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Fate and Fortune
By
Christie Ridgway




Chapter One



Driving along a deserted Hill Country back road, Reese Fortune Lavery was a
man on a mission. To achieve his purpose, he'd thought to stock important
provisions  the weather page from the Los Angeles Times, a plastic baggy
filled with soft, grayish-gold Pacific sand and a swizzle stick from the
Urbanite Bar & Grill. He'd have bottled a lungful of SoCal smog if he could have
figured out a way to do it.
Most important, though, he had with him a flyer advertising an upcoming sale
at his sister Megan's favorite shoe-tique on Rodeo Drive.
He glanced over at the stack of lure, bait, tangible logic  call it what you
will  sitting on the passenger seat of the Lexus he'd rented. Surely, he and
his Golden State souvenirs could convince his sister to forget the Texas ranch
hand she claimed to have fallen for.
One look at that "30% Off All Stilettos and Sandals" and her so-called "love"
would die the sure, swift death of all so-called "loves." Reese himself hadn't
had one last from a hotel penthouse Friday night to an hour beyond a room
service Sunday brunch. He always let the calendar feature on his Palm Pilot take
the blame for the end of those brief affairs.
Oh, sorry, honey, but I've got to get back to prepare for an early Monday
morning meeting.
Since his sister had apparently dumped her PDA at the same time as her L.A.
job, it was now up to Reese to be her metaphorical Monday morning meeting.
"The magic doesn't last, Megs," he said out loud.
Reese was what they called a corporate raider, and he'd often thought of
telling those very words to the board members he ousted during hostile
takeovers. It was a life philosophy that reminded him not to hold on to things
and people too tightly. The magic doesn't last.
Not even in the Lone Star State.
Reese unrolled his window and took a breath of Texas air. It smelled fresh
and green, a smell that took him back fifteen years. This part of the state was
Fortune  his family on his mother's side  country, and he'd been introduced to
it and the combustible reaction of hay and hormones the summer before college.

That's why these surroundings, while a world away from the steel, sand and
starlets of L.A., weren't wholly unfamiliar. The hilly, rural landscape was
dotted with cedars, oaks and scrub brush. He'd passed a herd of longhorns a
curve-and-a-half back, along with those silly looking mini-donkeys he'd gaped at
fifteen years ago.
Mini-donkeys. Daisy had gaped at him when he'd used the
description, then laughed so hard he'd thought she'd split the seams of the
skimpy halter top she'd been wearing. Burros, she'd finally managed to
get out, and their job was to protect the herds from coyotes.
Reese knew of coyotes, even after growing up in a mansions-aplenty
neighborhood in Bel Air. There, they ate garbage and left-out dog food and the
occasional stray cat. Apparently, in Texas they grew big enough to take down an
entire day's servings of Big Macs.
The things one could learn from a farmer's daughter.
Reese was grinning to himself as he rounded yet another curve. Then his mouth
slammed down on the smile as his right foot slammed down on the brakes.
Brake pad on metal screeched. Tires gave up a layer of skin to the road. The
odor of burning rubber joined the eerie quiet as Reese's car halted just short
of a mangle of sedan and rusty Ford pickup. Nose-to-crumpled-nose, the vehicles
were stretched across the narrow lane, blocking passage in both directions.
The sound of Reese's door popping open was loud in the ominous silence. From
the side of the road, a placid brown-and-white beast  Heifer? Steer? Mare?
Reese could never keep that livestock-lingo straight  turned its head to stare
at him as he sprinted toward the tangle of bumpers and fenders.
A woman was in the driver's seat of the Ford. Long ripples of sun-streaked
brown hair covered her face. A river of hair that reminded him of the cool creek
he'd stuck his eighteen-year-old feet in, when a warm Daisy sat in the curve of
his arm and all things seemed possible. This woman's wrists were crossed on the
steering wheel, her forehead resting against them.
Reese's gut lurched. "Are you all right?" he said through the half-open
window.
She lifted her head and shook it, as if puzzled by the urgency in his voice.
Her hair still partially covered her face. "Okay. Okay, I think. The cow crossed
the road" Her hand gestured to the nondescript sedan that appeared to be
fatally wounded by her truck and vice versa.
Through the cracked windshield of the car, Reese could see another figure
slumped over another steering wheel. Since the truck's driver seemed to be
functioning, he hurried toward the sedan, pulling his cell phone from the pocket
of his slacks.
Still no service, he realized. He'd already tried to use it earlier. Shoving
the phone back in his pocket, he peered through the passenger side window at the
unmoving man in the driver's seat. "You okay?" he called, knocking on the glass.

The guy didn't move. Reese hurried around the back bumper to the other side,
aware that the woman in the truck had opened her door and was climbing out.
"Hey, you!" Reese called again, trying to open the driver's door. It was
locked and the man didn't stir.
"Is something the matter with him?" It was her voice, the woman's,
anxious-sounding and husky, as if she'd swallowed her fear from the accident and
it hadn't gone down easy.
"I don't " Glancing over his shoulder, Reese froze.
Now it was his turn to shake his head. He had to jar the imaginary vision
loose somehow. He'd been thinking of farmer's daughter Daisy just moments
before; that had to be why he thought he was seeing her now. He'd been thinking
of her halter tops and her rippling hair and her cut-off blue jeans 
But he hadn't gotten as far as envisioning those blue jean short-shorts she
used to wear. He was looking at them now, though, and the long golden legs they
revealed. No. It had to be someone else, he thought, as his gaze traveled upward
again, past shapely thighs and curved hips and tiny waist and not-so-tiny
breasts. His farmer's daughter couldn't still be 
His gaze jumped to the side of the old truck and the fading logo that had
been stenciled there. The Egg Man, Organic Eggs, Fresh to You.
The old hippie, Daisy's dad Edward "The Egg Man" Frances, must still be in
business.
Reese finally looked into the woman's face again. Daisy's face. Daisy.
Those blue eyes, that short nose, that ripe mouth. The magic of his eighteenth
summer when he'd learned that magic never lasts.
"I " What the hell do you say to the first woman who ever took you into her
body and then cast a spell that sent you hurtling from earth? Were there
words?
She seemed to think so. "Hello, Reese." Daisy gave a shrug and a half smile.
"I never expected to see you again."
Thup. The sound of a door lock popping free. They both turned their
heads as the sedan door swung open. The man who climbed out was Reese's age,
early thirties, with dark hair and almost pretty features.
The gun he pointed at them was butt-ugly.
"Hands up," he ordered.

 
Chapter Two



A man was holding a gun on them. Reese's mind worked hard to grasp
that fact. Minutes ago he had happened upon a two-vehicle accident in the middle
of a deserted Texas road. Out of one vehicle had climbed his very first lover,
whom he hadn't seen in fifteen years. Out of the other had climbed the man with
the gun.
There wasn't time to make sense of it. Instead, Reese shoved Daisy behind him
and held her there, his hands wrapped around her forearms.
"Hey, hey, hey," he said to the man, using his calm, hostile takeover voice.
He'd faced chairmen of boards who were mad as hell at him, though none had ever
pulled a weapon. "No need for the gun. It was just an accident. If you want to
shoot something, the one to blame is the cow."
The man's gaze shifted to the cud-chewer still standing a few feet away.
Daisy made a muffled sound, an instinctive protest, Reese guessed, to his
suggestion.
"What did you say?" the man asked, but then he swayed and stumbled back
against the side of the car. His gun hand sagged.
Dropping Daisy's arms, Reese surged forward.
The gun jerked back up. "Stay where you are."
"Okay, okay." Reese lifted his palms. "I was just trying to help."
"Don't need help." The guy with the gun grimaced as if in pain. A bump was
rising above one eyebrow.
"You hit your head." Reese shuffled back, crowding Daisy so she edged farther
away from the guy, too.
The man blinked a few times, as if he might have double vision, but his gun
hand remained steady. "I'll be all right in a minute."
"Sure you will," Reese said, again in his soothing-the-ousted-CEO voice. "But
maybe you should lie down."
In the backseat of the sedan. So that he and Daisy could then jump into the
Lexus and speed away like the proverbial bats out of hell.
"I said, don't move."
Reese, who had been continuing to inch back, stilled. At the small of his
back, he felt Daisy's fingers clutching the fabric of his dress shirt. "It will
be okay, honey," he murmured.
Her grasp on the cotton tightened, so he reached behind him again to find her
hand with one of his. Their fingers meshed without awkwardness. It felt right to
hold her hand. Again.
Reese didn't dare take his gaze off the guy with the gun, however. Though the
man appeared more than a little woozy from the knock he'd taken to the head, he
still seemed intent on holding that weapon on them.
"We're not the enemy," Reese said. "You don't need the gun."
"Yeah?" the man replied. "Well, you don't know me and I don't know you."
"I'm Reese Lavery." Thinking about all the extended family he had in the Red
Rock area, he added his middle name, hoping to reassure. "Reese Fortune
Lavery." Anyone who had been around this part of Texas for any length of time
would be certain to make the connection.
"Fortune?" The guy's gaze sharpened. "As in Ryan Fortune?"
"He's my mother's cousin." Ryan Fortune was part of the reason Reese had
traveled to Texas. Yes, he wanted to rescue his sister, Megan, from her
ridiculous belief in fairy tales and a man in pointy-toed boots and John Wayne
headgear, but also because his Uncle Ryan Fortune's wife, Lily, had recently
been kidnapped. And word had come to L.A. that Ryan was not only suffering over
fear for his wife, but from an inoperable brain tumor, as well.
Reese was here to see how he could help with the kidnapping situation 
though he knew other relatives had already circled the wagons  and also to
check in with his Uncle Ryan.
Big, handsome, generous Ryan Fortune. Reese couldn't imagine a world without
the older man.
Magic never lasts.
For some reason the other guy was smiling now. And the gun he held looked
even more deadly. Every muscle in Reese's body tensed. He held Daisy's hand
tighter.
"Well, well, well. Reese Fortune Lavery. Is the lady behind you
another fortunate Fortune, too?"
"I'm Daisy Frances." She stepped closer to Reese, her front to his back.
"And not a Fortune," instinct prompted Reese to add. "Who are you?"
The man full-out grinned. "Not a Fortune, either, though I finally have
something of the Fortunes I've always wanted."
Foreboding walked icy-tipped fingers down Reese's back. He stepped sideways
to completely block Daisy. "Yeah? What's that?"
"Two million beautiful Fortune dollars in ransom money. I'm Jason Jamison."
 
* * *
 
Jason Jamison? Daisy Frances swallowed down the scream she wanted to
make. "He's the one who kidnapped Lily," she whispered in the direction of
Reese's ear. "They've been looking for him for days."
Reese Lavery. Good God, she'd plowed into Jason Jamison, only to run
into Reese Lavery, as well.
She'd always had rotten luck with men, starting from the day Reese Lavery
took himself out of Texas and out of her life, for good.
A summer fling. A teenage summer fling. Growing up on a farm and with organic
Ed "The Egg Man" as her only parent had necessitated Daisy being practical from
an early age. Even when she'd fallen head-over-sandals for Reese Lavery that
summer she was seventeen, she'd known from the start that he'd go back to his
California girls in September and forget all about her.
It was her dumb luck that she'd never forgotten him.
"Listen, Jamison," Reese was saying. "Daisy and I have no beef with you."
Daisy and I.
There used to be a Daisy and Reese, she remembered, for half of June and all of
July and August. The wide plain of Reese's shoulders was beneath her hands. He
was broader now, heavier with muscle, but she could feel his heart beating just
as it used to  racing as it had whenever they were close.
 
But it was racing with tension now. His muscles were like steel.
"But see," Jason said, "I have this longtime, long-standing 'beef' with the
Fortunes." His tone was conversational, almost amused.
"Not with Daisy and me. Especially not with Daisy," Reese said firmly.
His voice was so cool, so calm that it made her feel calmer, even
though his heart was thrumming against her palms.
"Daisy and you. You and Daisy." Before, Jason Jamison had seemed somewhat
confused from that bump on his head, but he appeared wide-awake and unpleasantly
alert now. "You and Daisy seem to already know each other."
Reese hesitated, his muscles going even steelier. Daisy figured he was trying
to figure out the best thing to say under the circumstances. "I visited the Red
Rock area fifteen years ago," he finally said, his voice low. "Daisy was my
first love and I've never forgotten her."
She didn't know which was more shocking  the words he'd said or that they
were an echo of her very own thoughts.

 
 
Chapter Three



The sound of Reese's pulse hammered in his ears. Daisy was my first love
and I've never forgotten her.
He didn't know why the hell that had popped out of his mouth. Well, yeah he
did, and that got his heart pumping even harder. When a man  Jason Jamison,
confessed kidnapper  was holding a gun on you, you thought about the past.
About dying. About things that should be said before dying.
God, please let nothing happen to Daisy.
Please let nothing happen to Daisy and me.
"First love. How romantic." Jamison was still smiling, but his amusement did
nothing to ease Reese's tension.
Or Daisy's. From her place behind him, her fingers tightened on his shirt. He
reached back and linked his fingers with hers again.
"But you should never trust a woman, pal."
Oh, yeah, he and Jason were such good pals. Still, the guy was talking, not
shooting, and that was good. "Had a bad experience, have you?" Reese asked the
other man.
"Bitch betrayed me." Jason's knuckles whitened as he tightened his hold on
his gun. "Her name was Melissa and she tried to cut me off at the knees."
Was. The man had said was. "Daisy's not like that," Reese
replied quickly. This conversation definitely wasn't going the way he wanted it
to. "Enough about that, though. Don't you think it's time you got on your way?"
Jason leaned with more confidence against the side of his smashed-up sedan.
"Oh yes, I'll be getting on my way. I just have to figure out what to do with
the two of you first."
Reese squeezed Daisy's fingers in reassurance. "My keys are in my car,
Jamison. Go ahead and take it. Leave me and Daisy here."
"Of course I'll leave you and Daisy here. But the question is do I leave you
here aliveor dead?"
Reese sucked in a quick breath, then opened his mouth to answer.
"Alive," Daisy piped up from behind him.
He squeezed her fingers in warning, but she went on, anyway. "I want to live,
Mr. Jamison. II just rediscovered my first love." She stepped around Reese so
they were shoulder-to-shoulder. "That has to be fate, right?"
It had to be crazy! Reese wanted to shove her behind him, to shove her
away and tell her to run as fast as she could to safety. Fate wasn't in charge
here, Jason Jamison and his deadly looking gun were, and they didn't seem all so
cooperative.
But the other man was smiling again, and looking at Daisy with a new sparkle
in his eyes. "Fate? You're a romantic, too, then, are you?"
"I didn't think so. Not until today."
Reese stared at Daisy. She looked serious. Honest. And then scared to death
when Jason Jamison suddenly lunged toward them.
 
* * *
 
Daisy watched the luxury car back up, spin a U-turn, then take off with a
squeal of rubber on road. Air that had backed up in her lungs exhaled in a
whoosh, further drying her already parched mouth.
It took three swallows for her tongue and throat to start working again. "Do
you think he's gone for good?" she croaked out.
She felt Reese shift his shoulders. "Yeah."
"Thank God." She was sitting on the gate of her pickup truck, and she drew up
her knees so she could rest her forehead on them. For a few minutes she just
breathed as euphoric relief flooded her body. She was alive. She and Reese had
survived their encounter with a kidnapper and murderer.
He felt warm and solid behind her, and another surge of euphoria coursed
through her, a wild burst of giddy bubbles. They made her want to laugh, to
shriek, to shout out her complete and total gladness. She thought about her dad,
recovering from a hip replacement at a hospital in San Antonio. She was his only
child and her untimely demise would have sucked the life out of The Egg Man,
too.
More giddy bubbles. "Would you have any objection to a resounding chorus of
'Joy to the World'?"
"The Christmas carol?"
"Or the 'Jeremiah was a bullfrog,' version, your choice."
Reese laughed.
For some odd reason, the sound sent tears springing to her eyes. She blinked
them away, not wanting him to suspect her sudden weakness.
But he knew, anyway. She felt him go still. "Daisy? Daisy, don't cry."
"I'm not crying." Right. She hadn't been crying the last time he'd said that
to her, either, on their last night together before he went back to California
and college. Real crying was sobs and sniffles and wails, not the silent tears
that had coursed down her face then and that were coursing down her face now.

"We're okay, Daisy. We're all right."
"I know." But she wished he would take her in his arms as he had that night
so many years ago. It hadn't done much to comfort her then, but now she thought
it might. They were alive, okay, all right, but it would be so much better to
know that with his heart pounding beneath her cheek.
It wasn't going to happen, though, so she dried her wet face against her
upraised knees and lifted her head. "So, um, how've you been, Reese?"
He laughed again. "I think my short answer would have to be, 'never better.'
And yourself?"
"Pretty much the same."
There was a long moment of silence. "Daisy Frances," he finally said aloud,
as if testing out her name. "What are the chances I would have come across you
on a Texas back road right after your run-in with a kidnapper?"
"About as remote as the likelihood of anyone else happening along this patch
of blacktop anytime soon," she admitted. "Unless you made plans to meet someone
out here in the middle of nowhere?"
"I'm in the area to visit family, but this afternoon I was, uh, just taking a
drive."
She thought he sounded almostembarrassed. "There's still nothing out this
way but Dad's egg farm," Daisy said. "I was on my way to the farmer's market in
Austin."
"The Egg Man will come looking for you then."
She was already shaking her head. "He's recovering in a hospital from
surgery."
"Oh."
"That about says it." She glanced over her shoulder to see if she could read
his expression, but only glimpsed his dark, glossy hair in its no-nonsense
business-cut. Sighing, she took a look around them, at the countryside empty of
every breathing thing except for her, Reese and that damnable cow. It continued
to chew as if nothing momentous had happened. "Maybe it was fate," she
murmured.
How else to explain how she and Reese Lavery came to be together again after
all these years?
"Is that what you really think?" Reese asked. From the tone of his voice, she
couldn't tell what he thought of the idea.
"How else would you explain this?" She held up her hands.
"Jason Jamison's sick sense of humor," Reese answered. His hands had come up,
too, as the two of them were seated back-to-back, their arms at their sides,
opposite wrist duct taped to opposite wrist. "He said a woman hog-ties a man,
and this was his oh-so-funny way to prove it."

 
 

 
Chapter Four



Reese listened as Daisy summed up their situation.
"All right," she said. "We're stuck with two broken vehicles on a deserted
country road, left here by a homicidal kidnapper who sat us back-to-back on the
gate of my pickup truck and duct taped our wrists together at our sides. There's
no reason to hope for an imminent rescue." She paused. "So what do you think we
should do next?"
Several options came to his mind, he was a businessman after all, one whose
job it was to buy financially crippled companies and rebuild them into
profit-makers again. Solving problems was second nature  hell no, first nature
to him.
"We could start crab-walking in the direction of civilization," he said, his
tone practical. "It won't be pretty, but it's doable. Or we could " He paused.

"What?"
Problem-solving took a sudden backseat as knowledge finally sank in. They
were alive. My God, they were alive!
Maybe it was due to the bump Jason Jamison had taken to the head, maybe it
was due to some latent humanity still flickering somewhere inside his dark
heart, but the criminal had gone off in Reese's car and had left them there,
unharmed.
They were alive.
I want to live, Daisy had told Jason. I've just rediscovered my
first love.
Hearing those words again in his mind, Reese knew what he wanted to do. What
he had to do right now.
"What, Reese?" Daisy asked again.
He pressed his back against hers, then turned his head over his shoulder.
"Daisy," he said, his breath stirring the river of her golden-brown hair flowing
between them. "Daisy, look at me."
And when she obeyed, her mouth was there, her lips half opened in surprise.
In invitation.
His RSVP was gentle.
Reese pressed his mouth to Daisy's and memories rose like the sweet scent of
her perfume in the air. He remembered their first kiss  on their first date,
watching some horror flick that had her jumping closer to him with each dumb
dead body. She'd jumped when he'd kissed her, too, and he'd felt her bare arms
goose bump beneath the palms of his hands.
It had been erotic as hell at eighteen. The memory of it was erotic as hell
now. He twined his fingers with hers and held on tight as he filled her mouth
with his tongue. Grown-up Daisy made a little noise, a whimper of pleasure, the
very same sound that teenage Daisy had made all those years ago when he'd
French-kissed her to the melodramatic soundtrack of a low-budget slasher movie.

They said it was the thrill of survival that made kids enjoy scary movies,
that it was a high they'd seek over and over. Reese didn't know. He only knew
that he and Daisy had survived today and that it only made their kiss hotter,
better, more necessary than anything they'd shared when they were kids. Because
those kisses had always been laced with the poignant, bittersweet knowledge that
it was going to end when the summer ended.
It's magic again.
Reese wrenched his mouth away and stared at Daisy. So close, he could see the
dilated darkness of her pupils and the rim of summer blue surrounding them.
"Daisy," he whispered. She was weaving another spell on him. A charm that
combined Texas afternoon air with the remembered taste of cherry lip gloss and
the new visual of her all-grown-up curves. He wanted her like before. He wanted
her again. He wanted to believe in forever. "Daisy."
"What is it, Reese?" Her voice was husky, and the deep note seemed to slide
down his body to grab him right where he was most vulnerable.
"Reese?"
The magic never lasts. It never had. It never would. He had years of brief,
unsatisfying relationships and even briefer flings to prove it.
So with an effort he straightened and tossed a wry smile her way. "Sorry.
That was my rendition of 'Joy to the World,' I guess."
Her face went pink and she turned it forward again. "No apology necessary."
She seemed just as content as he to take a few minutes to re-catch his
breath. To regain his bearings. The truth was, with the state his body was in,
he wouldn't be able to roll off the damn truck let alone crab-walk a couple of
miles, especially not all the way to civilization.
It was as if he was eighteen again.
Reese cleared his throat. "So, uhstill working on the egg farm?"
"Once a farmer's daughter," she said lightly, "always a farmer's daughter."
"You look good."
"Thanks. You, too."
Reese realized their fingers were still linked. Expert problem solver that he
was, he used that fact to ascertain her left ring finger was bare of wedding
band or engagement ring. The distinct relief he felt at that must be because,
playboy that he admittedly was, he didn't play with other men's women.
"You're still in L.A.," she said, more of a statement than question. "A
corporate raider  'The Pirate Lavery.' I believe that's what the magazine
article I read called you."
L.A. Business Monthly. He supposed a copy of it might have shown up
here in the wilds of Texas. Maybe one of his Fortune cousins had passed it to
Daisy or mentioned it to her. He shrugged. "They made me sound ruthless. The
fact is, I fix the companies I buy."
"Purely out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose," she said dryly.
He grinned. "No, for lots and lots of money." He glanced over his shoulder at
the back of her head. "Does that offend the organic egg-farmer's daughter?"
She'd always been so different than him. Rural to his urban. Texan to his
Californian. Farmer's daughter to his tycoon's son.
It's why it had seemed smart to walk away from her at the end of that summer
and never look back. It had been the rational, reasonable, sensible thing to do.
There had never been a forever in their future.
So there had never been a letter or a phone call from him, either.
"I have nothing against financial success," she put in mildly.
Then why did it suddenly sound as if she had something against him?
Maybe she was remembering his broken promise to call and write, too.
"I didn't know what to say to you after I left," he heard himself mutter. "I
didn't think it would help if I "
"It was better than you didn't," Daisy said. "And remember, I had your phone
number. I had your address. I can hardly be mad at you for what I didn't do
myself."
Well, hell. She was right about that. It irked him, come to think of it, that
she hadn't tried to contact him. "Why didn't you?" he spit out before he
could help himself, turning to look at her.
She turned to him, too, her mouth once again just a wish away. He could smell
her again, that sweet, flowery fragrance that he used to sink himself in just as
he used to sink his fingers into her wealth of honey-brown hair.
"Because it was never meant to last," she said. "I knew that. You knew that,
too."
"What if " Reese tried to stop himself. He tried to remember that he'd come
to Texas to talk his sister out of romantic foolishness, so he shouldn't be
spouting any of it himself. But the words just kept rushing out of his mouth.
"What if we were both wrong?"

 

 
Chapter Five



Daisy stared over her shoulder at Reese, the man who had been the
eighteen-year-old boy who'd walked away after their perfect summer. At
seventeen, she'd known he would never come back. She'd known she would never see
him again. Her practical nature had accepted that, even though her heart had
ached fora long, long time.
Yet here he was.
And he'd just said that maybe they'd been wrong about their feelings for each
other not lasting.
She swallowed. Reese was looking at her mouth and it tingled, her whole body
tingled, as if bathed in those euphoric bubbles that had been rushing through
her bloodstream. Her mouth went dry again and she licked her lips.
Reese groaned and moved in to take another kiss.
His mouth was hotter, more insistent this time. The tingles on her skin
ignited into sparklers of heat. Mouths still fused, they both tried shifting
closer, but their awkward pose  back-to-back and opposite wrist duct taped to
opposite wrist at their sides  meant their movements were counterproductive.
First her lips slid off his; next he was kissing her chin instead of her mouth.

"Damn!" Reese lifted his head. "Jamison was more diabolical than I thought."
"He wanted to hamper us from coming after him."
"He's hampering me from something I want a lot more than that," Reese
muttered.
Daisy laughed. Her euphoria was climbing higher and though she wanted nothing
more than to be face-to-face with Reese and in his arms, there was something
reassuring about the frustration in his voice.
It proved he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
"Can we get loose somehow?" she suggested. "Maybe we can find a way to saw
through the tape."
Reese held up one set of their linked hands and inspected the thick band of
silver tape binding their wrists. "I kept my first car together with this stuff.
It's made to last, damn it."
Made to last. Just like her feelings for Reese.
Oh, God. Closing her eyes, she rested her head against the back of
his. This wasn't smart. This wasn't what ever-practical, always-rational Daisy
Frances had thought would happen when she'd fallen for Reese so long ago. It was
supposed to have been a short-lived, summer fling. She let out a silent groan.

"Daise?"
"What?"
"Did you happen to take up yoga in the last few years?"
"Huh?" She attended a weekly class, but she didn't think she could Downward
Dog herself out of this predicament. In love all over again with a man known as
a pirate, a player, a playboy. Daisy knew more about the grown-up Reese
Lavery than maybe she wanted to. "What does yoga have to do with anything?"
"Daise, you're smaller than me. I think if you ducked under one set of our
arms, we could at least be face-to-face."
She stilled. Face-to-face. For more kisses. For more eye-to-eye contact. For
more honesty.
Because wouldn't he be able to read her feelings? It was how he made his
living, after all, by reading situations and people.
"Maybe I'm safer just as I am," she said.
"The danger left with Jason Jamison," Reese replied. "Now it's just you and
me, Daise, after all these years"
She'd thrown caution to the wind for the first time that summer when she was
seventeen. He'd been hanging at a back table at the Dairy Dream and she'd come
in with her friends for a softie cone. They'd elbowed her. "Who's that?"
One look at him and she'd known exactly who he was.
Hers.
She wanted to look at him again. So she thanked the Westwood Yoga Studio as
she scooted her rear end alongside his and ducked her head under the arch of one
set of their linked arms  though it was less yoga and more like half a square
dance move she'd learned in fourth grade  to find herself face-to-face with
Reese.
The shift meant one pair of their hands was positioned between their chests
and she could feel his heart beating against her curled fingers. It was a more
awkward position for sitting, but a less awkward position for kissing.
His head ducked toward hers. "Hello, Daisy," he said, smiling.
And she smiled, too, because she was so unbearably happy to be gazing at him.
"Hello, Reese."
He kissed her upper lip. He kissed her lower one. His mouth brushed one
corner of her mouth, and then the other. Content to let him lead her along,
Daisy watched through half-closed eyes, taking in the lean planes of his face,
the stubby darkness of his lashes, the growth of beard that was just starting to
shadow his jaw.
He licked her bottom lip.
Okay, so she wasn't so content anymore.
"Reese," she whispered.
"Hmm?" He licked there again.
"Kiss me."
"I am." His lips ran over her right cheekbone and across the bridge of her
nose to her left.
Goose bumps tickled her neck and ran underneath her bra. She squirmed,
causing his hand to accidentally brush her nipple. He stilled, then deliberately
made the move again. The already hard nub stiffened more.
"Daisy," he groaned. His eyes closed and he slammed his mouth against hers.
She opened her lips and his tongue slid inside.
Oh, Reese. Oh, my. Oh, yes.
When they were teenagers the kisses had gone on for hours. It had taken weeks
for them to move to touches and then to caresses and then to skin. But nownow
she was older and she remembered that pleasure of the past and she remembered
that not an hour ago she hadn't thought they had much time left to live.
Tangling her tongue with his, she tugged at the buttons on his shirt. He drew
his mouth away from hers and ran it over her chin to her neck. He sucked there
and she shuddered. His touch, his scent, his heat was making her dizzy, but she
had to have more of all of it, so she worked one-handed on those stubborn
buttons, taking his own hand along for the ride. Finally, the last one pulled
free to ping against the metal of the truck bed.
And there it was, Reese's bare skin, Reese's chest, which was a man's
chest now. It was hard and layered with flat muscles that twitched when she drew
her fingertips along them. The hair along his breastbone was silky and it
tickled her palms.
Reese groaned. "Daisy. You're making me nuts. This damn duct tape is making
me nuts."
She pressed her mouth to his chest and he groaned again. Then his fingers
pushed up her chin so they could be mouth-to-mouth. She took his tongue into her
body like she wanted to take the rest of him into her.
His fingers fumbled at the buttons on her shirt, bumping against the inside
slopes of her breast. Her shivering didn't aid him, but she couldn't help it,
she could only think about wanting him to touch her more, more, more.
A rhythmic thwapping intruded on her desire-drugged consciousness. She closed
her eyes to the noise, relegating it to fly drone annoyance, but then the cow 
that damned cow!  started bawling.
She felt Reese freeze. He lifted his head and his fingers stopped their work
at her buttons. They both gazed over at the cow, then skyward.
A sheriff's helicopter was circling them. Circling lower. The cow skittered
down the road. Daisy's heart skittered, too.
"We have company," she said. A few more minutes and that company would have
had a lot more of her to look at. She didn't know if she was relieved or
disappointed.
"Daisy," Reese said.
She forced herself to meet his eyes.
"We're going to finish this. Mark my words."

 
Chapter Six



It didn't take long for the authorities to surround Reese, Daisy and the
disabled cars. There was the sheriff, several deputies, then dark sedan-loads of
agents in even darker suits that shouted "Federal Bureau of Investigation." The
helicopter shifted higher then flew off as a thirty-ish, black-haired man
wearing informal clothes and a grim expression cut through the duct tape binding
Daisy to Reese.
The other man pulled the sticky stuff free of her skin, then gently chafed
her wrists while looking into her face with serious eyes. "Are you all right,
ma'am?" he asked, switching his attention to her other arm. "He didn't hurt
you?"
While Reese couldn't blame the guy for giving his attention to beautiful
Daisy, he still scowled at the stranger as he ripped the remnants of the tape
free from his own arm. "We're both fine, thanks very much. Who the hell are
you?"
"Emmett. EmmettJamison."
Reese reached out and yanked Daisy away from the other man to hold her
against his chest. "Emmett who?"
The black-haired man pulled a badge from his pocket. Emmett Jamison, even
without the prerequisite dark suit, was FBI.
"Jason's my brother," the agent admitted. "And I'd be grateful if you could
tell me what he said and what he did while he was with you. Anything.
Everything."
"He thought about killing us," Reese said, his arm tightening around Daisy's
waist.
Emmett nodded, obviously unsurprised. "You two are lucky. But I promise you,
I'm going to stop him. Now, tell me exactly what happened. Please."
They told the story, fourteen, maybe one hundred and fourteen, times. Their
audience changed with each telling, with the exception of Emmett Jamison. He
listened through each and every recital of the details.
Finally, Reese put a halt to it. "Don't you have enough?" Daisy was leaning
against his body and he ran his hand down the back of her hair. "She's tired. We
need water, food, a chance to relax. I'd like to make a call to my Uncle Ryan."
Emmett frowned. "Ryan Fortune?"
"He's actually my mother's cousin," Reese clarified. "But I want to know
what's going on. Jason said he had the ransom moneybut what about Lily?"
It seemed impossible, but Emmett Jamison's expression went even grimmer, and
Reese's gut clenched. "Oh, God. Is Lily "
"No! Lily has been recovered and she's going to be fine. She's been through
an ordeal, of course, but she's going to be fine. Ryan's better for having her
back."
"But Ryan is not well?"
Emmett hesitated, then merely repeated himself. "He's better for having Lily
back."
Meaning the older man's health was still deteriorating. Reese closed his eyes
a moment and took comfort in the warm feel of Daisy against him. At least Ryan
was reunited with his beloved Lily again.
Just as he was reunited with Daisy. He stroked his hand down her hair once
more.
Magic might never last, but he wasn't ready to give it up just yet.
"Can someone give Daisy and me a ride into Red Rock?" He had a room at the
inn there.
Daisy glanced back at him. "I need to go back to "
"And I'll get you there," Reese promised. "Later." After he touched her
again, tasted her, steeped himself in old memories and made new ones.
"We almost died today," he whispered in her ear. "I just can't let you go
quite yet."
 
* * *
 
Daisy had second, third, fourth thoughts as she sat beside Reese in the
backseat of a deputy's four-wheel drive. Reese must have felt her growing
tension, because he took her hand and lightly rubbed her knuckles with his
thumb.
"A meal at Emma's," he said, mentioning the popular café in the center of
town. "We deserve that, at least."
And at most they deservedwhat? A chance to see how sex would be between them
after fifteen years? Would it be as good? Better? Either way, it wouldn't make
it any easier to say goodbye to him once again.
Still, she let him help her out of the deputy's car. He guided her through
the entrance of the café with his fingertips on the small of her back. Her skin
reacted to the small touches, goose bumps jittering across her flesh as her face
flushed hot.
The iced water they were served shortly after taking their seats at a tiny
table didn't cool her in the least. The way Reese was studying her face didn't
calm the nervous pounding of her heart.
"Reese "
"Daisy "
"You go first," he said, his gaze holding hers.
"Okay." Fine. She was going to tell him this wasn't a good idea. She was
going to tell him that it was time for her to head back to the farm and put this
entire episode behind her. It wasn't practical or sensible to indulge herself or
her senses in old memories. Since Reese had left all those years ago, she'd been
luckless at love, hadn't she?
Swallowing hard, she half rose from her chair. "I "
"Daisy Frances!"
The new voice startled her. Her head jerked right, and there, coming toward
her, was the embodiment of one of her romantic relationship disasters. She
pasted on a smile, though, as John Taylor gave her a light hug and kissed her
cheek.
"How've you been?" He continued to smile back at her as he held on to her
hand.
"Well. Terrific." But John hadn't been a disaster, she corrected
herself. He was a nice man and he hadn't broken her heart. Though he hadn't made
it pound, either. The problem was, like every other guy she'd dated in the past
fifteen years, there'd been no sizzle between them. The brief interest she'd
felt had fizzled out almost immediately. John hadn't been a disaster, he'd been
a dud. For her, love had never lived up to its billing.
"Reese Lavery." Now Reese was standing, too, and introducing himself to
Roger. Daisy let them run through a couple minutes' worth of small talk without
her, because she was busy comparing the two men. They were both tall, lean,
handsome. Successful. But, she thought, her gaze fixed on Reese, for some reason
he was the one who made her achingly aware of every female part of herself.
John slanted her a bemused look. "I'll be on my way then."
Daisy wiggled her fingers in farewell, then slid back down into her seat.
"Seems like a good man," Reese commented as he sat, too.
"He seemed like a good idea at the time." She'd dated him her last year in
college.
His mouth quirked up in a smile. "But not anymore?"
She sighed. What was the point of practicality? She had the rest of her life
for that. If she couldn't have love, why couldn't she have this? Why couldn't
she have sex with the one man who'd lit a fire inside her that had never died?
"Frankly, the only idea that seems any good to me right now is you."

 
 
Chapter Seven



Reese wasn't a man to waste an opportunity. When Daisy had said, "Frankly,
the only idea that seems any good to me right now is you," with that honest, and
honestly hot look in her eyes, he'd been out of his chair in a flash.
He'd hustled her out of the café and across the street to the inn, pausing
only to order a picnic basket of food to be delivered to his room ASAP. Though
his reunion with Daisy had come at the hands of a dangerous kidnapper, Reese
wasn't taking another chance that she'd get away from him without holding her in
his arms one more time.
The food followed on their heels, so he didn't think she had a chance to get
nervous before he handed her a glass of chilled wine and spread out fried
chicken, potato salad, fresh fruit and a selection of homemade cookies across
the small corner table.
With a click, he tapped his wine glass against hers, and tried to appear
smooth and charming and adult  anything but adolescent and horny and nervous,
the true way he was feeling.
The fact was that none of his dozens of penthouse weekend flings had prepared
him to face a grown-up, sexy-as-all-get-out Daisy Frances across a king-sized
mattress. He let out a slow breath. "Can I fix you a plate?" he asked, gesturing
toward the food.
She took a sip from her glass. "I couldn't eat a thing."
Thank God. "Me neither." He swallowed down some of his own wine. "I feel like
a kid again."
Her lips twitched into a little smile. "I wasn't nervous then."
"No?"
"That first time, I felt sure you knew what you were doing."
He laughed, and didn't that feel good? "I had no idea. You were my first."
Her eyes widened. "What? Then I'm even more impressed than I was then. How
did you know "
"I read a lot." And with her laughter, he felt his pulse calm enough for him
to approach her and lift her wine out of her hand. He set both of their glasses
on the little table. His arms linked behind her back. "I still read a lot."
Her eyes danced. "Whoopee."
He bent his head. "Yeah, whoopee."
And then, that's what it was. Whoopee. Exuberant, giddy, teenagers-again
whoopee.
"I still love the way you taste," he said, taking a nip of her earlobe.
"I still love the way you jump," she replied, running her hand along the
heavy ridge in his pants.
"That's a 'hello,'" he whispered against her mouth.
"Then this is a 'hello' back." And pressed her hips against his.
Their shirts came off, his more quickly than hers, because he loved to
torture her with the slow movement of his fingers. Then he placed his palms over
her bra-covered breasts and held them in his hands, reveling in the sweetness of
their weight, in the sweetness of Daisy and how good, how right it felt to be
with her again.
The magic never lasts.
Of course it didn't, but it was back for the moment, back for the afternoon,
and he tasted it on her lips, in the puckered hardness of her nipples, in the
tight, wet sheath of her body. His fingers slid inside her with ease, and she
bowed up, her shoulders on the mattress, her naked breasts rising toward his
waiting mouth.
He played with her, slowly, thoroughly, like certainly he hadn't played with
her when he was young and randy and too eager to take her where he wanted to go.
Now the journey was about her journey, and he loved taking the ride with her,
feeling every bump, every detour, every valley, every hill.
When she climbed the last one at the urging of his hands, he caught her cry
of completion in his mouth, then covered himself with a condom and covered her
body. He slid inside her and his head fell back.
This is what's been missing, he thought.
What's been missing? A voice asked inside his head.
"Daisy," he said aloud. "Daisy, Daisy, Daisy." And she caught him
this time, and held him against her as he came.
They dozed as the afternoon turned to dusk. Reese came awake to find her head
pillowed on his chest, her river of sunshine hair draped over them. He sifted
his fingers through it, marveling at how content he felt, half hard, yet willing
to wait until Daisy opened her eyes. Wanting to wait until Daisy opened
her eyes.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd been in bed with a woman after sex
and hadn't thought about how soon he could get out of bed with her and get back
to work and the nonstop business grind of his life.
She stretched against him, then stilled, and he smiled, realizing exactly
what she was thinking.
"That's right, it's me," he murmured.
"I thought I was dreaming," she said, her voice sleepy.
Did that happen often? "I dream of you," he heard himself confessing. "More
than I care to admit." Then why the hell was he admitting it now?
She half turned to stack her hands on his chest and propped her chin on them.
"It's only natural to romanticize that summer."
"Yeah." Romanticize. Not that he liked the word much, but it explained why
all the relationships he'd had since had seemedless intense. "We grew up."
"Right." She smiled.
He smiled back, even though he didn't really want to. "So that was a pretty
good time for you, as well? That summer?"
"You know it was."
Her eyes closed and he marveled at her thick fringe of lashes. Had any woman
ever been so beautiful? "I don't think I've had anything that's lasted as long
since."
"Me neither."
It shouldn't make him feel so damn glad. There were thousands of books,
movies, songs about love, and it shouldn't make him happy to find someone else 
to find that Daisy  had been as untouched as he by all of them. To put it out
of his mind, he slipped his hands beneath her arms and drew her up and
completely on top of him.
She squeaked.
It made her sound seventeen again and he let himself dive back through the
years and back to that golden, romantic summer when he'd thought himself
to be in love. When he'd believed in such a thing.
The sex was just as mind-blowing this time. Daisy felt just as right in his
arms. Afterward, he dozed again.
When he woke up, the room was dark. He reached for Daisy, and his hand
encountered the crinkle of paper, instead. His heart starting to slam against
his chest, he flicked on the bedside light and grabbed the notepaper off the
sheet where Daisy had lain.
He remembered her handwriting, too. It was as curvy as her body, as easy to
read as her face when he made love to her.
Thank you. It's time for me to go. Have a wonderful rest of your life.
Reese flopped back against the pillows.It's time for me to go. That
was usually his line. But fine. Good. No problem. Apparently, she also knew that
the magic never lasted.
She'd saved him from having to say the words first. Fine. Good. No problem.

Which didn't explain why the hell he was out of bed and already shoving his
legs through his pants.



Chapter Eight



Reese ran through the lobby of the inn, intent on finding Daisy and whywhy
Why it had been so damn easy for her to leave him following their unexpected
reunion. On his way out the front door, he slammed into someone coming inside.
Muttering a "pardon me," he tried shifting by.
"Reese?"
He halted, staring at the woman. "Megan?" His older sister. "What are you
doing here?"
She frowned. "I'm here to see you! The Red Rock grapevine says you were
carjacked by Jason Jamison today as he was escaping with two million dollars in
ransom."
Today? Reese blinked. That happened today? It seemed ages ago and
insignificant when compared to what came afterward. When he'd touched Daisy,
kissed her, made love to her Lost her.Damn.
"Gotta go, Megs." He started moving past her again.
She latched on to him. "Not so fast! I don't know why you came to Red Rock in
the first place."
"To" An image of him driving the Lexus popped into Reese's mind. In the seat
beside him, the items he'd brought to remind Megan her life was in L.A. The
Pacific sand, the swizzle stick, the sale flyer from her favorite shoe boutique
in Beverly Hills. He'd told himself he'd come to Red Rock to tell her that love
was a sham and that the magic never lasted.
But the truth was, he hadn't been taking the direct route to his sister. When
he'd come across Jason Jamison and Daisy's car accident, he'd been wandering
down Memory Lane  specifically, the back roads that would have led him to
Daisy's father's farm.
He'd been hoping to see Daisy.
"Why haven't you come home?" he asked Megan abruptly.
"I've been telling you over the phone for six months. I'm in love. Nash
Ridley is the man I've been looking for all my life."
"It's magic."
"Yes."
Closing his eyes, Reese threw back his head. "Daisy," he murmured. "How could
I have been so dense?"
Other women hadn't held his attention, because the one,his one, had
been Daisy. It was his misfortune to have met her when he was eighteen and too
full of himself and his future plans to realize how special, how wonderful, how
magical the two of them were together.
It wasn't that there was no such thing as love. It had been here in Red Rock.

"Are you mumbling about Daisy Frances?"
Reese opened his eyes and looked at his sister. "Yeah. I guess both of us
should have spent more time in Texas all these years." But he'd find a way to
change that. The things that had made him and Daisy so different before, her
rural to his urban, her Texan to his Californian, didn't matter now that they
were all grown up.
"Daisy hasn't been living in Texas."
"Huh? What are you talking about, Megs?"
"It's the Red Rock grapevine that's been talking. Your Daisy has been living
in Los Angeles. She's only back on the farm to help while her father has hip
surgery."
"She's been in L.A.?"
"Yep. She's a corporate attorney, with offices in a high-rise just a couple
blocks from yours."
And she'd never contacted him? She had to know he was in the area. She had
known, he realized, thinking of that article she'd mentioned she'd seen about
him in L.A. Business Monthly.
Apparently, Daisy had been as certain as he that the magic never lasted.
"Well, too damn bad," he said aloud. He'd just have to change her mind. After
all, he was trained in the art of the hostile takeover.
 
* * *
 
Daisy had borrowed a car to drive back to the farm. Unfortunately, she'd
borrowed it from a contemporary of her father's, and the classic VW Bug was
suffering pangs of middle age. As she'd been sputtering down the road, one wheel
had fallen off, leaving her half in and half out of shallow gulley.
With a sigh, she shut the driver's door and patted the rusted metal. In her
other hand she gripped a flashlight she'd found on the floor. "You did your
best," she told the car. "That's all anyone can expect."
It was how she'd been able to walk away from Reese without sadness. By not
expecting more than a brief reprise of what they'd once shared, she'd not been
hurt.
In the past fifteen years she'd had lousy luck with men, so there'd been no
reason to hope a reunion with Reese would prove different.
"Maaw!"
The unexpected moan had her jumping out of her skin.
"Maaw!"
Daisy flicked on the flashlight, and waved it through the dark. "You!" she
said, spotlighting what looked like the same cow that had wandered across her
path earlier that day. "Haven't you caused enough trouble?"
The creature ambled nearer. "Maaw! Maaw!"
The plaintive sound pulled at Daisy's heart. "Maaw maaw back at ya,"
she said. The cow stood in the middle of the road as it had that morning, and
for a moment Daisy felt as lost as it looked. "Okay, I miss him," she whispered.
"Don't tell, but I already miss him."
The sound of a car speeding down the road had Daisy glancing over her
shoulder. She sidled closer to the VW. "Come on, cow, get out of the way."
"Maaw!"
Anxiety thinned Daisy's voice as headlights came around a curve. "Watch out!"
Her eyes squeezed shut as brakes screamed.
Then there was silence, the sound of a car door opening, a litany of swear
words in a male voice.
Daisy opened her eyes and played the flashlight beam toward the road. The cow
was fine. The car was fine. The man  Reese  appeared fine, too, but spitting
mad.
"You scared the hell out of me!" he yelled, stomping over to grab her arm.
"For the second, no, make that the third time today."
"It was the cow's fault," Daisy protested. "The first time and this time
andwhat other time?"
His expression was grim. "When I woke up and found myself alone in bed. I
thought I might have lost you for good."
Daisy froze. "And that "
"Scared the hell out of me. I'm not losing you again, do you understand? Not
to a carjacker, a car accident or my own inability to recognize magic  the love
of a lifetime  when it's staring me in the face."
She swallowed. "'The love of a lifetime?'"
"What else would you call it, Ms. Corporate Attorney?"
So he knew then. What she was. Where she'd been living. "I didn't contact you
because I was afraid it would tarnish the memory of what we'd had."
"What we'd had is what everyone else looks for all their lives. What I've
been looking for since but had given up on."
"Reese." The flashlight dropped as she wound her free arm around his
neck. "I had, too. But I love you. I always have."
"Good answer." His mouth was warm and sure on hers.
But even over the sensations of the luxuriant kiss she heard a sticky rip and
felt pressure on her wrist. She broke away to stare down at her arm in the
darkness. "Wha ?"
"Thank my sister. She keeps an emergency kit in her car, which includes a
handy dandy roll of duct tape. Until I can get a ring on your finger, I'm not
taking any chances."
Reese had taped their wrists together. Again. Nothing was going to part them
now.
And to ever-practical Daisy Frances, that seemed like a very sensible idea.


 
The End