Sugar's Twice as Sweet: Sugar, Georgia: Book 1 (32 page)

Not that he was interested—because women like Glory were tempting and tantalizing and a whole lot of trouble.

Serious trouble
, Cal warned himself even as his eyes slipped over the length of her—incarcerated, coated in sludge, but damn near the most incredible woman he’d ever seen.

He forced his gaze away from her chest, and when they settled on her face he called himself a hundred kinds of bastard. Because the way her lips trembled, she was in desperate need of a champion in her corner.

Not your problem, buddy.

Cal had enough problems of his own without adding another woman to the equation, especially a woman who came with more baggage than he did, and who was a walking talking reminder of the kind of heartache that came with chasing wild. So he shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped down every protective instinct that gnawed at his gut.

Nope, his days of playing the shining knight to a beautiful lady were long over.

 “The mayor said he figured that stealing his tractor was a prank gone bad. But then he found this in the parking bay. Right next to an empty bottle of moonshine.” Gunther approached the open door and held out his hand. Resting in his palm was a single red poker chip with
T
HE
F
AIRCHILD
P
OKERS
engraved in gold.

Cal looked at the ceiling and groaned.

 “I’ve never known you to be a big gambler, Miss Glory.”

Gunther also knew what everyone in that cell now knew. Cal’s Grandma Hattie and her Bible-toting poker cronies had stolen Mrs. Kitty’s tractor. Not Glory. She was just trying to put the Prowler back before things got out of hand. But why hadn’t she just told the truth? They could have avoided this entire effed-up situation.

She strode out of the cell and, stopping in front of Jackson, held out her cuffed hands. “Take them off. Now.”

 “Your sentencing is Monday at nine,” Jackson said, slipping the keys into the hole. He paused. “So don’t think about taking a vacation between now and then.”

“Sentencing?” Those gorgeous eyes went wide with confusion. “I thought Mayor Duncan dropped the charges.”

“He did.” Jackson smiled, a little too smugly for Cal’s liking. “Against my advice. But there are still the resisting arrest and assaulting an officer charges to be dealt with.”

“Assaulting an officer?” Cal laughed. He couldn’t help it.

Glory was all of five-seven and a buck-twenty to Jackson’s towering six-plus feet. With her dark hair pulled up into a ponytail and those flannel pajama bottoms, which were fuzzy and pink and kind of adorable, she looked more like a coed than a criminal. And the only thing her sleepy state and vulnerable eyes dealt Cal was a kick to the gut.

“You can’t be serious,” he heard himself say. “There is no way you’re claiming that. And why the hell is she still cuffed?”

“Can, and am. What part of assaulting me and my men did you miss?” Jackson sounded betrayed. “And since I’m not easily swayed by a pretty face and neither is Judge Holden, I think these charges will hold.”

“For Christ’s sake, Jackson, just uncuff her so we can go.” Jackson shot Cal a look, serious as hell and he knew just how Brett had felt all these years being stuck in the middle of this feud. “Look, I don’t know about you all, but I have more important things to do than stand around arguing about a silly tractor that she may or may not have stolen.”

“Right,” Glory clipped off. His comment only seemed to make her more upset.

Jackson released her hands and as Cal watched Glory rub at her reddened wrists, a slow anger began to twist in his gut.

“I believe that Judge Holden will be swayed by the truth.” Glory picked the chip out of Gunther’s hand and settled on holding it when she realized she had no pockets. “And I happen to be an excellent poker player. So thank you for returning this.”

And with that she strode toward the exit, her backside every bit as tantalizing as her front.

“Hold up, are you admitting to stealing my grandma’s tractor?” Jackson said, hot on her trail.

“I’m not admitting to anything,” Glory shot over her shoulder, her tone dripping with smart-ass. But Cal noticed that her hands were trembling as she pushed open the metal door—and it wasn’t just from the cold. “Does it even matter? What is a grand theft auto compared to assaulting an officer, right?”

M
ay or may not have stolen
, my ass,” Glory mumbled as she yanked open yet another door. She stomped past the break room, past three glaring deputies, and—ignoring the steady drizzle—across the parking lot, not stopping until she reached the steel gate enclosing the Sheriff’s Department’s new parking area.

At eight feet high, with crossbars too small for a baby coon to squeeze through, the only way out was up. Glory stood on her tiptoes and reached to grip the top of the fence—crap! Make that twelve feet.

The light drizzle turned more end-of-summer storm, and she looked back at the closed door and swore. She had no phone, no way home, and no jacket.

Even worse, Glory thought, resting her head against the bars and letting out a stifled sniffle when she looked down and saw that her ducky galoshes were ruined, Jackson’s little stunt had cost her the chance to graduate nursing school summa cum laude. He had probably even cost her her dream job.

Charlotte Holden, head of family medicine at Sugar Medical Center, had taken a chance on Glory, putting her recommendation behind Glory’s proposal that, if approved by the hospital board, would make her the Community Outreach Manager for the soon-to-be built Fairchild Pediatric Ward. The position would be working directly under Charlotte, whom Glory admired and respected, and working with kids—which was what Glory wanted to spend her life doing. And although she was pretty sure that her current situation counted as an “excusable absence” for missing her exam, it wasn’t as if she could call her professor and say, “Sorry I missed the second-most-important test of my life, but I was incarcerated for grand-theft auto and, oh, and I might have accidently assaulted an officer of the law with a peach-colored tractor.”

Feeling helpless and out of options—no way was she going back inside to ask for a ride—Glory kicked the gate.

Still not satisfied, she hauled back her left boot and kicked the metal bars as hard as she could. The gate didn’t even rattle, but managed to split the rubber, right up the duck’s face and over the big toe.

“Stupid piece of shit!” she yelled as loud as she could, kicking it again.

A low masculine whistle made her stop midkick. “Assaulting an officer and now an innocent fence? I never took you for such a spitfire. Especially not in rubber ducky boots. Those come in steel-toe?”

Glory spun around, ready to show him just how painful her ducky boots could be, when she stopped. One look at Cal and everything inside of her went still and she felt like she was going to crumble right there.

Cal leaned back against the bumper of the sheriff’s cruiser, one arm resting leisurely on the roof of the car, the other hung loosely from his belt loop, looking big and safe and bad-ass. He wore a
M
C
G
RAW’S
C
ONSTRUCTION
cap, a really warm-looking jacket, and that sexy grin, which always managed to make her heart do these silly little flips. The man looked so at home in his own skin it ticked her off even more.

“Apparently, it
may or may not
have pissed me off,” Glory said, proud that her voice gave off the unaffected tone she’d mastered over the years.

Cal’s smile died at her comment. His boots clicked on the pavement and he walked forward, not stopping until he was standing so close she could smell the rain on his skin. “I know you didn’t steal Miss Kitty’s tractor. Never for a second thought you did.”

Glory felt her chest tighten and all she wanted to do was lean forward and disappear into his big, strong arms, just for a minute, to know what it was like to have someone to lean on. But she wasn’t sure if he’d hold her back and she realized with a wrinkled nose and a sinking heart that if she could smell every ounce of yummy-macho-male on him then he could smell Mr. Ferguson’s cows on her.

She stepped back and to the side, making him turn so he was standing upwind.

“Maybe you could have voiced that opinion a few minutes ago, while Jackson was twisting the rope for my public lynching.”

Cal let out a tired sigh. “I was just trying to defuse the situation, remind everyone that this was all over some stupid tractor so we could get out of there.”

“Really?” She said in a tone that translated into
bullshit
. “Because it seemed to me that you were reminding everyone that you are a bros-before-hoes kind of guy,” Glory said, hating that her throat caught on the last few words.

She wasn’t an idiot. She knew what everyone in town thought: that she had slept with an off-limits man—just like her mama. But the truth was, Glory and Damon had never made it past second base. Not that
that
made what she’d done any less wrong. He’d still been a teacher at her school, a judge in the pageant she was entered in, but he’d made Glory feel something that she’d never felt before—wanted.

Not in a sexual way; she’d never had a problem with that. She’d been fending off boys since she grew boobs in the sixth grade. But Damon had sought her out, taken an interest in her life and her dreams, told her how smart she was. Made her believe for the first time in her life that maybe she deserved what everyone else had.

As an adult looking back, Glory could see that he had taken advantage of a confused and lost girl. But at the time he’d made her feel as though she mattered, as though she wasn’t just Julie-Marie’s castoff, as though she wasn’t a complete waste of space.

“Does it hurt?” Cal asked, reaching out to touch her wrists.

Shocked that Cal would try to touch her, since he’d clearly gone out of his way to avoid being near her over the years, she stepped back right before his fingers made contact.

Irritation tugged at his lips and he reached up to fiddle with the bill of his cap, cupping it in his palm and pulling it farther down on his head. The movement tugged his shirt up, giving her an unobstructed view of his flat stomach disappearing behind his button fly.

Oh, my…

She jerked her gaze up and off his more-than-impressive package, hoping it was raining too hard for him to notice her ogling. “It’s fine.”

Cal pushed up the bill of his hat, his intense blue eyes flickered with amusement and—
crap
! He’d noticed. “You sure, Boots? Because you’re looking a little flushed there.”

“Allergic reaction. Close proximity to assholes for extended periods of time tends to have that effect on me.”

“So you’re saying a ride to the hospital with me would only add to your discomfort.”

It would, but not in the way he was implying.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital, and—” She took in a deep breath and added, “You’re not an asshole, Cal.”

“That seemed painful for you to say.”

Swallowing a big bite of humble pie, she looked him in the eye. “No, I mean it. I was so ticked I forgot to say thanks for coming down and bailing me out. I know you probably did it because Brett forced you to, but I appreciate it all the same. And you don’t have to worry about me leaving town and costing you—”

“Five grand.”

Glory gasped. “Five grand?”

There was no way she was leaving town, because there was no way she could afford to pay him back if she did. Then all of her earlier anger vanished, leaving behind a deep sense of gratitude. If he hadn’t posted bail, she’d be calling Sugar County Jail her home until the sentencing. And based on how that went, maybe even longer.

“Judge Holden’s a fair guy, Glory. You don’t need to worry, Jackson was just trying to scare you,” Cal said softly.

Glory looked at the shattered lights of the cruiser, the accordion hood, and she wasn’t so sure.

“I’m not thinking of skipping town, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “But if it makes you feel any better, you can hold the keys to my car. It isn’t worth five grand, but that way you know I can’t leave.”

“I don’t need your keys, Glory, and I don’t think you’re a flight risk,” Cal said, and the belief she heard in his voice made speaking hard.

“Okay, then. Thanks.” She gave a silly little flap of the hand that she hoped came off like a wave and walked backward. Right into the gate.

Glory turned around and dropped her head to stare at her ruined boots. And just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, she felt a warm jacket slide over her shoulders. She opened her mouth to tell him that she was covered in shit and she would ruin his soft and fuzzy and incredible-smelling jacket, but instead a sob came out. Followed by another one and a mortifying snort. Until finally her entire body was shaking.

Large hands settled on her hips and slowly turned her until she was nestled in the most glorious chest she’d ever felt. Wanting to grab on but terrified of looking as desperate as she felt, Glory dug her fingers into the edges of the jacket, pulling it closed. She rested her cheek over his heart and tried to calm her breathing to match his steady beat.

And somewhere between his arms coming around her and feeling his lips press against the top of her head, Glory wondered if she would ever figure out how to become the kind of woman that good men, men like Cal, saw forever in.

LAST CHANCE FAMILY by Hope Ramsay
—Mike Taggart may be a high roller in Las Vegas, but is he ready to take a gamble on love in Last Chance? Fans of Debbie Macomber, Robyn Carr, and Sherryl Woods will love this sassy and heartwarming story from
USA Today
bestselling author Hope Ramsay.

SUGAR’S TWICE AS SWEET by Marina Adair
—Fans of Jill Shalvis, Rachel Gibson, and Carly Phillips will enjoy this sexy and sweet romance about a woman who’s renovating her beloved grandmother’s house—even though she doesn’t know a nut from a bolt—and the bad boy who can’t resist helping her…even as she steals his heart!