LITMIR.BIZ

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Hank knew better than to set any precedents. Give a woman an inch and the rest was history.

      For the next forty-five minutes he played phone tag with club member Greg Hunt, who’d left a cryptic message earlier, talked to his broker, to the head of his accounting firm and to the chief designer at the avionics firm that built his new Avenger with a suggestion for making the flight deck more pilot-friendly.

      Through it all, the feeling of being in the crosshairs persisted. Being a matrimonial target was nothing new to a bachelor pushing forty who happened to be the sole owner of the exclusive Texas Cattleman’s Club as well as the state’s biggest oil baron, according to a prominent financial journalist.

      All the same, there were days when he felt like nothing so much as a side of fresh beef thrown into a pool filled with hungry sharks.

      Oil baron. He hated the sound of it, but it had been applied to the men of his family for three generations. It had started out way back in the early part of the century when Langley One had blown in, followed within the week by three more, all flowing at better than ninety barrels per day. His father, Henry, Jr., had expanded the family business by leasing drilling rights all across the south, including the Gulf of Mexico. Some were still operative, but only about ten percent of the Langley wealth was tied up in oil at the moment. Most of Hank’s investments were in technology, Texas having already moved ahead of Silicon Valley in the computer field.

      But wealth was wealth and women were women, and regardless of his decision that it was time to marry if he ever intended to, Hank had no intention of going meekly to the highest bidder.

      At Claire’s, the town’s finest French restaurant, Hank ordered his usual rare sirloin with a side of lobster, hold the fancy sauces. Pansy, wearing a casual outfit the color of dry sand that matched her hair perfectly, spent fifteen minutes poring over the menu, then ordered her usual Bloody Mary, snails in plain butter, salad with extra dressing, fresh croissants and diet soda.

      The long-suffering waiter nodded, and Hank gave him a look of silent commiseration.

      Pansy wanted to talk about the club’s annual ball. “You didn’t invite Bianca, did you? She said you hadn’t.”

      “I’ve been too busy worrying with the business end to think about the personal end.” It was no less than the truth. He’d had a steady stream of charities in and out of his office for the past couple of weeks, eager to hop aboard before the train left the station. Fund-raising was the biggest growth industry in town, and the club’s annual ball was the charity event of the year, the proceeds being divided among a varying, carefully selected list of local charities.

      On the personal side, at last year’s event one of Bianca’s friends had announced her engagement. The year before, Pansy’s younger sister had chosen that particular arena for the same announcement. It was becoming the place to announce plans of a matrimonial nature. Hank couldn’t get rid of the feeling that the sharks were moving in for the kill.

      Pansy waited for the waiter to open her napkin with a fine French flourish and spread it over her lap before launching onto a fresh topic. “Hanky, don’t you think it’s time to have that old place redecorated? I mean, all that heavy paneling and those ugly old animal heads. It’s depressing. Nobody has animal heads these days.”

      Hanky? “Mounted trophies are traditional.”

      “Oh, poo on tradition, what you need is something light and cheerful. I could give you a few suggestions,” she added coyly.

      “I’m sure you could. Look, Pansy, I appreciate it, but the members—”

      “They’d love it. You can’t tell me anyone wants a herd of gloomy old moose heads glaring down at them all the time. Didn’t you ever hear of animal rights? Give the poor things a decent burial.”

      “What did you have in mind, mounted teddy bears? Or maybe some dried-flower wreaths?”

      “Oh, God, you’re in one of your moods again, I can tell.”

      One of his moods? Was he really that bad? He’d thought he was being pretty damn reasonable for a man who was starting to think seriously about marriage for the first time in his life.

      The second time, actually, but his first marriage didn’t count. If he’d had a functioning brain back then, it had been below the belt.

      All the same, Pansy was getting a little too territorial. When anyone, man or woman, moved in on him too fast, old military habits took over and he threw up a barricade.

      Or in this case, a red herring. “Speaking of decorating, I’ve been considering doing something to the Pine Valley house, maybe putting it on the market.” It had been his father’s house, bought for his fourth wife only two years before they’d both been killed in an avalanche on a skiing trip. Hank had inherited it, along with everything else. He’d hung onto it, not for sentimental reasons, because his father had lived there, but because good real estate was a sound investment.

      Pansy pounced like a hound on a ham bone. “Why don’t we run out there after we leave here and look it over? I know this perfectly marvelous decorator in Odessa—Mama had him last spring.”

      Pansy’s mama had had half the men in Texas. That was no recommendation.

      “Uh…I’ve got to fly up to Midland tonight—” He invented a business trip on the spur of the moment. “Maybe when I get back…” He checked his watch, and then checked it a few more times when she was slow in taking the hint. There was something about that avid look on her face that made him distinctly uneasy as he led her outside the restaurant and signaled for his car to be brought around.

       Go ahead, pop the question. What are you waiting for, violins?

      Hank told himself he was waiting for his gut to settle down. Even without all the fancy sauces, French food was too rich for his blood, but Pansy loved the place.

      He drove her home, as she’d sent her own car home earlier, and walked her to the door. Declining her invitation for a nightcap and whatever else she had in mind, he left her on her doorstep, but not before she kissed him goodnight. Latched on to him like moss on a wet rock and let him have both barrels.

      Hell, he was only human. He kissed her back, tasting buttery lipstick, inhaling her overpowering perfume, wishing he felt a spark of interest. Objectively speaking, she was a gorgeous piece of work, and it had been a long dry spell, seeing as how he was inclined to be particular where his sex life was concerned.

      And besides, if he was going to marry the woman.

      It wasn’t enough. He wanted more. Didn’t know exactly what it was he was holding out for, but he suspected that Pansy Ann Estrich didn’t even come close. So he managed to escape unmolested, then asked himself on the way home if he was being a damned fool to turn down what she was offering, with or without a commitment.

      Nah…he wasn’t. He was finally facing up to the depressing fact that unless he married and had children of his own, Henry Harrison Langley, III, was a dead end, the last of three generations of spectacularly successful men. The trouble was, he was increasingly certain that Pansy wasn’t the answer. For one thing, she didn’t like children. For another, she lacked even a vestigial sense of humor.

      And then there was the inescapable fact that odds were against any man of his age, and with his family history, making a successful marriage. His grandfather had been widowed twice and divorced once, back in the days when divorce was tantamount to disgrace. His father had run through three more wives after Hank’s mother had died giving birth to a stillborn daughter.

      Aside from all that—or maybe because of it—he was pretty much of a loner. At the age of seventeen he’d eloped with a fifteen-year-old cheerleader who’d lied about her age. Hank’s idea of marriage had been nonstop sex. Tammy’s had been nonstop shopping. Major incompatibility. His father had paid her off and had the marriage annulled, which had broken Hank’s heart, but opened his eyes.

      Inherited wealth had left him with a bitter taste in his mouth,

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