Texas! Lucky (12 page)

He paused momentarily at the door of the small glass enclosure and stared in at the woman, who was bent over an open file on her desk, absorbed by its contents. A stillness had fallen over the city room. Computer keyboards stood silent. Ringing phones went unanswered.

The woman in the glass office seemed the only one unmindful of his presence as she absently dragged a pencil through her loose dark auburn hair. Without glancing up from her reading matter, she waved her hand to signal him inside.

"Just set it there on the desk," she said. "It needs to cool off anyway."

He moved forward to stand at the edge of her littered desk. She was aware of him, but it was several moments before she realized that he wasn't the college student in the Argyle socks there to deliver a cup of fresh coffee. Raising her head, she gazed up at him through the wide lenses of her eyeglasses. She dropped the pencil. Her lips parted. She uttered a small gasp.

"My God."

"Not quite." he said. "Lucky Tyler."

Chapter 8

S
he swallowed visibly, but said nothing.

"While we're on the subject of names," Lucky said, "what's yours? Dovey? Or Mary Smith? Or is it
Devon Haines?"
He slapped a newspaper, open to her column, onto her desk.

Her eyes lowered to the page, then swung back up to him. "Ordinarily they don't print my picture with my byline. I didn't know they were going to do it with this article, or I would have asked them not to." Her voice was little more than a hoarse croak.

"I'm glad they did. I've been looking for you ever since you skipped out on me. For the second time."

The initial shock of seeing him was wearing off; she was gradually regaining her composure. She assumed the haughty demeanor that set Lucky's teeth on edge. He recognized the expression she had worn while telling him off for interfering with her struggle with Little Alvin.

"If I had wanted you to know my name, I would have given it to you." She threw her shoulders back, shaking her hair off them.

"Obviously I preferred to remain anonymous, Mr. Tyler, so if you would be so kind—"

"'Kind'
be
damned," he interrupted. "If you want to talk here and let all the spectators in on it, fine." With a jerking motion of his head he indicated the city room behind him. "Or would you rather talk in private? Either way is okay with me … Dovey."

He deliberately slurred the last word, letting her know the extent of his anger, and that, if necessary, he had no qualms about discussing in front of an audience what had transpired in the motel room. Obviously she did. Her face paled.

"I suppose I could spare you a moment."

"Smart choice."

He took her arm the minute she rounded the desk and escorted her through the city room, where the onlookers made no pretense of subtlety. Speculative conversation resumed the instant Lucky and Devon cleared the doorway.

"Here are the elevators." She feebly pointed them out when he marched past them without even slowing down.

Propelling her toward the heavy fire door marked stairs, he took hold of the knob and pushed it open. "This'll do." He guided her through the doorway and followed closely behind.

She spun around to confront him. "I don't know what you're doing here, or what you expect to gain by—"

"You'll know in good time. First things first."

He shoved his fingers up through her hair and cupped her head. Tipping it back, he captured her surprised lips in a fiery kiss. Inexorably moving forward, he backed her into the wall without decreasing the pressure of his lips on hers. She strangled on her protests and ground the heels of her hands against his shoulders, trying to push him off.

"Stop!" she managed to rasp out when he came up for air.

Lucky, however, had a week's worth of pent-up frustration to expend, a week's worth of lust to slake, and he couldn't have been budged by a Sherman tank.

"I'm not finished yet."

He sealed their mouths together again, employing the technique he'd begun developing with the preacher's daughter and over the years had mastered to an enviable expertise. The pads of his fingertips pressed into her scalp, while his thumbs met beneath her chin to stroke the smoothest expanse of skin he'd ever felt except for the insides of her thighs. She never had a chance.

Her protests grew fainter, until they no longer qualified as gargled threats, but sounded more like whimpers of arousal. She stopped resisting the thrusts of his tongue as it hungrily plumbed her mouth again and again.

His first taste of her in more than a week reawakened an appetite that had been whetted but far from satisfied. He angled his body closer to hers, sent his tongue deeper into her mouth, and tilted his hips forward, nudging the cleft of her thighs, wanting, wanting, wanting…

Suddenly coming to his senses, he raised his head and smiled down at her. Gently he flicked his tongue against the corner of her lips, savoring the flavor of her kiss, and whispered, "You're the one, all right. I'd know you anywhere."

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to figure out a convenient way into your blouse." He frowned at the back buttons. "Later."

She raised a hand to her lips and touched them gingerly. "You shouldn't have kissed me like that, Mr. Tyler."

"My mother tells me I've always been guilty of doing things I shouldn't do. My conscience doesn't have a very loud speaking voice. Sometimes I don't hear it." He smiled engagingly and ducked his head for another kiss.

Devon staved him off. "Please don't."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want you to."

"Liar."

"How dare—"

"You want it as much as I do."

Her eyes flashed like summer lightning, the kind of hot white lightning that brings no rain. She slipped around him and made a beeline for the door leading back into the corridor. Before she could pull it open, he reached beyond her shoulder and flattened his hand against it.

She executed a stiff military about-face. "I don't know what you hoped to gain by finding me, Mr. Tyler, but you're in for a disappointment. What happened last week was a fluke."

"You'll have to be more specific. Are you talking about the barroom brawl or our night together?"

"Our … our night together," she repeated, all but choking on the words. "I want to forget it ever happened."

"Sorry. No can do, Dovey."

"Stop calling me Dovey! Now that you know it isn't my real name, it sounds ridiculous."

"Right. I can't believe I ever took you for a woman named something as whimsical as Dovey."

"If you persist in bothering me, I'll have to call—"

"Security? Great, call them. I'm sure they'd love to hear all about my business with you." The ruse worked. He watched as she obviously considered several options and hastily discarded them all. Finally, crossing her arms over her middle, she looked up at him and demanded, "Well, what do you want?"

"If you're still in doubt, hug me real tight." Her eyes skittered down the front of his body, then hastily came back up to meet his.

"Besides the obvious," she said ungraciously, "what do you want?"

"To talk to you. But not here. Is there someplace we can go?"

"There's a sandwich shop across the street."

"Good. I haven't eaten lunch. Lead the way."

* * *

"What'll you have?" Lucky asked, consulting her from across the diner's turquoise tile table.

"Nothing."

To the waitress, he said, "One cheeseburger, cooked medium." He glanced down at Devon, looked pointedly at her mouth, and added, "Cut the onions. French fries, chocolate shake." Politely addressing Devon again, he asked, "Sure you don't want something?"

"I'm sure."

Handing the menus back to the waitress, he said, "Bring us two coffees, too."

"You don't take no for an answer, do you?" Devon asked, after the waitress had withdrawn.

"Rarely from a woman," he admitted.

"I thought as much."

"What makes you think so?"

"You're the overbearing, macho type."

To her irritation, he smiled. "That's me. Caveman Tyler."

Lucky was having the time of his life just looking at her. She was wearing a loose, soft blouse that buttoned down the back. It was primly styled and had full long sleeves, cuffed at her wrists. Beneath the sheer ivory fabric, he could see the outline of quality lingerie. She was wearing the blouse with a plain straight black skirt. For all its practicality and austerity, the outfit was as sexy as hell.

"I suppose sharing a motel bedroom with a stranger is nothing new to you," she remarked.

"It's happened."

"Not to me."

The waitress arrived with their coffees.

Lucky watched Devon mindlessly raise hers to her lips and sip at it before she remembered that she had originally declined it. Coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup and into the saucer when she set it down emphatically.

"Now that we're alone, will you please tell me what we have to talk about?"

"What were you doing in the place?" he asked.

"That dive where we happened to meet?"

"Right."

"Did you read my story in this morning's paper?"

He cocked his head to one side, unsure what relevance her question had to his. "No. I didn't get past the picture of you."

"If you had read it, you would have realized I was in that tavern doing research."

He settled his cheek in the palm of his hand, propped his elbow on the table, and regarded her calmly as he silently invited her to elaborate. She took a deep breath.

"My column this week was on the rights still denied women, despite the strides we've taken in the past two decades toward achieving equality."

"You went into the place and bought a drink. What right were you denied?"

"My right to be left alone."

He grunted noncommittally.

She continued, "A woman still can't go into a bar alone without every man in there assuming that she's on the make, to pick up a man or be picked up. The thesis of my article was that there are still bastions of our society that women have yet to infiltrate, much less conquer.