Blame It On Texas

Jake Remington looked as if he wanted to punch him, Lewis noted uncomfortably. But her father finally agreed and the Remingtons left after bidding Lexie a tense good-night.

Lewis went out in the hall to wait while the nurse helped Lexie get ready to leave the hospital. Riley handed the chart he had been writing on to the medical records clerk and strode over to Lewis. He clapped a brotherly hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “I meant what I said about Lexie needing to limit her stress right now. Especially given the way Jake Remington feels about his daughter seeing anyone.”

“Shutting her up like a princess in an ivory tower is the wrong approach to take with Lexie,” Lewis declared.

His brother frowned. “You’re an authority on her? After what—one-fifth of one clandestine date?”

“She asked me to help her out. I’m going to do that,” Lewis insisted stubbornly.

Riley’s gaze narrowed. “And I’m telling you this—make an enemy of her father, and you’ll regret it.”

LEXIE SAUNTERED OUT to the waiting room. “Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem.” Lewis fell into step beside her.

“But it wasn’t necessary,” she said, leading the way out of the ER. “I could just as easily get a cab.”

“In Laramie? At this time of night?” Lewis teased, as they walked through the automatic glass doors. “You have been away a long time.”

Lexie came to a halt on the sidewalk beneath the portico. “There are still only two cabs in town?”

Lewis put his hand beneath her elbow. “And neither of them run past midnight without prior appointment, unless it is an absolute emergency. And when there’s a medical emergency, an ambulance is summoned.”

Lexie sighed, her frustration evident. “This isn’t an emergency.”

“Maybe not to you.” He guided her toward the parking lot. “You managed to get everyone around you pretty upset.”

Lexie drew away from him as they approached his Yukon. “Including you?”

“I admit you had me worried.”

Lewis held the door for her, then circled around to climb behind the steering wheel. The only thing he regretted about this mission was the short distance to her stepmother’s building on Main Street.

Jenna Lockhart Designs had been a mere storefront—albeit a highly exclusive one—when Lewis moved to Laramie at age eleven. Now, some twenty years later, the famous Texas boutique took up an entire block on Laramie’s Main Street. Women came from all over the country to purchase the one-of-a kind evening gowns and wedding dresses Jenna designed in her shop. Her off-the-rack creations, which carried a much more reasonable price tag, were made in a factory at the edge of town, and sold in department stores everywhere. “Your dad and stepmother, too,” Lewis continued.

Her lips took on a mutinous tilt. “I told them not to worry.”

Lewis drove as slowly as possible. “What happened in London anyway?” He stopped at a traffic light.

Lexie shrugged. “The usual. First I had to deal with my mother.”

When the light turned green, Lewis continued on down the street. “She still lives in Europe, right?”

“Italy. Right.”

“She married some Italian count, didn’t she?” Lewis kept the conversation going as he parked in front of the boutique.

“Riccardo della Gheradesca.” Lexie got a pinched look on her face. She vaulted from the truck, and waited for Lewis to get his keys out of the ignition and catch up with her. “Anyway, after—” Lexie broke off, then tried again. “I was in Italy, seeing my mother and going to the funeral and all that…”

Lewis blinked. “Funeral?”

“Riccardo died last month.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Lexie shrugged, her expression more numb than grief-stricken. “I barely knew him. The Count had no interest in children and, truthfully, neither does my mother. But the funeral was a pretty big deal, and she wanted me there, so I had to go.”

“Your mom must be really upset.”

Lexie nodded and looked even more distressed. “Anyway, from Naples I went to Japan for a major film festival there—”

Lewis waited while she punched in the security code that would let her in the building. “That sounds like fun.”

She led the way through a dimly lit interior hallway to the stairs. “It was a nightmare. I had four clients all needing my help, all the time, all trying to elbow each other aside.”

He chuckled at the low note of exasperation in her voice. “No wonder you had acid reflux.”

“Anyway, from there I went on to London,” Lexie continued, apparently unaware just how sexily her stylish jeans cupped her lower half. “One of my clients was simultaneously trying to change her image and making her debut on the London stage. She couldn’t articulate what it was she wanted for her publicity appearances on British television, and I tried every look imaginable. Nothing was pleasing her. The next thing I knew I’d fainted dead away in Knightsbridge, and they’d rushed me to the hospital. My father came right over on his private jet and whisked me back to Texas.”

Lewis studied her in puzzlement. “The doctors there didn’t diagnose your reflux?”

Lexie shrugged, punched in another security code and then opened the door to the apartment. She hit the lights and led the way inside to what looked to be a two-room apartment, with living room and kitchenette in front, bedroom and bath in back. It was professionally decorated in the same shades of pale pink and cream as the boutique downstairs. “I didn’t tell them about my symptoms.”

Lewis watched her saunter over to the fridge. “Lexie!”

She brought out two plastic bottles of blackberry-flavored water and tossed him one. He caught it with one hand.

“It didn’t seem to have anything to do with my passing out. I was jet-lagged and exhausted.” Lexie frowned as she struggled unsuccessfully with the cap of her bottle. “I hadn’t been eating right since I was still recovering from the nonstop bout of ‘indigestion’ I’d had in Cannes. They concluded that I needed a few days of rest.”

Lewis took the top off his and did a trade with her. “If that’s the case, I don’t get why you and your father are quarreling.”

“Because,” Lexie enunciated clearly, “my father doesn’t respect me or what I do for a living. Bottom line, he wants me to quit working as a celebrity stylist and come home to Laramie to stay.”

LEXIE COULD SEE THAT Lewis did not think that was such a formidable offense.

“He was probably just upset.”

Lexie stalked over to one of the cream-colored sofas and sank down onto it. “Gee. You think?”

Lewis followed, looking very handsome and very much at home in the soft lighting of the small but luxuriantly appointed apartment. “As soon as you get better—”

Lexie watched as he sat down next to her. “My father’s still going to want me to leave Tinseltown for good.”

Lewis took a long draught of flavored water, then let the bottle rest on his muscular thigh. “What do you want?”

That, Lexie thought, was the dilemma. She didn’t really know.

“You do like your career, don’t you?” he persisted.