend she didn’t know. The lawn of the club was dotted with gaudy pink flamingos and Chris had a chuckle as well.

“I guess it was the club’s time,” Chris said. “Mother said one of her neighbors had them a few weeks ago.”

“It definitely is the club’s time to have them here. I think they’re cute,” she said.

The conversation trailed off and he could do nothing but stare at her in the moonlight. He took her hand and led her down one of the many paths and out of sight of prying eyes. Her thick honey-blond hair hung loosely around her shoulders.

“Why do you keep looking at me?” she asked.

“I’ve never seen anyone quite as beautiful,” he said. It was the truth, and all that he knew about her had just been enhanced tonight.

“That’s not true, but I’m going to say thank-you anyway.”

“It is true,” he said. Years ago her question would have been blatant flirting, but today he sensed her genuine unease about her own looks. “How can I convince you of what I see when I look at you?”

She shrugged and nibbled on her lower lip, which drew his eyes to her mouth. He loved her mouth, even with the tiny scar on her upper lip. The full lower lip that made him just want to lean down and taste her. He wanted her.

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