Eva saw the long, black limousine the moment she stepped through the ornate doors of the Driskill’s main entrance. Of course she didn’t think a thing of it; after all, Austin boasted both a moneyed population and a steady stream of celebrities. It was only when the driver got out and opened the back door for Elena that Eva did a double take.

Her daughter was decked out in a pale blue wrap-around skirt, a form-fitting tank top, and over-sized sunglasses. She looked like she belonged in a limo, and when she waved at Eva, her grin lit up the morning.

“Awesome, isn’t it? Aunt Marianne booked it for the entire day. And there’s wine back here. Liquor, too.”

“I guess we don’t need to go to Fredericksburg. We can just drive around town and drink the limo’s stash.”

“Don’t go into stand-up comedy, Mom.”

Eva smirked, then nodded at the driver as she followed Elena into the limousine. It was fully loaded, with a television, DVD player, privacy screen, sunroof, and a control panel suggesting even more features Eva couldn’t imagine. Possibly a hot tub. Or a rocket launcher.

“This is incredible,” she said, as the driver pulled away from the hotel. “Marianne really set this up?”

“Yeah, cool, isn’t it?”

“I think I’m paying her entirely too much.”

“Ha ha. Don’t you even think about the cost. This is a day to enjoy.”

Eva nodded and pulled out her phone. “I’m not arguing. I did a little research last night. If we take RM 1431, that takes us through someplace called Lago Vista and then onto Marble Falls, and both are supposed to be pretty. Then we go up to Johnson City and over to Fredericksburg. And there are wineries along the way that we can stop in at. See?” She held up her phone and pointed to the map.

“And then when we’re in Fredericksburg, there are some darling places to shop and ton of wineries around the town. And as for food, we can do traditional German or find something else. Apparently, they have everything. Even the Nimitz Museum, which is the National Museum of the Pacific War. I’m not sure why it’s landlocked in Texas, but we can check it out, and if it’s cool, you should mention it to your father. There’s probably a lot of Naval stuff he’d be interested in.”

“Mmm. Yeah. I’ll do that.”

Eva shot a glance toward Elena, then decided the unenthusiastic response was because she didn’t want her mother dragging her to a museum on a drinking and shopping day. Fair enough.

“There’s also a place called Wildseed Farms that looks fun. They sell the flowers, but also crafts and ice cream.” She stressed the last word and got a laugh from Elena. But it seemed a little hollow, too.

She sat her phone on the seat between them, crossed her arms, and said, “Okay, what’s going on? This was your idea, and I’m the one who’s giddy.”

“I’m fine,” Elena said. “I’m just super tired. I didn’t sleep well at all last night.” She reached over and grabbed Eva’s phone, clicking the side button to darken the display. Then she reached down and dropped it into Eva’s purse. “So, the limo’s pretty cool, right? And there’s music.”

As she turned toward the console, Eva grabbed her phone again.

“Mom! It’s our time. Don’t be hanging on your phone.”

“I just want to follow the map. There are places we might want to stop. And—okay. What are we doing on the east side of the highway?”

Elena’s brows rose. “I don’t know how to get to Fredericksburg and neither do you. Let’s trust the driver, okay?”

But as they talked, the limo made a right turn off Airport Boulevard and into a neighborhood. Eva kept her head down, not sure if she should laugh or shout.

In the end, she decided on a maternal scowl as she lifted her head to face her daughter. “So,” she said. “Who are we picking up?”

“Ah, um.”

“That’s what I thought.” Definitely a laugh, though she wasn’t going to let it show. “Would have been nice if you’d told me you’d invited him. I might have dressed better.” She wore linen drawstring pants and light cotton T-shirt.

“You look great.”

Eva wanted to disagree—she’d barely put on any make-up—but held her tongue. Elena obviously had orchestrated a chance to spend time with both her parents. It was not—repeat, not—a date, and so it didn’t matter what Eva looked like.

Not that she could escape, even if she wanted to. Because there he was, coming out of the charming little limestone house nestled in among the oak and pecan trees.

He was wearing jeans that hugged his thighs and a short-sleeved navy blue T-shirt that stretched tight across his well-muscled chest and incredibly broad shoulders. She had a sudden, visceral memory of her fingertips stroking his skin, the light dusting of chest hair rough beneath her touch. Of resting her head on his chest as they lay naked together. Of the hard, safe lines of his body.

Okay, stop. Just stop.

She took a deep breath designed to reset her senses, grabbed a tissue from the box on the back console, and wiped the line of sweat that had formed on her upper lip and at the back of her neck.

If Elena noticed, Eva was blaming it on the early onset of menopause, truth be damned.

After killing the engine, the driver came around and opened the curbside door, and Elena scrambled out, her squeal of, “Check it out! We’re going in style,” making Tyree laugh, the low rumbling baritone doing all sorts of pleasant things to Eva’s body.

Pleasant, and yet inconvenient.

There was no denying that her attraction to the man hadn’t faded over the years. If anything, it had intensified. He was a man now, not a boy. He owned a business. He knew how to roll with the punches. And from what little she’d seen with him and Elena, he was a pretty damn amazing father.

What he wasn’t, was hers. And she needed to remember that. She wasn’t going to have a fling with the man she’d once had a fling with. Especially since that fling had shifted both their lives off course. True, that had been her father’s fault. But they were both more than twenty years down different paths now. And life was confusing enough without adding fresh layers of lust to the mix.

All of which sounded incredibly rational and intelligent. Too bad for Eva that rational thought and intelligence seemed to go flying off into the hinterlands whenever Tyree so much as looked at her.

Still, she’d closed the door Wednesday night. So she knew she could be strong. She just had to remember to actually do it.

But surely today wouldn’t be much of a problem. After all, they could hardly get wild and naked in a limo with their daughter sitting between them.

She started to slide toward the door, intending to get out and say hello properly, but then he was stooping down to climb inside, and he stopped midway in, his eyes fixed on her, his face a mixture of surprise and pleasure.

She couldn’t help it; she burst into laughter. “You, too?”

A charming grin lit his face. “Do you remember that Disney movie they remade with Lindsay Lohan?”

“The Parent Trap?” She glanced past him to where Elena stood just outside the limo. “One of Elena’s favorite films growing up.”

He slid all the way into the limo and settled on the long bench seat perpendicular to hers, so close that their knees brushed. She shifted sideways, because even that tiny bit of contact was setting off sparks of awareness that were far too disturbing and very confusing.

“I’m not at all surprised,” Tyree said.

“What?” Her head flew up to meet his eyes.

“About the movie. What did you think I—”

“Never mind.”

“This is going to be fabulous,” Elena said, climbing into the car and rescuing Eva from her own idiocy.

Then the driver shut the door, and a few moments later they were underway.

“Okay,” Elena said. “Who’s drinking what? And no fair saying nothing because we have a limo, and sober is not the point of this trip.”

Tyree and Eva exchanged smiles. “You raised a bossy little thing.”

“It’s a trait she inherited from her father.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Elena chirped. “You’re both comedians. Come on. I want drink orders.”

“Whiskey,” Eva said, then saw Tyree smile. “What?”

“Not a thing. I’ll have the same.”

“Gotcha covered,” Elena said, then knelt in front of the bar as she poured their drinks, then poured a glass of wine for herself.

They chatted about their itinerary for a bit, with both Elena and Eva breathing a surreptitious sigh of relief when Tyree told them that the Nimitz Museum was fabulous, but that he’d been there several times.

“Are we going that 1431 route?” Eva said. “Because it looks like there’s a winery right before we get to Marble Falls.”

“I’m not sure what he’s doing,” Tyree said, bending to look out the window. “Unless he knows about a wreck that’s not showing on your map, I would have thought he’d be on the highway by now. Not over here in Crestview where—”

“What?” Eva said, looking up from her phone to find Tyree giving the stinkeye to their daughter. “Oh, dear.”

“Why are we in the Crestview neighborhood, Elena?”

“What’s in Crestview?” Eva asked.

“Some darling little houses. Including Brent’s.” At her blank look, he continued, “The man who showed you back to my office. One of my partners at The Fix.”

“And a single dad,” Elena hurried to say. “He asked if I could babysit today. And Marianne had already booked the limo, and I was afraid if I told you guys then one of you would bail, and honestly, don’t you want to catch up? If nothing else, Tyree needs to hear about every single adorable thing I did growing up. And, honestly, I was pretty adorable. That’s bound to take all day.”

She paused for a breath, and Eva tried very hard not to laugh. Based on Tyree’s expression, he was trying as well.

“You know,” Tyree said, “I would have been happy to simply take your mother out tonight—even tonight and tomorrow if that’s what it took to convey your awesomeness,” he added, with a hint of mischief in his eyes. “No wild scheme necessary.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to make sure you guys talked now. And, you know, had a nice time. I mean, since she’s leaving tomorrow.”

Tyree turned from Elena to Eva. “You’re leaving?”

She thought she heard disappointment in his voice, but she pushed it away. She’d decided to leave. She needed to leave. It was best if she left. “I don’t live here, remember? And I have a business back home, and I’m heading to Vancouver on Sunday. A very long-awaited vacation.”

She turned toward Elena with her best stern-mom expression. “I’d intended to leave today, but my daughter convinced me to spend the extra time with her.”

Elena waved the words away. “You’ve spent time with me for twenty-three years. Honestly, you must be sick to death of me. But guess who you haven’t seen for twenty-three years…” She trailed off with a significant look at Tyree who, being a ham, spread his arms at his sides and flashed a crazy grin.

“You’re really okay with this?” she asked him.

“With spending time with the one person who can tell me what my daughter’s first word was? Yeah. I’m okay with that.”

“All right, then. And it was no. Go figure.”

They pulled up in front of a charming wood and stone house, and the driver started around to Elena’s door.

“One thing,” Tyree said. “I thought you said I should talk to your mom about doing the—”

“Pictures?” Elena cut in. “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. Hard to do that if she leaves.”

Tyree’s brow furrowed, but he didn’t say anything else. So Eva asked. “What pictures?”

“No big deal,” Elena assured her. “Go on. Have fun.” She leaned over and kissed Eva, then gave Tyree’s cheek a kiss, too. “Have fun, you two. Have as much fun as you want to.”

Then she hopped out of the car and hurried up the sidewalk where the man Eva had met on Wednesday was opening the door and waving at the limo. Eva caught a glimpse of a dark-haired little cutie before the door shut, and her daughter disappeared, and she was left alone in the back of a limo with a man she was wildly attracted to … but who was also absolutely, one-hundred percent off-limits for at least a dozen reasons.

None of which she could actually call to mind at the moment.