Prickle: a small sharp outgrowth, usually more slender than a thorn.
“THE solution is simple,” Lace’s cousin Melody announced that same afternoon, as she and Lace lay buried up to their necks in a mud bath at the Cupid Mineral Springs Resort and Spa. Melody preferred the elegance of the mineral springs to Junie Mae’s LaDeDa, which was little more than a couple of massage tables in the back of her hair salon.
“I’m glad you can see it, because I’m blind about how to fix this.” Normally, Lace was not much of a spa girl, but the first thing Melody had said when she told her about her troubles was, “Let’s hit the spa, I think better when I’m relaxed. My treat.” Lace had picked the mud bath over other treatments, because hey, if she had to take time away from the garden, at least she was in dirt.
The lavender that had been added to the bath masked the mineral-heavy smell of volcanic ash. The attendant had wrapped their hair in white towels and placed cucumber slices on their eyes. Lace had already taken off the cucumbers and vaguely considered eating them. She was hungry, since she’d been too distressed after Carol Ann’s news to eat breakfast, but now her appetite came roaring back. Nah, if she ate them, it would probably earn a stern look from the attendant and a sigh and an “Oh, Lace, really?” from Melody.
One Halloween, when Lace was seven and Melody was nine, Gram had taken all four of her granddaughters trick-or-treating. Natalie went as a policewoman, Zoey as a bandit. Melody had been dressed as a princess, resplendent in pink chiffon. Carol Ann had ordered Melody’s costume from a specialty store in Houston. Lace’s mother had made her a lacewing costume because they were her favorite insects, mostly due to the fact they shared her name. Unfortunately, no one else had known what she was.
Afterward, the four cousins had sat in Gram’s kitchen going through their loot, Melody primly extracting the “good quality” chocolates and leaving behind the “pure poison” like Nerds, Laffy Taffy, and Smarties. Lace had scooped up her cousin’s leavings, dumped them in her bag, and then opened a box of Nerds and stuffed the entire contents in her mouth.
“Mmm, I lo . . . lo . . . love . . . poison,” she stuttered, spitting Nerds onto Melody’s princess costume.
Melody had leveled her a look of utter disgust and said, “Oh, Lace, really? You are such a pig.”
Lace pushed the memory aside, slapped the limp cucumber slices back over her eyes, and slipped lower into the mud bath.
“All you have to do,” Melody said, “is throw a dinner party. A thousand dollars a plate.”
“Whoa! That pricing might work in New York City, but this is Cupid.”
“Which is why I said a thousand instead of two thousand a plate.”
“That’s delusional.”
“It’s not. Five hundred guests at a thousand dollars apiece will net the same amount that Olive Cooksey stole from the coffers.”
“Five hundred guests? There’s no venue in Cupid that will accommodate a dinner party of five hundred people.”
“Sure there is.”
“Where?”
“Michael and Mignon’s vineyard. They host big wedding parties there all the time.”
“Not five hundred people big. Where are we going to get enough tables and chairs?”
“The community center, the library, the high school, churches.” Melody ticked off the options on a mud-coated hand.
“Let’s say that by some miracle we get five hundred people to show up. How much is it going to cost? A thousand dollars a plate won’t be pure profit.”
“You get sponsors to pay for the meals,” Melody said like it was the easiest thing in the world.
“I’m not an outgoing extrovert who knows how to schmooze,” Lace said.
“Lucky for you, I am.”
“That’s nice of you to offer to help, but what happens when you head back to New York and I’m left trying to pull this off?”
“Didn’t Mother tell you? I’ve taken a six-week vacation.” Melody sounded wildly cheerful.
So cheerful in fact that Lace didn’t trust her glee. Something was definitely up with her cousin. “How come you’re taking six weeks off?”
“I had scads of vacation time built up. I had to take it or lose it.”
“As much of a workaholic as you are, I’m surprised you didn’t opt to just lose the time.”
“Pot. Kettle. Black.”
“Which is why I can’t imagine you not working for six weeks. I know I couldn’t do it,” Lace commented.
“So see, you’ll actually be doing me a favor if you let me put this event on for you.”
Lace sat up, the cucumber fell off her eyes, and she stared over at Melody in her pit of mud. “What is going on?”
“Nothing.” Melody laughed gaily, but the sound was forced. “Can’t I do something nice for you?”
“For the last five years that you’ve lived in New York, you’ve only come home twice a year, at Christmas and on your mother’s birthday. Why the sudden Cupid love?”
“It’s not sudden. I’ve just reached the age where I’m revaluating what I want in life.”
“The only thing you’ve ever wanted is to be the Princess of Madison Avenue. You’re well on your way, why would you stop now?”
“I’m not stopping. It’s just . . .” She paused. “I needed to take some time, okay?”
“Okay.” Lace eased back down into the mud.
“So anyway about the event—”
“You do know the entire population of Cupid is just over three thousand, right? I don’t know where you expect to round up five hundred people who can afford to pay a thousand dollars a plate.”
“Which is why we must cast a wider net. We’ll need to draw from all around Texas—Houston, Dallas, El Paso, San Antonio, Austin.”
“Why on earth would they come to Cupid?”
“For a Labor Day celebration. We’ll make a weekend-long event of it. Organize a stargazing tour at MacDonald Observatory. We’ve got the caverns and the mineral springs, and the lake and dove season opens September first, so there’s something for hunters.”
“Who generally aren’t the kinds of men who will pay a thousand dollars a plate for dinner even if they have the money.”
“Not just dinner,” Melody said, “but an event, a celebration. Music, dancing, gourmet food, including exotic game, and a chance to mingle with a big sports celebrity.”
“What sports celebrit—” Lace broke off, sat back up. “Oh no. Not Pierce Hollister.”
Melody sat up too, plucked the cucumbers from her eyes. She had a swatch of mud across her right cheek. “I know you have a painful history with Pierce, but Lace, he is the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys.”
“Who currently happens to be on the disabled list.”
“It doesn’t matter. He’s a big celebrity. In fact, his injury makes him even more desirable. Emotion. Conflict. Suffering. The struggle back. Pathos sells!”
A heavy feeling settled in Lace’s stomach. She knew her cousin was right.
“It’s the only way you’re going to draw a big crowd willing to pay a thousand bucks a plate,” Melody went on. “Not only that, but think of all the money an event like this will funnel into the local economy. It’s a win-win for everyone.”
“Yeah, I get that.” Damn that Olive Cooksey’s thieving hide.
“I’m willing to do all the legwork. You only have to do two things.”
“What’s that?”
“Show up at the big dinner with a date and do a little glad-handing.”
“What else?”
“Ask Pierce to headline the event, and since he’s recuperating it shouldn’t be that hard to convince him.”
No indeed, the hard part was going to be driving up to the Triple H and asking him to do her a favor. She could already see his smug smile and audacious wink.
The big question was why did she suddenly feel so excited about the prospect of seeing him again?
THE NEXT MORNING Lace worked up the courage to call the Triple H and ask for Pierce.
“He and Mr. Malcolm are moving the herd down from the mountains. He’ll be gone all day and he’s out of cell phone range,” the housekeeper told her. “May I ask who is calling?”
“It’s not important. I’ll call back later.” She was half relieved he wasn’t there, half nauseated that she wouldn’t be able to get this over with.
“Sugar,” the housekeeper said. It came out shooger, slow as maple syrup and false as artificial sweetener. “Can I give you a word of advice?”
“Sure,” Lace said, wondering where this was leading.
“Young ladies call here all the time. He never calls ’em back. A man doesn’t respect a woman who throws herself at him.”
Lace bit her tongue to keep from telling the housekeeper that she was certainly not throwing herself at him.
“Do you have any idea how many women are trying to become Mrs. Pierce Hollister?” the housekeeper went on.
“Couple of dozen?” Lace guessed.
The housekeeper laughed. “Shooger, more like a couple of thousand. It’s gonna take a one-in-a-billion gal to catch the likes of Mr. Pierce. Are you one in a billion?”
“Rats, I’m only one in nine hundred and ninety-nine million. Damn the luck.”
“Well, you do have a sense of humor. I’ll grant you that. Go ahead and give me your number. If he’s interested, he’ll call. If he doesn’t call, well, shooger, you have to face the truth. He’s just not that into you.”
Apparently, the woman had been watching too many Sex and the City reruns. “How will I ever live?” Lace quipped.
“You’ll find a nice man just right for you—”
“Thank you for your time,” Lace said, and hung up before she said something snarky she might regret.
She slumped back in the wooden swivel chair. From the window of her office in the botanical gardens, she could see stoop-shouldered Manuel putting fresh mulch around the scarlet Anisacanthus linearis. His face was as familiar to her as her grandfather’s. He’d worked at the gardens for over twenty-five years. As a child, whenever she’d wandered over to the gardens from her parents’ livery stable across the road, Manuel would pluck a pack of Trident cinnamon gum from his front shirt pocket, give her a piece, and take one for himself. They would chew in companionable silence, as he’d tell her the common names of the plants in both English and Spanish. Miss Winnie was the one who’d started teaching her the Latin names and she’d learned there was a method to the nomenclature.
Lace sighed, stretched, and got up to pace. Melody’s plan had better work. If the gardens closed, it would be the end of an era.
Yeah, well, before her cousin’s grand scheme could work, Lace had to do her part.
It would be so easy to go into the garden, spend her time happily digging in the dirt, put off asking Pierce to headline the fund-raiser for another day, but the sooner she got the ball rolling, the better. Pierce might not be within cell phone reception range, but she knew where the Hollisters pastured their cattle in the grasslands that grew up the gentle slope of the Davis Mountains. When she was a teenager she’d ridden up there often enough, hoping to catch a glimpse of Pierce when he and Jay helped Abe herd cattle to earn date money.
Lace pushed back from her chair, called to Shasta to hold down the fort, and walked across to Bettingfield Stables to saddle her quarter horse, Peony. Twenty minutes later, she was galloping out of town, headed up the mountain.
The temperature was a good ten degrees cooler up here than it was in town. The late morning breeze stirred in her face. The skies were clear, the altitude crisp and dry. Confronted with Peony’s hooves, feeding jackrabbits broke and scattered, their long ears folded back flat against their heads. A small red-tailed hawk circled overhead, looking for lizards and rodents easier to tackle than the big-footed jackrabbits, and finally came to land in the bare branches of a dead piñon pine with a soft whapping of his wings. The sound startled Peony, who sparked and jumped over a prickly pear.
As she rode, Lace scanned the terrain, cataloging plant life. To her, the sweeping landscape of the Trans-Pecos was the most beautiful in the world. Any old plant could grow with unlimited rainfall, but in this spot only the hardy thrived. When she was a girl, she’d ride the country, pretending she was a Native American maiden. Once she was out of sight of civilization, it could have been a hundred and fifty years ago, until a plane flew overhead and ruined the image. She loved it here. The place was in her heart, her blood, and her soul. If she could not save the gardens, she’d have to leave home in order to make a living.
It took her over an hour to reach the Hollisters’ grazing land. Here, there were no fences. Since Pierce’s housekeeper had said they were driving the cattle down, Lace picked the southwesterly route to the Triple H. She’d traveled less than a mile when she spied a roll of dust in the distance and through it, horsemen loping along behind a herd of longhorns. She spurred Peony faster and when she got nearer, spied three Blue Heeler cattle dogs keeping the herd in line.
One of the horsemen said something she couldn’t hear and motioned in her direction. A man broke off from the group, wheeled his horse, and cantered toward her.
It was Pierce, looking like a real cowboy, instead of a Dallas Cowboy. He rode tall in the saddle; wore chaps, straw Stetson, boots, spurs, the works. Her heart swelled, crowded her lungs, making it hard to breathe. Don’t do it. Don’t go there. Do not have those fantasies. Ah, but no one could deny he looked as if he had ridden straight out of a romantic Western movie, and she’d always been a sucker for cowboys.
Her pulse took off at a dead gallop. It was crazy, this . . . this autonomic response to the sight of him.
He was smiling as he rode up. He adjusted his hat, giving it a rakish tilt that revealed more of his face. His brown eyes twinkled. “Why, look who’s here.”
Lace blew out her breath. Steady, steady. Damn if she was going to let him know how much he’d gotten under her skin. “Morning, Pierce.”
He squinted up at the sun beating down directly overhead. “Might be afternoon by now.”
Her chest grew tighter by the minute. She didn’t know how to start this conversation.
Pierce rested both hands on the horn of the saddle and shifted forward in his seat. The leather made a creaking noise that punctuated the silence.
She didn’t know which was worse, saying something, or sitting here trying to avoid looking into his eyes and not saying anything. “You’re working the cattle,” she said at last.
He cast a glance over his shoulder. Malcolm and the ranch hands had already driven the herd some distance away. “Looks like it.”
“How does that feel?” she surprised herself by asking. “Being back in the saddle again?”
“Feels better than I expected, but it’s not really the saddle I want to be back in.”
“Football. That’s your saddle.”
“That’s where the best of me is.”
“I don’t believe that.”
He looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Are you seriously saying that the best of you is over? You’re just barely thirty. What are you going to do for the next fifty-odd years?”
“My career isn’t over,” he said adamantly. “Not by a long shot. This is . . .” He waved a hand at his leg. “Very temporary.”
She wasn’t going to point out that he might not be facing reality about his chances of being what he once was on the football field. She’d heard people compare him to Joe Theismann. She’d been raised in West Texas where football trumped everything. She understood how brutal the sport was. Initially, the Dallas Cowboys might cut him some slack, but it was a money game, and if he didn’t soon return to the field at one hundred percent capacity, they’d cut him quicker than she would deadhead a rosebush. Individual roses—even if there was still some bloom left—had to be sacrificed for the health of the plant.
“You’re a big deal,” she said honestly. “I can appreciate why it would be hard to let go of that.”
He cocked his head and shot her a sidelong glance. “You’re confusing me.”
“How’s that?”
“I can’t decide if you’re actually being nice or sarcastic minus the tone.”
She nodded. “I’m stating fact. You are a big deal in this town. You’re a big deal all over Texas. Hell, let’s be honest, you’re a big deal throughout the country. I mean, come on, how many people have ever quarterbacked in the Super Bowl? You’re among the elite of the elite.”
A suspicious expression crossed his face. “I hear kind words coming from your mouth, but I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Let’s have it.”
Lace shrugged, fighting against her pulse that sped up every time she met his eyes. “No dropping shoe.”
“You rode all the way out here to tell me that I’m a big deal? C’mon, let’s have the other shoe.”
Pierce’s stallion walked closer and nuzzled Peony’s neck. Of course Pierce rode a stallion. No mare or gelding for a wild-oats-sowing alpha man. That would be way too tame. Luckily, Peony was not in estrus or there could have been trouble. Lace pulled up on the reins, guided Peony away from his horse.
Undaunted, the stallion approached again and went back to nuzzling Peony.
“Could you handle your steed, please?” she asked.
“He’s got a mind of his own.” Pierce smirked.
“You’re in charge, be in control.”
“You’re the one who rode up here on a mare in heat.”
“She’s not in heat.”
“A mare’s cycle can turn erratic around fall.”
“It’s the second week of August.”
“Autumn is just a few weeks away.”
“If she was in heat, your stallion would be going crazy.”
“You’ve got a point.”
Lace squirmed in the saddle. She was a scientist. This talk of a mare’s reproductive cycle should not be making her uncomfortable, but it was.
“If that’s all you need, I’ve got cattle to drive.” He clicked his tongue, turned his mount back toward the herd.
“Wait.”
He stopped.
She kneed Peony forward until they were side by side with Pierce and his stallion. “You’re right. There’s a shoe. I don’t want there to be a shoe, but there’s a shoe.”
“I’m listening.” He smelled like home. No cologne today, just the honest fragrance of horse and hay and leather, sun-warmed cotton and musky male.
An unexpected gust of wind lifted a strand of her hair and tossed it in her face. She tucked the strand behind one ear. His gaze tracked her movements, fixed for a moment on her ear, and then he gulped visibly. She wasn’t the only one unsettled.
“Ask me, Lace,” he murmured. “Ask for what you need.”
She rolled her eyes. He sounded so damn seductive.
“You do that as a defense mechanism, you know,” he said.
“Do what?”
“Roll your eyes. It gives you away every time. You do it when you feel insecure.”
She put a hand to her forehead. Was she really doing that? Gotta stop the eye rolling.
“Well,” he prompted.
“Here’s the deal,” she said. “I need you.”
A grin split his face and he cupped a hand around the ear closest to her. “Excuse me. I didn’t quite catch that. Did I hear you say that you need me? Why didn’t you say so? Just let me gallop home and get a condom and I’ll be at your service.”
She suppressed a gigantic eye roll. Do not rise to the bait. “Allow me to rephrase. The town of Cupid needs your help.”
“Ah, I’m disappointed. The other phrasing was so much more provocative.”
“Olive Cooksey embezzled five hundred thousand dollars from the town coffers,” she said, and then proceeded to tell him what Carol Ann had revealed to her and Melody’s solution to the problem. “So you see, you’re the only one that can save the town.”
“You mean save the botanical gardens, save you.”
“Not just the gardens, but the library and the—”
“Yeah, yeah, just admit it. You need my celebrity status to save your hide.”
Did he have to look so smug about it? “Yes, yes, fine. The town needs you. Happy now?”
“No.”
“Why aren’t you happy? I stroked your ego. You’re the best thing since sliced bread. Everyone bows down at your feet, yada yada.”
“You might want to take a course in diplomacy before you ask someone to do you a favor the next time.” He loosened the reins and nudged his stallion gently in the flank. The horse took off.
“Wait!” She couldn’t let him get away. She had to smooth this over or good-bye botanical gardens.
He slowed to let her catch up with him. “I’m listening.”
“This is hard for me,” she said. “Can we start over?”
“All right.”
She took a deep breath. “Pierce, would you please headline the fund-raising event to save the nonessential, but very important, city services from going away?”
He turned his head, met her gaze with those brown eyes flecked with green, looked straight into her.
Her heart thumped, stumbled. “Well?”
“No.”
No? She wasn’t expecting that. “Why not?”
“You didn’t say ‘please,’ ” he said, and rode off again.
“Will you stop doing that!” she hollered, and chased after him. “Stay still.”
He stopped again as if they were playing some odd equestrian version of Mother May I.
Oh, he was enjoying this to no end. She clutched the reins so tightly that Peony halted in mid-step while Pierce spurred his stallion forward again.
“Please, Pierce. I need your help. Please do this for Cupid.”
“Nope,” he called over his shoulder.
“Ah, c’mon!” She hurried to catch up with him at once. Peony snorted as if to say, Make up your mind psycho bitch.
“I’ll only do it if you ask me to please do it for you.”
“Fine, fine.” She huffed.
“And you have to ask without the attitude.”
She smiled forcefully, her jaw aching from gritting her teeth.
“You look like a shark.”
Argh! She relaxed her face into a natural smile. “Pretty please with sugar on top, will you do this favor for me, Pierce. Please will you help me save the botanical gardens? I want you. I need you. I have to have you or my life is over. How’s that?”
He looked at her like she was the most amusing thing this side of Disney World. “Now was that so hard?”
“A root canal without novocaine would have been easier.”
“You still don’t get the whole concept of how to ask for a favor, do you?”
“Good God, are you going to do it or not? If not, then just stop torturing me.”
He canted his head, and as they trotted side by side he gave her a contemplative look so long she started to get itchy.
“Well?” she nudged.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
She let out a whoop. “Thank you! I really do appreciate it.”
“But only under one condition.”
Uh-oh. The torment continued. “What’s that?” she asked warily.
“You agree to be my date to this Labor Day dinner—”
“Seriously?”
“It’s nonnegotiable. I don’t want to have to fend off groupies all day. I need a date. You’re elected.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll be your date, but don’t expect me to enjoy everyone fawning all over His Royal Highness.”
“And—”
“You said one thing. You can’t go adding a stipulation after you said one thing.”
“Then never mind.”
“You like seeing me squirm, don’t you?”
This time when he looked at her, the light in his eyes was wickedly, unabashedly sexual. “You have no idea.”
A shiver of icicles prickled down her back. Her breathing was coming so short and shallow it was a wonder she didn’t hyperventilate.
“What is it? What else do you want? Just know up front that if your request is that I spend the night with you it’s a total deal breaker. You are not the only hotshot football jock in the world.”
“Ah,” he said, “but I’m the only hotshot football jock that you know. Relax, sleeping with me is not the stipulation, although if you’ve got a mind to do that, I’m not the least bit opposed.” He gave her a slow, sexy wink and a smile to match.
Goose bumps spread over her skin and she shivered again. The man knew how to seduce. She’d give him that, but she certainly wouldn’t tell him to his face. “Spit it out. What further suffering do you have up your sleeve for me?”
“Sweetheart,” he drawled, “if you want me to snap this ball, you have to agree to go shopping with me and let me pick out what you’re going to wear.”