Long, Tall Texans--Christopher Read online

  “Too bad if you don’t like it,” Tansy said huffily.

  He shrugged. “Looks like a nice boy,” he mused, glancing at Chris with a faint smile. “I like it. Della needs looking after. She’s too soft to be a reporter.”

  “She’s not too soft to be a political featurist,” Tansy said firmly. “It’s what she likes to do best.”

  “She’ll enjoy having kids and raising them more,” Herbert Larson said. “She’s a homebody, like my late wife was. No traipsing around the world getting into scrapes for Martha, no, sir!”

  “Well, let’s hear it for Saint Martha!” Tansy said through her teeth.

  Herbert raised an eyebrow and studied her closely. “Still jealous after forty years, hmm?” he taunted.

  “Della says you won’t give up sugar,” Tansy remarked, ignoring his question.

  “She says the same thing about you. Trying to die?” he accused bluntly.

  Tansy went scarlet. “I could ask you the same question!”

  He shrugged thin shoulders. “I thought about it. Not anymore, though.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve just found a new lease on life. You like nightclubs?”

  She nodded jerkily.

  “Dancing?”

  She nodded again.

  He pursed his lips. “Maybe I’ll give you a whirl, if you play your cards right. You never could do a tango.”

  “And you can?”

  “I taught Valentino how,” he bragged.

  “You were in short pants when Valentino died,” she accused.

  “If I’d been old enough, I’d have taught him how,” he said with a grin. He went forward and took her arm. “Come on, Grandma. I’ll help you out to the car.”

  “You can drive?” she asked mockingly.

  “No, but I hired a man who could. Nothing’s too good for my granddaughter.”

  They walked ahead of the others, still arguing. Chris drew Della close to his side as they walked, pulling luggage on wheels behind them.

  “I think some of our problems are about to be solved. Apparently, they know each other.”

  Della nodded. “And fairly well, from the look of things. Miracles never cease.”

  “I hope they won’t kill each other before we get married.”

  She chuckled. “Oh, I don’t think there’s much danger of that.” She slid her hand into his and looked up at him with her whole heart in her soft gray eyes. “I can’t wait to marry you,” she added in a breathless whisper.

  He squeezed her hand, hard. His dark eyes were expressive on her face. “Neither can I.” He hesitated. “You really don’t mind the scars?”

  She smiled and pressed close against his side. “Don’t be silly.”

  His eyes closed briefly and his arm went around her, contracting almost painfully. It was like having every single dream of happiness he’d ever had come true. He could hardly contain the feeling it gave him to know she loved him.

  “I love you, Della,” he said tautly.

  She looked up into eyes that adored her. “I love you, too.” She smiled impishly. “How soon can we get married?”

  He searched her soft features warmly. “As soon as I can get a license. You’re not about to get away from me!”

  * * *

  They were married by a justice of the peace exactly three days later, with Tansy and Herbert for witnesses. The elderly couple were holding hands, apparently having decided that fighting was less fun than exploring each others’ personalities. In a relatively short time, they’d rediscovered the feelings they had for each other years ago, and they were inseparable.

  Chris and Della drove them back to Herbert’s apartment before they drove to the airport to catch their plane to Spain. They were going to Malaga, on the southern shores of Spain, along the Costa del Sol, for an extended honeymoon. Della, who’d traveled little in her life, was exuberant about the adventure of it. She couldn’t wait to get there.

  When they arrived and passed through customs, they took a cab to their hotel overlooking the blistering white beach and blue sea. The hotel was white stucco with gardens full of blossoming flowers. It was a dream of a place, with wrought-iron balconies and the smell of the sea air fresh and clean.

  “The Rock of Gibraltar is very close by,” Chris told her when they were installed in their suite, “and so is Morocco. We might take a day trip over there and explore the souq—the marketplace.”

  She turned from the window that led out to the balcony and stared at him hungrily, drinking in the sight of his long, lean body in white slacks and a red designer knit shirt. She was wearing a loose, comfortable crinkly cotton dress with tiny shoulder bows and little beneath it, because of the heat.

  “Alone at last,” she said with a soft smile. Her hands went to the shoulder bows and slowly undid them, letting the dress fall to the floor. Under it, she wore a white lace teddy that emphasized every sweet curve of her young body.

  Chris caught his breath. He went to her, his hands slow and caressing on her shoulders. “You don’t want supper first?” he asked quietly.

  She shook her head. Her arms went up and around his neck. “I want you first,” she whispered, and drew his mouth down on hers.

  The passion was explosive. She’d dreamed of being in his arms without fabric between them, and here it was happening, so naturally that she never thought to feel embarrassed. He eased her out of her clothing between soft, brief kisses that traveled the length of her body, each one more sensual and arousing than the one before.

  She knew that he was experienced, but until now she had no knowledge of the reality of intimacy. He aroused her expertly, slowly, taking his time, soothing all her secret fears until she was dazed and shivering with the pleasure he gave her.

  By the time he drew her carefully under him and eased down, she was eager and totally without fear or reserve. She lifted to meet the slow, sensuous downward thrust of his hips and laughed with pure pleasure when the tiny flash of pain was experienced and abruptly replaced by delicious sensations that rippled over her like waves.

  His lean hands moved her, teased her, taught her, while his mouth devoured hers in the stillness of the cool room. There was a rhythm that she hadn’t expected. It built the new sensations she was feeling into torrential spasms of pleasure that overwhelmed her unexpectedly and lifted her against him in a fever of submission.

  She hid her face in his hot throat as the spasms broke against themselves, twisting her under his demanding body as she reached and reached and finally found the exquisite source of the tiny sips of fulfillment she’d only sampled.

  He felt her go rigid, and at once, he drove for his own satisfaction, his mouth hard against her breast as he soared into the heights with her.

  When he collapsed at her side, she was still shivering, and laughing through the little aftershocks of ecstasy that left her moving restlessly on the bed.

  “So it’s like that,” she whispered, awed.

  “It’s like that,” he whispered back. He smiled and rolled over, his face damp with sweat, his eyes blazing with love. “Was I worth waiting for? You certainly were!”

  She chuckled and drew him down, so that she could kiss him with lazy enthusiasm. “Yes, you were,” she murmured. “I’m sleepy.”

  “So am I. We’ll have a nice nap and then we’ll go and find the nearest seafood bar.”

  “I love seafood,” she murmured drowsily.

  “Me, too.”

  He drew her close at his side and pulled the sheet over them, because the room was cooling. His last thought as he slid into oblivion was that a lifetime of Della wasn’t going to be quite enough….

  * * *

  They called Tansy and Herbert the next morning to enthuse about the sights and sounds of Spain.

  “I’m glad you two are having fun,” Tansy said with laughter in her voice. “When you come home, we’ll have another wedding.”

  “What?” Chris burst out.

  “Herbert proposed,” Tansy said. “And this time, I accepte
d.”

  He handed the phone to Della. “You aren’t going to believe this,” he told her.

  “What?” she exclaimed when her grandfather told her the news.

  “Haven’t you people ever heard that you can marry more than once?” Herbert asked with disgust. “For heaven’s sake, she’s a dish. No way am I letting her get away from me now!”

  “Well, congratulations, Grandad,” Della said with love in her voice. “I couldn’t be more pleased.”

  “Neither could I,” Chris said loudly.

  “You two enjoy yourselves. Tansy knows this little Japanese place downtown where they have that strange fish. Can’t think what it’s called. Anyway we’re going there for a snack. You kids have fun. Talk to you soon. Bye!”

  He hung up. Della glanced at her husband with a frown. “They’re going to a Japanese place to have a strange fish.”

  Chris went pale. “Not fugu. Please. Tell me it’s not fugu.”

  “What’s a fugu?”

  He grabbed up the receiver and placed a call to Tansy’s apartment. Herbert answered.

  “If you eat a fugu fish, I’ll hire a man to do nothing but follow the two of you around, full-time, I swear it!” Chris said harshly.

  “Fugu? Are you daft, son?” Herbert sighed. “Tansy, what’s the name of that fish?”

  “Sushimi,” she called back.

  Chris went red. “Oh,” he said.

  “Fugu, indeed. He thought we were going to eat fugu fish!” he called to Tansy.

  “He’s on his honeymoon, Herb, what do you expect? Now hang up and come help me get into this dress. We’ll be late for our reservation!”

  Chris laughed until Della was worried about him. When he told her what was going on at the apartment, she only grinned.

  “They’ll be happy together,” she said.

  “Each of them alone is a handful. Can you possibly imagine what it’s going to be like to have two of them conspiring?”

  Della grimaced. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “Well, don’t. Not now, anyway.” He picked her up and kissed her gently. “We have six days of our honeymoon left, and we’re not wasting a minute worrying about them.”

  “What are we going to do, then?” she whispered wickedly.

  He chuckled as he turned toward the bed. “I’m glad you asked…”

  So was she.

  * * * * *

  Be sure to check out

  Diana Palmer’s next book in her LONG, TALL TEXANS series,

  UNDAUNTED.

  The only man Kate Martin wants is handsome millionaire Garrett Carlton—the one man who will never forgive her…

  Read on to get a glimpse of

  UNDAUNTED.

  Kate Martin was sitting on the end of the dock, dangling her bare feet in the water. Minnows came up and nibbled her toes, and she laughed. Her long, platinum-blond hair fell around her shoulders like a silk curtain, windblown, beautiful. The face it framed wasn’t beautiful. But it had soft features. Her nose was straight. She had high cheekbones and a rounded chin. Her best feature was her eyes, large and brown and gentle, much like Kate herself.

  She grew up on a small ranch in Comanche Wells, Texas, where her father ran black baldies in a beef operation. She could ride and rope and knew how to pull a calf. But here, on Lake Lanier in north Georgia, she worked as an assistant to Mamie van Dyke, a famous and very wealthy writer of women’s suspense novels. Mamie’s books were always at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. That made Kate proud, because she helped with the research as well as the proofing of those novels in their raw form, long before they were turned over to editors and copy editors.

  She’d found the job online, of all places. A Facebook friend who knew that Kate had taken business courses at her local vocational school, had mentioned that a friend of her mother’s was looking for a private assistant, someone trustworthy and loyal to help her do research and typing. It wasn’t until she’d applied and been accepted―after a thorough background check―that Kate had learned who her new boss was. Mamie was one of her favorite authors, and she was a bit starstruck when she arrived with her sparse belongings at the door of Mamie’s elaborate and luxurious two-story lake house in north Georgia.

  Kate had worried that her cheap clothing and lack of social graces might put the older woman off. But Mamie had welcomed her like a lost child, taken her under her wing, and taught her how to cope with the many wealthy and famous guests who sometimes attended parties there.

  One of those guests was Garrett Carlton. Garrett was one of the ten wealthiest men in the country―some said, in the world. He was nearing forty, with wavy jet-black hair that showed only a scattering of silver. He was big and broad and husky with a leonine face and chiseled, perfect lips. He had a light olive complexion with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes under a jutting brow. He was handsome and elegant in the dinner jacket he wore with a spotless white shirt and black tie. The creases in his pants were as perfect as the polish on his wing-tip shoes. He had beautiful hands, big and broad, with fingers that looked as if they could crush bones. He wore a tiger’s eye ring on his little finger. No other jewelry, save for a Rolex watch that looked more functional than elegant.

  Kate, in her plain black cocktail dress, with silver stud earrings and a delicate silver necklace with a small inset turquoise, felt dowdy in the glittering company of so many rich people. She wore her pale blond hair in a thick bun atop her head. She had a perfect peaches and cream complexion, and lips that looked as if they wore gloss, when they didn’t. Light powder and a soft glossy lipstick were her only makeup. She held a champagne flute filled with ginger ale. She didn’t drink, although at twenty-three, she could have done so legally.

  She was miserable at the party, and wished she could go somewhere and hide. But Mamie was nearby and might need an iPod or her phone, which Kate carried, for Kate to write down something for her. So she couldn’t leave.

  From across the room, the big man was glaring at her. She squirmed under his look, wondering what she could have done to incur his anger. She’d never even seen him before.

  Then she remembered. She’d been out on the lake in Mamie’s speedboat once. She loved the fast boat. It made her feel free and happy. It was one of the few things that did. She’d been crazy about a boy in her class at the vocational school where she’d learned administrative skills. When he’d asked her out, all her dreams had come true. Until he’d learned that her father ran beef cattle. They were even engaged briefly. Unfortunately, he was a founding member of the local animal rights group, PETA. He’d told Kate that he found her father’s profession disgusting and that he’d never have anything to do with a woman who had any part of it. He’d driven her home, all but thrown her out of his car and rushed away. After that, he ignored her pointedly at school. Her heart was broken. It was one of the few times she’d even had a date. She went to church with her father, but it was a small congregation and there were no single men in it, except for a much older widower and a divorced man who was her father’s age.

  Her home life wasn’t much better. She and her father lived in a ranch house that had been in the family for three generations and looked like it. The furniture didn’t match. The dishes were old and many were cracked. Water came out of a well with an electric pump that stopped working every time there was a bad storm, and there were many storms in Texas. Her father was a rigid man, deeply religious, with a sterling character. He’d raised his daughter to be the same way. Her mother had died in childbirth when she was eight years old, and she’d seen it happen. Her father had drawn into himself at a time when she needed him most. That was before he’d started drinking. He’d rarely been sober in recent years, leaving most of the work and decision making on the ranch to his foreman.

  He’d never seemed to feel much for his only child. Of course, she wasn’t a boy, and it was a son he’d desperately wanted, someone to inherit the ranch after him, to keep it in the family. Girls, he often said, were usel
ess.

  She dragged herself back from her memories to find the big man walking toward her. Something inside her wanted to run. But her ancestors had fought off floods and cattle rustlers and raiding war parties. She wasn’t the type to run.

  She bit her lower lip when Garrett Carlton stopped just in front of her. He wasn’t sipping champagne. Unless she missed her guess, he held a large glass of whiskey, straight up, with just a cube of ice in the crystal glass.

  He glared down at her from pale, glittery silver eyes. “I had a talk with the lake police about you,” he said in a curt, blunt tone. “I told them who you worked for and where you lived. Pull another stunt like yesterday’s on the lake, and you’ll find out what happens to kids who take insane risks in speedboats. I’ve had a talk with Mamie, as well.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t see the Jet Ski…!”

  “You weren’t looking when you turned,” he bit off. “You were going too fast to see it at all!”

  She was almost drawing blood with her teeth. Her hand, holding the flute, was shaking. She put her other hand over it to steady it. “There was nobody out there when I started…”

  “Your generation is a joke,” he said coldly. “Unruly kids who have no manners, who think the world owes them everything, that they can do whatever the hell they please, do whatever they like, without consequences! You go through life causing tragedies and you don’t care!”

  She felt tears stinging her eyes. “Ex-excuse me,” she said huskily, turning away.

  But he took her firmly by one shoulder and turned her back around. “I never make threats,” he said coldly. “You remember what I’ve told you.”

  Tears overflowed her eyes. She couldn’t help it. And it shamed her, showing weakness before the enemy. She jerked away from him, white-faced and shaking.

  He frowned, as if he hadn’t expected her reaction. She turned and ran for the kitchen. She put the flute down on a counter and went out the back door into the cool night air, desperate to get away from him. Nobody knew where she was. Nobody cared. The tears tumbled down over her cold cheeks. She’d grown up without love, without the simplest display of affection after their housekeeper Dolores left the ranch, except for an occasional hug from the women in her church. She’d lived alone, had her dreams of romance shattered. And now here she was, her pride in shambles, hounded out of her home by a relentless enemy who seemed to think she was a juvenile delinquent bent on killing people. All that, because she went a little wild in the speedboat.