that thing loaded?”
Though the man’s face remained in shadows, Suzy recognized the voice. The governor. Furious with him for slipping up on her and frightening her, she dropped her arm. “Are you crazy?” she snapped, fisting the keys within her palm. “You could get yourself killed, sneaking up on a person like that.”
He lowered his hands and teased her with a smile. “Would you miss me?”
Scowling, she wrenched open the door. “Get real.”
He caught her elbow, stopping her before she could climb inside. “I’d miss you.”
His voice was low, husky and sounded sincere enough to have her pausing…but only for the length of time it took for her to draw in an angry breath. Jerking free of his grasp, she spun to face him. “You don’t even know me.”
He hooked a hand over the top of the door and smiled down at her, his casual stance irritating her even more. “No, but I’d like to. How about dinner?”
“I’ve already eaten.”
“A drink then.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
He shifted in front of her and pushed his palm against the side of the van, neatly pinning her between himself and the vehicle. He leaned closer and she drew back, wary of the seductive gleam in his eyes.
“Then we’ll skip the preliminaries,” he said in a voice that would melt the lock off a chastity belt, “and go straight to bed. Your place or mine?”
Suzy planted a hand against his chest, stopping his forward movement. “Neither.” She gave him an angry shove. “Now beat it, Romeo, before I start screaming and have every cop in Austin swarming all over the place.”
To her surprise, instead of becoming indignant, as she might have suspected, or using his greater strength to overpower her, he dropped his head back and laughed. Then, before she could duck, he surprised her again by dropping a kiss on her cheek. “I like you, Suzy.”
Grimacing, she dragged the back of her hand across her face. “Yeah. Most men do.”
He took a step back and slipped his hands into his pockets. “I’d like to see you again.”
With room to move now, she climbed into the van and slammed the door. “Not if I see you first,” she muttered as she rammed the key into the ignition. She gunned the engine, ripped the gearshift into drive and sped off, setting the glasses in the rear of the van rattling.
She rolled down her window as she turned onto the street…and would have sworn later that was the governor’s laughter she heard chasing her down the street.
Gil stood before the windows in his office in the Governor’s Mansion, his arms folded across his chest, staring out at the grounds below. Though late-afternoon sunshine spotlighted a neatly tended rose garden, he saw nothing but the scowling face of a flashily dressed, sharp-tongued blonde.
Thoughts and images of the caterer he’d met at the party the weekend before had filled his head all week, making it difficult for him to complete the simplest task and impeding his ability to concentrate on a particular topic for any length of time. Both of which were an oddity for Gil, as he couldn’t remember a single woman in his past who had dominated his thoughts so completely.
Not that he hadn’t had his fair share of female relationships, he reminded himself. He just hadn’t met one like Suzy before.
Just Suzy.
A smile tugged at his lips as he envisioned her again, standing at the side of her van, dressed in those ridiculous-looking pink platform sneakers and leopardprint pants, brandishing her keys at him as if they were a weapon. She probably would have used them, too, if he hadn’t spoken, thus revealing his identity. A hellcat, he thought, silently admiring her spunk.
“Gil? Are you listening to me?”
Startled, he glanced over at his secretary, then offered her a rueful smile. “Sorry, Mary. I guess my mind wandered.”
She closed her day planner with a snap and rose, her lips pursed in disapproval. “And no wonder. You’ve been burning the candle at both ends since the day you took office. You need a vacation. Why don’t you go to the ranch for a couple of days and relax?”
Though a trip to his ranch was appealing, he shook his head. “No rest for the weary. Not right now, at any rate.”
“Well, there’s nothing here that won’t keep until tomorrow.” She headed for the door. “At least go upstairs and put your feet up before you have to go to that meeting tonight.”
“Mary?”
Her hand on the knob, she paused, a brow arched in question. “Yes?”
“Do you know who catered that party last weekend?”
She frowned slightly. “No. Why?”
He lifted a shoulder. “No particular reason.” He dropped a hand to his desktop and shuffled a few papers. “Do you think you could find out for me?”
“Well, yes,” she replied hesitantly, clearly puzzled by the request. “I’m sure I could.”
He lifted his head and gave her a grateful smile. “Do that for me, would you? And give me a call if you’re successful.”
Suzy hadn’t read a newspaper in years, avoided television newscasts like the plague and turned the dial if a news bulletin happened to interrupt the music playing on her favorite radio station. She despised the news, no matter what the format, and considered those who reported it lower than scum.
But her aversion to news and the news media hadn’t prevented her from recognizing the governor of Texas when he’d slipped into the kitchen at the party she’d catered over the weekend. From the moment Gil Riley had tossed his cowboy hat into the ring and announced his intent to run for governor, he had become the most-talked-about man in the state of Texas. Within days of his announcement, his name and picture had appeared on billboards scattered along Texas roadways and on the rear bumpers of every make and model of vehicle, from the beat-up farm truck to the luxury sports car.
A nonpolitician—and a rancher, at that—running for governor was enough of an oddity to grab the attention of the entire populace. He quickly won the hearts of his fellow Texans by promising to represent the common man, especially those in rural areas, and put an end to big business and government taking over the Lone Star State and forcing families from their homes and off the land their ancestors had fought for and labored on for years.
But his platform wasn’t all that caught the voters’ attention. His youth, his Marlboro Man rugged looks and his bachelor status appealed to the masses as much as did his stand on the issues.
Especially to the women.
Throughout the months preceding the election, he was gossiped about and fantasized about in beauty salons, during coffee breaks and at the checkout lines in grocery stores. By the time November rolled around and his landslide victory announced, there wasn’t a single woman in Texas who hadn’t woven a secret dream or two of becoming his first lady.
