Since Hope had never been able to disappoint her hometown, she rolled her eyes at Shirlene and allowed Harley to pull her out to the dance floor. Unfortunately, the two-step had ended, and the band struck up one of those stupid wedding songs that only worked in a room filled with drunks. Still, she pinned on a smile and tried to act like she enjoyed impersonating a flustered chicken.
“Glad to see you so happy, Hope,” Harley said as he flapped his arms above a belly that was more keg than six-pack. “You know what they say: ‘Home is where the heart is.’ ”
Unless some Disney princess stole it right out from under your nose
, Hope thought as Harley swung her right on over to Sheriff Sam Winslow.
“He’s right, Hope,” Sam said as he flapped. “Hollywood has had our sweetheart long enough. Though I bet they ain’t gonna be real happy to lose such talent. That hemorrhoid commercial you did sure brought tears to my eyes. It had to be real hard to get such a look of complete discomfort.” He swung her around. “But you sure nailed it, Hog. Myra raced out and got a tube that very night.”
“A tube of what?” Rachel Dean stepped up.
“Hemorrhoid cream,” Sam answered, before stepping away.
“Oh, honey.” Rachel Dean clapped her man hands, then jerked Hope into a swing that almost snapped her spinal column. “I got hemorrhoids when I was pregnant. And I’m tellin’ you right now, there ain’t no cream on God’s green earth that will help with that hellish burnin’.”
Not wanting to talk about hemorrhoids or pregnancy, Hope gladly turned to her next partner, although her pinned-on smile slipped when she stared up into a pair of dreamy hazel eyes. As she struggled to regain her composure, the silly song ended and a waltz began.
“Could I have this dance, Miss Scroggs?” Slate asked.
The word
no
hovered on her lips. But, of course, she couldn’t say no. Not unless she wanted him to know exactly how hurt she was.
“Only if you keep those big boots off my toes, Cowboy.”
“I’ll do my best.” Slate flashed the sexy grin that made women melt. Hope didn’t melt, but she felt thoroughly singed, or maybe just annoyed that she didn’t get to claim the body that went with the smile.
His best turned out to be worse than Hope remembered. After only two steps, her toes were smashed under his boots, and she was forced to do what she’d always done when they danced: Take the lead. Except now he didn’t follow as well as he used to.
“Listen, Hope,” he said. “I realize this has been hard on you. You come back to Bramble expecting… well, I don’t exactly know what you were expecting, but it sure couldn’t have been a twin sister you didn’t even know you had. Or a wedding that had been planned without you knowing—our wedding, no less.” Slate chuckled. “Crazy townsfolk.”
She looked away. “Yeah… crazy.”
“But you want to know what is even crazier,” he continued. “All it took was one look from Faith—or maybe a kiss that knocked my hat off—and I was a goner. A complete goner.”
Hope wished that she was a goner. Gone from this man. And this room. And this town. If the pits of hell
opened at that very moment and swallowed her up, it would be a relief.
But that didn’t happen. So all she could do was guard her toes and try not to act like she gave a darn that her wedding plans had disintegrated just like her dreams of becoming a movie star. She was thankful when the slow ballad ended and Slate was pulled away as Harley bellowed, “Come on all you unhitched folks! It’s time for the garter and bouquet toss!”
Hope tried to make a run for it, but the town pushed her forward, swarming around a chair that had been set up in the middle of the dance floor, a chair where her sister sat and waited for Slate to dip that head of sun-kissed hair and, using nothing but his teeth, tug the light blue garter down a leg identical to her own.
“I love a man who knows what to do with his mouth!” Rachel Dean yelled, and whooping and hollering broke out loud enough to shake the sturdy stone building.
With the town’s attention focused elsewhere, Hope attempted to inch her way to the door. But she should’ve known better, especially when she had such an ornery best friend.
“Now don’t be gettin’ any ideas about leaving, Hog.” Shirlene positioned her body between Hope and the exit. “Not when everyone expects you to get up there and catch that ugly bunch of silk flowers Darla hot-glued together.”
“Ugly?” Darla clasped her hands to her chest. “Well, I’ll have you know that I paid a pretty penny for those at Nothin’ Over a Buck.”
“Of course, you did, honey.” Shirlene sent her a wink. “If anybody can stretch a buck, it’s you.”
The words seemed to pacify Darla, and she smiled
brightly as Shirlene slipped an arm around Hope and leaned down to speak in her ear.
“Now I know you want to go home and wallow in self-pity. But we both know that this town isn’t going to let you get away with that. So just bite the bullet and get in there and do me proud.” She gave her a loving pat on the back before she shoved her into the middle of the dance floor, and by the time Hope caught her balance, Shirlene had disappeared in the crowd of single ladies.
It was a pathetic group. There was Twyla, who had already been married three times. Rachel Dean, who came close, with two. The librarian, Ms. Murphy, who was smart enough to avoid marriage altogether, but still had to endure the crazy ritual every time someone had a wedding. Hope’s two younger sisters, Jenna Jay and Tessa. And a couple other giggling girls.
Her twin sister stood to the side, holding her “Nothin’ Over a Buck” bouquet and grinning like the seven dwarfs were all coming over to the castle for dinner. Of course, who wouldn’t grin if she had just wrangled the best-looking man this side of the Mississippi while her sister was forced to fight for the leftovers?
Well, Hope wasn’t fighting.
She was all fought out.
She didn’t care if Darla’s hot-glued flowers were made out of solid gold. She wasn’t going to lift a finger to catch them. Not one finger.
“Ready?” Faith looked directly at her, and Hope experienced the same strange phenomenon that she always experienced when her twin sister looked at her. It was like looking into a mirror. Not just externally, but internally. Everything Hope felt was reflected right back at her. Hurt.
Confusion. Anger. Self-pity. It was all there in the familiar blue eyes.
Fortunately, Faith broke the connection by turning around and giving Hope something else to think about, like how to avoid the large bouquet of silk flowers that Faith launched over her shoulder.
Hope figured it wouldn’t be hard, not when Twyla had perfected the wide-receiver dive that won her numerous silk-flower trophies and a bunch of good-for-nothing husbands. But as the bouquet sailed through the air, Twyla didn’t move one underdeveloped muscle toward it. Nor did Rachel. Or Ms. Murphy. Or Jenna Jay. Or Tessa. Or any of the giggling girls. Instead, everyone just watched as the purple batch of flowers tumbled end over end, straight toward Hope.
She took a step back.
Then another.
But the bouquet just kept coming. If it hadn’t been heading for her like a heat-seeking missile, she might’ve turned and run. But she wasn’t about to take her eyes off Darla’s creation, not when Hope’s own maid-of-honor bouquet was a good solid five pounds of hardened hot glue. So, instead, Hope widened her stance and prepared to deflect the floral grenade with an arm.
It would’ve worked too, if her watch hadn’t snagged the yard and a half of tulle netting surrounding the flowers, something Hope didn’t realize until she lowered her arm and felt the dead weight.
Like a preschooler doing the hokey pokey, she shook her arm to try and get it loose. But the bouquet refused to budge. And after only a few seconds of crazy waving, she realized it was no use and let her arm drop. She expected a wave of catcalls and whistles, but what she got was complete silence.
Confused, she glanced up to find the entire roomful of people staring.
Except not at her.
Few things could pull the town’s attention away from their sweetheart. Yet something had. Something that had nothing to do with ugly silk flowers and five pounds of hot glue. Something that so intrigued the town they had completely forgotten that Hope Scroggs existed.
A chill of foreboding tiptoed up Hope’s spine, and her stomach tightened and gave a little heave as she slowly turned around.
Just that quickly, things went from bad to worse.
A man stood in the open doorway with his shoulder propped against the frame as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As if he didn’t stick out like a sore thumb from the other men, who were dressed in their Sunday best of western pants, heavily starched shirts, and polished cowboy boots.
This man looked like a desperado who’d come off a long, hard ride. Road dust covered his round-toed black biker boots with their thick soles and silver buckles, partially hidden by the tattered hem of his jeans, jeans so worn that they molded to all the right nooks and crannies, defining hard thighs and lean valleys. A basic black T-shirt was tucked into the jeans, stretching over miles of muscle and hugging the hard knots of his biceps.
But although he had a body that could tempt a Bible-banger on Sunday, it was his face that held Hope’s attention, a face made up of tanned skin, hard angles, and a thin layer of black stubble. Come to think of it, every thing about the man was black—including his heart. Everything but those steel gray eyes, eyes that scanned the room as if looking for something.
Or someone.
Hope ducked behind Kenny Gene and stealthily peeked over his shoulder, watching as the man pushed away from the doorjamb and weaved around the tables—fortunately, in the opposite direction. The smart thing to do would be to slip out the door before he saw her. And she might’ve done just that if his fine butt in those buttery jeans hadn’t distracted her.
It was a shame, a darned shame, that the man was such a mean, ornery lowlife.
A mean, ornery lowlife who stopped right in front of…
Faith?
It made no sense, but there he stood, those unemotional eyes drilling her sister with an intensity that caused the Disney smile to droop.
“It seems I missed the weddin’,” he stated in a deep, silky voice that didn’t match his rough exterior. “So I guess the only thing left to do”—those big biker hands slipped around Faith’s waist—“is kiss the bride.”
Then, before Hope’s mouth could finish dropping open, he lowered his head and laid one on her twin sister. Not a gentlemanly peck, but a deep wet lip-lock that left little doubt that a tongue was involved. It was that tongue that forced Hope’s true nature to return from the depressed, self-pitying cocoon it had been hiding in since learning that Slate was in love with Faith. That lying, conniving tongue caused Hope’s long-withheld emotions to spew forth in a geyser of liberating anger.
“Colt Lomax!” Hope screamed, loud enough to shake the tiles from the ceiling, as she shoved her way through the crowd. “Get your filthy hands off my sister!”
C
OLT
L
OMAX HAD SPENT MOST OF HIS LIFE
in Bramble, Texas, angry. Angry over his daddy dying at such a young age. Angry that his mama couldn’t pull herself together after his daddy’s death and take proper care of him and his little sister. And angry that he had to grow up in a small town filled with small-minded people who only saw what they wanted to see.
But it wasn’t anger Colt felt when he pulled away from the kiss. It was confusion. Confusion over the fact that the woman he thought he’d just kissed was the same woman racing toward him with murder in her big blue eyes. And since the look was a familiar one, Colt figured he’d made a mistake. But before he could figure out the extent of his mistake, Slate Calhoun’s fist connected with his face and rang his bell.
Now, he had always accepted responsibility for his mistakes, along with a fitting punishment. But one punch was fitting, two was overkill. So when the next punch came at him, Colt was ready and easily deflected it with a raised arm. Unfortunately, this fist belonged to Hope. Her
skinny forearm thumped against his so hard that he worried about fractured bones. But that concern was replaced with another when the bouquet of flowers that hung from her wrist clipped her in the chin, dropping her to his feet in a crumple of shiny purple material and a pile of glossy brown hair.
If fear hadn’t gotten in the way, Colt might’ve seen the humor in having Hope Scroggs spilled over his boots like a religious fanatic at the foot of an idol. But there was no humor in the pale, limp arm flung over the gray-speckled tile floor. No humor in the satin-covered chest that didn’t appear to rise and fall.
“Gee, Colt,” Kenny Gene said. “I knew you didn’t like Hope, but did you have to haul off and hit her?”
Stunned and slightly punch-drunk, it took Colt a moment to react—a moment that found Hope in Slate Calhoun’s arms.
“Just put her down here, Slate.” Jenna, Hope’s mama, directed Slate over to a table where a couple of the women scurried to clear off the plastic plates and utensils and a ceramic pig that almost brought a smile to Colt’s face.
But it was hard to smile when you had just knocked out a woman. And not just any woman, but the Sweetheart of Bramble, Texas. He was surprised that they hadn’t tarred and feathered him by now. Probably because they were too concerned over their little Hope.