***
Darcy stumbled back on her impossible heels, but managed to use the wall to keep her balance. She looked at Brooks, ready to rip him a new one for scaring her, only to realize that it wasn’t her brother in the hallway of her parents’ home, but the man for whom she’d spent the last three hours primping.
“Lewis? What are you doing here?”
He looked down at her, his brilliant mind trying to focus on what had just happened. “Who are…Munchkin?”
The old nickname stung, but she quickly regrouped. “Darcy,” she corrected.
“Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” He reached out as if to steady her and she leaned toward him, waiting for his touch. But he took that to mean she was balanced and dropped his hand.
“I’m fine,” she confirmed. “What are you doing here?”
But he didn’t answer; he was too busy looking at her.
Which should be something that made her happy, but his look wasn’t one of lust and heat. No, it was analysis. A look she’d seen on his face for years—thinking, putting pieces into place, working out the puzzle.
His head leaned from the left, slowly to the right, as his brown-eyed gaze started at her glorious shoes, up her legs (made oh-so-more stellar by the shoes) to her sparkling dress. He moved past her bust line, then back to it and she felt a moment of triumph that stayed with her as his eyes rose up to her cheekbone-accented, buffed to perfection, face.
“You’re not wearing your glasses.”
Genius.
“I had Lasik,” she replied, then did a tiny shimmer with her hips, drawing his eyes back to her dress.
He pushed his glasses up his nose, a habit she’d shared for far too many years. “Lasik, huh? I’m not a good candidate for it.”
“Too bad. It totally helped me.”
He tilted his head again, plugging in the lack of glasses, but still coming up without an answer.
“And my hair is different.”
He stared at her hairstyle, nodding. “Yes. The hair. The glasses.” It looked like it was coming together for him now. “You’re so…so…” Darcy waited for it. Grown-up? Striking? “Shiny,” he said.
Well, she couldn’t argue with that.
“So, Lewis, you didn’t answer me? What are you doing here?” Not that she wasn’t happy to see him, but she’d planned on a big entrance at the Club as his introduction to the new Darcy—not him slamming her into a wall in her parents’ hallway.
“Um…” he took one last look at her, obviously still filing away all the new facts, then looked her in the eye, ready to move on to his next train of thought. “Oh. Why I’m here. Brooks’s place can only handle one guest right now, and it made more sense that Duncan crash with him and I stay here. Your parents invited me, of course.”
“My parents know you’re here? When did you get here?”
“Earlier today. I was over at Brooks’s until I needed to get ready. And yes, they know I’m here. Your dad let me in, gave me a key, got me set up in Brooks’s room.”
“Oh,” Darcy replied, trying to figure out why her mother hadn’t said anything to her about Lewis being down the hallway. She’d been home for Christmas, but had to work the week in between, arriving back just a few hours ago. Still, she’d seen her mom downstairs when she’d come in.
“It’s like old times being in there,” Lewis stated, gesturing to Brooks’s room. Darcy took the moment to do her own analysis. Designer tux, custom-fitted to his long, lean frame, which no doubt his assistant picked out for him. Lewis never cared about the fit—or label—of his clothes. His deep brown, wavy hair was cut in a spiky style that suited his nervous habit of running his hands through it as he thought—and he was always thinking. His glasses were so much better than the huge ones he’d worn through school. Sleek and square, they framed the brown eyes Darcy had fallen in love with so many years ago. His face had thinned out in his twenties. Now it was not quite chiseled, but he certainly didn’t have the pudgy cheeks he’d had before.
So, Darcy wasn’t the only one to have come out of a cocoon.
It didn’t matter to her—she’d loved him as total geek, and now as geek chic.
Suddenly it dawned on her— he was staying two doors down from her! That wasn’t anything new, Lewis had slept in Brooks’s room hundreds of times.
But never on a night Darcy was bent on seducing him.
Well, okay, she’d wanted to seduce him many times back then, but she’d never actually done it. Tonight, she would.
She moved past him, brushing his sleeve with her arm. “I imagine there will be lots of ‘seems like old times’ moments tonight,” she said. Stupid. Why bring up the past? It would only make him think of Grace Devine.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said, moving to follow her down the stairs.
She tried to do a long, sultry glide down the staircase, but she hadn’t practiced stairs in her shoe sessions. There weren’t any at the Henderson Country Club and she hadn’t planned on Lewis being in her house. Not that she was complaining.
“Although,” he continued, “I’m looking to start some new times tonight.”
She looked over her shoulder at him, “Me, too,” she purred.
“Sore throat, Munchkin?”
She stumbled, but righted herself with the help of the banister that she’d watched Brooks and Lewis slide down a gazillion times.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered, and quickly made her way down to the bottom, not risking looking back—or anywhere else but the stairs—again.
“Little girl, you are a beauty,” her father, John, boomed as he and Darcy’s mother, Ellen, made their way in from the living room. He wore his tux, which strained a bit at the buttons this year. Her mother looked beautiful in a navy blue gown and the diamond necklace Darcy’s father had given her for their twenty-fifth anniversary six years ago. Her hair was just starting to gray at fifty-five and Darcy could only hope to have her genes.
“Thanks, Daddy,” she answered, reaching the first floor and letting her father take her hand and twirl her. Twirling in the heels, she’d practiced plenty.
“Is she not the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen, Lewis?” her father asked a bit loudly and Darcy wondered if maybe he’d popped the champagne a tad early.
“Oh, John,” her mother said, with a swat to his arm.
“Well, she is. Beautiful. My baby. Right, Lewis?”
“Um,” Lewis said, then turned to Darcy, looked her over once more. “Yes?”
Yeah, there was a questioning tone in his voice, but she’d still take it.
“Hello, Lewis, honey,” her mother stepped forward and gave Lewis a hug and kiss on the cheek. “You look very handsome. How are your parents?”
“They’re good. They said to wish you happy holidays.”
“One of these years they’ll have to come back for the party. It’s not fair to you to have to carry the Kampmueller side.”
“It’s hard to get my dad out of Arizona in the winter.”
“Well, hell, it’s not like he can’t play golf in Henderson year-round,” her dad said.
Darcy didn’t think her parents would leave North Carolina once they retired. Actually, she couldn’t ever see her dad retiring. He loved the banking industry, even with all its recent ups and downs.
“Mrs. Devine pretty much handles it all on her own now, with a little help from my assistant. By the way, thanks again for offering up Brooks’s room. It would have been really cramped over at his new place.”
“How’s it coming along, anyway? He won’t even let me take a peek,” John Bennett, control freak extraordinaire, commented.
“Can you really blame him?” her mother said with a smile. “We love having you here, Lewis. You know you’re always welcome.”
“But, really, Lewis, how’s it coming over there? Has he got drywall up? Electrical, even?”
“We should probably leave. We don’t want to be late,” her mother commented.
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Darcy noticed Lewis look at his watch. Was he counting down the minutes until he kissed Grace? Keep counting, bud, cuz it’s going to be a different set of lips this year.
She still hadn’t figured that part out, but if Lewis could devise a way to rig whatever contest the Devine sisters had going every year, then Darcy could figure out a way to rig it in her favor.
She did design games for a living, after all.
“So, Lewis, you’ll take Darcy with you?”
“Um…but…”
“Great. See you at the Club,” her father said and opened the door for his wife and exited the house. But not before she saw the look her parents exchanged with each other.
Those sneaky…absolutely awesome parents. Must be where she got her love of games.
“Let me just grab my wrap,” she said and quickly found the organza shawl which was much too sheer for the end of December, even in North Carolina. But no way was she going to cover up this dress. She handed it to Lewis who held it up for her to step into. His brain didn’t retain a lot of the social niceties, but he’d been raised by a former deb, and some things were just instilled in a Southern boy.
“Thank you,” she said as he placed it upon her shoulders and she took up the ends.
“It doesn’t seem like much protection,” he said as he held the door open for her.
I hope not, she thought as they made their way to the car.