one.
DEB FOUGHT to keep from shedding even one of the tears burning her eyes as she headed down the hallway. Deb Strickland didn’t cry, no matter how grossly unfair Judge Baines’s verdict.
Four thousand dollars. Where was she supposed to come up with that kind of money?
With barely two thousand left in her own savings account—a quarter of which she’d already planned to transfer to the newspaper account to help cover Wally’s salary—she was scraping bottom already. She had three hundred open on her Visa, eighty bucks in her checking account, Granny Lily’s decrepit house, a car that wasn’t even halfway paid off, a lifetime supply of Go Girl cosmetics she’d won back in a magazine competition in college and a newspaper that barely generated enough revenue to cover expenses.
Most of the time, it didn’t, which was why she’d nearly depleted the nest egg Granny Lily had left her.
She fought back the urge to turn around, stomp back into the courtroom and punch the plaintiff’s infuriatingly handsome face.
She would have done in a second except she’d traded Sonia at the beauty shop a month of free advertising for a French manicure just yesterday. She wasn’t about to waste a precious nail on some pigheaded cowboy, even if said cowboy was Jimmy Mission.
Especially because it was him. He was completely off-limits. Cowboy non grata. The more distance between them, the better.
“Hey, Slick, wait up.” His deep voice rumbled behind.
“Get lost.” She picked up the pace.
“I want to talk to you.”
“And I want to strangle you, but lucky for you my personal beauty regime prohibits physical violence. Go away.”
He stopped, but his voice followed her. “Why are you so dead set on running away from me?”
The question rang in her ears, prickling her ego and she turned on him before she could think better of it. “Why are you so dead set on ruining my life?”
“Last time I looked, you hit me.”
“You parked in my spot intentionally. You’ve been doing it for months just to tick me off.” Eleven months and fifteen days to be exact, since their first and last kiss, not that Deb was counting….
Oh, God, she was counting.
She glared at him. “You’ve been hogging my spot on purpose.”
“And you’ve been avoiding me on purpose, that or trying to piss me off.”
She managed a laugh but could hardly feel mirthful since, even though a few feet separated them, the scent of him reached her. The enticing aroma of leather and male and that unnameable something that made her think of satin sheets and champagne and…Forget it. Forget him. Forget the kiss. Forget.
She tried for a steadying breath. “Look, I realize you’re very popular, but unlike the other members of your fan club,” she motioned to the group of women clustered outside the courtroom, their gazes hooked on Jimmy. “I’m too busy to spend my valuable time thinking about ways to piss you off.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You know what I think?”
“I couldn’t care less.”
“I think,” he said, stepping toward her, “you’ve been pushing me away on purpose, hoping I’d back off because you’re scared.”
“Scared? Of what? You? The day I’m scared of you, buster, is the day Myrna Jenkins—” known to the entire town as queen of the coiffure “—goes to the Piggly Wiggly with her hair in rollers.”
“Not me, Slick.” He took another step, closing the distance between them. “Us.” The word trembled in the air between them.
She craned her neck and stared up at him. “There is no us.”
“We were good together.”
“For about five seconds.”
“It was more like ten.” His gaze narrowed. “But a kiss is just a kiss, right? A little fun?”
He’d obviously read her article, just as she’d intended. She’d written the piece right after she’d finished up at the carnival and gone home to an empty house, disappointed and frustrated because Mr. Kiss-of-the-Century had turned out to be Mr. Jimmy Mission. Inspiration’s most eligible husband prospect was completely off-limits to a woman like Deb who’d sworn off marriage and family when she’d left Dallas. So she’d written one of her most powerful editorials, entitled Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, which had led to her weekly and ever-popular Daring Deb’s Fun Girl Fact.
“Not every woman’s out to find herself a husband,” she told him.
“And not every man’s out to find himself a wife.”
“But you are.”
“Says who?”
“Everyone in this desperately small town.” She eyed him. “So what’s the scoop? Are you or are you not looking for a wife?”
“Not at this moment.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That, yes, I’m keeping my eye out for the future Lady Mission. I’m thirty-two and it’s time to settle down, but until I find her—and your column hasn’t made things any easier by turning half the women around here into pushy—”
“Assertive,” she cut in. “Fun women are assertive.”
“And convinced that being a good wife means rubbing herself down with pineapple-flavored body glaze and doubling as a Christmas ham.”
Despite the heat and the tension, a grin tugged at her lips. “Actually, a very good wife rubs herself down with pineapple glaze and doubles as a Christmas ham.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, honey. A very good wife doesn’t waste her time on foolishness. She steers a tractor, rides fence and pitches hay right alongside her husband. But that’s neither here nor there. I’m talking about something a lot more basic. If a girl can have her fun, so can a guy.”
She peeked around him and eyed the women still gathered in the hallway. “I say take your pick and go for it.”
He grabbed her arm and hauled her toward the alcove behind a nearby stairwell.
“What are you doing—” she started, the words drowning in the lump in her throat as he whirled her around and cornered her.
“I pick you.”
She stared up at him, wishing he wasn’t so tall, so handsome, so…close. “I’m not ripe for picking.”
His eyes darkened and she realized she’d said the wrong things…or the right thing depending on the part of her
