Lone Star Wedding. Sandra Steffen

own. What a shame you’re going alone. Whoever could you call? Perhaps some tall, dashing man with an 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.”

      “Maybe you should call him.”

      “He 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 and reached 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.

      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, corners and 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.

      “He’ll be back in a moment, Mom.”

      Lily glanced around sharply at Hannah. “I know that, dear.”

      “Then what is it?” Hannah asked, trying to understand the reason for her mother’s obvious discomfiture. “Maria isn’t coming, is that it? Is that why you’re chewing on your bottom lip?”

      Smoothing an errant strand of hair back into the intricate knot on the back of her head, Lily said, “I’m disappointed that your sister isn’t here, but that’s not it.”

      “Then, what is it?”

      Lily squeezed her middle child’s hand. “You know me so well. Am I really so transparent?”

      “You’re beautiful, and you know it. I can tell when something’s bothering you, that’s all. What could possibly be marring this happy occasion?”

      “I’ve learned that Ryan’s attorney is dead-set against Ryan and I making our engagement public. Ryan won’t listen, but what if he’s right? He started divorce proceedings long before he and I found one another again, but what if my presence in his life makes it even more difficult for him to finally break free of Sophia?”

      Hannah shook her head sadly. Her own brother was an attorney, so she didn’t dislike all lawyers, but at that moment she very much disliked the attorney who had put the worry in her mother’s brown eyes. “Ryan Fortune has been to hell and back with that woman he married when he was too blind with grief to see her for what she was. He deserves happiness, Mom, and so do you. I’m proud of him for wanting to proclaim his love for you to the world. Maybe Ryan should tell his attorney to take a flying leap the next time he sees him.”

      “Oh, his attorney is here tonight, dear.”

      “He is?”

      Laughter erupted on the other side of the room. Ryan slapped the man closest to him on the back, then held up a glass, his eyes meeting Lily’s. “I’d like to propose a toast.”

      Little by little, conversations throughout the room ceased and everyone looked toward Ryan. It was common knowledge that Ryan had gotten his height and build from his father, the late Kingston Fortune, but his dark hair and eyes came from his mother, Selena. Ryan’s personality, drive and conviction were all his own. “To my future wife.”

      Suddenly all eyes turned to Lily. Lily Redgrove Cassidy stood out in every crowd, but the smile she cast at her future husband made her appear radiant in a way Hannah had never seen. A smile tugged at Hannah’s mouth, as well. She raised her glass, her gaze darting over people all around the room. There were plenty of Fortunes present, of course, but the rest of the guests were a mixture of people who wore power and prestige as if it were their right, and others who had worked for Ryan Fortune for years and had earned a permanent place in the Fortune household as well as in all the Fortunes’ hearts.

      Pleased that all these people were welcoming her mother into their circle, Hannah smiled warmly at her brother, who winked, eliciting a broader smile from her. Her glass was almost to her lips when her gaze meandered to the man standing to Cole’s right. Her eyes widened, her head turning automatically for a more direct look.

      Disbelief had her lowering her glass. She might have glanced right past the piercing blue eyes that were staring directly at her, the chiseled jaw, prominent cheekbones and slightly arrogant tilt of the man’s head, but she couldn’t have overlooked the shadow in the tiny cleft in Parker Malone’s chin even if she’d tried.

      Two

      Hannah couldn’t believe her eyes. Unless Parker Malone had an identical twin, he was staring at her across this very room. Surely every ounce of blood had drained out of her face. It stood to reason, since her heart seemed to have stopped beating.

      She managed to turn her attention to her mother and arrange her features into what she hoped passed for a normal, nonplussed expression. Hannah believed in fate and in chance. She even believed in luck, good and bad. But what in the world were the chances that the same man who had mistaken her for a hooker not only knew the man who was going to marry her mother but knew him well enough to be invited to an intimate party honoring his intended engagement to her mother? If the odds of that weren’t slim enough to constitute bad luck, they were close.