blue-jean-clad senior with long legs and an easy smile. He’d worn a similar pair of boots as he’d stood on the side of the road next to his granddaddy’s pickup, one of the rear tires as flat as Jamie McGee’s hair after a good ironing.
Eden’s head snapped up and her eyes collided with his. “Brady Weston. You’re Brady Weston.” The Brady Weston. The boy who’d been every girl’s dream, Eden’s included.
His grin was as slow and as warm as she remembered on that hot July day when she’d given him her tire jack and a long swallow of her ice-cold Coke.
“The last time I looked.”
“It is you.” Her heart pumped ninety-to-nothing at the realization. “Y-you probably don’t recognize me. I’m—”
“Eden Hallsey,” he finished for her. “I’d know your smile anywhere. Thanks for saving me. Again.” Then, with a wink, he closed the door and Eden was left with the startling knowledge that after a bitter fight with his grandaddy and an eleven-year absence, Brady Weston—the captain of the hockey team, the heir to the Weston boot fortune and the star of Eden’s wildest adolescent fantasies—had finally come home.
HE WAS HOME.
Reality hit Brady as he stood before Merle’s gas station and stared at the fading red sign that hung in front. The same painted oval that had always teetered back and forth from two small chains. The edges were a little more worn than he remembered, the paint chipped in several spots, but otherwise it was exactly the same. The same name with the same familiar twenty-four hour service guarantee printed just below. A red-and-white T-ball banner flapped in the wind depicting one of the local teams in the peewee league. The same team—the Kansas City Royals—that Merle’s station sponsored each and every year.
Thankfully.
Brady had seen too many new barns, new fences, even a few new houses dotting the horizon on the drive into town and the scenery had made him worry that maybe things had changed too much for him to simply waltz back home after all these years and pick up where he’d left off.
And he wanted to. Christ, he wanted it more than his next breath of air.
He glanced behind him at the familiar span of buildings lining main street, from Turtle Jim’s Diner, where he’d eaten chili cheese fries after school every Friday afternoon, to Sullivan’s Pharmacy, where he’d purchased his very first condom. The breath he’d been holding eased from his lungs and he drank in another lungful of Texas heat.
Home.
He’d dreamt about this moment so many times over the past eleven years, when the stress of a fast-paced advertising career and a less than perfect home life had overwhelmed him and he’d longed for the peace he’d known while growing up. The freedom. The control.
He’d been the one in control back then. But for the past eleven years, life and circumstance and his ex-wife had called the shots, dictating the how, when and where.
Only because he’d allowed it, he reminded himself. It wasn’t as if he’d been forced away from Cadillac. He’d fallen in love, or so he’d thought at the time, and walked away by choice—to do the right thing. In the end, however, everything he’d done that fateful day and every moment since had been wrong. So wrong.
Not now. Not ever again.
The past was just that—the past. Over. Finished. Bye, bye. It was the future that mattered now, and Brady wasn’t making any more mistakes. Rather, he was finally going to set things right.
He ran a hand through his sweat-dampened hair and spared a glance around him. A handful of kids were gathered around a nearby candy machine at the far corner of the building. Brady turned, letting his gaze sweep the other side. The gleam of an old-fashioned Coke machine caught his eye and he smiled. Yep, Cadillac was still good old Cadillac.
Sliding a coin into the slot, he pushed the same button he’d pushed every day after school since the moment he’d been tall enough to swipe quarters from the top of his older sister’s dresser once she’d left for school in the morning.
The machine grumbled, then stalled the way it always had for several long moments before finally spitting out a bottle of Orange Crush. He popped the tab and lifted the opening to his lips. Anticipation rolled through him, thirst coiled in his stomach—familiar feelings that he’d felt every time he’d stood in this very same spot with his favorite drink.
Yet, at the same time, he felt different. Hotter. More anxious. Downright needy.
Thanks to Eden Hallsey.
He took a long swig of soda, but it did little to ease his body temperature which had soared the moment she’d pulled up in her beat-up Chevy to rescue him from his own stupidity.
At first, he’d been convinced she was a mirage. He’d been stranded on the highway just miles from his home-town. It only made sense that he would conjure the sexiest girl from his past.
But then she’d touched him, just a soft gesture on his hand, and every nerve in his body had jumped to awareness. In a matter of seconds, he’d been as hard as an iron spike.
He’d reacted the same way on their one and only date. That had been before Sally, or rather, before his head had lost the battle with his hormones, he’d fancied himself in love and had forgotten to wear a condom on one of their dates. She’d gotten pregnant and they’d gotten married, and his dating days had been over. She’d lost the baby shortly after, but it was too late. He’d taken sacred vows, and he had loved her, or so he’d thought at the time, and she’d claimed to love him. He’d believed her, up until six months ago when she’d run off with one of his business associates.
So much for love.
But before…
There’d been Eden Hallsey. From tenth grade on, she’d been the prettiest and sexiest girl around and the fantasy of every boy at Cadillac, Brady included. He’d heard every rumor about her, and while he didn’t believe them all—he’d known her before tenth grade—when she’d been shy and naïve and a nice girl—he knew there was at least a kernel of truth. She was sexy.
And he’d wanted her.
The date had been nothing more than tradition. He’d been the star prize in the yearly football lottery, where girls bought tickets for a chance to win a date with their favorite jock. He’d been surprised to see her raise her hand when the number had been called. After all, Eden hadn’t needed to buy a ticket to get a date. She could have any guy. But she’d bought a ticket for him. For a few seconds, he’d been excited until a friend had alerted him to the fact that she was making her way through the football team and he was the last on her list. Just another conquest.
Oddly enough, he hadn’t wanted to be another in a long line. He’d wanted to be different. To stand out, and so he’d done what no other guy had ever been able to do—he’d kept his distance. Barely.
That had been a long time ago. His hormones had never been more out of control than at this time, or so he’d thought until he’d climbed into the cab beside her today. He might as well have been sixteen again, with raging needs and a permanent hard-on. The reaction was the same. Fierce. Immediate.
Thankfully, that reaction had jolted some common sense into him. He’d let his passion get him into trouble before. He’d lost everything because of one
