Lone Star Valentine (McCabe Multiples) (17 page)

“What are we going to do?” Miss Mim asked with librarian calm.

Good question, Lily thought, already searching for a solution.

Marybeth Simmons looked at the former mayor. “This is all your fault, Rex, for trying to bring someone as famous as Bode Daniels into our little festival.”

Which wasn’t exactly “little” anymore, Lily thought, looking at the impressive crowds thronging the carnival-style games and vendors on the midway.

Rex glared at everyone doling out the criticism. “Thanks to Bode we’ve already broken all records—for an inaugural outing—of a chili cook-off. At least in Texas!” he said.

To the point, Lily knew, they’d nearly run out of food twice and were seriously short on facilities.

“Who cares about that?” Cady, the Laramie Chamber of Commerce marketing exec, fumed. “We’ve got bigger problems on our hands! Starting with the fact that we revised all the contest rules to allow for an extra judge, and now Bode Daniels has gone off to Baltimore on some private jet!” She huffed out a breath. “The first round of chili judging is supposed to start in fifteen minutes—and we can’t begin until we have a full panel!”

Lily put on her lawyer hat and held up a hand. “The contest rules allow for an emergency replacement of any—or even all—judges. All we need to do is appoint someone.”

“Who?” Lulu Sanderson asked.

Lily turned to the red-faced Realtor who had been a thorn in her side for months now. “I say we ask our former mayor,” Lily said.

Rex blinked in astonishment. “You want
me
to do it?”

The more Lily thought about it, the more she knew it was the right way to go. And not just because she was tired of being undermined at every step, tired of her and Rex being enemies. For the good of the town, they needed to spend a lot less time fighting against each other and a lot more time working together.

“You’ve labored hard to make this a success. And since you were responsible for bringing Bode into this, and hence, upping attendance levels dramatically, I think it’s appropriate that you step in, in Bode’s place, Rex.”

To her relief, the quintessential good old boy looked pleased. “So unless anyone else has a better suggestion...” Lily continued affably.

No one did.

“...all in favor of the replacement, say aye.”

A chorus of relieved ayes followed. The tension that had been in the room when she’d arrived suddenly faded.

Lily shook Rex’s hand. “Congratulations. You and Gannon will now share the head judging duties. And now,” she finished firmly, “unless anyone else has a problem, I have another really important matter to attend to.”

* * *

G
ANNON
AND
L
UCAS
were nearly to the fairground building when Lily emerged, feeling a lot less hassled than she had when they had last seen her. As always, Gannon appeared to read her mind.

“Success?” he grinned.

She noted how content Lucas and Gannon looked together, and Lily nodded affably. Trying not to think about what it was going to be like for them when Gannon was no longer around every day, Lily told him about the change in judges. “Think you can handle that?” she asked flirtatiously before she could stop herself.

He looped an arm about her waist and brought her in for a family-style hug. “Anything to make your life easier,” he murmured.

Which wasn’t surprising, Lily thought, given that Gannon was the most chivalrous and good-natured man she had ever met.

Wishing they could stay like that forever, Lily knelt down to talk to her son. “Did you have fun this morning?”

Lucas nodded vigorously. “I sure did, Mommy.” He beamed adoringly up at Gannon. “Mr. Montgummy and Mr. McDonalds—”

Gannon hunkered down to join them. “McCulloch,” he interpreted helpfully.

Ah, yes, Clint. The former rodeo cowboy who had come to his senses and returned to Laramie County for good, just as she secretly hoped Gannon one day would.

“—let me take some of the tickets!” Lucas finished, clapping his hands in delight.

“How nice!” Lily enthused.

“And I got to wave at some of the kids taking their pony rides, too.”

“Amazing.”

An announcement sounded for all cook-off judges to report. The adults straightened reluctantly, their tête-à-tête at an end. Gannon high-fived Lucas and, knowing how she felt about PDAs while on the job, gave Lily a long lingering look instead of the embrace she secretly coveted. “See you later?”

Her heartbeat accelerating, Lily nodded.

“Mommy, did you know that both Mr. Montgummy and Mr. McDonalds get to ride great big horses?” Lucas stood on tiptoe and used his arms to demonstrate unimaginable height and breadth.

“Yes, I did. They both used to be rodeo cowboys when I was growing up. And Aunt Rose and Aunt Violet and I used to go to the competitions right here at the fairgrounds to see them compete.”

“Compe— What’s that?”

“Where you all do something and everybody tries to be the winner.”

Lucas absorbed that. “Oh. Did they win?”

“Most of the time.” Clint more than Gannon. But then “Clint was born on the back of the horse” was how the joke usually went. Gannon came to the party later...and to the boon of grateful clients, left sooner, too.

To Lily’s relief, Lucas was so happy about being able to have such an important role in the pony rides—courtesy of Gannon and Clint—that he seemed to have completely forgotten about the morning’s hullabaloo with Bode when she took him for a quick lunch with her sister Violet in the covered outdoor pavilion. From there, he went with her parents to spend yet another day and night at their house.

Which was, Lily noted on a beleaguered sigh, something her son was getting far too used to doing, too.

The rest of her day was busy but eventful.

The governor and his wife—and their phalanx of security—arrived in time for the final chili cook-off round and the awarding of the bragging rights and cash prizes for the top three entries.

“You know, Lily,” the governor told her when they finished up with the awards, “I’m really impressed by all you’ve done here in a short amount of time.” He paused solemnly. “I could use you on my leadership council.”

Lily smiled to let him know she was flattered. “Thank you, Governor, but I’m pretty busy here.”

“All it would require is one day a week in Austin.”

And travel there and back. And more demands on my time. And more time away from my son and anyone else—like Gannon—whom I’d like to see a whole lot more of...

The governor clamped a congratulatory hand on her shoulder. “You’re a talented politician, Lily. You need experience like what I’m offering to get you ready for higher office.”

She should be ecstatic, Lily noted, as Gannon approached them.

But deep down she wasn’t. “Just consider it and let me know. And again, Mayor—congratulations!” The governor strode off into the crowd to join his wife.

“Wow,” Gannon said, ambitious enough to understand the worth of the offer and what it could mean for her future in politics. “You must be thrilled.”

Lily nodded, her emotions a mess. “If I had aspirations to hold a higher office, I would be.”

He studied her, his own expression inscrutable. “You don’t.”

Lily threw up her hands. “To be honest, I don’t even think I want to run for mayor of Laramie again.”

The words were out before Lily could stop herself.

Gannon gave her a surprised look. “Seriously? I had no idea...”

This was a conversation that should not be overheard, so Lily took Gannon by the hand and slipped behind the row of cooking booths, and from there to an even more secluded spot. Her whole body weary from the hours and hours spent running all over the place, she leaned against the backside of a travel trailer.

Gannon stood beside her, one arm propped over her head. The intent way he was listening to her prompted her to continue, “Although we don’t yet have term limits in Laramie County, I think one term in any elected office is all anyone needs.”

Gannon chuckled and ran a hand over her cheek. “Don’t let Rex Carter hear you say that,” he teased.

Lily stubbornly held her ground. “As you’ve seen with me, new blood, new ideas is a very good thing.”

Adoration gleamed in his eyes. “You are indeed a very good thing.” He bent his head and found her lips.

And that was when the flashbulb went off.

Chapter Fifteen

Two hours later, while the band warmed up and Gannon went off to help Clint with another round of pre-music pony rides before shutting down that event for the day, Lily convened with three of her sisters in the fairgrounds office.

“Nice picture, sis.” Rose leered at the photo that had already made it to the website for an internet tabloid that focused on professional athletes and their many travails.

The photo array included shots of Bode making the announcement that he was moving to the Baltimore Hawks
,
Lucas crying at all the commotion, Gannon rushing in to rescue Lucas from the ruckus—and finally, Gannon making out with Lily behind the scenes. The caption read, “QB’s son cries over departing daddy, but the baby mama loses no time finding a replacement lover...”

Rose shook her head at Lily and giggled. “Making out behind the scenes,” she scolded facetiously. “My goodness, Mayor. I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked!”

Lily rolled her eyes. Leave it to Rose—the feistiest of them all—to make a joke out of it.

Poppy, an interior decorator and the only single-birth daughter among the siblings, said, “Does it matter if Gannon was one of the judges?”

“I don’t think so,” Rose retorted, waggling her brows at Lily. “It’s not as if our sis entered any hot tamales for him to consider...”

The idealistic Violet got into the spirit and tapped her index finger playfully against her chin. “Wonder if this will up Lily’s stock in the governor’s estimation—or lower it?”

An unamused Lily muttered, “Stop it, you all.”

Her three sisters burst into merry laughter. “Sorry,” Poppy, the eldest, said finally. “Some things are too good to resist.”

“Speaking of someone too good to resist...” Rose murmured as Gannon appeared just outside the glass window next to the office door.

Violet sighed wistfully and pretended to fan herself, even though they all knew after the death of her fiancé she had no interest of ever finding love again. “Oh...my...” she said, mugging.

“My guess is that this cowboy needs a moment alone with his lady.” Sensitive as ever to the needs of others, Violet hopped up and headed for the door.

Rose and Poppy followed. “Do you think he’s seen the photo?” Poppy asked.

“What photo?” Gannon strolled in.

Obviously not, Lily thought, taking in the happy look on his suntanned face. Handsome as ever in a red judging T-shirt, nice-fitting jeans and Stetson, he had a denim jacket slung over his shoulder, a mixture of mischief and lust in his midnight-blue eyes.

Her sisters exited on a laugh. “Good luck with that,” they teased over their shoulders.

The door shut and all was silent. He sauntered closer. Lily’s heart pounded like a wild thing in her chest.

He caught her by the wrist and pulled her in. Then wrapped her in a welcoming hug that felt as warm and strong as he did. “The band is about to start. If I recall, you owe me a dance.”

She nodded, resting her head against his muscular chest. If only they could stay the way they had been whenever they were alone together, the two of them shutting out the rest of the world.

But that wasn’t going to be possible, Lily knew.

Still stinging from the way the celebrity gossip site had depicted her, Lily extricated herself from his compelling embrace and pointed to the website photos that were already an internet sensation. “Do you really think that’s wise—for us to be seen together here tonight—after this?” she asked. “I mean, for all we know, whoever took those photos of us earlier is still here.”

Gannon squinted at her and shrugged. “Everyone knows we’re a couple, Lily.”

She had worked very hard to keep their relationship under wraps. “No, they don’t.”

He stepped behind her to massage the tense muscles in her back and shoulders. “Yes. They do. It doesn’t matter whether they see us kissing or not, all they have to do is look at our body language. Or consider that for the past few nights, my pickup truck has been parked in your driveway, nearly to dawn.”

“There are any number of reasons for that.”

“Mmm-hmm. The most likely of which is that the two of us have something going on.”

“I don’t think everyone would jump to that conclusion.”

He gave her a look that said she was being hopelessly naive yet again. “Then why,” he countered drily, “have I had people coming up to me all day long asking me what’s next for us?”

She swallowed. Something else she did
not
want to talk about. Throwing up her hands, she began to pace restlessly around the small utilitarian office. “Look, Gannon, I don’t expect you to know what it feels like to be depicted like some cheap floozy out for QB money in the tabloid press.” She aimed a thumb at her chest. “But I do...”

Expression grim, he ascertained, “We’re talking about what Bode and his personal legal/public relations team did to you when you first found out you were pregnant.”

Lily nodded, equal parts relieved—that he understood this much—and distressed to find it all happening again. “Before I had the DNA tests on my side. Not to mention what happened earlier in the week, when Bode publicly intimated to the Texas sports reporters and newspapers that I was the reason Lucas had not seen much of him. And did not carry his last name.” None of that had affected her as mayor of Laramie, but if the slanderous behavior continued, it would definitely have an impact on both her and her young son.

And that she could not have. No matter what she had to give up.

Taking heed of her defiant posture, Gannon remained where he was. His expression was as ticked off as she felt. “Yeah, I agree, your ex is a class-A jerk. I’m glad you’re finally realizing it.”

A distraught silence fell between them, and he looked at her long and hard.

“Instead of trying to make excuses for him and harboring false hopes that he’ll finally be the stand-up guy Lucas deserves to have for a father.”

Lily shoved her hands through her hair, aware she’d never felt so simultaneously weary and wired in her life.

And all because she did not want to fight. Not with Bode. And certainly not with Gannon.

Sighing, she reminded him, “I tried to be fair.” To Bode. Her son. Herself.

Gannon disagreed. “No. You overcompromised with him, as usual.”

Lily continued holding herself together with effort. Unable to bear the pitying look in his eyes, she whirled away from him. “Compromise saved the day on more than one occasion during this chili cook-off and festival.”

He clamped a hand on her shoulder and turned her back to him. “I’m not denying there’s a time and place for it.”

“Then what are you getting at?” she shot back, beginning to get as upset with him as he was with her.

His eyes darkened. Quietly, he asked, “I want to know. In your view—what
is
next for us, Lily?”

* * *

G
ANNON
DID
NOT
think this was a hard question to answer. Or at least, given all the progress they had made in their relationship during the past eight days, it should not have been.

But Lily looked as if she had just been hit by a ball and plunged into the dunking booth on the midway. Staring back at him, she shoved the hair off her face and sputtered, “You’re leaving to go back to Fort Worth tomorrow.” Her voice had an accusatory ring.

He stood, legs braced apart, hands on his waist. “For the week, yes. When the weekend comes up again, I’ll be free to do as I please, as will you.”

Sighing, she began to pace. “I don’t think so.”

He resisted the urge to take her in his arms and kiss some sense into her only because he didn’t want hot sex being the only thing binding them together. “What do you mean?”

She whirled to face him, the silky honey-blond waves of her hair swirling about her slender shoulders. She raked her teeth across the soft plumpness of her lower lip. “Gannon, I interned at one of those top-tier firms when I was in law school. I know the hours the attorneys kept. I saw for myself, on the Sunday afternoon we dropped by your firm, how many people were there, toiling away.”

He set his jaw, too. “So we work hard, so what?” That was par for the course in any top-tier firm when even the lowliest of associates were expected to bill in excess of twenty-five hundred hours a year. Just to keep their jobs!

She looked him in the eye. “So we need to be realistic here. What are the odds you’re going to be able to make the two-plus hour drive to Laramie to see me and Lucas very often, if at all? Especially given the fact you’re selling the Triple M Ranch to Rex’s company.”

“First of all, nothing’s set,” he reminded her, temper flaring.

“I know Rex. It will be.”

“Second of all, my mother is keeping the house and the land surrounding it,” he continued. “So I’ll have somewhere to stay when I’m in Laramie, even if you don’t want me bunking at your place.” He paused, studying the sudden shift in her mood. He understood that her emotions were all over the place. His were, too.

Her new calm, matter-of-fact expression was even more unsettling than her anger.

And suddenly he realized this was no spur-of-the-moment impulse generated by a tabloid photo, but a well-thought-out decision she hadn’t bothered to tell him about.

“But that’s not the issue, is it?” he realized out loud, suddenly feeling as if he had been sucker punched.

Sadness and regret filled her eyes. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “It isn’t.”

He waited for the next blow. It wasn’t long in coming.

“My life is here.”

Frustration boiling over, he strode closer. He held her shoulders and persuaded gently, “For the next year. Then, as you’ve already told me—” and no one else “—because you don’t plan to run for mayor again, you will be free to do exactly as you please.”

She extricated herself from his light, staying grasp. Unlike him, seeming unsure they could make a long-distance relationship last even that long. “I don’t want to live in the city. I don’t want to raise my son there.”

Now she was just making up excuses. “How do you know?” he asked, his patience fading fast. “You haven’t given it a chance. Lucas seemed just fine with my place there when the two of you visited.”

Lily turned her glance away. She appeared to be holding herself together with effort. That was little comfort, given what she was talking about doing—summarily destroying everything they had shared over the past eight days. He’d thought what they had been building toward was incredibly special, surely something worth fighting for, but obviously he was alone in that.

Lily drew a shaky breath. “I have family here to help out with Lucas whenever I need. Although if I’m not mayor, I won’t need as much help as I have recently.”

“If you come to Fort Worth, you’ll have me.”

“If I come to Fort Worth, you’ll be at the office sixty to eighty hours every week. I’ll be alone in your apartment with Lucas.”

He shook his head, determined not to let her put up barriers between them once again. “Not if you make friends, get a job...”

To his disappointment, her outward confusion only grew. “Doing what?”

He shrugged. “Whatever you want that makes you happy. You can go back to being a lawyer again.”

Lily looked out the only window from the second-story office. Darkness had fallen, but the fairgrounds were lit up with strands of red-and-white lights. Festival-goers thronged, crowding all the aisles, lining up at the food vendors and carnival-style games. The band could be heard warming up. But in here, it was cold, sterile and gray, with fluorescent overhead lights adding a harsh illumination to the already tense atmosphere.

“I told you,” Lily continued, sounding even more upset. “I hate litigating—it’s too contentious. Too focused on winning and losing, instead of what’s right for everyone in a situation...”

Figuring it was time to lay all their cards on the table, he let his disappointment in her show. “Then don’t be a lawyer. Don’t work at all, if you don’t want. Be a mom. Have more kids. Help me find a place in the suburbs of Fort Worth and turn it into a home. I’d love that.”
More than you know...

Her lips pinched tight. “That’s not me, either. Don’t you see that, Gannon? I don’t want a job like the one I have now that takes so much of my time and sometimes makes it hard for me to see my son.”

Desperately, he searched for a solution that seemed to elude her. “You want to work part-time?”

Lily rocked back on the heels of her cowgirl boots. “That’s just it. I don’t know. All I know is that to date I haven’t been happy in any job I’ve had. And yet, for a lot of reasons, financial and emotional security being paramount among them, I need to continue to work to support myself and my son.”

And maybe, Gannon thought, there was a reason she hadn’t been as happy in her life or in her work as she had wanted and needed to be, same as him. Gently, he drew her back into his arms and smoothed the hair from her face. “Maybe you’re expecting too much from your work. And not enough from the people who care about you, like me.” Maybe that was why she was so intent on putting up roadblocks between them yet again. Because she was still as afraid to risk all as she had been when they started law school.

She looked at him, searching his face.

He tried all the harder to get through to her. “Take it from me, Lily. From someone who has spent the past ten years doing nothing but work, work, work. It doesn’t matter how satisfying a career is, it’s never going to fill up the empty spaces in your heart.”

* * *

O
NLY
,
THE
SPACES
in her heart weren’t empty, Lily thought. They were full of Gannon, and hope and fear...and the misery that came from once again feeling as if she’d been too reckless and was on the verge of making a
huge
mistake. The kind that could destroy and devastate her—and her son—forever.

Which left her with only one solution to her predicament. Put on the brakes. Now.

She pushed away from him and moved so the green metal desk was between them, wishing she had equal cover for her ravaged heart. Feigning an inner resolve she couldn’t begin to feel, she told him, “It’s all happened too fast.” Her voice was as raw as the tension between them. “We’ve only been seeing each other again for eight days, Gannon.
Eight days
.” Furiously, she blinked back the tears blurring her vision.