eyes brightened with curiosity. “Were you in love with her?”
“I was.”
“And she loved you?”
“She said she did.”
“What happened?”
“Stuff,” he said, because talking about the tragedy wouldn’t change anything, and he’d already said more than he should have.
“You don’t want to talk about it,” she concluded.
“Brilliant deduction.”
“Then tell me about yourself. What do you do, Tyler with no last name?”
So, he thought, she had caught the deliberate omission. “I work on an oil rig, or at least that’s what I did last week. This week it’s hard to say.”
“Did you lose your job?” she asked, regarding him sympathetically.
“Not the way you mean.” This was not a conversation he intended to have, not with a stranger, not tonight. “Look, Maddie Kent, it’s been nice talking to you, but I’ve got to run.” He tossed some bills on the bar. “That ought to take care of your drink. Welcome to Houston. Maybe I’ll see you again sometime.”
“Maybe so,” she said cheerfully, showing neither surprise nor hurt that he was walking out on her.
Only after he was outside, sitting in his car and wondering what the heck he was going to do with himself for the rest of the evening, did he regret his impulsive decision. If nothing else, Maddie with the kissable lips might have provided a much-needed distraction from his dark thoughts. He thought of that blend of innocence and sex appeal and sighed. Then again, she might be nothing but trouble.
Maddie watched Tyler Delacourt walk out of the bar and barely concealed a little smile of satisfaction. She’d made progress tonight. She’d actually held a conversation of sorts with a Delacourt. A civil conversation, at that.
Based on all of her research, she had a feeling that of all of Bryce Delacourt’s sons Tyler might be the one person who could get her into the bosom of the tight-knit family.
Finding him hadn’t been all that difficult. His name and picture had popped up in old society-page items with great regularity. That had stopped a couple of years back, but in the meantime it had given her a starting point. Many of those items mentioned O’Reilly’s as his favorite watering hole. They also mentioned his reputation as an outrageous flirt. At one point one columnist had kept a running count of the number of women with whom he’d been spotted. Whatever his past habits, Maddie had seen no evidence that he was womanizing these days.
In fact, he’d looked so down, so totally alone, that she’d almost felt sorry for him. If he had been anyone other than a Delacourt, she wouldn’t have let him get away without convincing him to spill his guts. Since he was a Delacourt, she had known she had to proceed with caution, not scare him off with her limitless curiosity.
She flipped open her cell phone and called Griffin Carpenter, as promised.
“I made contact tonight,” she told him.
“With Delacourt?”
“No, with his son, Tyler. There’s something going on with him.”
“We’re looking for something on Bryce, not his son.”
“But if I can get Tyler to open up, to trust me enough to confide in me, I’m in. He’ll pave the way with the rest of the family.”
“That’s your angle?” Griffin asked worriedly. “Maddie, watch yourself. Tyler’s got a reputation with women. At least, he did before he started spending so much time out of town, working on that rig over in Louisiana. Forget about Tyler. Why not get a job at the company, something that’ll give you access to their files?”
She wasn’t about to explain that any, even the most superficial, background check by Delacourt Oil’s personnel office would reveal her link to a man who’d once been fired. They’d never hire her.
“I like my way better. I can handle Tyler,” she assured her boss. “I’ll be in touch.”
She put the cell phone back in her purse and thought about the man who’d just left. Thank heaven he wasn’t her type. With his blond hair, dimpled smile and muscled build, he was too good-looking by far, too used to having women swoon at the sight of him, no doubt.
When she’d first seen him a few nights ago, she had been surprised by his preference for jeans and chambray shirts, rather than fancy suits; for sturdy work boots, rather than expensive cowboy boots. He’d told her he worked on an oil rig, and he certainly looked as if he could handle hard work. In fact, she could imagine him out on a rig in the blazing sun, his chest bare, muscles rippling. The unexpected image left her mouth surprisingly dry.
Where had that come from? she wondered, not one bit pleased by the reaction.
“You need another drink?” the bartender asked.
Maddie nodded. When the ginger ale came, she drank it down in one long gulp, but it didn’t seem to do much for her parched throat. This wasn’t good, not good at all.
Repeat after me, she instructed herself. Tyler Delacourt is the son of the man who destroyed your father. Therefore, Tyler Delacourt is a despicable toad. Tyler Delacourt is pond scum.
Tyler Delacourt is the sexiest man I’ve ever met.
Maddie moaned at the traitorous thought. This assignment had just gotten a whole lot more complicated. Maybe she would be better off trying to slide her credentials past personnel and accepting some bland, innocuous job taking dictation at Delacourt Oil.
With a shudder she dismissed the idea. Tyler Delacourt was vulnerable. She had seen it in his bleak expression. Her hormones had never been a problem before. She could certainly keep them in check now. She was too close to her goal to let anything—least of all a handsome Delacourt—get in her way.
Chapter Two
Tyler avoided O’Reilly’s—and the very disconcerting Maddie—for the next few nights. In fact, he pretty much stayed in his apartment for a solid week, sorting through the options he had for the rest of his life. He ignored the phone, letting his answering machine take messages, most of which were from his increasingly impatient father. There was no getting away from the fact that the time had come to make a decision, and no matter which one he made, there was going to be hell to pay.
When he got a call from Daniel Corrigan, supervisor of operations on the rig and Tyler’s boss, Tyler thought about ignoring it, too, but something in Daniel’s voice as he left a curt message told him that he shouldn’t. He snatched up the phone just as the older man was about to hang up.
“Daniel, what’s up?”
“Good. You’re there. Now the question is, when are you coming back here?”
“Why? Is there a problem?”
“That’s what I want to know. I had a call from your father this morning telling me not to expect you back.
