THERE’S NO REASON this should be so hard, Chase told himself several days later as he parked his Jeep in front of the River Oaks mansion where he’d grown up. But it was hard, now that his father was gone. He hadn’t been back to Houston since the funeral over a year ago, and even then he’d avoided coming to the house, staying in town only long enough to attend the memorial service and say a last private goodbye to a man he’d never really known.
It shouldn’t have ended that way, with the two of them being more or less estranged, but there’d been no choice. They couldn’t lie to each other, and even if they had, they still would’ve both known the truth, that Chase felt disloyal being anywhere near the woman who had broken up his parents’ twenty-six-year marriage. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad had Hope not been so damn young—nineteen when she first married his father, and twenty when her son, Joey, was born. Or if she hadn’t been such a striking, sensual beauty, with her wide blue eyes, generous mouth and full lips, silky dark hair and fair skin.
She was so damn gorgeous and ripe-looking she could have married anyone she wanted. So much so that from the very beginning Chase had been unable to help but be aware of her, and he still felt guilty as hell about that. Now that she was single again she would be open to involvement and sending out signals, unconscious or otherwise, to that effect. He wondered how he would respond. It wouldn’t be easy seeing her look at another man or even him as a potential suitor. There was no way he would ever have wanted to desire his father’s young wife, but he had. Not that she had tried to make him notice her. If anything, Hope downplayed her physicality, retaining that mysterious air of innocence she had in her most unguarded moments.
Chase shook his head in confusion. He still wondered how his father could have robbed the cradle that way. If it had been him—hell, he would’ve felt like a lecherous old man going after someone half his age, especially someone as sensual and hauntingly beautiful as Hope. Whether she realized it or not, she needed a real partner in her life, someone who could take her to the limits of her physicality and back, not a father-figure who’d treat her like a china doll on a shelf, one who was pretty to look at but too fragile to touch. But apparently the difference in their ages hadn’t bothered Edmond or Hope because they’d seemed happy enough together, even a decade after their marriage. Never passionate exactly in the healthy, unconsciously sexy way he would have expected Hope to be, but happy in a gentle, familial way.
Well, none of that mattered now, Chase thought wearily, pushing from his Jeep. He was here because the family-owned department store was in trouble. And like it or not, he would have to stay until matters were resolved. He owed his father at least that much.
“MOM, you’ll never guess what happened today! The neatest thing!” Joey said, the moment Hope picked him up from school.
“I got asked to go hiking and camping with a bunch of guys from school. In New Mexico, even! Isn’t that neat?”
No, Hope thought, troubled, for more reasons than she could count. Deciding not to jump to conclusions, she put her white Mercedes SL coupe into drive and eased carefully back into the congested late-afternoon traffic. “When is this trip?” she asked, working hard to keep her tone conversational and light.
“Spring break.”
Frowning, Hope braked as they approached a crosswalk.
“Honey, that’s mid-March. It’s still cold in the mountains.”
“I know, but we’re gonna go to a low elevation, where there’s no snow. I can go,” Joey pleaded passionately. “Can’t I? Mom?”
As much as she wanted to say yes, she knew she couldn’t. Working hard to keep the worry from her voice, Hope pointed out what he already knew. “Joey, your asthma would be aggravated.” Worse, he would probably get sick, and he’d been sick so much already this past winter. He’d lost weight he couldn’t afford to lose and sometimes missed school more than he was there.
“I’ll take my medicine or get a shot or whatever the doctor says I need to do,” Joey promised earnestly. “And I won’t complain, either.”
Hope wished that was all it would take to make her son be able to lead a normal life, but she knew it wasn’t so. “Honey, that won’t work,” she reminded him with gentle reluctance. “I’m sorry. But the answer has to be no. Maybe we could work out something else you could do instead.”
Realizing by the firm yet pleasant tone of her voice there was no arguing with her, Joey hung his head. He was silent and visibly depressed the rest of the trip home. Guilt assailed her. “Do you have a lot of homework?” Hope asked as she turned the car onto their street.
“The usual,” Joey muttered.
Which meant a lot, Hope thought. She couldn’t believe how much homework they were giving these days.
“Dude. Whose Jeep it that?” Joey said. He pointed to the dull blue Jeep parked in the circular driveway in front of their home. Dented and splattered with red-brown mud, the vehicle looked incongruous next to the elegant white brick early Georgian mansion with the dark green shutters.
As always, Hope felt a sense of pride and accomplishment when she looked at her home. Three stories high, it was surrounded by beautifully landscaped flowers, evergreen shrubs, and towering live oak trees with Spanish moss. At either end of the three-story structure, was an octagonal-shaped wing with floor-to-ceiling casement windows on all sides. Four columns supported the two-story-high front porch. And there were shady terraces, rimmed with waist-high white balustrade, leading off the second floor of both octagonal wings.
She might have grown up poor, but there was no trace here of her impoverished, difficult beginnings or the heartbreak she had suffered years ago.
Realizing her son was still waiting for an answer, Hope said, “I don’t know whose Jeep that is.” Service people were required to park in the back, as did her help. Nor was there any identifying insignia on the Jeep. Still puzzling over who it might be, she added in a bemused voice, “I’m not expecting company.” Indeed, after a long day at the store, that was the last thing she needed or wanted. She spent most evenings with Joey, helping him with his homework, watching television or playing board games. And that was the way she liked her evenings; quiet, with a solid sense of family.
Nevertheless, she touched a hand to her dark upswept hair, making sure the thick waves were still securely pinned into the loose French twist she favored for work. A cautious glance in her rearview mirror revealed her makeup to still be intact, except for a smudge of mascara beneath one lash, which she promptly took care of with one quick brush of her little finger. Her blue eyes showed no sign of the normal end-of-day fatigue she felt inside. Satisfied that she was outwardly prepared to greet a visitor with the Texas charm and graciousness expected of all the Barristers, she gathered her things from inside the car.
As she did so, she saw him, sitting on one of the cushioned wicker sofas that sat on either end of the front porch. Chase Barrister. Her husband’s son. He was her stepson, though she had never been able to think of him as such. Just four years older than she, he was sexy and rugged and possessed the blatant sexuality and intense interest in all things physical his father had always lacked. Making love with Chase, she sensed, would be like being caught up in the center of a hurricane. There’d be calm, but it would be deceptive. One step too far in any direction and a woman would be in for the ride of her life—only to get drawn back into the tranquil center, then seduced to the dangerous edge again. With Chase, she sensed, there would never be an end. He’d enjoy a love affair to the hilt, with the same limitless verve he did everything else, and he’d make sure his woman enjoyed it, too.
It was her woman’s intuition about him, that had always kept her as far away from him as possible. Had she met Chase before she’d married her husband, she doubted she would have married Edmond. It would have been too hard. Chase was too attractive in an intensely primal way. Never mind trying to think of Chase as her stepson, for she knew no matter what she could never think of him as that. And Chase,