LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Seven

      It was surprisingly easy to keep the conversation light on the way back to The Vines. Maybe, Dixie thought, because of that stubborn rascal, hope. It was back, messing with her mind, making her think dangerous thoughts.

      She reminded herself that they hadn’t really settled anything. Certainly nothing inside her felt settled. Cole had toppled several of her fixed ideas about the past, turning the present into unfamiliar territory.

      He’d bought her a ring. He’d been planning to ask her to wear it.

      Never, not once, had she dreamed that Cole had given any thought to marriage. He’d wanted more than one summer, yes. He’d urged her to take a job in San Francisco so they could continue their affair. She probably would have, too, even though the New York job she’d been offered was better for her professionally. If not for their last big fight she probably would have stayed in California to be close to him.

      What if Cole had taken her out, as planned, on her birthday? What if he’d presented her with that ring? Would she have said yes?

      She didn’t know. That unsettled Dixie more deeply than anything else she’d learned today. For years she’d thought of herself as the one deeply in love, the one most hurt when they couldn’t make their relationship work…now she learned that Cole had been ready to commit to her for life. And she wasn’t sure if she would have said yes.

      Shouldn’t she know? If she’d been so deeply in love, why hadn’t she thought about marriage?

      Dixie couldn’t find answers for those questions. Maybe it was impossible to see the past clearly through the lens of the present. After all, the woman who’d loved Cole for that short, mad summer was gone.

      But the woman who remembered that summer was sitting beside a man who tempted her in ways the younger Cole hadn’t. Hope and humor were beguilements she didn’t know how to defend against.

      Maybe she didn’t want to.

      By the time they reached The Vines, the sky was grumbling to itself through stacked-up clouds dark with rain. Dixie was congratulating herself on arriving ahead of the storm when she noticed the two unfamiliar cars in front of the big house.

      She groaned. “I forgot about the dinner tonight. Should I change? Cancel that,” she said with a glance at her watch. “There isn’t time.” She started digging in her purse, hoping she’d remembered her lipstick.

      Cole grinned. “If I say you look fine, am I being supportive or insensitive?”

      “Honest, I hope.” No lipstick. She grimaced and took out the little brush. At least she could get rid of the tangles.

      He got out, came around to her side and opened her door. She finished with her hair, stashed the brush, stepped out—and he took her hands, both of them, carried them to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of each, in turn. “Fine doesn’t begin to cover it,” he said softly. “I’m not sure how to tell you how good you look.”

      Her cheeks warmed with pleasure. “Try.”

      He cocked one wicked eyebrow. “I could say you look like a wet dream.”

      She laughed and pulled her hands back. “Not when I’m going to dinner with your folks, you can’t.” She slanted him a mischievous look. “But it’s okay if you think it.”

      “I’m thinking,” he assured her as they headed for the door.

      The living room lay past the foyer and the gallery with its curving staircase, and opened onto the covered lanai where Dixie had sketched Caroline. It was a cheerful blend of antiques and French country accents, with fabrics ranging from the drapes striped in poppy, grass and sunflower to the chairs covered in poppy-and-black toiles.

      At the moment, it was full of tense people. One of them was the man Dixie had seen twice now. The Western Man.

      She stopped three paces in, astonished and wary. Whatever he was doing here, no one looked very happy about it.

      Mercedes stood near the sofa with her boyfriend du jour, Craig Bradford—who must have some virtues Dixie had failed to discover, since he’d lasted longer than most. Good looks alone weren’t enough to account for that, given her friend’s theories about relationships.

      Merry looked stunned. Her sister, Jillian, sat on the couch, staring at the stranger and shaking her head slowly, as if she were denying some monstrous question. Across from them, standing nearest their visitor, was Eli.

      Eli was furious.

      It wasn’t obvious, but Dixie had studied that face. She saw the rigid control in the muscles along his jaw and the emotion seething in eyes that burned like green fire.

      They all had green eyes, all of Spencer Ashton’s children, didn’t they?

      Dixie’s mouth fell open at a sudden, impossible thought. Her gaze swung to the stranger.

      “What’s going on?” Cole asked, his voice sharp.

      Eli’s gaze swung to him. “Let me introduce you. This is Grant Ashton. Your oldest brother.”

      “So he says.” Merry’s voice was flat.

      Oh, yes, Dixie thought. Yes, the head shape was the same. The eyes. She’d seen the resemblance the morning she ran into him, but it hadn’t occurred to her…

      “What the hell—?” Cole’s words were more question than curse. He looked from one to the other of them.

      “I know this must be a shock. I’m sorry for that.” That was the stranger, Western Man…Grant Ashton.

      Cole took a step forward, his face hard. “You’d better have some sort of proof.”

      “He does.” Caroline Ashton stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her face pale but composed. “He showed me his parents’ marriage license.”

      “You spoke to him?” Eli asked, scowling.

      She nodded. “I’m sorry. I should have been here when he told you. I…he arrived half an hour ago. After I spoke with him, I went to call Lucas. He’s on his way back from the city and would have been here soon anyway, but I…I just wanted to talk to him. I should have been here,” she repeated. “I’m sorry.”

      “Never mind that.” Jillian hurried to her mother’s side. “Are you all right?”

      Caroline smiled. “Of course.”

      “I

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