Texas Magic

Without another word, he reached out and ran a finger along her jawline, down her neck, to the collar of her robe.

In one firm motion, he pulled her on top of him. And coffee completely lost its appeal.

* * *

“Tell me everything, and don’t you dare skip a single detail,” demanded Pepper Merriweather.

Caroline and Pepper had been best friends for as far back as they both could remember. Tonight they sat at Caroline’s kitchen table, sharing a bottle of pinot noir and some to-die-for parmesan spinach dip Pepper had commandeered from the kitchen of Celebrations, Inc.

They’d settled in with a spread of crudités and crackers, and Pepper was obviously expecting the details of Caroline’s time with Drew to be the main course.

Seeing as how they always told each other everything—stories about first boyfriends, first kisses, first heartbreaks, first and last dates—Caroline was having a hard time coming up with diversionary tactics. Because Caroline wasn’t so eager to share the story of her first one-night stand.

She wasn’t embarrassed. On the contrary, she was rather proud that for once she had not bowed to fear and had taken what she wanted. Not to mention the fact that it had happened with a guy like Drew Montgomery. That they’d spent all of Sunday morning in bed. Later they’d gone to brunch and had played together all day, until he’d dropped her off at home.

When was the last time she had played?

She had shared the surface points with Pepper. It was the more intimate details she was keeping closer to her chest.

Really, the only reason she and Pepper were having this conversation was that Pepper had said she’d seen Caroline and Drew dancing at the wedding Saturday night...and then she had seen the two of them leave together. Pepper tended to have a special kind of radar for things like that.

Now here Caroline was with her friend on Monday evening, sharing a bottle of wine, Pepper getting bolder and more insistent with each sip. The vaguer the answers Caroline gave, the more Pepper demanded the details.

The truth was, Caroline felt sort of like Cinderella having been to the ball, having danced with the prince all night, and now her coach had turned back into a pumpkin. Like Cinderella, she wanted more, despite the pact that she had made with herself that it would be just one night. But one night had turned into the next day, and pretty soon that pact she had made with herself was falling through the porch cracks as Drew kissed her good-night just before midnight.

So, now pactless and wanting more, she wasn’t sure how Drew felt.

When he left, he had not promised he’d call. Caroline had convinced herself that that was a good thing. Because if he’d said it, she would’ve gotten her hopes up, only to have them dashed when he did not follow through.

Instead, he had not said it, and here she sat uncertain and vulnerable with her hopes up anyway.

Oh, God, what made me think I could have a one-night stand?

She dug her nails into her palms and reminded herself that it was what it was. She had wanted one perfect night with a guy who was perfectly imperfect for her. One night to release all the wedding stress and then she would return to her regularly scheduled life, which had no room for ongoing romance.

Because of that, she did not dare try to find her prince or hope that her prince would care enough to find her again—although Drew did know where she lived, and she already knew he made no pretense of being Prince Charming.

Well, okay, he’d earned the charming part. That was part of the reason she did not feel like dishing the details with her friend.

Pepper picked up the bottle of pinot noir and refilled Caroline’s wineglass. That was an unspoken signal, and Caroline knew that in exactly four...three...two...one...

“Never in a million years would I have picked out a guy like him for you. But good for you, honey.” She pushed Caroline’s glass toward her and then clinked it with her own. “Cheers! I mean, if I’d been paired up with him, I would’ve gone for him myself. But it was obvious that he only had eyes for you.”

Caroline smiled and shrugged as she sipped her wine, racking her brain for something—anything—to change the subject.

Too late.

“Now, I know y’all spent the night together,” Pepper said, “but the burning question is, when are you going to see him again?”

There was a sparkle in Pepper’s eyes that hinted that her doing such a thing would be pure decadence...and maybe even highly recommended.

Caroline tried to act nonchalant, despite the heat she felt rising in her cheeks. “I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I guess that remains to be seen.”

Pepper straightened in her chair as if Caroline had just revealed the juiciest secret of all. “So that means you would see him again?”

Pepper cocked her head to the side, holding her wineglass midair.

“Well, why wouldn’t I?”

Pepper blinked and looked little stunned. “But you want to see him again, right?”

Caroline sipped her wine, buying time. She rolled the liquid around on her tongue, savoring its cherries, plums and earthiness.

Being put on the spot by Pepper sort of had the same effect as flipping a coin for an answer—in that flash of seconds before fate decided the answer, she knew what she wanted in her heart of hearts.

Yes. She did want to see him again. They’d had a fabulous time together. A truly fabulous time. No one was more surprised by this than she was. He’d been sweet and gentle and interesting. What was more, he seemed genuinely interested in her.

He would call.

Wouldn’t he?

Oh, God, what if he didn’t call?

* * *

Drew spent way too many hours in the office, but long hours were the nature of his job as editor-in-chief of the Dallas Journal of Business and Development.

After taking three days off for the wedding and spending all day Sunday with Caroline, he faced the age-old problem when he returned to work on Monday: his head just wasn’t in the game. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Caroline since he’d left her at the door after kissing her goodbye last night.

Even so, that morning, he’d hit the ground running—albeit with a smile on his face—and had not stopped all day.

Now, his computer screen glowed in the dusk of his dimly lit office. An article that one of the reporters had written about the opening of a new credit union in the area stared back at him blankly, and all he could think about was that at this time last night, he’d been with Caroline.

Come on, damn it. Focus on work.

Drew narrowed his gaze at his screen, redoubling his effort. It was stuffy in his closed office despite the cool October weather. Too bad he couldn’t open a window and let in some fresh air. But the one window in his shoebox-size second-floor office was strictly for show and not function.

He got up and opened his office door instead. The newsroom was quiet. Since it was after eight, all the cubicles were empty, including the one that belonged to managing editor Bia Anderson. Since Bia and the staff had worked double time in his absence, he had intended to work extra hard for the next four days to pull the rest of the week’s edition together. He’d sent her home early. He was alone in the office.

The newsroom was eerily silent. The faint smell of coffee hung in the air, mingling with newsprint and something else that was unique to the office. Drew liked to think it was the smell of ambition.

He made his way to the small kitchenette, and for a moment he thought about putting on another pot of coffee, but he dismissed the idea when he saw that someone had already cleaned up the coffee station. No use in dirtying it up again today, even though he was going to be there a while. He settled on a glass of cold water from the cooler next to the coffeemaker and made his way back to his desk.

Since the Dallas Journal of Business and Development hit the stands on Friday—a strategy designed to allow the Journal a slim margin to scoop the competition—the daily paper’s special tabloid-size business section, which ran on Mondays—Drew’s week began on Friday and ended on Thursday.

That meant he worked most weekends. Technically, Monday was midweek for him. After taking off Friday, Saturday and Sunday, he should have been way behind schedule. But since Bia had done such a beautiful job handling the first three days of the week, it wasn’t so bad.

Of course, there were still things that only he could do...in addition to editing the handful of articles that were just coming across his desk.