Her Single Dad Hero. Arlene James
seemed slim at best, especially once she’d started outdoing many of the guys at sports. For most of her college career, she’d focused on academics, sports and working enough to help her parents afford tuition and expenses. Her disinterest in partying had ruled out a great many prospective dating partners, but she hadn’t worried about it. Now, suddenly, she wondered if something might be fundamentally wrong with her, if she was seriously lacking in the feminine qualities necessary to attract male interest.
Horrified by the future painted for her by Coach Lyons and the teacher, Caroline Carmody, she had taken steps to ensure that she would never be War Bonnet’s pathetic spinster. Telling her family that she wanted to focus on hotel management, she had transferred to the University of North Texas for her senior year. The move had required her to give up her scholarship, take several extra classes and delay graduation until the age of twenty-two, but she’d made up for all that with hard work and early success in her field.
She’d told only one other soul about the fears she’d nursed for so long.
Her fiancé Jordan’s only response at the time had been to say that War Bonnet’s loss was Luxury HotelInc’s gain. Later, when he’d proposed, Jordan had reminded her that no one in War Bonnet could possibly value her as much as he and LHI did.
Ann had successfully avoided conversation with Jack Lyons until that very morning at the gas station. Jack climbed up out of his vintage Mustang and reached for the gas nozzle. He’d put on a bit of weight, but he still looked almost exactly like he had the day he’d impacted her life. His gaze slid over Ann on the opposite side of the pump with a friendly, disinterested nod then came back for a second look.
“Jolly!” he exclaimed, making Ann cringe.
“Coach,” she returned quietly, willing the slow old pump to fill the coupe tank faster.
Lyons walked around the pump to take a long look at the coupe.
“Very nice. Series 4?”
She nodded.
“I always knew you’d make good,” he said, smiling. “You still in Dallas?”
“Yes. I manage a hotel there.”
His gaze raked over the car again. “Big, fancy hotel, I imagine.”
“You could say that. I, uh, I understand you’re head coach now.”
“Athletic director,” he corrected proudly.
She put on a smile. “Ah. Congratulations.”
“Thanks. How’s your dad? Heard he’s been ill.”
She nodded. “Undergoing chemotherapy.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear it.”
“I’ll tell him you asked about him.”
Lifting her arms, she swept her hair back with both hands, trying not to fidget beneath his stare.
“Is that an engagement ring I see, or have you taken to wearing a house on your finger?” he quipped.
Feeling rather smug about it, Ann straightened the cushion-cut diamond. “I am engaged, as a matter of fact.”
“Congratulations. Dallas boy?”
“Not a boy,” Ann said pointedly, “and not from Dallas, at least not originally. He’s actually from New Hampshire, though he’s moved around a lot. Right now he’s filling in for me while I’m here helping out.”
“So you’re coworkers, then.”
“Not exactly. He used to be my boss. Now he’s upper management in another area of the company.”
“So when you’re married you’ll be living where?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” she admitted. “Jordan is working that out with the company now.”
“Won’t be in War Bonnet, though, will it?”
“No. It won’t be in War Bonnet.”
Jack nodded. “Well, don’t be a stranger.”
The fuel pump clicked off. Ann turned away with a sense of satisfaction mingled with relief, saying, “I’ll try not to. I really need to get going now.”
He pushed away from the truck. “Important doings, huh?”
“Boot shopping.”
“Ah. Where you headed?”
“Duncan, I suppose.” Ann replaced the cap on the neck of the gas tank.
“Try the Western wear store on 81,” he advised.
“Okay.”
“Good seeing you,” he said, wandering back toward his vehicle.
Smiling, Ann climbed into the car, started up the engine and drove away, thinking how odd it was that the man who had so impacted her life would never know how he had changed things for her. Had she not overheard that conversation that day, she might well have finished school, come back to War Bonnet and...what? She’d had some vague notion of taking over the ranch at some point, but other than that...
For some reason, Dean Pryor’s face sprang up before her mind’s eye, so real in that instant that she gasped.
Heart pounding, she shook her head. Dean Paul Pryor was nothing to her. He could never be anything to her. Why, he didn’t even compare to Jordan.
She told herself that was because Jordan existed on an entirely different plane than the men in War Bonnet. He was suave, polished, always expertly groomed. She’d never seen him in anything other than a classically tailored suit. Jordan’s idea of casual wear was a suit without a tie, but even then he tended to favor silk T-shirts in place of his usual handmade dress shirts. She wondered if he even owned a pair of jeans. He must. They’d been friends for years, and she’d seen photos of him swimming and skiing. Surely he didn’t wade up out of the ocean or come down off the slopes only to relax in a nice three-piece, Italian wool suit. It was just that most of their interactions had taken place in more formal surroundings.
Truthfully, Ann didn’t have much of a life outside the hotel. Being on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week put a damper on a girl’s social life. That was why she and Jordan had become friends in the first place; she just didn’t have a lot of other options.
When Jordan had returned to Dallas to temporarily take over for her during her leave of absence so she could help her father through this health challenge, Jordan had immediately confessed that he’d formed feelings for her when he’d been her boss that had gone beyond friendship. He’d declared that he meant to sweep her off her feet, and then he’d done just that. In the three weeks they’d had to bring him up to speed on the current operations of the hotel before she’d left for Oklahoma, they’d become engaged.
Strangely, however, Jordan, Dallas and the hotel no longer seemed quite real. Instead, Dean Pryor, War Bonnet and the Straight Arrow were her current reality. Surely it was natural, then, to compare Jordan to Dean.
And yet, she could not bring herself to do it. She simply refused to compare her fiancé to Dean Pryor in any way. She didn’t even want to know why.
* * *
“Yep, those are boots, all right,” Dean pronounced, staring down at Ann’s feet on Friday morning. He was very glad that he’d kept his sunglasses on after she’d driven up and gotten out of the truck, for he feared that she’d have read in his eyes exactly what he thought of those pink-and-pearl-white, pointed-toe monstrosities.
Apparently he didn’t cover his opinion up well enough, because she brought her hands to her shapely hips and demanded, “What’s wrong with them?”
“Nothing!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “They’ll protect your toes out here just fine.”
She frowned at the rounded toes of his scuffed, brown leather boots