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

“This was nice,” he said as if that surprised him.

“It was. Thanks for dinner. You get points for today and points for your cooking talents, too.”

“Points? I didn’t know there was a scorecard.”

“Not literally.”

“And why did I get points for today?”

“Because what I saw of you was so eye-opening.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t remember the ‘you shouldn’t do thats.’ But I do remember you doing some wild and reckless things in pursuit of fun and frolic—which was all I thought you were about. Mr. Good-Time. But today I saw for myself that there is more to you…”

Why had her voice gotten softer by the end of that? Why had it sounded almost intimate? And why was she staring up at him and thinking that she really was seeing him through new eyes? And that she liked what she was seeing so much more than when she’d thought he was just a handsome face…

“Anyway,” she said, trying for a more normal tone and to halt the thoughts and feelings that were suddenly running through her. “I admired what I saw of what you did today and it will definitely be a part of the collage of the McCords.”

He smiled. “I was impressed with you today, too,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you were all talk or not, but you dug right in. And you didn’t even flinch when old Nesbit came wandering out of recovery in the buff.”

Tanya laughed. “That I won’t be reporting on,” she said. “Though you were really quick with that chart you held in front of his dangling participles so the lady I was giving juice to didn’t see much.”

“Dangling participles? Things were definitely dangling…” he said wryly, laughing too.

Tanya was having a much better time than she wished she was. It made it hard for her to make herself leave. And Tate wasn’t encouraging it—he was still standing there with the door closed, looking down at her.

And it wasn’t just any look in those clear blue eyes. He was looking at her in a way other men had looked at her. Just before they’d kissed her…

Was he thinking about it? Tanya wondered.

Because she was…

You shouldn’t do that—the phrase that had been repeated so much tonight echoed through her head. And she knew it was true, that kissing him wasn’t what she should do. Or let him do.

Even if something in her was shouting for him to go ahead and do it…

Then he cocked his head just a bit to one side. But Tanya couldn’t tell if he was even aware that he’d done it because he was staring so intently, so deeply into her eyes.

He leaned forward. Barely. Almost not at all.

Her chin went up about the same amount, on its own.

Shouldn’t do that…

Except that she wanted to.

She really, really wanted to…

But maybe the mere thought that they shouldn’t do that somehow transmitted to Tate, who finally took heed of it. He straightened up again and turned the handle to open the door so she could go out.

Which was exactly what she knew she had to do. She had to get out of there before she did something stupid…

“Tomorrow?” she said as she stepped across the threshold, stopping only when she felt the cooler night air on her face to turn and look at him from a greater distance than had separated them in the house.

“I have surgeries scheduled all day and dinner with the family tomorrow evening. But I’ve left orders for all the family albums to be dragged out of storage—I thought maybe we could go through them tomorrow night after dinner. That should give you a fairly decent family history.”

Why did tomorrow night seem so far away? And why was she thinking about how endlessly the hours would drag on instead of being aggravated by the fact that the entire next day would be wasted?

But that was how it was and she couldn’t help it. She could only hope the time would pass quickly…

“Okay,” she heard herself say compliantly. “If that’s how it has to be.”

“Unfortunately…” he said so quietly that she had the feeling he regretted having to wait, too.

But that couldn’t be, Tanya told herself. He’s engaged—don’t forget that…

She said good-night then and headed in the direction of her mother’s bungalow. But since she hadn’t heard the guesthouse door close, just before she stepped onto the path that led through trees and bushes and would take her out of sight, she glanced over her shoulder.

There was Tate, standing in the doorway watching her.

And thinking what? About kissing her?

Had he almost kissed her or had she been wrong about that?

She must have been wrong.

But right or wrong, there would be no kissing of Tate McCord! she told herself.

Still, she thought he had almost kissed her.

And even though she knew it would have been a mistake, even though she knew it couldn’t happen, as she slipped out of his sight down the path to the bungalow, she was wishing that this might have been one of those times—like all those others—when he’d ignored the you-shouldn’t-do-that and done it anyway…

Chapter Five

“Katie. Hi,” Tate said into his cell phone when it rang on his way to work Tuesday morning and the display let him know in advance who his caller was.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Katie replied to his greeting.

“No, I’m about five minutes away from the hospital. How’s everything?”

“Okay. As well as could be expected, I suppose,” Katie said.

Tate had known her long enough to think he knew all of her moods, but he couldn’t pinpoint this one. Trying to, he said, “You sound tired.”

“I didn’t have the chance to tell my parents that the engagement is off until last night. You know how it is—there have been dinners and parties and people around since I got to Key West and I had to wait for a moment alone with them.”

“And I don’t imagine that they welcomed the news,” Tate guessed, not eager to tell his own family for just that reason.

“No, they certainly didn’t welcome it. They were actually very impatient with me.”

“I’m sorry,” Tate said sympathetically.

“It was no worse than I thought it would be, but still…” Katie sighed. “After all this time they were sure their dreams were finally coming true. I knew they weren’t going to be happy to have me wake them up.”

“What about you?” Tate asked point-blank because he still wasn’t getting a clear read on Katie’s feelings. And while he knew breaking up was for the best, he was concerned about her.

“Well, I am tired—you were right about that. We were up arguing until very late and I had an early hair appointment this morning so I couldn’t sleep in. But otherwise…”

There was a pause that didn’t convince Tate that Katie was merely worn out.

Then she continued. “I’m a little at loose ends. You were always sort of my guy,” she said with a laugh that helped him believe she wasn’t doing too badly despite the fact that she might be a little down in the dumps over the way things had turned out.

“Even when we weren’t together,” she went on, “there was always just that thought that we’d probably end up with each other some day. And it isn’t as if I don’t care about you, Tate—”

“Same here.”

“But I truly do think there’s more out there for both of us.”

Why did Tanya pop into his mind at that exact moment?

But Katie was still talking and he forced himself to pay attention.

“—it just isn’t easy to start over. I keep thinking that I haven’t ever been in a single, long-term, committed relationship with anyone of my own choosing. That was part of the argument last night—I said I needed to be able to decide who the man for me would be. But just between us, the whole time I was wondering if I’ll know how to choose someone for myself.”

Tate laughed. “I’m pretty sure you just go with whoever you have the strongest feelings for,” he said. And again—for no reason that made sense—Tanya came to mind.

“What about you?” Katie asked then. “How are you?”

“I’m doing all right,” he said.

“You sound better than all right. You sound a little more like your old self. Were you that glad to get rid of me?”

“Come on, you know better than that,” he chastised. “And I didn’t get rid of you. If anybody got rid of anybody—”

“I’m saying it was a mutual decision. And now you can, too—that’s why I wanted to talk to you first thing this morning. My mother is threatening to call yours. I asked her to wait but I don’t know how long she will. So don’t put off telling Eleanor or it’ll be my mother who does.”

“I’m having dinner with the family tonight. I’ll tell them then.”

“I hope it goes smoother with yours than it did with mine.”

“Even if it doesn’t, it’ll all blow over before long,” Tate assured her as he pulled into the doctors’ parking lot of Meridian General.

“It’s nice that we can still chat like this, though,” Katie said then. “And be friends…”

“That isn’t going to change—we’ve always been friends, we always will be friends. You know if there’s anything you need from me you just have to ask, right?”

“Same here,” she echoed his earlier words. “I should let you go, though, I just heard the parking lot attendant say good morning to you so you must be at the hospital. I’ll try to keep my mother from calling yours at least until tomorrow.”

“Thanks.”

“And I’ll see you at the Labor Day party—I should probably apologize to you ahead of time for anything my parents might say to you at that.”

The McCords were throwing one of their lavish soirees to mark the end of the summer season and Katie’s family was always at the top of the guest list.

“Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine,” Tate assured her once more.

“I hope so,” Katie said. “I hope everything will be fine for us both.”

“It will be.”

“Well, one way or another, I just wanted you to know that you’re free to tell whoever you want now. And thanks for letting me go first with the families.”

“Sure.”

They said their goodbyes then and Tate turned off his phone as he parked in his assigned spot.

But the freedom he now had to get the word out that he was no longer engaged to Katie was still on his mind.

Of course it was his family who had to be next to know.

But right after that?

For the third time it was Tanya who made an instant appearance in his head.

Because Tanya was really the only person he wanted to tell…

“The engagement is off? Oh, Tate…”

Tate had waited until everyone was finishing dessert Tuesday evening to make his announcement. Not that everyone was there. His mother, Eleanor, was at the head of the table and her response to the news was rife with disappointment and disapproval. His older brother Blake was sitting across from him, and one of his younger twin sisters, Penny, was to his right. But even without the rest of the family there, Tate knew word would spread to Penny’s twin, Paige, and to his youngest brother, Charlie, and he hadn’t wanted to delay telling his mother until Paige and Charlie were around, as well.

“These breakups are never for good,” Blake said with an annoyed sigh.

“It’s time the breakups stop,” Eleanor said. “I know you’ve been in a bad way since we lost Buzz, Tate. But I honestly think the path out of it is to finally do what you should have done long ago—stop this seesaw you and Katie have always been on and take a definitive step into your future with the woman you know you’re going to end up with eventually.”

“In other words, little brother,” Blake said, “it’s time for you to grow up.”

Tate could have taken issue with that but he didn’t. “What it is time for,” he said instead, “is for Katie and me to get off the seesaw once and for all.”

“What can you possibly be thinking?” Blake demanded, surprising Tate with a reaction that was stronger than Tate had expected from his brother. Blake should have had enough on his mind with the current business problems and trying to find the Santa Magdalena diamond to make this low on his list of concerns. “Why don’t you open your eyes and take a look at what you have in Katie?” Blake continued. “You keep going back to her—you must recognize on some level how terrific she is. What will it take for you to just accept that you aren’t going to do better?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Blake,” Tate said calmly. “I do know how terrific Katie is. But when there isn’t that…certain something…between two people, you can be terrific, she can be terrific, it just doesn’t make any difference. And I’m sure you think this was my idea, but the truth is, it came about at her instigation.”

“Isn’t that exactly what I told you the other night?” Blake said with disgust. “You took her for granted, you neglected her and now she’s called things off.”

“Ultimately, it was a mutual decision,” Tate said, borrowing from Katie. “At her instigation, but a mutual decision. We both agreed that all these years have been more about what the families wanted, what the families pressured us into, and not about our feelings for each other. But the bottom line—” Tate said, thinking that his brother was a bottom-line kind of person “—is that we don’t have the kind of feelings that end in marriage. At least not a happy, lasting marriage. And since—for some reason—you seem to have adopted the role of Katie’s champion, isn’t that what you’d want for her? To be married to someone she’s actually in love with and has a chance to be happy with for the rest of her life?”

“It goes without saying that that’s what I’d want for her. For you both,” Blake added impatiently.

“Well, we’ve come to the conclusion that that isn’t what we’d have together.”

“That’s the conclusion you’ve come to this week. Or this month,” Eleanor said as if she was at her wits’ end with him. “But next week or next month, you’ll be telling us you’re back together again. Just stop this on and off!”

“We have stopped it, only we’ve stopped it at off,” Tate said, concealing how much he wanted this to end because he was itching to get to Tanya to go through the family albums the way they’d planned. “This is it for Katie and me, whether the families like it or not,” he concluded firmly.

“And families shouldn’t enter into a person’s relationships,” Penny said then, chiming in for the first time.

Tate appreciated his younger sister’s support but it surprised him, too. Penny was the quieter, more introverted of the twins. She didn’t often venture into a family fray unless she had to.

“Talk to us when you have a relationship that the family enters into, Penny,” Blake said sardonically.

“That’s what I’m worried about—the family entering into my relationship,” Penny muttered under her breath and with some defensiveness that seemed out of place.

“What does that mean?” Blake asked with a chuckle, as if Penny were six years old rather than twenty-six.

Tate saw how much that irked Penny—she sat up straighter, her lips pursed. Then she said, “I’ve…”

She stopped herself as if to gauge her words.

“It’s okay, Penny,” Tate said. “I appreciate that you’re on my side, but you don’t have to fight my battles.”

“It isn’t only your battle,” his sister answered as if she’d just that moment come to some kind of decision.

Then she made an announcement of her own. “I’ve been seeing Jason Foley.”

That came as far, far more of a shock than Tate’s broken engagement and brought several moments of stunned silence before Blake broke it.

“Jason Foley?” he repeated in disbelief.

“What do you mean you’re seeing him? As a friend?” Eleanor asked in a controlled tone.

“More than friends,” Penny said.

“You’re dating?” their mother pressed, beginning to sound alarmed.

Penny hesitated. She was a private person and Tate realized this wasn’t easy for her.

But then she said, “Yes, we’re dating.”

“That’s bad, Penny,” Blake decreed. “You know the Foleys hate us, that they’ve been convinced for decades that we cheated them out of the land, and now with the potential that the diamond could be—”

“This doesn’t have anything to do with that,” Penny insisted.

“Don’t kid yourself!” Blake said in a louder voice. “Don’t you think it’s just a little suspicious that now—of all times—there’s a Foley sniffing around? They’re looking for a way in, Penny! For information about the diamond!”

“You haven’t actually given me any information about the diamond except to enlist me to design jewelry that will tie into it if you find it.”

“I don’t want the Foleys knowing even that much. That’s what they’re after—any crumb they can get their hands on and use!” Blake shouted.

Tate was aware of how invested Blake was in the business, in finding the diamond, in using it to salvage McCord’s Jewelers. He knew his brother was under pressure he wasn’t willing to share unless it was absolutely necessary because Blake always believed he was the best person to shoulder the load. And Tate thought that because of all that, it didn’t occur to Blake how insulting to Penny it was to imply that Jason Foley was interested in her only as some kind of ploy. Even though Tate agreed that it was a possibility.

“We don’t know that that’s why Jason Foley is seeing Penny, Blake,” he said.

“I know nothing good can come of a McCord getting involved with a Foley.”

“Charlie came of it,” Penny said, using the information their mother had only recently shared with them that the youngest McCord was the result of an affair Eleanor had had with Rex Foley twenty-two years earlier.

But it was information that had caused all of Eleanor’s children to give her a wide berth ever since. To Tate’s knowledge, none of them had discussed it with their mother in any depth, even since Eleanor’s return that morning to take care of the last details of the Labor Day party. So Tate could hardly believe his ears when Penny used that information for her own purposes now.

Glancing at his mother, Tate found her unruffled by it, though. Instead, venturing delicately into the subject that still wasn’t easy for any of them to accept, Eleanor said, “Yes, Penny, Charlie did come of my involvement with a Foley. But that’s why I can speak from experience and tell you that a tie between a Foley and a McCord is a rocky road.”

“We just don’t want you to get hurt, Penny,” Tate added.

“That’s true,” Eleanor confirmed.

“What’s true,” Penny countered, “is that whatever is between two families shouldn’t interfere with what might—or might not—be between two individual people. Not when it comes to you and Katie, Tate, and not when it comes to whoever I’m with, either. Jason and I are seeing each other and it doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I’m a McCord and he’s a Foley. It doesn’t have anything to do with an old feud, or with land that changed hands a gazillion years ago, or with a diamond. It’s in spite of all that and it’s only about Jason and me.”

“I hope you’re right,” Eleanor said with worry lines creasing her brow.

“I’m telling you,” Blake seemed unable to keep from reiterating, “you don’t know what the Foleys could be up to.”

“It may be perfectly innocent,” Tate contributed. “Jason Foley may just be carried away by how terrific you are. But be careful—that’s all we’re asking. When it comes to a Foley, be really careful…”

Chapter Six

Tate was sitting at one of the poolside tables when Tanya came out from the wooded path after leaving her mother’s cottage Tuesday night. The moment she stepped through the clearing in the bushes and magnolia trees she saw that he was watching for her and a small smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

Why that sent something gooshy through her, she didn’t know, but that bare hint of him being pleased to see her was all it took to heat her from the inside out.

Then his gaze went from her free-falling hair, down the teal T-shirt she was wearing to her flowing wide-leg slacks as she crossed to him. His smile grew bigger. And that internal heat took on a rosy, sensual glow.

Stop it! she ordered herself, trying to keep uppermost in her mind that in spite of the fact that it was late evening, that they were suddenly together again, under a clear moonlit sky, this was about work. Only work…

“Finally!” Tate muttered when she reached him, before she’d even said hello.

“You just called me five minutes ago to tell me to come over,” she said, thinking he was making a comment about having to wait for her.

He shook his head. “Finally we can get to what we had planned tonight.”

“Ah,” Tanya said as she took the chair nearest him.

What they had planned tonight was to look through his family albums. And since there was a stack of them on the table, she sat where they would each be able to see them. It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that she wanted to sit close to him. Want to or not, she swore that she wasn’t going to let this evolve into anything more than doing her job tonight.

“I brought the wine I started on at dinner. Will you have some?” Tate asked then, picking up the open bottle and refreshing his own glass while he indicated the clean glass beside it.

“This is supposed to be work for me,” Tanya reminded them both, holding up her notepad and pen to prove it.

“Sometimes mixing business and pleasure is a good thing,” he enticed.

“I hope that isn’t your philosophy when you do surgery,” she countered.

That merely made him laugh and question her again by holding the bottle higher.

She shouldn’t. This was work.

And yet she heard herself say “Maybe just one glass.”

She set her pad and pen on the table as he poured, using his averted glance as an opportunity to give him the once-over. The pool area where they were sitting was well lit and she could tell that he’d dressed for dinner and then undone some of it for this. There wasn’t a suitcoat or tie anywhere around, but he had on gray slacks and a crisp white shirt with the long sleeves rolled to his elbows. He was also clean shaven, the scent of his cologne just barely wafted to her and his slightly longish hair was neatly combed.

Would it have helped if he’d looked grungy? she asked herself, knowing her vow to keep this out of the realm of another datelike evening with him was already weakening.

But somehow she doubted that the way he was dressed made any difference. The man just seemed to hold an appeal for her that she didn’t fully understand. Maybe he’d unearthed some kind of deep-seated attraction to unavailable men that she hadn’t known she possessed.

But he was unavailable—in so many ways—and she told herself not to forget that.

When the wine was poured and the bottle replaced on the table, Tate handed her her glass and lounged back in his chair with a deep sigh of what sounded like relief.

“Rough day?” Tanya asked as she took a sip of the wine.

“Rough dinner,” he amended.

There was talk among the staff about the tense state the family had been in since rumors had begun to surface that Tate’s mother had announced that her youngest son, Charlie, was a Foley. None of the staff knew any of the details, but they did know that Charlie had almost instantly gone off to settle back into college early, and that Eleanor had taken some time away herself.

Tanya assumed that tensions over Charlie’s paternity were still the cause of the rough dinner, but Tate didn’t offer her any explanation as she took another sip of wine.

“So, how far back would you like to go?” Tate asked with a nod toward the albums.

Good, he is getting right down to business, Tanya told herself to ward off a ridiculous sense of disappointment that he wasn’t bothering with small talk tonight.