Page 8 of A Texas Hero

But once her mother died, Zoey lost the heart for modeling and the travel involved. Her father, too, was despondent and didn’t want Zoey going anywhere. They both went into a deep depression born from grief and retreated to his ranch on the outskirts of Amarillo. A dear friend of her mother’s pulled Zoey out of her depression when she suggested she find her own dream. If it would no longer be high fashion and modeling, it could be something adjacent. And it was on a yacht trip along the Gulf Coast of Mexico with her father a couple of years later that she took a day to go off on her own. She drove along the coastal road in Texas and discovered the town of Charming.

Though she’d been all over the world, Zoey found Charming unique. She found a spirit of friendship and comradery in this small town, as well as a beautiful bay and beach, a renovated lighthouse and quaint little shops. There was a family-owned bookstore like the one in You’ve Got Mail, and an art gallery. She wandered into a boutique on that auspicious day and met a woman who wanted to retire. This became the seed of a dream; this would be her legacy. She renamed the boutique Glamtique and envisioned a place where haute couture met affordable fashion and was available to women from all economic walks of life.

Soon, Zoey had a business plan even her father’s financial manager approved. She moved to Charming, obtaining her father’s blessing only when he could buy a “suitable” home for his only child. A safe place where he wouldn’t have to worry. She wound up on the outskirts of town, where many doctors and lawyers had vacation homes. The house was beautiful, one glass window from top to bottom, facing the view of the bay. She had four bathrooms and five bedrooms. Zoey was a little embarrassed by it all, since she hadn’t worked to earn any of it. Again, she was benefiting from her father’s legacy. But legacies took time to build, she could almost hear her mother say, and it wasn’t wrong to please her father.

Scouring estate sales and using her contacts in the fashion world, Zoey found one-of-a-kind clothing. Many of these items would have wound up at an auction were it not for her network of buyers. The boutique initially succeeded mostly by word of mouth and her contacts with the other small-town shopkeepers, like her best friend, Twyla. But a year ago, when local advertising executive Lauren Montez became a rabid fan, the boutique’s sales tripled. Women discovered they could look like Lauren and not spend the month’s grocery bill to do it.

Zoey hoped that her mami would be proud of her. So much of what she did was in honor of her mother. Conchita Lambert had always found haute couture overpriced. In those early years with Patch, when he was a college player, her mother had to make do with what she could piece together, and nothing pleased her more than finding a bargain. Last year, Zoey found an underserved market in secondhand designer wedding dresses. She wanted to carry more of them, but needed more room, so last year she’d bought the storefront next door and created an annex.

She’d started her own legacy, one to complement the one established by her father.

Chapter Four

Archer hadn’t struggled with his English this much in months. When he was under stress, he tended to fumble words, sounding like someone fresh off the boat instead of someone who’d been a US citizen for twenty years. At least he hadn’t reverted to speaking in Italian, which he still spoke fluently.

But this was the least of his problems.

The first was an intense and fiery attraction to his principal, the woman he’d been assigned to protect. Considering what had happened on his last assignment, he’d have to be careful not to let his personal feelings get in the way. She was the kind of woman who inspired double takes—or triple takes. He wouldn’t be surprised if she literally stopped traffic sometimes. He’d always had a thing for tall women with long legs, gorgeous hair and dark brown eyes. She could have been a model.

At the end of the day, she locked up the shop and headed to her luxury sedan. He followed her past the coastal highway to the outskirts of the town and into an exclusive gated neighborhood. The homes here were more like estates, with spacious front lawns that led to circular driveways and porches with Greek columns. Zoey’s was a slightly less ostentatious, sprawling ranch style home—although it did have a circular driveway.

Archer parked behind her near the front, grabbed his bag from the trunk and followed her up the flagstone patio steps.

“Nice place.”

“Thank you,” she said, lowering her head. “And don’t worry, I have a state-of-the-art alarm system.”

He would expect nothing less in a luxurious home like this, which probably housed plenty of valuables besides Zoey. She reached for the keypad lock and punched in a code. When she left the door open, he followed her inside, shutting it.

“I’ll give you your own code, if you’d like.”

“No need, the firm gave it to me. Plus, I will always be right behind you.”

His first reaction was to admire the cathedral ceilings in the front entryway. For a short time as a teenager, he’d worked in his father’s painting business, and he knew the challenge of keeping those walls spotless. His second reaction was to realize Zoey’s home—just like her shop—was an explosion of color everywhere. There were decorative artificial trees with orange and red leaves, blinking orange lights strung across in strategic places, and garlands of orange and yellow leaves. On the left side of the house was an open-plan room with a stone fireplace, whose hearth was decorated with a million pumpkins and scattered leaves.

“I decorate every fall. Kind of like Christmas, you know?” She shrugged.

“Uh-huh.”

“I have the guest room ready for you.”

“Thanks, I don’t need much.”

“It’s this way.” She pointed in the other direction. “My bedroom is on the other side.”

He followed her to a separate wing of the home, past the spacious kitchen and down a hallway lined with family photos.

She opened the door to a room with double French doors leading outside. “If you go out these doors, there’s a shortcut to my bedroom—it’s on the other side, with doors leading to the patio. Not that you’ll ever need to go there but just so you know, you’re not actually that far away from me. You know, in case this mortal danger I’m in ever materializes.”

He walked to the doors and spotted a deck and kidney-shaped swimming pool outside. The lawn was the size of a small park and the landscaping was impeccable.

“You’ve done well for yourself, Zoey.”

“Oh, it’s not me who’s done well,” she said with a shake of her head. “Daddy bought me this house. I’d have been fine sharing a house downtown with a friend, but he didn’t think any of those places were safe enough.”

It didn’t surprise Archer that the daughter of a wealthy athlete would live in a home like this; what did surprise him was that way Zoey made excuses for her good fortune. In a way, he understood. If it were his property, he’d have wanted to earn it himself, but then he’d been called obstinate more than once.

“What time will we leave tomorrow morning?” he asked.