collar and tipped back his Resistol. “Maybe later. I think I need another beer.” She glared and walked off while he stepped up to the bar and signaled the bartender.
A minute later, he slid a few dollars across the bar top and raised an ice-cold mug to his lips. The freezing liquid slid down his throat in a rush of cool relief. He grimaced. While the beer hit the spot, he didn’t have much of a taste for it after watching his old man drink himself to death. Which was why he never passed his three beer maximum when he drank.
If he drank.
But tonight was a special occasion. One of his old buddies was tying the knot tomorrow and so Houston had come back to Cadillac. Only for a few days, then he was off to practice for the next Pro Bull Riding championship in three weeks. Before then, however, he was going to make another pass through town to say goodbye to Miss Marshalyn Simmons, the most headstrong woman ever to come after him with a switch and a good lecture. The whole town was scheduled to say goodbye to her at a party being planned in her honor over at the VFW Hall.
She was moving down to Florida to live with her sister. Miss Marshalyn had grown tired of the hot and sticky climate. Tired of living alone. Tired, period. She wasn’t getting any younger and the hassle and responsibility of caring for a three-hundred-acre spread and a fading farmhouse was simply too much for her.
She wanted peace of mind, and so she’d made Houston and his brother Austin—the two Jericho brothers still single from the original notorious three—a proposition they couldn’t refuse.
Dallas, the youngest boy, had already found the love of his life and walked down the aisle. He was now only a few months away from becoming a father—a responsibility Houston knew Dallas would take very seriously thanks to their own sorry excuse for a father.
Miss Marshalyn wasn’t the least worried about Dallas, which was why she’d already handed over a prime hundred acres to him as a present for the new baby.
It was Houston and Austin who caused her the most concern. She wanted them to trade in their bad-boy ways and settle down. In return, she promised one hundred acres to each of them. But only if they managed to convince her they’d really and truly changed their ways in time for her going-away party.
Houston slid a glance toward the exit door where his brother Austin had disappeared only a few minutes earlier after having danced with Maddie Hale, the shy, frumpy leader of the Chem Gems who’d turned into a bona fide hottie. Much too hot for Miss Marshalyn’s tastes. She wanted both men to choose a prospect from the town’s pick of nice, quiet, wholesome conservative good girls.
Maddie no longer qualified, and it was no wonder Austin—who was dead set on making Miss Marshalyn happy—had walked out before things had really heated up.
Houston, on the other hand, had no intention of taking Miss Marshalyn up on her offer. He wasn’t the settling-down type. He’d worked too damned hard to get the hell out of Cadillac. He certainly wasn’t coming back now. Not permanently. Not ever.
He’d meant to say as much to Miss Marshalyn. He’d tried, but she’d cut him off in that way that told him she knew best. And so he hadn’t been able to set the record straight about the land and the fact that he was leaving.
He would, of course. He just didn’t see the need to disappoint her right now. He had a good two weeks. Plenty of time to let her down slowly, easily, before he had to leave for Las Vegas and the Pro Bull Riding Finals, where he was scheduled to compete for his tenth consecutive championship.
A record-breaking win that would put him right up there with the greatest riders of all time.
The knowledge didn’t send nearly the jolt of adrenaline through him that it usually did. Understandable, since he was still sore from a hard but high-scoring ride the night before in Cheyenne. A man most certainly couldn’t be excited when it hurt just to breathe.
He drew a deep breath and an ache gripped his left lower rib cage. He hadn’t broken any bones this time, but he’d come close. She’d almost stomped him square in the chest. She would have if he hadn’t rolled just in time.
In time, but still too late. He was getting slower each and every time he hit the ground. No one else noticed, but he did. He felt the weariness pulling at his bones and it bothered him.
PBR champion cowboys weren’t slow. Slowing down meant losing, and Houston had been winning much too long to stop now. Even more, he liked winning. He loved it. He lived for it.
He just wished it didn’t hurt like hell.
“I hate to bother you.” A soft, sweet voice drifted from behind him. “But would you care to dance?”
“I’m afraid not—” he started to say as he turned. The words stumbled to a halt in his throat when he found himself staring at the sultry redhead who’d lived and breathed in his memories for the past twelve years.
His pain faded into a rush of heat and his heart thundered because Sarah Buchanan wasn’t a figment of his imagination this time.
She was real. With eyes as warm as the hot fudge he loved to pour on his favorite vanilla ice cream, and just as decadent. And she was standing so close he could actually touch her.
And that’s just what he did.
2
HOUSTON JERICHO HAD TOUCHED his fair share of women. But none had ever felt as soft or as warm as Sarah Buchanan.
The notion struck him the moment he trailed his fingertips down the side of her face, under the curve of her jaw, down the smooth column of her throat, until the silky fabric of her collar stopped him.
“You’re real.”
“I…yes.” She licked her bottom lip and he had the urge to lean down and catch the plump flesh between his teeth and nibble. “And, um, so are you. Not that I had a doubt. I mean, I saw you and I knew right away that it was you, even from a distance. But you look better up close. Bigger.” His grin widened as she stumbled over her words.
A crazy thing, because Sarah Buchanan had never had trouble finding the right words for anything. She’d always said what was on her mind, in her thoughts. She didn’t look for the right words the way she seemed to be doing right now.
His mind flashed back to the few times he’d been home in the past to see his brothers. The visits had always been brief. Two days at most, just like this time. He’d always been in such a hurry that he’d never actually run into her. But he’d heard about her.
That she’d changed. That she’d outgrown her rebel attitude like a trendy pair of shoes. Yep, he’d heard the talk, but he’d never believed it.
He didn’t believe it now, despite the cautious air about her and the way she seemed to stiffen when he smiled at her. There was just something about the way she looked at him with those deep brown eyes that said she was hungry for him.
As hungry as she’d been at seventeen. Maybe more so, considering that she was a full-grown woman now, with a woman’s curves, a woman’s maturity, a woman’s needs.
“I care.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You asked me if I cared to dance. I do.”
“Oh.”
