Lone Star Wedding Read Free Page A

adorable little cleft in his chin?”
    Leave it to Adrienne to have noticed that.
    Hannah stared past the other woman, picturing the stranger’s strong face. Now that she knew his name, their brief encounter seemed even more intimate. It didn’t change the fact that he’d assumed she was a woman who made her living on her back. It stung her pride, and her pride was important to her.
    She took the dress from Adrienne and hung it in the closet. “He’s pompous, he’s arrogant, he’s shrewd and he has a sharp tongue. A man like that wouldn’t think twice about using a woman like me and then tossing me aside.”
    Hands full of containers, Adrienne headed for the door. “From what you’ve told me about that little episode in the storage room, he didn’t take you up on what he thought you were offering. He must have at least one scruple.”
    â€œMaybe you should call him.”
    â€œHe wasn’t after my phone number, sweetie. I still say you should give it the old college try.”
    With a wink the Southern belles of old would have never gotten away with, Adrienne left. It didn’t take long for Hannah to notice the flat, gray object on the table where she always dumped the mail. She padded over andreached out with one finger, sliding the card closer as if it might bite her.
    Malone, Malone & Associates, P.C. Attorneys At Law
    Adrienne was about as subtle as her bright pink capri pants.
    There was a business address, a business phone number. Hannah turned the card over. On the back was another telephone number, this one written in black ink in a distinctive, masculine scrawl.
    She knew his name. She knew his phone number. Now what? she wondered.
    Now nothing, she told herself. Her encounter with Parker Malone was over. It didn’t matter that he’d been the most ruggedly attractive man she’d ever seen in a suit. He’d embarrassed her. Worse, he’d jumped to conclusions, the most degradingly possible kind.
    Striding to an antique desk, she bent to drop the card into the wicker basket filled with wadded-up notes and paper plates. She stared at the card for a long time, then opened a drawer and dropped it inside.
    Â 
    Hannah accepted a glass of white wine from a pleasant, friendly woman who spoke with a Mexican accent. Taking a small sip, Hannah glanced around. She’d seen Ryan Fortune several times since he’d come back into her mother’s life. The first time she’d visited his home, she’d been in awe of its size. She’d heard someone say the house had eight bedrooms. It was grand, and at the same time warm and lovely. The ceiling in the great room was high and beamed. An old stone fireplace dominated an entire wall. Handwoven blankets hung on the other three walls, pottery made by local artists from the same type of clay on which the house sat leant warmth and interest to shelves, cornersand on the top of a painted armoire that probably hid a television and stereo system from view.
    The house was large, opulent and cordial, as was its owner. Hannah had liked both on sight. Ryan Fortune had promised her mother the party would be a small, friendly gathering. Hannah was beginning to realize that to a man of Ryan’s wealth and social standing, sixty-five to seventy people constituted a small group.
    Hannah stood with her mother near the entryway leading to the dining room. Following the course of her mother’s gaze to the group of men on the other side of the room, one of whom was Lily’s future husband, Hannah smiled. Lily Redgrove Cassidy was lovely, and perhaps even more exotic-looking at fifty-three than she’d been at seventeen. Her firstborn and only son, Cole, stood across the room with Ryan and two men whose backs were to Hannah and her mother.
    â€œHe’ll be back in a moment, Mom.”
    Lily glanced around sharply at Hannah. “I know that, dear.”
    â€œThen what is it?” Hannah