The Pleasure Principle

“…the Cowboys, of all teams,” the woman was saying. “I could understand if he had me going head-to-head with the Packers. Now there’s a decent football team. And cute. Why, they drafted a wide receiver with muscles out to here and a butt that begs to be pinched.”

Dottie’s comments stirred a vision of another very pinchable butt and Eden’s attention shifted back to Brady and the picture he’d made standing on the side of the road, looking so hot and sweaty and sexy and…hot.

A twinge of longing shot through Eden and she reached for a handful of cashews.

Wait a second. Longing?

No way. Not when it came to a man. If she’d learned anything in her lifetime it was that men were a dime a dozen. Sure, there were those few good ones. Her father and Reverend Talbot and old Mr. Murphy over at the grocery store who climbed his apple tree out back every afternoon so his ailing wife could have fresh fruit with her lunch. Eden wasn’t so jaded that she’d stopped believing in Mr. Right. He just wasn’t lurking anywhere in Cadillac or the surrounding six counties. But someday…

She dismissed the thought. Eden wasn’t the type to sit around dreaming about the future. She made the best of the present and the matter at hand—which, right now, was her business—and the only thing she longed for was a rush of customers. That would show Jake Marlboro that he couldn’t win at everything. While he’d certainly gotten the best of her once, it wasn’t going to happen again.

“These days, the Cowboys ain’t worth the price of a hot dog at Texas stadium. But way back when they could make me sit up and take notice. Why, I remember when Jimmy Johnson was running the team…” Dottie droned on about the good old days and the nostalgia of the past as Eden poured herself a soda.

Nostalgia. That explained her reaction to Brady Weston. It wasn’t so much that she was attracted to him now. No, she was remembering her attraction to him then.

The daydreams… All those times she’d sat in the bleachers and watched Brady throw a winning pass and fancied herself the head cheerleader and the object of his sexy all-star smile.

The fantasies… When she’d lounged on the bank of McKinney’s Lake and watched Brady swing out over the lake in his best Tarzan imitation with the rest of his buddies. The rich kids. The haves. While Eden had sat on the opposite side with the have-nots, and pretended she was his Jane.

The reality… That one hot summer day when he’d had a flat and she’d given him a lift. In the close confines of her dad’s beat-up pickup truck, with Brady so close and the heat so overwhelming, she’d come so close to living up to her reputation, sliding across the seat and kissing the devil out of Brady.

She’d wanted to, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life. The feeling had been just as strong when they’d been on their “date.” Throughout the night, Eden had wished he would ask her out for real. And she’d also wished he wouldn’t be such a gentleman.

But that was in the past. Fond memories. A young girl’s crazy infatuation with the sexiest boy in high school. Those days were over and she was all grown up now, and she didn’t salivate over any man, no matter how handsome.

Besides, he wasn’t that good-looking. Gone was the clean-cut, freshly shaven golden boy who’d taken the Cadillac Texans to the state football championship not once, but twice. The years had added a hardness to his once soft brown eyes. He was older now, with tiny lines rimming his eyes and a roughness about him that came with years of hard living.

Not her type at all. Eden preferred pretty-boy Ricky Martin to the Marlboro man any day. Brady Weston was a little too different from the All-American who’d dominated her adolescent fantasies. He was too masculine, too sexy, and he was here—

Her thoughts slammed to a halt as she straightened and focused on him standing in the doorway. His gaze collided with hers and he smiled, and for five full seconds Eden actually forgot to breathe.

“Hey, Eden!” The greeting came from Brady’s sister Ellie, who came up next to him. The woman waved and steered her brother into a nearby booth.

Eden had barely forced a calm breath, much less responded when the door swung open again. A group of men and women walked in and made a bee-line for Brady and his sister.

The past pulled her back as she remembered all the lunches spent staring across the school cafeteria. She’d sat with her friends while Brady had held court amid the A-crowd in the center of the lunchroom.

There were several beer bellies now and a few pairs of fake breasts, but otherwise the group could have been plucked from the yearbook pages as they smiled and laughed and piled into several booths surrounding Brady and his sister.

“Looks like tonight’s going to be busy,” Dottie said, drawing Eden away from her musings and back to the fact of the matter—she had customers.

Her gaze shifted to Brady, to his sexy smile and the handsome picture he made sitting there in a straw Resistol, faded jeans and a white T-shirt. Gone were the designer clothes and the preoccupied look from this afternoon. He’d transformed back into the good-natured, relaxed cowboy who’d smiled at her from the side of the road that day so long ago. The same cowboy she’d stared at day after day in her English class.