LOVE UNDER TWO PRIVATE d.i.c.kS.

The l.u.s.ty, Texas Collection.

Cara Covington.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

This novel, Love Under Two Private d.i.c.ks, is the second "cross-over" novel with Heather Rainier's Divine Creek Ranch series, and would not have been possible without the talent, hard work and professionalism of the Divine Ms. Rainier.

I never could have imagined, a year ago this past April when I met Heather for the first time, the depth of the mutual friendship, love, and respect that would grow between us. This friendship is one of the true treasures of my life.

I am grateful to her for her generosity and her willingness to share not only her fictional characters, but the talents of her husband, Richard. Mr. Rainier has been generous in the extreme in making my banners and helping me to "look good" online. So thank you, Mr. Rainier, for your expertise and your patience.

I owe a debt of grat.i.tude to Stormy, for giving this book a good read and helping me make it a better novel.

I would also like to say thank you to all of the hard-working professionals at Siren-BookStrand. I'm grateful for each and every one of you. We authors are not always easy creatures to understand or work with. Sometimes we can do a pretty good impression of a raving beast. So thanks to all of you for daring to enter the arena.

I will forever be grateful to my publisher, Diana for saying "yes." Her faith in me these many years has been a true blessing, and if I am a good writer, it is due in no small part to her efforts on my behalf.

DEDICATION.

To Abbagail Nyte Jennifer. Welcome, little baby, to the world. May your dreams know no limits, and may you reach the highest of stars and make it your own.

And as always, this book is dedicated to my husband, David. Thank you for believing in my dream.

Chapter 1.

Emily Anne watched as Chloe applied a really nice shade of red polish to her toes and thought the name of the color-in her case-was definitely misleading.

"You're sure I won't get in trouble wearing this particular shade of red? It's kind of like false advertising, don't you think?"

Chloe's grin, full of fun, always had the effect of brightening Emily Anne's mood. The esthetician made a big production of taking the small bottle out of her left hand and holding it up so that she could look at the name of the polish printed on the bottom. "I'm Not Really a Waitress Red." She'd spoken the words aloud. Over at the manicure station, Ginny said. "Oh! That's the one I want. I'll join you in making a mockery of that name, Emily Anne!"

"And the rest of us sure won't tell." Maggie Benedict held up her hand as if making a "scout's honor" kind of pledge.

Emily Anne looked over at the owner of the Parkview Inn. Carol Ashwood, one of Chloe's four employees, was giving Maggie a pedicure, and the former New Jerseyite had already moaned her appreciation for the foot ma.s.sage part of the procedure.

How had her world so suddenly expanded to include so many good, caring women?

This was why she'd called Chloe just an hour before, begging for an appointment. After that conversation with her mother this morning, she'd needed to feel surrounded by friends-she had needed these women.

G.o.d bless Chloe for knowing that I needed this and squeezing me in like she did. Knowing the owner of the l.u.s.ty Glow Day Spa as she did, the woman had given up her lunch hour to take care of her. She'd make it up to the esthetician, even though she understood there was no need. Chloe would remind her, and rightly, too, that that was what best friends were for.

"Does anyone know if Kate is back yet?" Tamara Kendall, sitting at the second manicure table, sat with her hands under the ultraviolet light while her gel manicure cured.

Tasha Garwood, Chloe's manager and one of the most exotic-looking women that Emily Anne had ever seen, looked up. "Did Grandma Kate go somewhere?

Chloe shook her head. "It's such a tragedy, really! Just goes to show that bad things can happen to anyone."

Ginny took over the telling. "Y'all know-or maybe you don't-that Kate and her men had five children? Her daughter, Maria, left l.u.s.ty oh, years and years ago. She married a man from England, and lived there for a time. She had two children, a son and a daughter."

"I remember her telling us about them on Christmas Eve," Chloe said. "That Maria and her daughter Amy were lost in a plane crash."

"And Maria's son, Clayton, moved to Toronto, Canada, and was happily married, with three children," Maggie said.

"Rebecca told me, recently, that Greg has taken over as administrator of the charitable foundation Grandma Kate and her husbands set up in their daughter's honor-Maria's Quest." Emily Anne didn't feel as if they were gossiping. Well, not really. Every single one of the women here loved Kate Benedict as if she really was their very own granny.

Chloe took over the tale. "Well, sadly, Clayton's just lost his wife-she had a heart attack, at thirty-nine, can you imagine? So Kate, along with Caleb, Joshua and Bernice have gone up there, to Canada, to attend the funeral."

"Oh, those poor babies," Emily Anne said. Just thinking of Kate's great-grandchildren suddenly being motherless made her heart clench.

"Two boys and a girl," Chloe said. "It's a hard, hard thing, to lose a mother."

"It is," Ginny said. "Very hard. But at least they still have their daddy."

Emily Anne knew Ginny was thinking of Chloe and her sister Carrie, as well as herself. Ginny had grown up in foster care, believing she had no family left until she'd discovered her aunt Maggie. And the Rhodes sisters had lost both their parents back in 1998 when they'd gone for a few days to Tennessee to attend the wedding of old friends-and a tornado had struck. The sisters had been taken in by Children's Services and separated. Not only had the pair been orphaned, but the man charged with being the executor of their parents' estate-their father's former business partner-had absconded with all of their inheritance.

Melvin Richardson and Connor Talbot-a pair of private investigators entirely too good looking and compelling for Emily Anne's own good-had been hired by the Town Trust to try and track down the blackguard.

"It could be worse now for those young'uns, if he's not a very good daddy, if you know what I mean." Ari Stein had just come into the main room from the front of the store where she'd been manning the desk and the phone between her own clients. Her words, unexpected, seemed to stop all conversation-heck, all breathing, Emily Anne thought-for a good couple of seconds.

"You're right, of course," Ginny said, her manner not only calm but almost sympathetic. "But I have it on the best authority that Clayton is a real good daddy. Kate's visited them on a number of occasions and has spent time with the family."

Ari seemed to relax somewhat at that news. "Mrs. Benedict would surely know if something was off there," the young woman said, nodding her head.

Emily Anne looked down at her feet for a moment, hoping no one could see the laughter on her face. Ari was likely the only one among the new arrivals in town who held out calling the woman "Grandma Kate." She figured Ari had her reasons. She just hoped that living and working here would bring Ari a measure of inner peace.

Like it's done for me.

"There, what do you think?"

Emily Anne knew that Chloe was really asking about the look of her newly polished toes. But she figured she covered all the bases when she said, "I think I've never been happier."

Chloe met her gaze. Her smile, full of warmth and friendship, felt like an extra coat of pampering. She nodded and said, "Now that's what I like to hear."

Emily Anne stayed on the divan for a while longer to give her toenails a chance to dry. She watched the women of l.u.s.ty at work, and at leisure, as they wallowed in the pampering that Chloe and her staff were so good at providing.

She thought about the people she'd met here and the relationships they'd forged in their own lives. At this moment in time, everyone within the walls of the l.u.s.ty Glow Day Spa was relatively new to l.u.s.ty. Not a one of them had been born here. But as far as Emily Anne could tell, that didn't matter one lick to anyone who had been born here. This town and her people welcomed anyone who wanted to live within its boundaries. And even some, she thought as she watched Ari restocking different supplies to the various stations, who had been drawn there by fate and were still unsure as to why.

That was me, too, drawn here but not knowing why. Like Ari, she'd arrived in town with a heart full of hurt. Her louse of a boyfriend, Billy J, had dumped her, calling her all manner of vile and hurtful names.

Emily Anne closed her eyes and relaxed against the divan as she battled not to feel embarra.s.sment. Fat and frumpy. With those two careless words he'd opened up most of her deepest wounds. She'd believed he loved her, in his way. She'd believed he had accepted her just as she was.

Man, was I ever wrong, on both counts. Her mother had told her that even she could do better than Billy J. Now there was another thought that just needed to git. Especially in light of that disturbing phone call from her mother who had wanted, of all things, for her to give Billy J another chance.

I'll give him a chance, all right. A fat chance.

She and her mother had just had the worst tussle over the phone, and it galled her that it was over her loser ex-boyfriend.

But she'd stood up to her mother, stood her ground, and let Irene Georgina Bancroft know, in no uncertain terms, that she would not be manipulated or cowed.

Emily Anne blinked when she opened her eyes. She calculated that she'd been sitting just letting her thoughts wander long enough. "I think I'm dry." She checked her watch, amazed that a half hour had gone quickly. Even just resting here, on this lovely divan and listening to the female chatter around her had been a soothing balm.

"I think you are, too," Chloe said. She came over and, even though Emily Anne could do so herself, eased the tissue out from between her toes and slipped her sandals onto her feet.

"There you go."

Emily Anne got to her feet and looked down at her toes, poking out from her sandals. Just looking at those ten twinkling, bright digits made her feel better.

They said, "Here's a woman who values herself." That was very important. For too long, Emily Anne hadn't been a woman who valued herself enough.

But now she was, and she did, and there would be no going back to the way she used to be.

No, sir, not ever.

Giving the conversation with her mother one last thought, she looked back down at her very self-confident toes.

So no, Momma, I will not give that miserable excuse for a Texan man, Billy J, another chance and that, by d.a.m.n, is that!

"Boy howdy, Emily Anne, I don't know who you're thinking about, but my money's on you, girl. You go get 'em, girlfriend."

Emily Anne blinked, and looked around at all the women looking back at her. She'd had no idea she'd appeared so fierce. She didn't even mind that she'd let her emotions show, either. This was l.u.s.ty, these women were her friends, and she was safe. "Don't you worry about it none. If that miserable worm ever shows up here, you can be sure that I will."

She nodded her head once, just to prove she meant it. Then she waved to everyone, paid for her pedicure-money well spent-and pulled the door open with perhaps more energy than necessary.

"G.o.d, I love a woman who's burning with pa.s.sion, don't you, Connor?" Melvin Richardson said.

Emily Anne gasped, because she hadn't even seen the men leaning back against the building, bracketing the door. But there they were, two of the most sinfully delicious men she'd ever laid eyes on in her entire life.

She remembered the first time she'd set eyes on the two. Mel, with his close-cut dark hair and s.e.xy barely there goatee, and eyes that could smile so bright you didn't even need a light to see by. Then Connor, his hair just slightly lighter and longer and looking tousled as if he just got out of bed. But, oh, such a serious man he was and so very deliberate in his actions. When Connor Talbot looked at her she felt he could see clear down to her soul.

Both men had seemed larger than life to her the first day she'd seen them, that day they'd walked into l.u.s.ty Appet.i.tes to meet with Chloe and Carrie Rhodes. They were the two private investigators who'd been hired by the l.u.s.ty Town Trust to try and locate the man who'd stolen the Rhodes sisters' inheritance just after they'd been orphaned.

In the time she'd gotten to know them, she'd come to realize they were men like no others she'd ever known. If she had to characterize them, she would say that Mel was the lover, and Connor the fighter. Mel seemed more at ease, more laid back. Connor, she had no doubt, would be a very dominant man-and maybe a very dominant lover.

Emily Anne looked from one to the other of them. She'd been holding them both at arm's length, doing her best to keep them dangling, as the old women used to say. And they'd proven themselves because they had not been easily discouraged, or chased away.

"I do indeed." Connor Talbot stepped forward, and gently stroked her chin with one finger. "Angel eyes, you look as if you're getting ready to do battle. Lead the way. We've got your back."

We've got your back. It occurred to Emily Anne right then and there that she'd been making these two men pay for the transgressions of another.

Maybe it was time to take an entirely different approach.

She's the most glorious woman I've ever seen.

Connor Talbot felt his heart begin to race and his arousal begin to stir. It happened to him every time he stood this close to Emily Anne Bancroft. The scent that rose from her skin-a scent his body recognized immediately as his mate's-had affected him the very first time he'd set eyes on her, a couple of months back at l.u.s.ty Appet.i.tes. She'd leaned close to put that plate of food on the table, and it hadn't been the food he'd hungered for, it had been the angel serving it.

Her lush womanly curves promised an eternity of delight. Here was a woman he could hold, a woman who'd fit between him and Mel, and who would cushion him in sweet, feminine softness. She'd recently cut her hair in what he knew they called a bob, with the hair framing her face longer than the rest and looking sleek as silk. She'd added a few streaks, too, so that tiny strands of a lighter shade sparkled all over her pretty head. The result was that it seemed a halo cupped her face. She made a delectable package. The combination of her beauty, coupled with that fierce expression in her brown eyes, simply did it for him.

He was this close to throwing himself at her feet, begging her to make him her love slave-or commanding her to be his.

She looked from him to Mel. "You've got my back? You mean you don't want to beat your chests and push the little lady aside while you slay her dragons for her?"

Connor never would have characterized himself, particularly, as being the insightful sort. He'd dated some, but not much in the years since his hasty marriage and even hastier divorce. He'd never once claimed to understand women, and actually never gave the matter a great deal of consideration. But he knew, with every instinct he possessed, that he was suddenly and quite seriously standing on the proverbial sheet of very thin ice.

He flicked a quick glance in Mel's direction, and then turned his attention back to Emily Anne. He waited until she met his gaze again. "You're a very capable woman, Emily Anne. You can do anything you decide to do-anything at all. You deserve men who will stand with you, men who will respect your right to make your own decisions. You also have the right to have a go at slaying your own dragons, if that's what you want to do. Maybe there'll come a day when you'll want us to do just that-to 'take care' of you in that way. n.o.body is supposed to be strong all of the time, honey. And maybe there'll come a day when one or both of us would like you to 'take care' of us, too."

"You'd trust me to do that?"

"Trust you?" Mel moved so that he stood just a little bit closer to her. With the two steps he took, they had Emily Anne in between them. "Of course we would trust you. And we'd consider ourselves d.a.m.ned lucky if you had our backs."

Connor saw the slight twinkle in her eyes and wondered what she'd just thought. He guessed it must have been something slightly salacious because a pretty pink color kissed her cheeks, in exactly the way that he wanted to do.

"I think I'm tickled by the fact that you think I could have your backs."

"Precious, you can have any part of us your little heart desires."

Mel's words echoed his own sentiment. They'd flirted with Emily Anne before, of course they had. In fact, he was pretty certain that each time they saw her, they'd turned the heat up in their teasing by a degree or two.

This is about the spot in our exchanges where she says something light, something that gently puts an end to the conversation-and the flirting. Connor braced for it, told himself not to be disappointed by it.

"What if I'm not really sure what I want? What if I think that maybe, I want it all?"

Connor's gaze flicked to Mel's and then landed back on Emily Anne. "Then I'd say, why don't we see about that? Why don't we take things one day at a time and find out?"

Mel reached down and took her right hand in his. He carried that delicate part of her to his lips and kissed it. "Will you spend the rest of the day with us, sweetheart?"

"We can have an early dinner, and then do anything you want. We could go into Waco, see a movie if you want to." Connor took her left hand in his. Rather than kiss it, he rubbed his thumb over the back of it.

"Do you like to dance? I know of a pretty good night spot, over in Divine," Mel said.

Emily Anne's eyes lit up. "I do like to dance, though I don't like to drink very much."