Blame It On Texas

Brad continued removing the sink and its fittings after looking at Lewis with obvious sympathy. “Struck out, huh?”

Unfortunately, they all knew where he had been and why. Lewis’d had to tell them why he was opting out of the kitchen demolition party at the last minute, after promising to help the financially tapped-out Kevin and the rest of his brothers with the task.

Lewis picked up a hammer. “What makes you think I didn’t get a date?”

“Did you?” Kevin asked, unable to stop being a detective even when he wasn’t working for the Laramie County sheriff’s department.

“Yes.” Lewis lent a hand, prying off the ancient laminate countertop. “And no.”

Will McCabe narrowed his eyes, looking every bit the former fighter pilot he was. “You either did or you didn’t. Which is it?”

Lewis unscrewed the plywood cover from the base cabinet. “Lexie agreed to spend time with me. Starting later tonight, as a matter of fact.”

Brad knelt to remove the doors and drawers from the lower units. “I hear a catch in there.”

Together, the guys carried the trash from the growing junk pile to the pickup parked just outside the back door. “She got the mistaken impression that I wanted to hire her to transform my image.”

Guffaws, all around.

Riley scrutinized Lewis as they all tromped back inside to continue gutting the spacious country kitchen. “So you’re going to be paying her to pay attention to you?”

Not in money. “That’s the good part,” Lewis said, fully aware of just how bad this arrangement he had struck with Lexie sounded.

Kevin scoffed as they worked to remove the base units from the wall. “For whom?”

“We’re bartering services. She wants me to take her riding tonight. At midnight.”

“And then what?” Brad, still the most cynical of them all, asked.

“If all goes well, I intend to keep seeing her,” Lewis said.

Will helped them remove the rest of the unit without tearing out the drywall behind it. “Then I presume you’re going to set Lexie Remington straight when you see her tonight, tell her all you intended was to ask her out.”

Lewis shrugged. “She seems to think I need an image makeover.”

More groans, all the way around. “That may be true,” Kevin said as the guys finished extracting the bottom units. “But once you let a woman start telling you how to dress and what to do, it’s all over. Unless…you want to be with a woman who runs the show in the relationship?”

“Besides, I thought you already did that,” Riley continued helpfully. “You know, hitched your wagon to a woman who couldn’t seem to stop ‘improving’ you and cutting you down.” He paused, as compassionate a brother as he was a physician. “Didn’t do much for the union, as I recall.”

“And yet here you are—enthusiastically signing up for that all over again,” the now happily married Brad said. “Don’t you know that’s the kiss of death for any relationship, trying to make each other into what you want them to be instead of accepting them for who they already are?”

“We’re talking about a few dates,” Lewis said impatiently.

“A few dates built on a lie,” Kevin corrected, all law-and-order again.

Guilt flooded Lewis. That was not something he had intended.

Will looked at Lewis with obvious pity. “How do you think Lexie’s going to feel when she finds out you never had any intention of contracting her professional services? She’s going to think you made a fool of her on purpose, letting her assume something that wasn’t true.”

Lewis hadn’t thought of it that way. He hoped Lexie wouldn’t, either. Aware there was only one solution to this problem that would keep Lexie’s feelings from being hurt, he put down his hammer and clenched his jaw. “Lexie isn’t going to find out.”

Riley scoffed. “How do you figure that?”

Lewis narrowed his eyes. “’Cause none of you are going to tell her.”

Easy to see all four of his brothers thought he was making a big mistake. “Look,” Lewis said firmly, laying down the law as only a McCabe could, “Lexie’s only going to be in Texas for two weeks before she jets off again. I finally get to spend time some quality time with her. I’m not mucking with that, and none of you are going to ruin it for me, either.”

LEWIS FELT LIKE an intruder as he slowed his Yukon in front of the entrance to the Remington ranch. Lexie glided out of the shadows, right on cue, and slipped into the passenger seat beside him. She looked pretty as could be in jeans, boots, a red cotton turtleneck and denim jacket. Her thick strawberry-blond hair had been pulled into a bouncy ponytail on the back of her head. Vibrant color lit her cheeks and eyes.

“What is that delicious aroma?” Lexie demanded in her usual carefree manner. She looked at the paper bag balanced on the console between their seats.

Lewis drove the short distance down the farm road to the entrance of his own ranch, the Lazy M. “A little late night supper. I figured we might want to grab a bite before we saddle up.”

“You figured right,” she said, a mixture of devilry and excitement sparkling in her turquoise eyes. “I’m starving. If my nose is correct, that’s chili from your aunt Greta’s restaurant.”

Lewis gave her an amused glance, aware how much hadn’t changed about her. Lexie was still the most exciting tomboy around. Quick-witted, fun-loving and sexy as all get-out. Trying not to imagine what it would be like to finally have her in his arms, he said, “Extra spicy, just the way you like it.”

“Mmm.” Pleasure radiated in her low tone as she kicked back in the passenger seat. “What else is in here?”

With effort, he kept his glance away from the graceful way she moved and her long, denim-clad legs. “Coffee. Nice and strong. And jalapeño cornbread.” He knew from experience it really packed a punch. “I figured I would show you something while we eat.” Lewis took a separate entrance to the Lazy M Ranch house, near the south edge of the property. Perched on a hill was a bulldozer and several piles of dirt. He parked in the lane and cut the engine.

“What are you building here?” Lexie looked around curiously.

He adjusted the interior lights on the truck, so they could see each other clearly. “A second ranch house—this one is just for me.”

Lexie took off her seat belt and swiveled to face him. “How big is it going to be?”

Lewis unhooked his, too. “Haven’t decided yet. I’m still working with the architect.”

“Where do you live now?”

Aware how cozy it felt to be here with her like this, he handed Lexie a thermal cup of chili and a spoon. “I was bunking in the main house, and Brad had the guest cottage. When he married Lainey Carrington, and she and her son moved in with Brad, it made sense for us to switch places. Now they have two preschoolers, and another baby on the way.”

“So I heard.”

The presence of kids had his yearning for a family of his own growing by leaps and bounds, which was why he’d decided to go ahead and build his dream home, in the hopes that a special woman would follow.

“Anyway, it makes sense for us to spread out a little more now.” He could still have meals with Brad and Lainey and the kids whenever he wanted, but he could have more privacy, too.

Lewis watched Lexie work off the lid, being careful not to spill it, and balance her square of cornbread on her bent knee. He licked a drop of chili off his thumb. “So how come we’re sneaking around like a couple of teenagers?” he asked.

Lexie swallowed the spicy concoction and arched her eyebrows at him flirtatiously. “Aren’t you having fun yet?”

Reminded of how reckless Lexie had always been, Lewis nudged her knee with his and grinned. “You know what I mean. What’s going on between you and your folks?” He’d been wondering about that all evening. From what he recalled, they had always gotten along, until Lexie ran off to California to make her fame and fortune at the tender age of nineteen.

She licked the back of her plastic spoon. “Let’s just say they are overreacting, as usual.”

“They seemed awfully protective,” he noted as he munched on cornbread.

In a way that didn’t make sense. Jake Remington was an accomplished businessman, known for identifying fledgling businesses and turning them into hugely successful operations. Jenna Lockhart Remington was a successful clothing designer known for her one-of-a-kind couture bridal gowns and formal-wear, as well as her boutique line. They were respected members of the community, renowned for their big hearts and Texas hospitality. Yet earlier, they could hardly have been more unwelcoming to him and, apparently, to everyone else who had dared appear at their front door since Lexie arrived home that morning.

She shrugged, took another bite of chili and followed it with a big gulp of coffee. Lewis saw her looking around.

He grimaced. “Sorry. I forgot to bring any napkins.”

“That’s okay.” Lexie dabbed at the corner of her lips with her fingertip. She went back to eating. “So what kind of horses do you and your brother have out here?”

It was all Lewis could do to keep his eyes off her. “You’re going to ride Lady—she’s a sweetheart.”

Lexie’s eyebrows drew together. “She sounds tame.”

“She is,” Lewis assured, not sure how long it had been since Lexie had actually ridden. “You won’t have any trouble with her.”

She paused and put her chili aside. Frowning, she swallowed hard and shook her head in outright disagreement. “I wanted a challenge,” she argued.

Brad’s horse was just that. The problem was, no one rode the stallion but Brad. Lewis’s cautious nature came to the fore. “It’s going to be dark, Lexie.”

“So?” Lexie shot him an aggravated look and put a fist to her sternum.

“So even with the lanterns I brought for us to hang on our saddles and the full moon, we’re going to have to be careful.”

Lexie got out of the cab of the truck and began to pace.

Not sure what was wrong, Lewis climbed out after her. Quickly, he circled around to her side. Then he watched as Lexie bent forward, perspiration dotting her forehead, her hands on her knees. Light spilled from the interior of the truck, bathing them both in a yellow glow. Lexie straightened again, her face ghostly pale. “Are you okay?” he asked, not sure what was going on with her, just knowing it wasn’t good.

Lexie nodded. “I’m fine,” she said, in a voice thready with pain. And then she fainted.

Chapter Two

“I can’t believe you called my parents,” Lexie fumed.

“What was I supposed to do?” Lewis was glad her anger with him had brought a renewed flush of color to her cheeks. When he had carried her through the automatic glass doors of Laramie Community Hospital, she had been white as a sheet. “Bring you to the hospital and not tell them?” That would have won him some points with her folks!

“You weren’t supposed to bring me to the emergency room at all!” Lexie folded her arms in front of her.

Before Lewis could defend himself, the door to the examining room was opened. His brother Riley, the family doc on call, and Lexie’s parents filed in. Jake and Jenna Remington looked as if they had been awakened from a sound sleep and dressed hastily. Their hair was still tousled. Jake needed a shave. Jenna’s face was pale with worry. They rushed to Lexie’s side and hugged her, being careful not to dislodge the IV taped to her left arm. “Thank you for calling us,” Jenna told Lewis.

“Although what you were doing out with my daughter that time of night is still a question that needs to be answered,” Jake said grimly.

“Don’t blame Lewis, Dad,” Lexie interrupted. “I asked him to take me riding.”

Jake’s gray-brown eyebrows climbed even higher. “In the middle of the night?”

“It’s not as if you were going to let me go if you knew about it,” Lexie challenged.

Riley looked at Lexie sternly. “Your father told me you just got out of the hospital in London, Lexie.”

Lewis did a double take. “Is this true?” he asked her.

Lexie flushed and waved off the concern of all those around her. “It was nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing,” Jake Remington said gruffly. “You passed out over there, too.”

“So I’m a little run-down.” Lexie shrugged.

“You were having chest pains tonight,” Lewis said, repeating what he had already told the staff upon her admission. “Before you passed out. At least I think you were, the way you were pressing your hand to your chest.”

“Acid reflux,” Riley explained.

“You can give her medication for that, right?” Jenna queried, the picture of motherly concern.

Riley nodded. “But you’re still going to have to lay off the spicy food, caffeine and highly acidic things like tomatoes and citrus until you heal, Lexie. And we still have to deal with your exhaustion. You need lots of rest, no stress. And you need to start eating right.”

Lexie rubbed the back of her neck, looking as if all that sounded impossible to her.

“How long before she’s back on her feet?” Lexie’s father asked.

“Two weeks of R and R ought to do it,” Riley said.

“I want to go riding,” Lexie grumbled.

“Not for at least another week,” Riley cautioned. “We don’t want you passing out in the saddle.”

“So when do I get out of here?” Lexie asked, impatiently.

“As soon as the IV is finished,” Riley said. He wrote out a prescription for her and handed it over. “Provided you promise me you really will take it easy.”

She nodded. “I promise.”

“Okay, I want to see you in my office in one week, for a recheck. Call and make an appointment with my receptionist tomorrow. In the meantime, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call.” Riley accepted thanks from everyone, then exited the room.

Jake Remington turned back to his only daughter. “Okay, young lady, you heard the doctor. No more reckless inattention to your health. You’re going home with us, and this time, you’re staying on the ranch.”

“No, I’m not.” Lexie reached out and took Lewis’s hand firmly in hers. “I am going home with Lewis!”

THE SILENCE IN THE examining room was deafening.

All eyes turned to Lewis.

He was used to seeing his brothers in this kind of trouble. Not him. Never him.

“Lexie, you already had one disastrous relationship,” Jake said. “If you think I am going to stand by and watch you rush headlong into another, just to get back at me for never approving of Constantine Romeo—”

“I knew you were going to bring that up!” Lexie interrupted.

“Stop!” Jenna stepped between warring father and daughter. “This is the kind of stress Riley just suggested that Lexie avoid.”

“Well, I’m not letting her go home with someone she barely knows,” Jake protested.

“Well, I’m not going back to the ranch, either. I can’t breathe there!” Lexie glared at her father.

“Then how about staying in the apartment above my shop?” Jenna suggested gently. “It’s small, but private. And right down the street from the hospital, should you feel ill again.”

“Fine,” Lexie said. “Provided Lewis drives me there and you two go on home and get some sleep.”

Jake Remington looked as if he wanted to punch him, Lewis noted uncomfortably. But her father finally agreed and the Remingtons left after bidding Lexie a tense good-night.

Lewis went out in the hall to wait while the nurse helped Lexie get ready to leave the hospital. Riley handed the chart he had been writing on to the medical records clerk and strode over to Lewis. He clapped a brotherly hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “I meant what I said about Lexie needing to limit her stress right now. Especially given the way Jake Remington feels about his daughter seeing anyone.”

“Shutting her up like a princess in an ivory tower is the wrong approach to take with Lexie,” Lewis declared.

His brother frowned. “You’re an authority on her? After what—one-fifth of one clandestine date?”

“She asked me to help her out. I’m going to do that,” Lewis insisted stubbornly.

Riley’s gaze narrowed. “And I’m telling you this—make an enemy of her father, and you’ll regret it.”

LEXIE SAUNTERED OUT to the waiting room. “Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem.” Lewis fell into step beside her.

“But it wasn’t necessary,” she said, leading the way out of the ER. “I could just as easily get a cab.”

“In Laramie? At this time of night?” Lewis teased, as they walked through the automatic glass doors. “You have been away a long time.”

Lexie came to a halt on the sidewalk beneath the portico. “There are still only two cabs in town?”

Lewis put his hand beneath her elbow. “And neither of them run past midnight without prior appointment, unless it is an absolute emergency. And when there’s a medical emergency, an ambulance is summoned.”

Lexie sighed, her frustration evident. “This isn’t an emergency.”

“Maybe not to you.” He guided her toward the parking lot. “You managed to get everyone around you pretty upset.”

Lexie drew away from him as they approached his Yukon. “Including you?”

“I admit you had me worried.”

Lewis held the door for her, then circled around to climb behind the steering wheel. The only thing he regretted about this mission was the short distance to her stepmother’s building on Main Street.

Jenna Lockhart Designs had been a mere storefront—albeit a highly exclusive one—when Lewis moved to Laramie at age eleven. Now, some twenty years later, the famous Texas boutique took up an entire block on Laramie’s Main Street. Women came from all over the country to purchase the one-of-a kind evening gowns and wedding dresses Jenna designed in her shop. Her off-the-rack creations, which carried a much more reasonable price tag, were made in a factory at the edge of town, and sold in department stores everywhere. “Your dad and stepmother, too,” Lewis continued.

Her lips took on a mutinous tilt. “I told them not to worry.”

Lewis drove as slowly as possible. “What happened in London anyway?” He stopped at a traffic light.

Lexie shrugged. “The usual. First I had to deal with my mother.”

When the light turned green, Lewis continued on down the street. “She still lives in Europe, right?”

“Italy. Right.”

“She married some Italian count, didn’t she?” Lewis kept the conversation going as he parked in front of the boutique.

“Riccardo della Gheradesca.” Lexie got a pinched look on her face. She vaulted from the truck, and waited for Lewis to get his keys out of the ignition and catch up with her. “Anyway, after—” Lexie broke off, then tried again. “I was in Italy, seeing my mother and going to the funeral and all that…”

Lewis blinked. “Funeral?”

“Riccardo died last month.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Lexie shrugged, her expression more numb than grief-stricken. “I barely knew him. The Count had no interest in children and, truthfully, neither does my mother. But the funeral was a pretty big deal, and she wanted me there, so I had to go.”

“Your mom must be really upset.”

Lexie nodded and looked even more distressed. “Anyway, from Naples I went to Japan for a major film festival there—”

Lewis waited while she punched in the security code that would let her in the building. “That sounds like fun.”

She led the way through a dimly lit interior hallway to the stairs. “It was a nightmare. I had four clients all needing my help, all the time, all trying to elbow each other aside.”

He chuckled at the low note of exasperation in her voice. “No wonder you had acid reflux.”

“Anyway, from there I went on to London,” Lexie continued, apparently unaware just how sexily her stylish jeans cupped her lower half. “One of my clients was simultaneously trying to change her image and making her debut on the London stage. She couldn’t articulate what it was she wanted for her publicity appearances on British television, and I tried every look imaginable. Nothing was pleasing her. The next thing I knew I’d fainted dead away in Knightsbridge, and they’d rushed me to the hospital. My father came right over on his private jet and whisked me back to Texas.”

Lewis studied her in puzzlement. “The doctors there didn’t diagnose your reflux?”

Lexie shrugged, punched in another security code and then opened the door to the apartment. She hit the lights and led the way inside to what looked to be a two-room apartment, with living room and kitchenette in front, bedroom and bath in back. It was professionally decorated in the same shades of pale pink and cream as the boutique downstairs. “I didn’t tell them about my symptoms.”

Lewis watched her saunter over to the fridge. “Lexie!”

She brought out two plastic bottles of blackberry-flavored water and tossed him one. He caught it with one hand.

“It didn’t seem to have anything to do with my passing out. I was jet-lagged and exhausted.” Lexie frowned as she struggled unsuccessfully with the cap of her bottle. “I hadn’t been eating right since I was still recovering from the nonstop bout of ‘indigestion’ I’d had in Cannes. They concluded that I needed a few days of rest.”

Lewis took the top off his and did a trade with her. “If that’s the case, I don’t get why you and your father are quarreling.”

“Because,” Lexie enunciated clearly, “my father doesn’t respect me or what I do for a living. Bottom line, he wants me to quit working as a celebrity stylist and come home to Laramie to stay.”

LEXIE COULD SEE THAT Lewis did not think that was such a formidable offense.

“He was probably just upset.”

Lexie stalked over to one of the cream-colored sofas and sank down onto it. “Gee. You think?”

Lewis followed, looking very handsome and very much at home in the soft lighting of the small but luxuriantly appointed apartment. “As soon as you get better—”

Lexie watched as he sat down next to her. “My father’s still going to want me to leave Tinseltown for good.”

Lewis took a long draught of flavored water, then let the bottle rest on his muscular thigh. “What do you want?”

That, Lexie thought, was the dilemma. She didn’t really know.

“You do like your career, don’t you?” he persisted.

She looked into his lively blue-gray eyes. “I did.”

“Until…?” Lewis asked.

Lexie tried not to think what he would look like without the sexy wire-rimmed glasses. She swallowed hard. “A few months ago.”

He stretched out his long, jean-clad legs. “What happened?”

She sighed, relieved to finally be able to bare her soul to someone impartial. “Nothing out of the ordinary, really. There was no great epiphany or anything like that.”

The way Lewis was looking at her, as if he really wanted to understand her, prompted her to continue. “I just got tired of always being on a plane, always being at the whim of a client—a hundred clients, actually. I stopped waking up every morning wanting to go to work and meet the challenges ahead. Instead, I had to pull myself out of bed.”

Tenderness radiated from his slight smile. “Maybe you just need a rest.”

And maybe, Lexie thought wearily, pushing both hands through her hair, she needed a new life. Although what she would do, besides being a celebrity stylist, she didn’t know. Thanks to the fact she had dropped out of college to follow Constantine Romeo to Hollywood, she wasn’t prepared to do anything else. Besides, who gave up a lucrative six-figure career and professional acclaim to find themselves? She was remarkably successful for a twenty-seven-year-old. She’d be considered a fool for even trying to find something else to do for a living.

Lewis drained his bottle and put it aside. “Have you said any of this to Jenna or your dad?”

“No.” Lexie traced the condensation on the outside of her water bottle with the tip of her index finger.

He touched the back of her hand with the back of his. “How do you think he would react?”

She luxuriated in the warmth of skin to skin. “He’d be relieved.”