Tycoon Meets Texan! Page 18

  “Oh, yes. He’s making real strides. As I told you last time, he has his alphabet and corresponding sounds down well now, and we’re moving slowly into an actual reading program.”

  “Any concerns?”

  “Just the one we’ve already spoken about. He should have gone to group therapy today.”

  Lucien sighed. “I’ll speak to Mother again.”

  “She doesn’t like him to go immediately after you’ve visited,” the nurse said, “but I don’t see any stress-related behaviors in relation to that, and the older he gets the more he needs socialization therapy.”

  Lucien nodded. “I understand. Thank you, Karen. I’ll be back later this afternoon.”

  “He’ll like that,” the nurse said, turning away. As Lucien escorted her from the room, Avis heard the nurse say to Nicholas, “I’m going to reset the timer now. You can look at your book until the bell rings.”

  Lucien pulled the door closed. “Well,” he said, “now you know.”

  Avis bit her lip, conflicted but sympathetic. “Lucien, I’m so sorry.”

  He shook his head. “They’ve made great strides in treatment, and happily he has a good chance at a fairly normal life. I, on the other hand, have little hope for normal parenthood, at least so far as Nico is concerned. His environment must be carefully controlled. Every change must be integrated slowly and purposefully, or the stimuli simply overwhelms him. Eventually, he’ll learn to cope well enough to interact comfortably. We’re fortunate that he’s very, very bright. He’s also a little spoiled, I’m afraid.”

  “And would be with or without the autism, I suspect,” she offered lightly.

  He smiled in agreement. “The point is, he doesn’t need what we might think of as a normal father or a normal mother, come to that. And frankly, a stepmother at this point is a real complication, though if I didn’t believe, in the long run, that you would be good for him, I would never consider remarriage.”

  “I understand,” she said softly. His son did not need her as she’d feared. Just the opposite, in fact. “Thank goodness you can provide what he does need.”

  “For that I am very thankful,” he agreed, “but many other parents cannot do the same for their children, so I’ve channeled millions into trying to change that and will continue to do so.”

  She smiled. “That’s good.”

  He shoved a hand through his hair and dropped it to his hip. “I hadn’t intended to raise this issue in quite this manner, you know, but I always meant to give you a clear understanding of the situation when the time was right. I see now that I left it too long, so I won’t press you for a decision. You need time to assimilate all this.”

  She’d assimilated enough to understand that Lucien needed her like he needed another hole in his head. She could do nothing but complicate his life! So why then did he want to marry her? The thought that he must really love her, love her in a way that she hadn’t even considered possible before, nearly took her breath away. Some very big questions remained, however.

  Could she cope with the difficulties that came with being a permanent part of Lucien Tyrone’s life?

  How naive she had been to think that this trip wouldn’t change her mind—or at least re-frame the problem.

  He turned her toward the hallway, his arm resting lightly about her waist. “I suspect you could use a rest before lunch. Mother has no doubt put you in a separate room, and I won’t interfere with that unless you want me to.”

  “Maybe it’s best to just leave it as it is for now,” she answered softly.

  He nodded, not bothering to hide his disappointment but not making a big deal of it, either. After consulting a passing maid, he delivered her to her room. On the way they agreed that they didn’t need to stay the night, so dinner would be eaten aboard the plane on the return trip. She managed to ignore the lavishness of her surroundings in order to rest and refresh herself, bathing and changing her clothes. She didn’t even try to sleep.

  Luncheon was a calm, pleasant affair on one of the many terraces, with Eugenia behaving as if nothing but pleasantries had passed between them to this point. Afterward, Avis spent the afternoon watching at a distance as Lucien interacted with his son, playing, laughing, coaxing, teaching, every action measured, every reaction countered with extreme purpose. The man had the patience of Job. He worked her into the situation with small waves and smiles and gentle, repeated instruction, but Nicholas refrained from all but the most cursory acknowledgment, and Avis realized that it could be that way for a very long time. She understood, too, that as Nico progressed, Lucien would need to spend more and more time with him.

  He admitted over dinner that it was so. The unspoken implication was that, as his wife, she would be expected to interact more and more with the boy—and his grandmother—as well. It was definitely something to think about, and she couldn’t deny a welling of the old fear at the thought. Unlike her situation with Kenneth, any commitment she made to Lucien Tyrone would naturally extend to the others in his life. She had been willing with Kenneth’s family, but any involvement beyond the most cursory had been rebuffed. How perfectly ironic.

  After dinner, Lucien suggested that she take the bed in the jet’s rear compartment and get some rest. She saw the signs of fatigue in him, however, and insisted that he needed to lie down, too. “Just let me hold you,” he said, “then I can rest.”

  She agreed, and a few minutes later closed her eyes to the deep, steady cadence of his breathing. They slept for the remainder of the trip. The limo delivered them to her door about a quarter of nine in the evening. Lucien had simply held her on the plane, but she knew that if she let him stay, they would end by making love. He knew it, too, and to her surprise, he backed away.

  “I won’t keep you. I’ve been putting off business elsewhere. This is a good time to take care of it.”

  She nodded, feeling at once grateful and oddly disappointed. Lucien was a man who fought for what he wanted. No one could doubt that. But had he battled to the end now before she could say that her own fight was won?

  Sometimes it seemed that he could read her mind. He kissed her, then held her face in his hands, smiling down at her wistfully.

  “You know,” he said, “I haven’t wanted to admit it even to myself, but it all comes down to just one thing—whether or not you really love me.”

  She opened her mouth. She did love him. She had no doubt of that now, if she ever had had, but could she love him as courageously, as fearlessly, as he demanded and deserved? She clamped her jaw on indecision. He laid his forehead against hers for a moment, then he turned and walked back to the limo. She had never felt more like crying in her life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Avis looked at the colorful invitation affixed to her refrigerator door with a magnet shaped like a teacup. The tiny hand-painted piece of china reminded her of the cup of coffee Lucien had served her in the green room of the Tyrone mansion, and for a moment she was back there again, on the receiving end of his wry, encouraging smile. A vague sense of shame enveloped her. He had been willing to take on his mother and complicate the care of his son for love of her, but she had ignored him, inured herself against him. For fear. In the eight days that he had been gone, she had come to see what a timid, shallow creature she’d become, and she had waited anxiously for him to return and make his proposal.

  But he hadn’t come, and he hadn’t called. Had he given up on her? Or did he simply believe that she had given up on him?

  She moved her attention from the magnet to the piece of paper beneath it. Sierra had obviously printed it on her home computer. A bright border of yellow and green baby rattles edged the pale blue paper, and large, dark-blue block letters announced a baby shower/barbecue on the following Saturday, beginning at five o’clock in the afternoon. The “guys” were urged to bring poker chips for a friendly tournament of cards, the winner of which would be awarded a prize. The “gals” were asked to bring a side dish or snack. She would go, of course, and take a big
bowl of her favorite pasta salad, but the closer Saturday came, the more she did not want to go alone.

  It was early on Wednesday morning. She had no idea where Lucien was, but she knew where she wanted him to be.

  Her hand reached for the telephone mounted on the wall above the kitchen counter, but before she removed it from its cradle, she bowed her head. Hot tears filled her eyes, and an ache flowed through her chest, a longing which, once faced, burgeoned. Taking a deep breath, she raised her head, blinked and lifted the receiver to dial the number of his personal cell phone. She reached his message center, and this time she punched the button that would allow her to record.

  “Lucien, please call me. I hoped I’d see you or at least hear from you by now. I want you to come home. I mean, to Texas. Please. I need you.”

  She hung up and left the room, intending to get dressed for work. The phone rang before she reached the stairs. She whirled around, running back to the kitchen, illogically bypassing the phone in the living room.

  “Hello,” she gasped into the receiver that she plucked from the wall.

  Lucien’s voice spoke to her at once, sounding urgent. “What’s wrong?”

  She smiled, feeling foolish and happy at the same time. “Wrong?”

  “You said you needed me.”

  Turning her back to the counter, she leaned against it. “I do. I need an escort for Saturday. For a baby shower.”

  “A baby shower?”

  “Sure. You know, a party where you bring gifts to a couple expecting a baby.”

  Silence, then, “And who would this couple be?”

  Was that hope she heard in his voice? She closed her eyes, remembering a time when she had desperately wanted children, believing that they would make her marriage worthwhile. She had never expected to revive that dream. Clearing her throat, she said, “My friends Val and Ian Keene. They’re having a little boy, their first child, and we’re giving them a shower.”

  “Ah. And you need an escort for this?”

  “Well, it’s an unusual baby shower, a couples kind of thing. The guys are going to grill something and play cards for prizes. Oh, you don’t happen to have some poker chips lying around somewhere, do you?”

  She heard the smile in his voice as he said, “I think I can gather up a few.”

  “Good. Then I’ll see you, say between four and five Saturday afternoon?”

  “I think I can manage that,” he said softly.

  She cradled the phone with both hands. “I’m glad. I’m so glad.”

  “It took you long enough,” he said, but then he laughed.

  “Yeah, it did,” she admitted, laughing, too. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, wear jeans.”

  “Jeans again. All right. Whatever you want.”

  She closed her eyes and thought, I want you. “See you then,” she said and hung up.

  His hands were shaking. Beyond nervous this time, he could only hope that she was ready to yield, but he’d learned never to take anything for granted where Avis was concerned. He’d fought hard to give her the space she’d obviously needed in order to come to grips with their situation, and she had finally called—with the pretext of needing an escort to a baby shower, of all things, not that it mattered. She could’ve said that she needed a lightbulb changed and he’d have blazed a trail straight to her doorstep. He just hoped that this wasn’t another of her attempts to hedge in and limit the relationship. One word that she’d said in her telephone message had encouraged him greatly. Home.

  It was a word that he himself often used loosely, thoughtlessly, but he was very aware now that home was not a place for him. Home was people, Nico before this and now Avis.

  The limo braked to a stop, and Lucien reached for the door handle. “Wait here, Jeff, until I know whether or not I’m going to need you again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lucien got out of the car, carrying a bag containing a specially designed teddy bear garbed in fireman’s gear and a matching suit of infant clothes, as well as a leather case containing personalized gambling chips. He walked toward her door. It opened just as he set foot on the bottom porch step, and he looked up into her beaming face. “You’re here.”

  He smiled as he climbed the remaining two steps. “Yes.”

  She rocked up onto her tiptoes, eagerness muted by her natural reticence. Having none of that himself, he leaned forward and kissed her cheek. She lifted all the way up onto her toes and looped her arms around his neck.

  “I’ve missed you.”

  He wrapped his arms around her, sorry that his hands were full but happy just to hold her again. “I’ve missed you, too.”

  She framed his face with her hands, leaned into him and kissed him on the mouth, bending one leg back at the knee. Then she literally bounced away and waved at Jeff, latching her other hand onto Lucien’s. “Let’s take my car.”

  “All right.” Grinning, he signaled Jeff with a shooing motion and received a salute in reply. The limo was backing out of the drive as Avis pulled him into the house.

  “Let me grab the gift and my purse. Oh, and there’s a big bowl of pasta salad on the counter in the kitchen. Think you can manage that?”

  “Sure.” He watched her hurry into the living room, painfully aware that his hunger for her never seemed to abate. Any other time, he’d haul her up the stairs, baby shower be damned, but more was at stake here than a satisfying romp in her bed. Mentally sighing, he followed her through the house. She snatched up a large, elaborately wrapped box and her handbag on the way into the kitchen, while he followed, admiring the fit of her capri pants, which were simple khakis topped by a snug little T-shirt of deep green. She also wore tan, backless flats of canvas material, very casual yet somehow elegant. She could make a paper bag look elegant.

  In the kitchen, she took his gift bag from him and held it in the same hand as her purse. “You didn’t have to bring a present.”

  “But I wanted to,” he said, placing the case containing the gambling chips atop the clear plastic lid on the big bowl of pasta salad. “Children deserve celebration. Besides, I want to make a good impression.”

  She rolled her eyes. “As if the Greek Tycoon could do anything else.”

  Grinning, he followed her through the utility room and out into the garage, carrying the bowl. She dropped down behind the steering wheel and shifted the gifts into the back, so he got into the passenger seat, holding the pasta salad and poker chips on his lap.

  They headed west through town and out into the countryside. He was particularly interested in the outlying area and observed the passing scenery with care, noting the rolling hills, flat fields and occasional outcroppings of rock punctuated by clumps of gnarly trees. They turned north for a bit and then pulled into the yard of an unusual compound consisting of a nice, new, fair-sized house built of stone and a number of odd outbuildings. Two proved to be elaborate greenhouses, and two more, small barns, one of them quite distant. Beyond the buildings flowed regimented fields of flowers, but these were not the decorative, almost frivolous beds that his mother so loved. These looked much more like crops.

  “Are they farming flowers here?” he asked with genuine surprise.

  “They are, indeed,” she told him with a smile. “Anything you want to know, just ask Sam. He tends to wax eloquent on the subject.” Interesting.

  She parked the car beside the house and bounced out, reaching into the back for the gifts. He got out on his side. “Let’s walk around,” she said over the top of the car. “The grill’s on the back deck. Sam’s very proud of his deck, by the way.”

  He followed her around the house, kicking up a fine, powdery dust along the way. A trio of children, all girls, burst out of a side door and ran laughing toward them. “Aunt Avis! Aunt Avis!”

  He looked at her in surprise. “Your nieces?”

  “Honorary,” she managed before the girls swamped her. Two of them, he noticed, were identical and younger than the third, who snatched the gifts from Avis’s arms, s
aying she’d take them inside, while the others threw hugs at Avis.

  “Everybody’s in the back,” the twins said in unison.

  “That’s where we’re headed.”

  The twins peeled off and ran to deliver the news of their arrival, while the elder of the three disappeared into the house with the gifts. Avis linked her arm with Luc’s and led him on. At the corner where the house met an enormous deck, they were met by a tall, slender woman with long, curly, red hair. She wore a sleeveless maternity top with cuffed shorts.

  “You’re early!” she exclaimed, coming down the steps to throw her arms around Avis. “And not alone.” She drew back, one arm draped casually around Avis’s neck, and blatantly took in Lucien. He inclined his head, smiling.

  “This is Lucien Tyrone,” Avis said, and the touch of pride in her voice widened his smile.

  He shifted the bowl into the crook of one arm. “You must be Val.”

  The redhead rested her hand on her slightly protruding belly and laughed, shaking her head. “Wrong pregnant lady.”

  “This is our hostess Sierra Jayce,” Avis said.

  “Val is more pregnant than me—I mean, further along. Pregnant’s pregnant, right?”

  Lucien chuckled. “So it would seem. How do you do, Sierra Jayce. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “Ooh,” Sierra commented, sliding a look at Avis, “Continental.”

  “Very,” Avis said with a laugh.

  Sierra waggled a brow suggestively, then bounded up the steps, saying, “Come and meet my husband. See if you can keep him from charring the steaks into charcoal briquets. He worries about bacteria.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Lucien promised, motioning for Avis to precede him up the short flight of stairs. As she did so, he yielded to temptation and patted her fanny. She shot him a look over her shoulder, laughed and hurried ahead. He was feeling very good.