watching Wheel of Fortune reruns and reading Reader’s Digest.”
“Sounds totally unexciting,” Janice said.
“That’s Sarah,” Brenda replied.
“Unexciting is good.” Sarah took another sip of cola. “Too much excitement leads to stress and heart attacks.”
Janice shook her head. “Whatever happened to the old Sarah we knew and loved and envied?”
But they all knew what had happened. They’d lost one of their closest and dearest friends the night before their high school graduation, and it had changed all of their lives forever.
Maddie, who’d been so set on following in her father’s footsteps at the town’s bake shop, had left to attend college in Dallas and ended up in a high-powered career with a leading cosmetics company. Janice had traded a local junior college for a major university and a career with a big oil company in Houston. Eileen had forfeited college to be a wife and mom and the local PTA president. Likewise, Brenda had given up college entirely to marry her high school sweetheart and have the first of five children, all of whom were scary at best—at least to Sarah, who’d grown up an only child with her grandmother and a house full of plants.
Cheryl Louise had still been in high school. She’d worked afternoons at the local five-and-dime and fantasized about Prince Charming sweeping in and saving her from her humdrum existence.
He’d swept in. Literally. Jack Beckham owned the only floor cleaning company in town and he’d been polishing the tile at the local TG&Y when he’d first spotted Cheryl Louise. He’d smiled and she’d smiled and now, several years later, they were about to say, “I do.”
And Sarah?
She’d traded her big-city dreams, a chance at an architectural degree from the University of Texas and her one opportunity to get the hell out of her stifling hometown to stay right here, attend the local junior college, take over the family business and play the dutiful granddaughter.
“The card said ‘sinful,’ so don’t even think about Marty Snifferdoodle.” Janice pointed to the man sitting at the far end of the bar. He had a can of soda in one hand and a handful of peanuts in the other. He tipped his head back and tossed a peanut into the air, catching it in his mouth.
“He’s coordinated,” Sarah pointed out.
“Coordinated is not sinful.”
“And don’t think about old man Wally, either.” Maddie eyed the ancient-looking man standing at the far end of the bar. His shock of white hair had been slicked to the side. He wore a starched shirt and Wranglers and made kissy faces every time a woman walked within his line of vision.
“He’s sweet.”
“He’s old and frisky.”
“But old, frisky men are sort of cute.”
“Then you won’t mind picking up Uncle Spur tomorrow,” Maddie told Sarah.
Just the mention of Cheryl’s obnoxious uncle made Sarah’s stomach knot, and she pushed to her feet. Spur Tucker wasn’t just obnoxious and loud-mouthed and downright mean. He was a threat to her nice, wholesome image.
If she had to hear him say even once more that her hair was too red or her skin too pale or her hips too wide or her butt too out there, she was liable to do what every woman in town had wanted to do since he’d started spending his holidays in Cadillac and running his mouth off—she was liable to wring his scrawny little neck until his eyes popped out.
Popping out an old man’s eyes, even a hateful, ornery, critical old man’s eyes, wasn’t something a nice girl would do.
Which meant Sarah had to dance with Houston Jericho.
Just a dance, mind you. An innocent, you-stay-on-your-side-of-the-invisible-line-and-I’ll-stay-on-mine sway of bodies.
No kissing him or jumping his bones or begging him to take her right here and now and sate her deprived libido.
No matter how hot he looked.
HE WAS TOO DAMNED HOT.
Houston tugged at the top button on his shirt and tossed down another swallow of his beer. Neither did much to cool the heat burning him up from the inside out. A heat that had very little to do with the crowded atmosphere of his old haunt and everything to do with the fact that she was here.
He still couldn’t believe it. He’d been home a time or two over the years, but he’d never run into her. They kept company with totally different crowds now. While they’d both been into fast and furious fun way back when, Sarah Buchanan had since changed her ways. She spent her Saturday nights hibernating at home while he burned up the dance floors when he wasn’t riding a thousand pound bull on the pro-rodeo circuit.
At least that’s what Houston had heard about her.
He still couldn’t believe it.
His gaze shifted across the room, to the table filled with familiar faces. Her nerdy friends, or so they’d been in high school. Age and success had turned them into a fairly nice-looking group.
Back then Sarah had fit in with them when it came to brains. As for her body… She’d been centerfold material, with a beautiful face, long hair, luscious breasts, a round, soft bottom and long legs.
Despite the talk around town, he didn’t think she’d changed much at all. She still had a killer body, though it looked as if she tried to hide it. She wore a white, long-sleeved blouse with tiny pearl buttons rather than a tight T-shirt or sweater. Slacks rather than snug, fitted jeans. Conservative pumps rather than the come-and-get-me red cowboy boots she’d flaunted along with a lot of attitude.
She was still as hot as ever.
And she wasn’t there.
He blinked and eyed the familiar four faces. Four, not five. Christ, he could have sworn he’d seen her just a few seconds ago.
Then again, maybe it had been wishful thinking. An extension of any one of the fantasies that had haunted him over the past years. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in the shower. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in a public rest room. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in a dark movie theater. Sarah, naked and beautiful and riding him, in a moving elevator. Sarah, naked and beautiful, in any and all of the last four of The Fantasy Factor: Sexiest Seven Places to Do It, a self-help sex video that had caused quite a stir back in his high school days.
By today’s standards, the content seemed extremely tame. There were no below-the-waist shots, though the video had hinted at total nudity. It had been primarily an instruction video for couples who wanted to spice up their sex life. But to a bunch of giggling teens in a small town, it had been a veritable porn fest.
The bootleg copy, courtesy of one of the football players who’d found the original in his parents’ bedroom, had circulated throughout the senior class. It had been passed from one hand to another until a teacher had confiscated it from someone’s locker.
By then, however, practically everyone had seen it, including Houston.
He’d caught his glimpse of it at an after-game party,
