The Prodigal Texan

“You get used to it. Sure you don’t want a drink?”

“I have to drive home.”

Jud shrugged. “Up to you.” He took a noisy gulp of whiskey, then handed the half-empty bottle to her. “Do whatever you want to with that. I’m done.”

She held the bottle for a while, fighting the urge to take just one swig. Her experience with liquor consisted of eggnog punch at Christmas and champagne for New Year’s Eve. Plus the occasional long neck beer at a party. But she caught the rich oak aroma from Jud’s breath on the air, and her mouth watered for a taste. Just one.

Finally, though, she put the bottle at her side.

“Not tempting enough?” Jud rolled to face her, elbow bent and head propped on his hand. Full darkness had fallen, but they were close enough that she could see all the details of his face—the straight slant of his nose and the angle of his cheekbones, the shape of his mouth, the spark of laughter in his eyes. “What does tempt you, Ms. Mayor?”

“Pecan pie. Fast food cheeseburgers.”

“Guess you don’t get too much fast food out here in the sticks.”

“Just Bertha’s kolaches.”

“She’s still cooking?”

“Breakfast every day but Sunday.”

“Nothing ever changes.” After a silence, he said, “Do you have weaknesses for something besides food?”

She was beginning to feel drunk herself, listening to his voice, whiskey warm. “Horses. Never met one I didn’t love.”

He rubbed his knuckles up and down her lower arm. “Men, Miranda. Don’t you have a weakness concerning men?”

“Nary a one,” she lied, as goose bumps broke out all over her body. “Haven’t found a man yet I couldn’t live without.”

His fingers touched her cheek. “You just haven’t met the right guy.”

“I’ve met all the men I’m likely to here in Homestead.”

She should sit up, get down, go home. Jud Ritter was bad news, as at least one girl in Homestead had learned the hard way. He was drunk enough to seduce Miranda, for lack of anyone better, but she wasn’t drunk enough to succumb. She didn’t think she could get that drunk without passing out first.

Then he kissed her.

She gasped, tasting the liquor on his breath. And there was more…the firmness of his lips moving gently and deliberately over hers, the faint lime scent of his aftershave. She put up a hand—to stop him?— which came to rest on his shoulder, square and solid under his shirt. Without thought, she lifted her other hand to his hair, running her fingers through the short, sleek strands, pausing to cup the nape of his neck, the curve of his head.

And now they were both involved in the kiss, as he coaxed her response with patience and persistence and—dammit—expertise. She wouldn’t have him thinking she was a total novice, though that might not be far from the truth. By the time she was finished with him, he’d know he’d been kissed….

Somewhere along the way, though, her intentions grew wispy, then evaporated altogether. Mouths fusing, releasing, the clash of teeth. Hands exploring with long, savoring strokes or desperate clutches at sweat-slicked skin. Night air cool on heated bodies pressed ruthlessly together. Tension building, desire pounding in her veins. This, this was the reason she’d waited. He was the reason….

“Jud.” She whispered his name, and he stopped his exquisite torture of her breasts to look into her face. She saw his eyes focus.

In the next instant, he took his hands off her body and jerked away. Choking, growling like a rabid wolf, he partly fell, partly jumped out of the truck bed, hit the ground on his hands and knees and stayed there, swearing.

Miranda lay on her back where he’d left her, staring up at cold stars in a black sky, her mind an absolute blank.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jud dragged himself to his feet using the edge of the tailgate. “You let just any sonofabitch maul you?”

He grabbed her hands and drew her to sit up, like a rag doll who’d lost half her stuffing. “Any woman with half a brain would know better.”

She put a hand to her head, where her brain used to be. “I didn’t—” Past and present swirled together…she might have been sixteen again, standing at the door to the high school gym where she was supposed to meet Jud for the homecoming dance. He’d said to wait for him there, in the note she’d found in her locker.

“Are you crazy?” he’d demanded, when she stepped out to claim him. She showed him the note, and he laughed. The crowd of kids watching them laughed, too.

“If you had half a brain,” he’d said, “you’d know better.” Then, with his arm around his date, he’d walked past Miranda into the dance.

“Pull yourself together,” he ordered, with a wave at her wrecked blouse and wrinkled skirt. “Go home, before you get tarred with the same brush they used on me. That’d ruin your election chances, for sure.”

When he reached for the whiskey, Miranda focused enough to grab it. “No. I’m not leaving you a single, solitary drop.” Scrambling on her knees to the other side of the truck, she launched the bottle into the darkness beyond her vehicle. The satisfying crash of glass shattering on asphalt announced her success.

Jud swore again, even more fluently.

Still kneeling, Miranda fixed her bra and drew the edges of her blouse together. One of the buttons had popped—or been torn off. She’d have to wear her jacket into the house and hope her mother didn’t notice.

When she scooted to the end of the tailgate, Jud held out a hand. Miranda told him what he could do with his hands, his truck, and the rest of his life before she hopped down without help.

He grabbed her shoulder and pulled her around to face him. “Look, I—”

As she pivoted, Miranda slapped him with the full force of her turn. “Don’t talk to me. I don’t care what you think. I was stupid—gee, that’s a surprise. But I’ll get over it, all the easier if I never see your face again.”

She’d reached for the door handle of her truck before she remembered that she had his keys. “I’ll send the sheriff out in the morning,” she yelled. “He’ll have your keys.”

“Hey,” Jud shouted, and started running. “You can’t—”

But Miranda was behind the wheel with the motor roaring before he’d covered half the distance. She backed into a plume of dust, skidded onto the pavement and gave Jud a wave as she passed him, already doing forty-five.

She didn’t slow down until she reached the driveway at the farm. And only then did she acknowledge the tears running down her cheeks and dripping off her chin.

CHAPTER TWO

December

Four years later

TRADITION IN HOMESTEAD, Texas, demanded that every bridal couple drive away from the ceremony in a suitably decorated vehicle. Noah and Greer Kelley would be no exception. While their reception—a hoedown and barbecue—continued in the town park, friends of the happy couple went to work on Project Newlywed. The groom had parked his truck in plain sight as a decoy while trying to hide his bride’s red Blazer, a futile effort that gave the decorating committee the opportunity to embellish two vehicles, instead of one.

“I brought tin cans,” Miranda told the crew surrounding Greer’s car. “Plus string and crepe paper.”

“We’d better hurry and get this done, then.” Wade Montgomery, the sheriff of Loveless County, surveyed the Blazer. He held a can of shaving cream in one hand and a white shoe polish applicator in the other. “I can’t imagine Noah’s going to wait much longer to have Greer to himself. I remember thinking I’d never get Callie away from our wedding reception.”

Kristin Gallagher wrapped a ribbon around the antenna and tied a bow at the top. “I imagine Greer has some ideas of her own,” she said, with a glance at her husband, Ryan, who was assisting Wade with the shoe polish.

Miranda caught the sexy grin Ryan sent his wife in return and felt her cheeks heat up. There had been a rash of weddings in Homestead recently—all her friends seemed to be pairing off, leaving her the odd woman out. An old maid was what she was, an old maid who still lived with her mother.

But this old maid was the town mayor. Miranda couldn’t help being proud of what she’d accomplished, for herself and for the hometown she loved.