Make Mine a Bad Boy

NEW YORK   BOSTON

To my favorite heroines, my daughters, Aubrey Lane and Tiffany Heather

Like my character, Hope Scroggs, I am blessed with people who believe in me. And I can’t thank them enough for all their love and support:

My loving husband, Jamie; my beautiful daughters, Aubrey and Tiffany, and their wonderful men, John Sedberry and Donny Sevieri; and my precious granddaughters, Gabby and Sienna. You are my heart, and I am so proud of each and every one of you.

My mother-in-law, Kay Smith, for all her encouragement over the years.

My L-Sisters—Lori Tillery, for dropping everything when I needed help; Lu Loomis, for always being the voice of reason; and Linda Chambers, for all the giggly dinners.

And speaking of giggles, my favorite night of the month is book club night, when I get to flop down on a couch and drink wine and munch on snackies while discussing books with the divine Dog-eared Divas.

Then there are the lovely ladies of LERA, the Land of Enchantment Romance Authors, the best Romance
Writers of America chapter in the world. It is an honor to be part of a group of such talented writers. Go, Team Romance!

And thanks to all my Defined gym-rats. If I need an expert, I can always find one there. Thanks, Jeff Fauver, for all your custom bike expertise. I hope your custom bike kicks butt in Sturgis.

Last, but not least, a special thanks to my agent, Laura Bradford, for all her business savvy and the great title. And to Alex Logan, my editor, for all her hard work. I’m so lucky to have such a great team!

I
T WAS A DREAM
. It had to be. Where else but in a dream could you be an observer at your own wedding? A silent spectator who watched as you stood in the front of a church filled to the rafters with all your family and friends and whispered your vows to a handsome cowboy you’ve loved for most of your life. A cowboy who kissed you as if his life depended on it, before he hurried you down the aisle and off to the reception, where he fed you champagne from his glass and cake from his fingers, before taking you in his strong arms and waltzing you toward happily ever after.

It was a dream.

Her dream.

“Hog, you gonna eat that piece of cake?”

And just like that the dream shattered into a nightmare.

Hope Marie Scroggs pulled her gaze from the dance floor and looked over at Kenny Gene, who was staring down at the half-eaten slice of wedding cake on her plate.

“ ’Cause if you ain’t,” he said, “I sure hate to see it go to waste.” Without waiting for an answer, he speared the cake and crammed a forkful into his mouth, continuing
to talk between chews. “That Josephine sure outdid herself this time. Who would’ve thought that raspberry jam would go so good with yeller cake?”

The fork came back toward her plate. But before he could stab another piece, his girlfriend, Twyla, slapped his hand, and the plastic fork sailed through the air, bounced off one of the ceramic pig centerpieces, and disappeared beneath the table.

“Kenny Gene, don’t you be eatin’ Hope’s food! She needs all them noot-tur-ents!”

Hope didn’t have a clue what Twyla was talking about, and she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was recapture the dream. But it was too late. Too late to ignore the fact that she wasn’t the one who whirled around on the dance floor in the arms of Slate Calhoun—the handsomest cowboy in West Texas.

But she should’ve been.

It should’ve been Hope dressed in her mama’s three-tiered lace wedding dress. Hope who sipped from his clear plastic Solo cup. Hope who licked Josephine’s Raspberry Jamboree Cake from those strong quarterback fingertips. It should have been her arms, looped over that lean cowboy frame, and her face tucked under that sexy black Stetson, awaiting a kiss from those sweet smiling lips.

Her.

Her.

Her.

Certainly not some damned Yankee who had come to Bramble, Texas, looking for her long-lost twin sister, only to steal that same sister’s identity like a peach pie set out to cool. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. Not when Hope was the one who had done all the prep work. The one who
suffered through all the cheerleading practices and homecoming parades and hog-calling contests, all to make her family and the townsfolk proud.

And then some citified wimp with ugly hair showed up, and their loyalties switched like Buford Floyd’s gender, and she was expected to grin and bear it? To pretend that everything was just fine and dandy? To act like she didn’t give a hoot that her life had just been spit out like a stream of tobacco juice to a sidewalk?

Her anger burned from the injustice of it all, and all she wanted to do was drop to the ground and throw a fit like she had as a child. If she’d thought it would work, she would have. But it was too late for that. The vows had been spoken, the marriage license signed.

Besides, she was Hope Marie Scroggs, the most popular girl in West Texas, and she wasn’t about to let anyone know just how devastated she was that the dreams of her wedding day were being lived out by someone else.

Someone who, at that moment, looked over at her and smiled a bright, cheerful smile with white, even teeth that reflected the lights shooting off the huge disco ball hanging from the ceiling. How could some sugary sweet Disney princess have lived in the same womb with her for nine months? It made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Nor could Hope figure out why she smiled back—though it might have been more of a baring of teeth, because Faith’s smile fizzled before Slate whirled her away.

“Your fangs are showin’, honey.” Her best friend, Shirlene, slipped into the folding chair next to her with a soft rustle of gold satin.

Since her daydream was already stomped to smithereens, Hope turned to Shirlene and lifted a brow at the
mounds of flesh swelling over the top of her bridesmaid’s dress.

“Better than havin’ my boobs showin’,” Hope retorted.

Shirlene didn’t even attempt to tug up the strapless confection that put Hope’s grotesque purple maid-of-honor’s dress to shame. “Admit it. You’ve always been jealous of the girls.” Shirlene flashed a bright smile at Kenny and Twyla as they got up and headed for the dance floor.

“The girls?” Hope’s eyes widened. “Those aren’t girls, Shirl. Broads, maybe, but not girls.”

Shirlene laughed. “Okay, so you’ve always been jealous of the broads.”

Hope shrugged. “If you had my teacups, you’d be jealous too.”

“I don’t know about that. I get pretty tired of lugging these suckers around.”

“I’m sure Lyle doesn’t mind helping out with that.” She glanced around for Shirlene’s husband. “Where is Lyle, anyway?”

“He’s got a meetin’ in the morning, so he wanted to get to bed early.”

“A meetin’ on a Sunday?”

For just a brief second, Shirlene’s pretty green eyes turned sad before she looked away to fiddle with the purple ribbon tied around the fat ceramic pig, one of the same pigs that had been pulled out for every town celebration since they were made for Hope’s fifteenth birthday. “That’s the problem with marrying a wealthy man. They’re so busy making money, they don’t have time to make babies.”

“Are you still trying?”

Shirlene shrugged as she retied the ribbon in a perfect bow. “Lyle thinks it’s God’s will.”

“You could adopt, you know.”

“I know, but maybe Lyle’s right. Maybe this West Texas girl is a little too wild to be a good mama.” Releasing her breath, she flopped back in the chair, causing her broads to jiggle like Aunt Mae’s Jell-O mold. “Geez, we make a pathetic pair, don’t we, Hog? Me a lonely, childless housewife and you a jilted woman.”

Hope looked around before hissing under her breath. “I was not jilted, Shirl.”

“I don’t know what you would call it, Hog. Everyone in town was there when you agreed to marry Slate—regardless of the fact that he hadn’t asked.”

Hope’s jaw tightened. “You know as well as everybody else that Slate proposed to me.”

“Years ago. And we both know he was never serious.” She hesitated and sent Hope a pointed look. “And if I remember correctly, neither were you.”

Unable to look back at those perceptive green eyes, Hope stared out at the dance floor, where Slate continued to whirl her twin sister around. “I always planned on marrying Slate.”

Shirlene snorted. “If I had a dime for every one of your plans, Hope, I’d be rich enough to lure the Dallas Cowboys away from Jerry Jones.”

“As if you’re not already.”

“True.” The contagious smile flashed as Shirlene reached over and picked up a champagne bottle. She filled a cup for each of them before lifting hers. “Here’s to wild West Texas women—we might be down, but we’ll never be out.”

Finally giving in to a smile, Hope lifted her cup and tapped Shirlene’s. “Damn straight.” But before she could take a sip, the mayor, Harley Sutter, came chugging up and took the cup from her hand.

“No time for drinkin’, Hope.” He handed the cup to Shirlene and pulled Hope up from her chair. “Not when the entire town wants a dance with their sweetheart.”