A Match Made in Texas (37 page)

Kenny charged out the door with the rest of the town hot on his heels.

“Hey.” He held out a purse, if that’s what you could call the huge brown leather bag. “Hope forgot her purse.”

Slate’s gaze ran over the crowd that circled around. “And I guess everyone needed to come with you to give… Hope her purse.”

“We just wanted to see how things were goin’.” Tyler Jones, who owned the gas station, stepped up.

“And say good-bye to Hope,” Miguel, the postmaster, piped in.

There was a chorus of good-byes along with a multitude of invitations to supper.

Then someone finally yelled what everyone else wanted to. “So what are you gonna do with Hope now, Coach?”

What he wanted to do was climb up in the truck and haul ass out of there. To go home and watch game film—or better yet, pop in a Kenny Chesney CD and peruse the Internet for pictures of Mexican hot spots. Anything to forget he’d ever met the woman, or tasted her skin, or kissed her soft lips, or stared into her blue eyes. Blue eyes that turned misty as she looked at the smiling faces surrounding them.

It was that watery, needy look that was the deciding factor.

“Well, I guess I’m going to do what I should’ve done years ago.” He leaned down and hefted her over one shoulder. She squealed and struggled as the crowd swarmed around them. Then he flipped her up in the seat and climbed in after her.

“What’s that?” Ms. Murphy, the librarian, asked as she handed him a red high heel through the open window.

After tossing it to the floor, Slate started the engine. It rumbled so loudly he had to yell to be heard.

“Take her to bed.”

The woman next to him released a gasp while poor Ms. Murphy looked like she was about to pass out. Normally, he would’ve apologized for his bad behavior. But normally he didn’t have a beautiful impostor sitting next to him who made him angrier than losing a football game.

He popped the truck into reverse and backed out, trying his damnedest to pull up mental pictures of waving palm trees, brown-skinned beauties, and strong tequila. But they kept being erased by soft white skin, eyes as blue as a late September sky, and the smell of sun-ripened peaches.

The town of Bramble, Texas, watched as the truck rumbled over the curb and then took off down the street with the Stars and Stripes, the Lone Star flag, and Buster’s ears flapping in the wind.

“Isn’t that the sweetest thang?” Twyla pressed a hand to her chest. “Slate and Hope—high school sweethearts together again.”

“It sure is,” Kenny Gene said. “ ’Course, there’s no tellin’ how long Hope will stay.”

“Yep.” Rye Pickett spit out a long stream of tobacco juice. “That Hollywood sure has brainwashed her. Hell, she couldn’t even remember how to drink.”

“Poor Slate,” Ms. Murphy tsked. “He’ll have his hands full convincing her to stay and settle down.”

There were murmurs of agreement before Harley Sutter, the mayor, spoke up. “ ’Course, we could help him out with that.”

Rossie Owens pushed back his cowboy hat. “Well, we sure could.”

“Just a little help,” Darla piped up. “Just enough to show Hope that all her dreams can be fulfilled right here in Bramble.”

“Just enough to let love prevail,” Sue Ellen agreed.

“Just enough for weddin’ bells to ring.” Twyla sighed.

“Yep.” Harley nodded as he hitched up his pants. “Just enough.”

THE DISH

Where Authors Give You the Inside Scoop

From the desk of Vicky Dreiling

Dear Reader,

I had a lot of imaginary boyfriends when I was a kid. My friend Kim and I read
Tiger Beat
magazine and chose our loves. I “dated” David Cassidy, a yesteryear heartthrob from a TV show called
The Partridge Family
. Kim’s “boyfriend” was Donny Osmond, although she might have had a brief crush on Barry Williams, better known as Greg from
The Brady Bunch
. I did a quick search online and discovered that
Tiger Beat
magazine still exists, but the stars for today’s preteens are Justin Bieber, Taylor Lautner, and members of the boy band One Direction.

The idea of a big family and rock-star boyfriends really appealed to us. We traveled in imaginary tour buses to imaginary concerts. We listened to the music and sang along, pretending we were onstage, too. Of course, we invented drama, such as mean girls trying to steal our famous boyfriends backstage.

Recently, I realized that the seeds of the families I create in my novels were sown in my preteen years as Kim and I pretended to date our celebrity crushes. As I got older, imaginary boyfriends led to real-life boyfriends in high school and college. Eventually, marriage and kids led to an extended family, one that continues to grow.

In WHAT A RECKLESS ROGUE NEEDS, two close families meet once a year at a month-long house party. As in real life, much has changed for Colin and Angeline. While they were born only a week apart, they never really got along very well. An incident at Angeline’s come-out ball didn’t help matters, either. Many years have elapsed, and now Colin finds he needs Angeline’s help to keep from losing a property that holds very deep emotional ties for him. Once they cross the threshold of Sommerall House, their lives are never the same again, but they will always have their families.

May the Magic Romance Fairies be with all of you and your families!

www.VickyDreiling.com

Twitter @VickyDreiling

Facebook.com/VickyDreilingHistoricalAuthor

From the desk of Paula Quinn

Dear Reader,

As most of you know, I love dogs. I have six of them. I see your eyes bugging out. Six?? Yes, six precious tiny Chihuahuas and all together they weight approximately twenty-seven pounds. I’ve had dogs my whole life—big ones, little ones. So it’s not surprising that I would want to write dogs into my books. This time I went big: 140 pounds of big.

In THE SEDUCTION OF MISS AMELIA BELL we meet Grendel, an Irish wolfhound mix, who along with our hero, Edmund MacGregor, wins the heart of our heroine, Amelia Bell. Grendel is the son of Aurelius, whom some of you might remember as the puppy Colin MacGregor gave to Edmund, his stepson, in
Conquered by a Highlander
. Since this series is called Highland Heirs, I figured why not include the family dog heirs as well?

I loved writing a dog as a secondary character, and Grendel is an important part of Edmund and Amelia’s story. Now, really, what’s better than a big, brawny, sexy Highlander? Right: a big, brawny, sexy Highlander with a dog. Or if you live in NYC, you can settle for a hunky guy playing with his dog in the park.

My six babies all have distinct personalities. For instance, Riley loves to bark and be an all-around pain in the neck. He’s high-strung and loves it. Layla, my biggest girl, must “mother” all the others. She keeps them in line with a soft growl and a lick to the eyeball. Liam, my tiny three-pound boy, isn’t sure if he’s Don Juan or Napoleon. He’ll drop and show you his package if you call him cute. They are all different and I wanted Grendel to have his own personality, too.

Much like his namesake, Grendel hates music and powdered periwigs. He’s faithful and loyal, and he loves to chase smaller things… like people. Even though Edmund is his master and Grendel does, of course, love him best, it doesn’t take Amelia long to win his heart, or for Grendel to win hers, and he soon finds himself following at her heels. Some of my favorite scenes involve the subtle interactions between Amelia and Grendel. This big, seemingly vicious dog is always close by when Amelia is sad or afraid. When things are going on all around them, Amelia just has to rest her hand on Grendel’s head and it completely calms her. We witness a partial transformation of ownership in the small, telltale ways Grendel remains ever constant at Amelia’s side.

Even when Grendel finds Gaza, his own love interest (hey, I’m a romance writer, what can I say?), he is still faithful to his human lady. We won’t get into doggy love, but suffice it to say, there will be plenty of furry heirs living in Camlochlin for a long time to come. They might not be the prettiest dogs in Skye, but they are the most loyal.

This was my first foray into writing a dog as a secondary character and I must say I fell in love with a big, slobbering mutt named after a fiend who killed men for singing. I wasn’t surprised that Grendel filled his place so well in Edmund and Amelia’s story. Each of my dogs does the same in mine and my kids’ stories. That’s what dogs do. They run headlong into our lives barking, tail wagging, sharing wet, sloppy kisses. They love us with an almost supernatural, unconditional love. And we love them back.

I hope you get a chance to pick up THE SEDUCTION OF MISS AMELIA BELL and meet Edmund and Amelia and, of course, Grendel.

Happy reading!