“Pragmatic.”
“Was I that way before?”
She was the wrong person to ask. “I didn’t see you every day, so I can’t judge fairly. You’re five years older than me, too, and that put you way ahead in school.”
“My mother made sure the yearbooks in my room are open to strategic pages.” He rested his elbows on his knees to allow him to be closer. “I looked for you in them, but couldn’t find you.”
“I started Mount Vance High the year you left for college.”
“So when did we meet?”
“Rather, when did you finally notice me?”
His gaze caressed her. “You’re a beautiful woman, Devan. I figure I noticed from the moment you hit puberty.”
“Not with the likes of Megan Maples, Darcie Tracy, Carly Ferris and others competing for your attention.”
An involuntary chuckle burst from his lips and Mead self-consciously rubbed his jaw. “My mother put sticky notes by Megan’s and Darcy’s names. She wrote that Megan is the daughter of the bank president, and the bank remains independently owned and has three branches in neighboring communities, while by Darcy’s name there’s just one word—oil. Oh, and she also noted they were both single.”
Devan wasn’t surprised at Pamela’s not-so-subtle assistance in helping Mead with his memory. Pedigree was all-important to her, as it was to many Southerners. “Who are your people?” and “What church do you attend?” were common and acceptable icebreakers when welcoming a newcomer to a community that continued to embrace old Southern traditions.
“What she left out is that they’re accomplished women,” she replied. “Meg owns the most successful real estate firm in the county. Darcie happens to be an attorney in her father’s oil company.”
“Why do you suppose she left out Carly?” Mead asked.
“Carly’s fortune is inherited and she recently buried her second husband. Stunning though she is, you may be too young for her tastes.”
This time Mead threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Well, I can’t begin to think of what we’d talk about now.”
Too aware of Pamela’s determination, Devan could only smile. “It was good to see you laugh anyway.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you changing the subject away from you.”
In an attempt to keep things light, she quipped, “Ah, but we were discussing your long list of conquests.”
He didn’t even smile this time. “Was I a skirt-chasing SOB, Devan? Is that why you kept me at arm’s length, as you apparently did…and are trying to do again?”
She didn’t use such expressions, even on people who clearly deserved them, and it was painful to hear he worried he could be one of those. “You were never that. You could seem aloof, but that’s because you never wasted time suffering fools, and when a girl failed to get a proposal out of you, they sometimes stroked their injured pride by announcing that you were emotionally cold and that ending the relationship was their idea. You remained a gentleman, graciously never contradicting them.”
His chest rose and fell on a deep breath. “Talk about being gracious…you really did understand me, didn’t you? Is that what I felt when we met again? It was like nothing else I’ve experienced since waking in that hospital bed.”
Devan had to put down her glass for fear of him seeing how his comment left her hands shaking. The one holding the rose she rested in her lap. “Mead, a lot of people understood you, you just haven’t been exposed to them yet. You didn’t lack for friends or attention.”
“My father’s fortune could explain that.”
No one except the most naive could deny that possibility for some, but Devan couldn’t let him miss something important. “You loved life, and that enhanced your natural charisma. You were always seeking something, eager for experience. At least, that was my impression,” she quickly concluded, suddenly embarrassed. What nerve she’d had accusing Lavender of gushing the other day. With her motor mouth, she would yet expose that she hadn’t just watched him from afar, she’d studied him with rapt fascination every chance she’d had.
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