Texas Cinderella / The Texas CEO's Secret: Texas Cinderella / The Texas CEO's Secret

But he had.

And everything else was water under the bridge now.

Everything but this funk Tate couldn’t seem to shake.

He knew he was one hell of a downer these days, that everyone was wondering where the old Tate was. Most of the time he was wondering it himself. But the old Tate just didn’t seem to be there anymore.

He also knew his lousy mood was going to factor in when the news about his engagement to Katie came out, and he regretted that. He didn’t want people saying that Katie had bailed because he wasn’t much fun anymore. Katie didn’t deserve that.

She hadn’t ended their engagement because he couldn’t seem to lighten up. She’d made that clear and he didn’t doubt it. That just wasn’t Katie. In fact, he thought that if he’d put any effort into talking her out of breaking their engagement, the bad mood would have likely kept her around because she would have felt guilty for leaving him at a low point.

But he hadn’t put any effort into keeping things going with her. Why should he have when she was right? She’d said that she’d been thinking that maybe long-term friendship and family pressure and the general belief that they’d end up together shouldn’t, ultimately, be why they did end up together. That she didn’t think she had the kind of feelings for him that she should have going into marriage. That she didn’t feel passionate about him.

Maybe that should have been insulting, but it hadn’t been. Instead, he’d understood it. His own feelings for Katie had never been all-consuming or particularly passionate. Which was probably why calling things off just hadn’t mattered a whole lot to him.

Of course, it also didn’t really matter to him that Katie wanted to keep the breakup a secret until she could see her parents in Florida and explain it to them.

It didn’t matter to him that Katie wasn’t head over heels for him.

It didn’t matter to him that they’d broken up.

It didn’t matter to him that he needed to maintain the pretense that they hadn’t.

Since Buzz’s death, and even more so in the six months since he’d been back from Baghdad, it had just been tough for things like that—for most of what mattered to the people around him—to have the importance they might have had before…

He took a drink of his coffee and then replaced the cup on the table, staring into the steaming beverage that still remained.

He liked his coffee strong and black, and looking into the brew now made him think of Tanya Kimbrough’s eyes. They were the color of Italian espresso—dark, rich, liquid pools of espresso…

Recalling that made him think of one thing that had mattered to him—last night and finding Tanya Kimbrough in the library. That had definitely mattered.

When he’d found her there he’d taken a mental inventory of what he and Blake had said because what was going on with the business did matter. He’d recalled that they’d said the jewelry business was in a slump, that they believed they knew where the Santa Magdalena diamond was, that Blake was buying all the canary diamonds to use as a tie-in.

Then there were the papers Tanya had seen on the desk, too—Blake must have forgotten the file and while there hadn’t been anything in it but preliminaries for the advertising campaign, it was still information they didn’t want released.

And after cataloging what Tanya Kimbrough could have known, the wheels of Tate’s mind had started to turn, imagining her prematurely revealing that they were looking for the Santa Magdalena diamond. No, he and Blake hadn’t talked about the crucial clue Blake had discovered in the border of the deed to the land and silver mines they’d taken over from the Foleys decades ago. Still, if word leaked that there was a very real reason to suspect the diamond might be found? Any number of treasure hunters could descend on them to complicate the search. And possibly accidentally find the diamond before they did.

Not good.

Tate had considered what would happen if word leaked that Blake was cornering the market on canary diamonds and coming out with a new line of Spanish-influenced designs to coincide with the discovery of the Santa Magdalena. Their competitors would launch lines of their own to steal their thunder and undermine their sales and, potentially, leave Blake at a disadvantage in breathing new life into the business.

Also not good.

And let the world know that the renowned McCord’s Jewelers was in a decline? That the family fortunes were compromised?

Certainly not good.

And since Blake was up to his eyeballs in the family’s problems already and—as usual—trying to bear the burden as much on his own as he could, rotten mood or not, Tate had decided that it was better if he dealt with the housekeeper’s daughter rather than dumping any more on his brother.

Which was why he’d struck that bargain with her for an insider’s look at the McCords and an exclusive on the diamond if they found it. Left to her own devices, Tanya Kimbrough could cause trouble and he was going to do whatever he had to to prevent that. If that meant sticking to her like glue to keep a close eye on her for the time being, then that’s what he was going to do.

It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it…

Tate knew that’s what Buzz would be saying to him if he told his friend he was only taking on Tanya Kimbrough to spare Blake.

Yeah, okay, it was hardly as dirty a job as studying a dusty deed or digging around in the dirt of a deserted old silver mine. Keeping an eye on a beautiful woman was definitely not drawing the short straw.

And Tanya was a beautiful woman.

The scrawny, funny-looking kid had grown into a knockout—there was no question about that.

Her hair was as dark as her eyes—coffee-nib brown—and so shiny it looked like satin. Coupled with those eyes against a fair, flawless complexion, she’d been the freshest-faced burglar in existence. Fresh-faced and beautiful even without any visible signs of makeup, with that thin nose and those pale pink lips, those high cheekbones and the slightly squarish jawline sweeping up from a chin that looked as if it could be a little sassy.

Unlike her taller, slightly stocky mother, Tanya was petite—no more than five-four he was guessing. She was thin, but not too thin, and she had curves in all the right places—at least he thought she did even though that chopped-up sweatshirt she’d had on had done more camouflaging than revealing.

Of course it had revealed one shoulder before she’d yanked the fabric back into place. And the mere sight of that creamy skin had made him suddenly aware of his own heartbeat. And the fact that it had sped up…

Only slightly.

But still, that was more than most things had done to him lately. A simple bare shoulder…

Hell, he was a doctor. He saw naked shoulders—and naked everything else—all the time. Why had a simple glimpse of Tanya Kimbrough’s shoulder done anything at all to him?

Maybe it had been an adrenaline rush, he reasoned. He’d just had that argument with Blake and then spotted someone he’d initially thought to be a stranger lurking behind the desk. He hadn’t actually been alarmed, but it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that his subconscious had set off an alert response. After Baghdad, that seemed likely.

And if it had felt like something other than that?

He was likely only misinterpreting it.

He did know one thing, though—he wasn’t hating the idea of keeping an eye on Tanya Kimbrough.

In fact, if he analyzed it, he’d say he might even be looking forward to it.

He might say he’d even gotten a small rush out of that back-and-forth with her last night. A small rush that he wouldn’t mind having again…

But that couldn’t matter, he told himself.

The charge he’d gotten out of their verbal exchange and the fact that she’d held her own with him, the smooth skin on a shoulder he’d been inclined to mold his hand around, the silky hair he’d wanted to see fall free, the lips he’d had a fleeting thought of tasting, the tight little body hidden behind funny-looking pants and a sweatshirt that someone had taken scissors to—none of that was as important as protecting his family, or as important as his promise to Katie to pretend they were still engaged until she told him otherwise.

But still…

He was looking forward to seeing the housekeeper’s daughter again.

And continuing to see much more of her for a while to keep her contained?

That didn’t feel like a hardship either…

“What are you doing here?”