Was it?
His second in charge, Rand Marks, spoke in his ear.
“Boss, this weighs a ton. Want to keep moving?”
From their expressions, the other assistants were also curious about the holdup. There wasn’t one. Or shouldn’t be.
Daniel was known in the business not only for talent but also decisiveness. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d second-guessed himself. When he’d been invited to submit for this project, he’d put his fifteen odd years of successful industry know-how behind developing a design that would blow the committee members away—old-school as well as avant-garde. And yet now, that bombshell’s one dubious look burned like a smoking brand in his mind.
Who was she anyway?
“I’m sorry to intrude, but you must be Abigail Langley’s friend?”
At the sound of a sultry, Southern, very female voice, Daniel’s heartbeat skipped and his attention shifted again. The blonde, and her ambivalent expression, now stood an arm’s length away. Close up, she wasn’t merely hot. Lord above, she was stunning. Wrapped up in a silver-fur jacket and jeans that hugged hips and thighs just right, she looked as if she’d just stepped off the Aspen slopes. Set in a fine oval face, large, well-lashed green eyes sparkled like a pair of priceless jewels. But her long bouncy mane struck him most. It was the kind of hair that made a man’s fingertips itch to reach out and touch.
Setting his jaw, Daniel straightened his spine.
None of that altered the fact he was less than thrilled by her reaction to his work. He’d satisfied countless clients and had become filthy rich in the process. He didn’t need to field subtle insults at the eleventh hour from “Miss Texas and Loving It” here.
Dragging his gaze from those plump kissable lips, Daniel cleared his throat and answered the lady’s question.
“Yes. I’m Abigail Langley’s friend—”
“Daniel Warren.” She tasted his name as if she were enjoying a sip of sweet hot chocolate on a blustery winter’s day. “You’re the hotshot architect Abigail brought in all the way from New York City.”
When the peak of one fair eyebrow arched, Daniel took a moment. Was she goading or flirting? With these Southern belles, who could tell?
“Don’t know about hotshot, but I’m well-known in the industry,” he confirmed as her weight shifted from one denim-clad leg to the other and she hitched her Birkin higher on one shoulder. “You know Abigail, too?”
“Everyone in these parts knows Abby. Her husband, God rest his soul, was the great-great-great-grandson of Tex Langley, the founder of this establishment.” When she leaned a conspiratorial inch closer, he caught the scent of her perfume—delicate with undertones of dangerous. “My money’s on Abigail to win the upcoming election. She’d make a fine club president—” those lush lips pursed “—no matter what that stick-in-the-mud Brad Price has to say on the matter.”
A suit in his forties sauntered up. He spared Daniel a cursory glance before addressing the lady with a lazy Texan drawl.
“My dear, we’re expected inside.”
“I was introducing myself to a visitor to Royal,” she said, indicating Daniel with a nod and interested smile.
“Boss?”
Daniel’s attention slid back. Damn, he’d forgotten the boys.
“If you’re going to be a while,” Rand said, “mind if the rest of us take this inside? Don’t know about you but my arms are ready to snap.”
Daniel slipped his arms from beneath the model’s base as the other three continued on up the path to the headquarters’ front doors.
Daniel wiped his palms down his trousers then offered his hand. “Daniel Warren.”
“Elizabeth Milton.” Her hand was small and warm but her grip defied the term weaker sex. “And this is Chadwick Tremain.”
Her escort offered a curt nod and, without accepting Daniel’s extended hand, wound his arm through Elizabeth Milton’s.
“Mr. Warren,” he muttered in acknowledgment. Then to Elizabeth, “Our table’s waiting.”
She glanced over her shoulder as his team disappeared through the headquarters’ opened doors. Then, looking back at her companion, she angled her head, sending that blond waterfall cascading like a sheet of silk over one shoulder. “Y’all go on ahead, Chad. I’ll catch up.”
The man’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows knitted. “I told Michaels we’d be—”
“Chad.” She unwound her arm from his. “I’ll meet you inside.”
Daniel thought he heard the older man growl before he straightened the Windsor knot at his throat and sauntered away.
Daniel grunted. “Your boyfriend doesn’t like me much.”
“Boyfriend?” Those emeralds sparkled as she laughed. “Chad’s my financial advisor. He keeps an eye out for me.”
“You need looking after?”
A faint line creased between her eyebrows. “I suppose that’s a matter of opinion,” she said, before placing one cowboy boot in front of the other and heading at a leisurely pace up the path. “You sound like a Yankee, Mr. Warren.” She grinned at his custom-made black wool overcoat. “You dress like one, too. But I detect a hint of South Carolina in your accent.”
While Daniel’s throat swelled, he maintained his unaffected air. It had been years since his move. His escape. Few picked up on the remnants of a drawl anymore.
“These days, home’s a long way from Charleston,” he offered.
“You don’t miss the—”
“No,” he cut in with a quick smile. “I don’t.”
New York was just far enough away from the South and its memories. The only reason he was down this far was business, and as soon as that was concluded he’d roll his sleeves back down and red-eye it home to the life he’d built and loved.
“I hope you plan on seeing a little of our state while you’re here,” she went on as they strolled side by side.
“Famous for the Alamo, ten-gallon hats and, uh, longhorns.”
Her lips twitched at his leading look and inflection on his last word. “Oh, your design’s not entirely bad.”
He wanted to ask her what, in her opinion, would make a good design. Which was crazy. Firstly, he was the guy with the credentials and, secondly, he didn’t need to complicate his limited time here by musing over someone who was, perhaps, ten years his junior and whose loyalty no doubt lay in her daddy’s oil fields and memories of the wild, Wild West.
Definitely not his scene.
Entering the club’s foyer, which was all dark wood and old-world smells and charm, he stopped to bid his little-known companion goodbye. But Elizabeth Milton’s attention had drifted elsewhere, to a sign hung over the entrance door.
“Abigail would’ve told you about this?” she asked.
He examined the iron-studded plaque and read the words burned into the wood. “Leadership, Justice and Peace.”
“The Texas Cattleman’s creed,” she explained reverently. “The words are strong enough without the legend that brought them together.” Her gaze caught his, so wide and innocent that something in his chest swelled to twice its size then fisted tight. “You ought to get Abigail to tell you the story. It might give you something to work with.”
Daniel’s jaw shifted. He could take that