friendly, like the widower Mitchell from the feed store who gave her a stick of gum every time she stopped by, or Marty from the diner who gave her extra French fries on her lunch plate, or Paul from the gas station who blushed every time she looked at him. “Filler” men in the big newspaper of life.
This guy qualified as a lead story.
He’d looked the typical cowboy with his straw Resistol, faded denim shirt and jeans and dusty brown boots. But there’d been nothing typical about his bright green eyes, as vivid as a stretch of rich pasture on a summer day, or his full sensuous lips that had curved into a teasing grin just as he’d stepped up to her in the booth. He was blond and beautiful and hot. Definitely hot.
She wondered briefly why she hadn’t seen him around before. She’d been living in Inspiration for over six years now and she made it her business to know every handsome man within a fifty-mile radius—a self-proclaimed wild woman always knew the available pool of men even if she didn’t get her feet wet.
She was drowning now, she realized, lost in a wave of heat and passion and him. He sought a deeper connection, and Deb did something she hadn’t done since she’d taken her place in the booth. She opened her mouth and kissed back.
His tongue stroked and teased hers and everything faded. The whirrr of the cotton candy machine, the ding of the Shoot-n-Hoop, the whine of a Tammy Wynette record blasting at the cakewalk next door.
Her thoughts centered on the mouth melding with hers, the strong hand cupping the back of her neck, the callused thumb stroking the curve of her jaw, the five o’clock shadow that rasped her tender skin.
Mmm…. The tantalizing scent of leather and sawdust and sexy male filled her nostrils and kicked up her heartbeat. Her nipples sprang to life, pressing hungrily against the lace of her bra, wanting…just wanting. Heat pooled low in her belly, spreading, licking at the insides of her thighs the way his tongue licked at her mouth.
Her body hummed and heat sped along her nerve endings until she burned and ached, and at nothing more than his kiss. His touch. Him.
“Hurry it up!”
“We ain’t got all day!”
“Give another fella a chance!”
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed when the voices finally pushed past the pounding of her heart and tugged her back to reality, to the smell of popcorn and the cry of a fiddle and the all-important fact that her hands were gripping the table edge, her knees were trembling and her lips were locked with a total stranger’s, and all in front of an impatient audience.
Not a stranger, a small voice whispered, a sense of familiarity creeping through her. As if she’d known him before.
Crazy.
She was crazy. And her hormones were desperate. For all the men in town who’d claimed to have scored with “Daring Deb,” few had ever made it past first base. It had been a long time since Deb had felt a man’s touch.
Too long, she thought as she pulled away and concentrated on gathering her composure, which wasn’t nearly as easy as it should have been. Not with him so close, his green eyes fixed on her, mirroring her own disbelief, as if he also was stunned by the past few seconds.
Say something, her brain screamed.
I really liked that. Can we do it again?
And again?
And more?
“Here,” was all she managed as she handed back the dollar bill he’d given her.
He glanced at the money. “What’s this for?”
“I should be the one paying you.”
He grinned and the sight was almost as heartstopping as his kiss. “I think the kids need it more than I do.” He placed the dollar into her palm and curled her fingers around it, his skin brushing hers, setting off a wave of tingles that shimmered through her and made her nipples throb. “Speaking of kids.” He glanced at his watch, a frown sweeping away his dimples. “I’m due at the dunking booth right about now.”
“You’re a volunteer?”
He nodded. “Maury Hatfield suckered me into sitting in his oversize fish tank for an hour.”
“At least you’ll be getting wet for a good cause,” she managed, her lips still vibrating from his kiss. She blew out a deep breath and wiped a trickle of sweat from her temple.
“Hot?” His eyes twinkled and she knew he wasn’t just talking about the weather. More like lips touching and tongues dancing and her body responding….
“You can’t even imagine.”
His strong fingertip caught the slow glide of perspiration down her neck and slid up, over the curve of her jaw. “Oh, I think I can.” His thumb swept her still trembling bottom lip. “Damn straight I can.” His voice grew huskier, deeper, meant for her ears alone. “Meet me at the dunking booth when you’re done here, Slick, and we’ll see what we can do about cooling off.” Then he gave her a slow, lazy wink and disappeared into the crowd.
Slick. The word registered in her head, pulling and tugging at a long ago memory, of a shy, quiet fourteen-year-old who’d come to spend yet another summer vacation with her granny.
Deb had treasured those times with her granny Lily. The few precious days when she’d been able to eat and sleep and breathe without asking permission. To smile and pretend that all was right with the world, that her last name wasn’t Strickland and her future wasn’t already mapped out for her.
She hadn’t known it at the time, but that fourteenth summer would be her last in Inspiration for a while, and her most memorable. Particularly one hot July day when she’d been in town shopping. Granny had gone into Shelly’s Boutique while Deb had lingered outside the Mr. Freeze, struggling with the strap of one of her new sandals, a low-heeled, hot pink number she’d bought behind her ultraconservative father’s back.
“Hey, Slick. You just gonna stand there, or you gonna put those fancy shoes to good use and come on in?”
Her head had snapped up. Her fingers faltered on the leather strap as her gaze collided with a pair of deep, green eyes. The owner, maybe seventeen or eighteen, was the stuff teenage fantasies were made of with his crooked smile and tall, athletic body. He held the door open for her. Music and laughter drifted from inside the ice-cream shop, enticing her as much as the boy’s smile. Almost.
But Deb had lived with her father’s rules much too long to be seduced that easily. She managed to shake her head.
“That’s a shame.” He grinned. “Maybe next time.”
And then it had happened. Her first wink from a real boy, and not just any boy. The boy.
“Jimmy Mission,” she murmured as her pounding heart came to a shuddering halt.
Deb had moved to Inspiration six years ago to discover Jimmy, town golden boy and star running back for the local high school, had joined the marines right after graduation. Other than the occasional brief visit to his folks, he’d never looked back. Thankfully, because at that time Deb hadn’t needed the added complication of facing the
