Oh, my.
Deston's gaze was coasting over her body, and the hairs on Emmy’s limbs tingled with the thrill of it.
Was he checking her out?
She needed to act as if this were an everyday occurrence.
Coolly tilting her head toward the sun, she said, “It’s good to see you again, Deston.”
“Likewise.” He paused, burning her with his direct stare, his topsy-turvy charm. “You know, I’m trying to think of why I ever called you Lemon Face.”
Emmy’s wishful thinking burst. He’d had a secret nickname for her and it was… “Lemon Face?”
“Don’t look so thunderstruck. Don’t you remember? I used to tease you about, well, everything, and you’d make this awful expression. Like you were sucking on lemons.”
Wait. Deston had never teased Emmylou Brown. Ever.
They’d never even exchanged a word. She’d been just one of many servants’ children, and he’d been a future millionaire in the making. Heck, she’d never even made eye contact with him, afraid of what she’d find embedded in his gaze: derision, distance, emptiness.
All the hope, all the happiness of finally being acknowledged by her childhood crush abandoned her in one big sigh.
He thought she was someone else. Some lucky socially-equal playmate from days gone by.
Of course, that’s it. You’re nothing but a convenience to all the Rhodes family. They don’t even know you exist except for your cooking.
But she knew better. She could be so much more than that. Someday.
Emmy closed her eyes, blocking him out. For a second there she’d preened under his girl-you-grew-up-good gaze. She’d been someone who mattered to him.
Well, it was time to set him straight, to go back to reality. She prepared to tell him who she was, to watch as disinterest stiffened his spine to a more Rhodes-like posture of entitlement. Wasn’t it unfortunate that she couldn’t be his old friend, the woman who’d caught his eye? A person who’d probably never had to hide hole-gouged sneakers under a school desk in utter shame. A girl who’d probably never had a teacher try to slip her lunch money because she’d “forgotten” it three days in a row—when, actually, Emmy had stuffed the dollars her mama had given her back into her parents’ stash, knowing it’d do more help there than in her stomach.
Even now she appreciated the irony. A cook’s daughter, going without a meal.
When she opened her eyes again, he was still watching her, and Emmy almost melted all over the rock.
“Damn,” he said. “You went and got prettier on me. You’re sure not the Lemon Face I recall.”
She sure wasn’t.
With a this-could-have-been-so-beautiful grin, she turned over on the rock, away from him, resting her chin on her fist. “I’m not the girl you think I am.”
She heard him chuckle, slide off his mount, rustle around as he secured the horse to a tree. “All right. So maybe you’ve grown out of the nickname. Hell, a lot of things have changed since we were kids.”
Well, that hadn’t worked. She was talking literally, and he wasn’t.
His boots crunched over the fallen oak leaves, the birds cutting off their warbling as he passed them. “My parents said you’re leaving the ranch today. I’m sorry I haven’t been to many dinners in the big house or barbecues on the back lawn. Business swallowed me right up. But you understand, I’m sure, being a Stanhope.”
Stanhope? The name sounded vaguely familiar, probably because it denoted one of a thousand guests who’d stayed at the ranch. Emmy spared him a glance from her prone position, her heart clenching.
The man of her youthful dreams, framed by a thicket of juniper and a passel of butterflies dancing around a tuft of hackberry. A knotted rope that the servant kids had used long ago to swing into the spring-fed pond dangled in front of him, and he reached out for it, fisting the hemp. The tendons in his forearm strained, leading up to the bunched muscles disappearing beneath his rolled-up sleeves. With the other hand, he whipped off his Stetson, revealing brown hair, green eyes. A football-hero grin.
“At least you recognized the old swimming hole,” he said.
Would he be standing here, shooting the breeze, flirting, by gosh, if he knew she was below him?
No. The senior Mr. Rhodes would never stand for it. And neither would her self-confidence, actually.
But this was a moment she’d always fantasized about. Could she get away with just talking with him, living a dream for a harmless few minutes?
She swallowed. What the heck. She’d never get this chance again.
“I thought this place might offer some peace and quiet.” Was that her with the siren voice? It was so easy to be someone other than Emmy. “But then you appeared.”
Deston pretended to stumble back, hand over his heart. “Hey, if I’m infringing on your good time, I’ll get going. But at least I got you to turn over before your front was fried to a crisp.”
“I’m much obliged.” See, this was no big deal, having a normal conversation with a demigod.
“Don’t mention it.” He stepped out of the shade, into the sunlight, nearer to her. “Anything else I can do?”
“You can fetch my water.” What a fun turnabout. A Rhodes serving her. This had to be the first sign of the world’s demise.
He shrugged, came closer, grabbed the bottle and held it out.
Emmy hitched in a breath. She’d never seen him this close before. Sure, she and her friends—other kids whose parents served on the ranch—had peeked through bushes at the Rhodes boys: Harry, with his untamable cowlick, Deston, with his shirttail always trailing out of his pants until Mrs. Rhodes would tuck it back in and shake her head at his carelessness. The girls would giggle to each other, every one taking a turn at imagining ways that Harry or Deston would propose to them.
In a jet to Monte Carlo? On a ballroom floor? On a yacht?
They’d played their hide-and-sigh games until Harry and Deston had each gone off to prep school. Then college. Mama had told Emmy that Deston had come back to San Antonio a few years ago to become a businessman just like his father.
But, by then, Emmy had gone off to complete her own destiny, reluctantly using the gift of her parents’ life savings in order to train for the job she’d always been expected to assume.
But now, Deston was right here, so close she could lift her hand and touch the long spiky strands of his hair. So close she could smell a hint of sage on his tanned skin, see it in the green of his eyes. There was a slight dimple in his strong chin, too, and a touch of stubble slinking along his jawline.
“Thanks,” she ribbeted, doing her best impression of a toad. Grabbing the water, she fiddled with the top, hating that he made her feel as if she was always craning her neck to catch sight of him. A boy on a pedestal.
Now a man.
Oh, yeah. All man.
He crouched next to her, setting his Stetson on the limestone, waiting.
What should she do? Emmy wasn’t exactly a world-class flirt, especially after what had happened in Italy…. Not that it mattered now. Nope. It was just that she’d heard about all Deston’s brief romances from the servants, who’d caught her up on every detail the minute she’d walked through the downstairs door.
Talk to him, she thought. Chat, just chat.
“So,”