Texas Cinderella / The Texas CEO's Secret: Texas Cinderella / The Texas CEO's Secret

By 6:45 he’d made himself a pot of coffee and he took his first cup out of the guesthouse to sit at one of the poolside tables with the newspaper that Edward—the McCord’s butler—hadn’t failed to leave at his doorstep since he’d returned from the Middle East and opted to live outside of the main house for a while.

Tate didn’t open the paper, though. He knew there would be articles on the war in Iraq, on situations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Lebanon. Unlike when Buzz had been over there and Tate had been anxious for any news, since Buzz’s death, since spending the year in Baghdad himself, some days he just didn’t want the reminders. He sure as hell never needed them…

Don’t make me kick your ass!

He knew that’s what Buzz would be saying to him if Buzz was around now. If Buzz saw him staring at that newspaper and wanting to toss it into the pool. There was no way Buzz would have stood for this damn black mood he’d been in since his best friend’s death.

Bentley—Buzz—Adams. Like Katie, Tate’s fiancée, Tate had known Buzz all his life, despite the fact that they’d come from different backgrounds. Politics and the military—that’s where Buzz’s roots were. His father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all been high-ranking army officers who each served as military advisors to presidents. But Buzz’s own father hadn’t wanted his family to live the nomadic military life, so Buzz had been raised at his grandparents’ estate, just down the road.

Tate and Buzz had gone to private school together. They’d gone to college together. They’d even gone to medical school together and applied for residency at the same hospital. Their paths hadn’t veered until residency was over and Tate had opted for a specialty in surgery while Buzz had followed his family’s tradition and joined the army to serve as a doctor overseas.

Going to war was the first thing Tate and Buzz hadn’t done together.

If only Buzz hadn’t broken his tradition with Tate to follow his family’s tradition…

But he had.

And everything else was water under the bridge now.

Everything but this funk Tate couldn’t seem to shake.

He knew he was one hell of a downer these days, that everyone was wondering where the old Tate was. Most of the time he was wondering it himself. But the old Tate just didn’t seem to be there anymore.

He also knew his lousy mood was going to factor in when the news about his engagement to Katie came out, and he regretted that. He didn’t want people saying that Katie had bailed because he wasn’t much fun anymore. Katie didn’t deserve that.

She hadn’t ended their engagement because he couldn’t seem to lighten up. She’d made that clear and he didn’t doubt it. That just wasn’t Katie. In fact, he thought that if he’d put any effort into talking her out of breaking their engagement, the bad mood would have likely kept her around because she would have felt guilty for leaving him at a low point.

But he hadn’t put any effort into keeping things going with her. Why should he have when she was right? She’d said that she’d been thinking that maybe long-term friendship and family pressure and the general belief that they’d end up together shouldn’t, ultimately, be why they did end up together. That she didn’t think she had the kind of feelings for him that she should have going into marriage. That she didn’t feel passionate about him.

Maybe that should have been insulting, but it hadn’t been. Instead, he’d understood it. His own feelings for Katie had never been all-consuming or particularly passionate. Which was probably why calling things off just hadn’t mattered a whole lot to him.

Of course, it also didn’t really matter to him that Katie wanted to keep the breakup a secret until she could see her parents in Florida and explain it to them.

It didn’t matter to him that Katie wasn’t head over heels for him.

It didn’t matter to him that they’d broken up.

It didn’t matter to him that he needed to maintain the pretense that they hadn’t.

Since Buzz’s death, and even more so in the six months since he’d been back from Baghdad, it had just been tough for things like that—for most of what mattered to the people around him—to have the importance they might have had before…

He took a drink of his coffee and then replaced the cup on the table, staring into the steaming beverage that still remained.

He liked his coffee strong and black, and looking into the brew now made him think of Tanya Kimbrough’s eyes. They were the color of Italian espresso—dark, rich, liquid pools of espresso…

Recalling that made him think of one thing that had mattered to him—last night and finding Tanya Kimbrough in the library. That had definitely mattered.

When he’d found her there he’d taken a mental inventory of what he and Blake had said because what was going on with the business did matter. He’d recalled that they’d said the jewelry business was in a slump, that they believed they knew where the Santa Magdalena diamond was, that Blake was buying all the canary diamonds to use as a tie-in.

Then there were the papers Tanya had seen on the desk, too—Blake must have forgotten the file and while there hadn’t been anything in it but preliminaries for the advertising campaign, it was still information they didn’t want released.

And after cataloging what Tanya Kimbrough could have known, the wheels of Tate’s mind had started to turn, imagining her prematurely revealing that they were looking for the Santa Magdalena diamond. No, he and Blake hadn’t talked about the crucial clue Blake had discovered in the border of the deed to the land and silver mines they’d taken over from the Foleys decades ago. Still, if word leaked that there was a very real reason to suspect the diamond might be found? Any number of treasure hunters could descend on them to complicate the search. And possibly accidentally find the diamond before they did.

Not good.

Tate had considered what would happen if word leaked that Blake was cornering the market on canary diamonds and coming out with a new line of Spanish-influenced designs to coincide with the discovery of the Santa Magdalena. Their competitors would launch lines of their own to steal their thunder and undermine their sales and, potentially, leave Blake at a disadvantage in breathing new life into the business.

Also not good.

And let the world know that the renowned McCord’s Jewelers was in a decline? That the family fortunes were compromised?

Certainly not good.

And since Blake was up to his eyeballs in the family’s problems already and—as usual—trying to bear the burden as much on his own as he could, rotten mood or not, Tate had decided that it was better if he dealt with the housekeeper’s daughter rather than dumping any more on his brother.

Which was why he’d struck that bargain with her for an insider’s look at the McCords and an exclusive on the diamond if they found it. Left to her own devices, Tanya Kimbrough could cause trouble and he was going to do whatever he had to to prevent that. If that meant sticking to her like glue to keep a close eye on her for the time being, then that’s what he was going to do.

It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it…

Tate knew that’s what Buzz would be saying to him if he told his friend he was only taking on Tanya Kimbrough to spare Blake.

Yeah, okay, it was hardly as dirty a job as studying a dusty deed or digging around in the dirt of a deserted old silver mine. Keeping an eye on a beautiful woman was definitely not drawing the short straw.

And Tanya was a beautiful woman.

The scrawny, funny-looking kid had grown into a knockout—there was no question about that.

Her hair was as dark as her eyes—coffee-nib brown—and so shiny it looked like satin. Coupled with those eyes against a fair, flawless complexion, she’d been the freshest-faced burglar in existence. Fresh-faced and beautiful even without any visible signs of makeup, with that thin nose and those pale pink lips, those high cheekbones and the slightly squarish jawline sweeping up from a chin that looked as if it could be a little sassy.

Unlike her taller, slightly stocky mother, Tanya was petite—no more than five-four he was guessing. She was thin, but not too thin, and she had curves in all the right places—at least he thought she did even though that chopped-up sweatshirt she’d had on had done more camouflaging than revealing.

Of course it had revealed one shoulder before she’d yanked the fabric back into place. And the mere sight of that creamy skin had made him suddenly aware of his own heartbeat. And the fact that it had sped up…

Only slightly.

But still, that was more than most things had done to him lately. A simple bare shoulder…

Hell, he was a doctor. He saw naked shoulders—and naked everything else—all the time. Why had a simple glimpse of Tanya Kimbrough’s shoulder done anything at all to him?

Maybe it had been an adrenaline rush, he reasoned. He’d just had that argument with Blake and then spotted someone he’d initially thought to be a stranger lurking behind the desk. He hadn’t actually been alarmed, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that his subconscious had set off an alert response. After Baghdad, that seemed likely.

And if it had felt like something other than that?

He was likely only misinterpreting it.

He did know one thing, though—he wasn’t hating the idea of keeping an eye on Tanya Kimbrough.

In fact, if he analyzed it, he’d say he might even be looking forward to it.

He might say he’d even gotten a small rush out of that back-and-forth with her last night. A small rush that he wouldn’t mind having again…

But that couldn’t matter, he told himself.

The charge he’d gotten out of their verbal exchange and the fact that she’d held her own with him, the smooth skin on a shoulder he’d been inclined to mold his hand around, the silky hair he’d wanted to see fall free, the lips he’d had a fleeting thought of tasting, the tight little body hidden behind funny-looking pants and a sweatshirt that someone had taken scissors to—none of that was as important as protecting his family, or as important as his promise to Katie to pretend they were still engaged until she told him otherwise.

But still…

He was looking forward to seeing the housekeeper’s daughter again.

And continuing to see much more of her for a while to keep her contained?

That didn’t feel like a hardship either…

“What are you doing here?”

Tanya could see that Tate was surprised to find her waiting for him when he left the operating suite of Meridian General Hospital at eight o’clock Saturday night.

“I told you you were going to talk to me whether you liked it or not,” she countered heatedly.

“When did you tell me that?”

“At the end of the sixteenth voice mail I left you today.”

“I got called in for an emergency surgery early this morning. I’ve been standing at an operating table for the last—” he glanced at a clock on the wall “—eleven hours and twenty minutes. Not a lot of message checking goes on when I’m up to my elbows in a man’s gut.”

“Gross,” Tanya said reflexively.

Tate merely raised an eyebrow at that, giving her the impression that that was the response he’d been going for.

But if he thought disgusting her was going to make her back down, he needed to think again.

“Eleven hours and twenty minutes of surgery or not, we’re going to talk,” she insisted.

“If I’ve inspired sixteen voice mails I guess we’ll have to,” he said sardonically but sounding weary nonetheless. “First I have to let the family know how my patient is—” he nodded in the direction of a group of people she hadn’t noticed before but now realized were also waiting for him “—then I have to write orders to get this guy into recovery. After that my plan is for a quick bite to eat at the deli across the street before I have to operate on the other passenger from this car accident. So if you’re determined that we talk right now, you can either wait for me here and go over to the deli with me, or go ahead of me to the deli—but one way or another there’s only going to be a small window before my next patient is prepped and ready to be opened up.”

It irked Tanya all the more to have him dictate to her, but she wouldn’t let that stop her.

“Fine, I’ll wait here,” she said cuttingly.

Now that she’d finally found him, she had no intention of letting him slip away from her. After calling his cell phone all day, she’d questioned almost the entire house staff before finding someone who knew Tate was at the hospital. When she’d called the hospital she’d been told she couldn’t speak to him because he was in surgery. That had prompted her to come here to ambush him as soon as he got out. But she’d been lying in wait for nearly two hours and was not willing to go ahead of him to the deli and risk him not showing up.

So she perched on the edge of the same seat she’d occupied for the last two hours and watched him intently.

When he was finished talking to his patient’s family, they headed for the elevators and Tate moved to the nurses’ station. He said something to the nurse there and while she went to do his bidding, Tanya continued to keep him in her sights.

As she did, it occurred to her that while, over the years, she’d seen Tate McCord in tennis whites, in tuxedos, in suits and ties and casual clothes of all kinds, she’d never seen him in scrubs. And that he looked too sexy to believe in the loose-fitting, teal blue cotton garments that resembled pajamas more than street clothing.

Then, adding to that sexiness he seemed unconscious of, he rolled his shoulders, arched his spine and raised his elbows to shoulder height to pull his arms back until even Tanya heard something crack—obviously working out the kinks that hours of surgery had left.

But regardless of the fact that she was overly aware of every little thing about him, she refused to let any of it influence her. She was steaming mad and she was going to let him know it. Nothing—including being one of the best-looking, sexiest men she’d ever seen—gave him license to mess with her career! Not even if she had overstepped her bounds the previous night.

The nurse brought him a metal clipboard then, and when he was done writing the orders for his patient, he handed the chart back to the nurse and finally turned to Tanya.

“Ready?”

“You don’t need to change clothes?” she asked, hoping he would and that different clothes might help lessen the effect he was having on her in scrubs.

But he shook his head. “Hadn’t planned on it. Like I said, I have another surgery scheduled tonight and the deli doesn’t have a dress code. Unless it offends you in some way…”

“I couldn’t care less what you’re wearing,” she lied.

“Then let’s go get something to eat before I pass out from hunger.”

The trip through the hospital and across the street was filled with Tate greeting and exchanging quips with nurses, attendants, volunteers, other doctors and even the janitor. Then they reached the deli and he was right—there were more customers dressed the way he was than in anything that resembled the slacks and shirt Tanya was wearing.

Not that she felt out of place, but it did occur to her as she peered at the other men in scrubs that she didn’t find any of them particularly attractive…

Still, she did everything she could to overlook Tate’s appeal as he ordered his “usual.” She rejected his offer of food and accepted only a lemonade before they went to one of the booths that lined the walls of the small restaurant.

Despite what he’d said, Tate seemed more tired than hungry. After setting his pastrami sandwich and iced tea on the table, he left them untouched while he sat lengthwise on his side of the booth to put his feet up. He also rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes—probably to wind down and relax the way he’d intended to do without her company.

But Tanya wasn’t going to be ignored.

“So how did you have time to ruin my life if you were up to your elbows in someone’s insides all day and most of tonight?” she demanded before she’d even sipped her lemonade.

Rather than add to Tate’s stress, that actually brought an indication of amusement in a slight upward curl of the corners of his mouth even before he opened his eyes to look at her. “How did I ruin your life?”

“I got a call at nine o’clock this morning from the owner of WDGN—not the station manager who hired me, but the station owner—”

“Chad Burton.”

“Your friend,” Tanya said derisively.

“We’re more acquaintances than close friends. I went through school with his son, Chad Junior. I helped Junior pass chemistry and physics, although he ended up an interior decorator, not a doctor the way Chad Senior had hoped. But Chad Senior has always been grateful. Chad Senior and I have also been on a lot of committees together, we play golf now and then—”

“You’re friends enough to have called him sometime between last night and nine o’clock this morning to persuade him to put me on a leave of absence—”

“With pay,” Tate pointed out, not bothering to pretend he hadn’t been behind today’s turn of events.

“With or without pay, from today forward—indefinitely—I’m on special assignment to work the McCord story. That means no on-air time, no other duties, no other stories, no other assignments, no chance to prove myself in any other way or gain any other ground after just two weeks of working there. I was told I’m not to show my face at the station until I have the whole McCord thing ready to be put together.”

“But you’re still on the payroll, so—”

“This isn’t about money!” Tanya said, ferociously whispering to keep from shouting. “If I don’t go back with something good—like the discovery of the Santa Magdalena diamond itself—I’ll be lucky to be doing the agriculture reports on the predawn weekend newscasts. Plus they’ll probably hire someone else to do my job in the meantime and that someone else could just replace me if the McCords don’t come up with the diamond and all I have is a human-interest piece. You may have put in a good word for me to get this job, but my credentials and abilities actually got it for me, and you don’t have the right to pull it out from under me just to suit your purposes!”

He sat up straight in the booth, putting his feet on the floor and finally unwrapping his sandwich to take a bite. Not until he’d chewed, swallowed and washed it down with a drink of his iced tea, did he say, “I had to make sure you didn’t have the opportunity to go back on your word to keep quiet.”

“I could still do that—I could go to a Foley-owned station.”

He remained unruffled by her threat. “You could,” he said. “But that talk about loyalty last night got me to thinking—your mom has worked for us for twenty-two years. She oversees the whole staff. She’s my mom’s right hand around the house. I’m not going to say we’re all family, but there’s a connection that you sure as hell don’t have with our archrivals. You must feel some amount of loyalty.”

“How much loyalty did you feel when you called Chad Burton?”

“Today or when I called him to say I was sending over your résumé?”

Tanya glared at him. “That was something my mother did without telling me until after it was done because she wanted me to move back here. The résumé you sent over wasn’t even a recent one. It was the first one I did out of college—my mother found it in an old file. I faxed them the real, current résumé, which is what got me the interview.”

Tate ignored all of that and merely went on to answer her question about his loyalty.

“I wasn’t being disloyal. I was only playing it safe. And Chad was thrilled with the idea of getting an insider’s view of the McCords. Plus, even though I didn’t do anything but allude to the diamond, I let him know that there was the potential for big news to come along with the human-interest stuff, and he was nearly drooling over the chance for WDGN to be the one to break that big news. This really could put you on the map.”

“I lose ground not being there, not having my face in front of a camera every chance I can get,” she insisted. “There’s no reason I couldn’t still be doing my job there and compiling the McCord information.”

“But now you don’t have to do anything but focus on the McCords.”

“Who are not the center of the universe, just in case you were wondering!” Tanya said, her voice raised enough to garner a glance from the couple at the nearest table.

“It’s just a precaution,” Tate said calmly.

“You’re trying to control me,” Tanya accused.

“Yes, I am. But only in this and only for the sake of the greater good.”

“As if that makes it all right.”

“Was it all right that you broke into my family’s home last night to spy on us and try to get information to expose things that could hurt us if they got out at the wrong time?” he reasoned.

“So you’re exacting revenge?”

“Nooo, not at all. You still have your job and your paycheck. You have the chance to do an exclusive story on the McCords and be the reporter who tells the world if we find the Santa Magdalena diamond. You just won’t be doing anything but that for now.”

Tanya narrowed her eyes at him. “You’d better give me a good story,” she warned.

“And you’d better put all your energy into me and getting a good story,” he countered.

“Into you? Why would I put my energy into you?”

He smiled. A slow, lazy, sexy smile. “I guess because I’m the teller-of-the-tale, and the happier I am, the better the tale-telling?”

“And what does that mean? That not only do I have to climb the mountain to get the answers from The Great One, but that I have to bring enticements, too?” she asked facetiously.

His smile stretched into a grin and he didn’t at all look like the sad, somber, lackluster shadow of his former self that her mother and the rest of the staff described him as.

“Enticements?” he repeated as if he hadn’t been thinking that until she suggested it. “I like the sound of that.”

“Well, get over it,” she advised bluntly, knowing he was merely having some fun at her expense. “There’s no way I’m bringing enticements to get you to tell me about your family.”

“Too bad,” he pretended to lament.

“I’m serious, Tate,” she said, using his name for the first time as an adult.

“Yes, you are, Tanya,” he agreed, barely suppressing a smile. “You are very serious.”

“I mean it—you’d better give me something good enough to make this sabbatical worth my while.”

He seemed to take that in a different—and lascivious—vein than how she’d intended it because his smile appeared full force again and it was laced with wicked amusement.

But before he said anything else, the pager clipped to the bottom of his shirt went off, drawing his attention.

He glanced down at it. “I have to get back,” he announced, grabbing another quick bite of his only half-eaten sandwich and then rewrapping the rest to take with him.

As he did, he returned to what they’d been talking about. “All I meant when I said that you should put your energy into me was into spending time with me to get your story—as part of the job you really are still doing.”

He stood, guzzled most of his iced tea and, after replacing the glass on the table, added, “And to that end, why don’t we start with a real dinner tomorrow night? My treat and we can both eat.”

“Since it’s now my job, I guess so,” Tanya conceded.

“Eight o’clock? I’ll meet you at the pool and we’ll go somewhere from there?”

Tanya nodded and that was all it took to send him rushing out of the deli.

As she watched him go her anger at him began to waver. Maybe it was the sight of him from behind in those scrubs that loosely covered his broad shoulders and barely grazed a derriere to die for.