Steal Me, Cowboy (10 page)

About The Author

Kim Boykin is a women's fiction author with a sassy Southern
streak. She is the author of
The Wisdom of Hair
,
Steal Me, Cowboy
, and
Palmetto Moon
(Summer 2014.) While her heart is always in South Carolina, she lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her husband, three dogs, and 126 rose bushes.

An excerpt from

Late Last Night

Lilian Darcy

Copyright © 2014

March, 1996

Really,
rock music wasn’t what it used to be.

Kate fumbled for the tuning knob on the car radio and came up with a country station. She liked country, but not today when she was late and tired and stressed after a long day of teaching. The meeting after school with Neve Shepherd’s parents had gone on much longer than she had thought it would, and then she’d had several more tasks to complete after that.

“We’re worried that her boyfriend is a bad influence,” Neve’s father Gary had said at one point.

“Jay Brown,” Annette Shepherd had put in. “Do you teach him, too?”

“Yes, I do.” Kate already knew that Neve and Jay were dating, and she’d resisted blurting out her instant response—Jay a bad influence on Neve? No, it was the other way around. Neve was getting seriously out of control.

Careful with the speed limit, Kate.

She needed rock, and she needed it LOUD, and the Smashing Pumpkins and Foo Fighters just weren’t the same as the bands she’d loved in her teens. Blondie, the Eagles, the Police, the Stones. Those were bands.

I sound as if I’m forty.

Which she wouldn’t be for ages. Not until three years into the next millennium. She was only thirty-two, for heaven’s sake. Meanwhile, if she didn’t find a song she liked, she might start screaming instead.

She twiddled the tuning knob once more, finally found a halfway decent song, started singing with no style and no tune at the top of her voice—it worked a little, as a stress release—then saw the flashing red and blue lights in her rear-view mirror and her heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

Please, no! Not again.

She slowed and pulled over, pressed her forehead against the hard curve of the steering wheel and groaned while she waited for the long arm of the law to step out of his vehicle and arrive beside her.

This couldn’t be happening. And yet it was.

A minute later, he appeared in his dark uniform at her window and she wound it down, the battered pickup not being a recent enough model to have push-button windows. It was the sheriff himself, not a mere junior deputy, and not the highway patrol. Sheriff Harrison Pearce had been with the county for just over a year, and had now pulled her over four times in less than three months for traffic violations. She’d run one stop light in town, and was caught speeding twice out here on the highway, but this time she didn’t even
know
what she’d done wrong.

“I wasn’t speeding,” she said, before he could open his mouth. He loomed beyond the open window, big and unmoving, the uniform clinging to strong shoulders and well-worked thighs. “I
wasn’t.
”

“You know, Miz MacCreadie,” he said in a slow Montana drawl, “we gotta stop meeting like this.”

“I know we do. Why is it always you? Between the police department and the sheriff’s office and the highway patrol, there have to be other officers on the roads, you would
think
.” She shut her mouth quickly, before she began to sound completely hysterical.

“I mean that.” He wore a sober, serious expression that made the planes of his face look as if they’d been carved by a sculptor in a thoughtful mood. He had dark eyes and dark hair and the kind of short, neat haircut that looked terrible on any man who had a badly shaped head.

Sheriff Pearce’s head was very well-shaped indeed.

Almost as well-shaped as his body.

Unfortunately.

“I wasn’t speeding,” Kate said.

“That is a plus,” he agreed. He sounded calm, and almost kind. “But your tail-light is out.” He put a hand on the roof of the pickup and leaned in a little.

“One tail-light?” she said.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am. It’s still a violation.”

“I—I’m sorry, too, but I really didn’t know it was out, and I’m late home.”

“Step out of the car, and I’ll show you.”

She stepped. Well, she opened the door with a slightly shaky hand, and stumbled out on tired, impatient legs. Every minute she was delayed here would only increase the likely chaos when she arrived home.

Sheriff Pearce walked her around to the back of the pickup, his stride even and long. “See, it’s your left light, and these roads are pitch black at night. What if someone thinks you’re a motorcycle when they try to pass you?”

“It’s not pitch black yet.” It was a plea, not an argument.

“Will be, soon,” he pointed out, still sounding kind rather than stern. The last fiery edge of the western sun had dipped below the jagged and snow-capped horizon of the distant Tobacco Root Mountains some minutes ago.

She shivered, standing in the cold. There were still thick patches of snow in the ditches, and she wasn’t wearing a coat. “Could I get the tail light fixed, and then bring the vehicle in and show you?”

He was silent for a moment, and she breathed in the calm of him. She’d met him a couple of times
outside
the context of her shocking and heinous driving record, and she’d never seen a ruffle or a chink in the aura of strength and peace he gave off.

It was amazing. It was wonderful. If he could bottle it, she would be in the market for a steady supply. Her own life and state of being was anything but calm, and that was why this kept happening, this traffic violation stuff. Really, it wasn’t like her. She was a schoolteacher for heck’s sake! A role model.

“Bring it tomorrow,” he said. “Get the light fixed first thing. Can you undertake to do that?” He flicked her a narrow-eyed look, and spoke in the voice of the law.

“I—I will. And if there’s any delay, I’ll call you.”

“Here’s my card.”

I have his card!

Late Last Night
– coming soon!

An excerpt from

The Sweetest Thing

Lilian Darcy

Copyright © 2014

“I’ll try to be quick,” Tully said. This wasn’t about her own worshipful love affair with all things chocolate, it was about finding a gift for Sugar, and she might as well be generous if this forgiveness thing was going to get off the ground.

“Really, it’s fine,” the woman insisted. Hm, that tumble of copper-red hair…

“You’re… one of the Carrigans,” Tully realized out loud, although she couldn’t come up with a name.

“Yes. I’m Sage.” She looked surprised at being recognized – well, half-recognized – and clearly didn’t know Tully at all.

“Sage. Right. Your sister Mattie was a couple of years ahead of me in school,” Tully explained. “And then Danielle was a couple of years below. And then there’s you, and…?” But she couldn’t remember.

“Callan. Callie. She’s the youngest.”

Sage still clearly didn’t know who she was talking to, so Tully quickly continued, “I’m Tully Morgan, Patty and Walter Morgan’s daughter.”

It never
felt
like a lie.

Sage’s face cleared. “Oh, of course! I know Patty, and I knew your dad, Walter, a little.”

It never felt like a lie, even when she was telling it to people who knew the family.

“You have a brother, too, right?” Sage went on. “David?”

“Yes, in LA. We both live there, so Mom and Dad tend… tended… to come there to visit. I don’t feel like much of a Marietta native any more, I’m afraid. And then there’s my - ”

A distressed exclamation sounded from the back room, saving Tully from her next familiar lie.

My sister.

“Sage?” the other female voice called. “Help! I can’t get this one out of the mold.”

“Please browse all you want,” Sage said hurriedly. “And I’ll be back in a minute.”

“Oh, no rush.” Tully was quite sure she’d be able to browse for a good fifteen minutes in here before she grew too bored… or too hungry.

In fact, there were some slivers of chocolate to sample in a little dish on the counter. She took one, and glimpsed a paradise made of dark sweetness and a tang of fig and pistachio, as it melted on her tongue. Did Sugar have the kind of palate that would appreciate chocolate like this? Mom said she’d given up smoking, finally, but less than a year ago.

Maybe one of these pre-packaged and gorgeously gift-wrapped boxes, instead? They came in so many sizes, the choice confronted Tully with the murky ambivalence of her own feelings.

How much are you worth to me, Sugar?

The $250 Deluxe Copper Mountain Gift Stack?

The $180 Limited Edition Single Source Truffle Assortment?

Or just the Milk Chocolate Gift Mix, with twelve pieces, for ten bucks.

What price did you put on forgiveness? As an accountant, should she know?

Someone came into the shop while she was still very busy feeling appalled at herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that he was male, dark-haired, built like an athlete, wearing a brown leather jacket on top of dark pants, and not in an especially patient or happy mood, judging from the rhythm of his footsteps. There could be a lot of emotional blackmail in the air on Valentine’s Day.

He went directly to the shelves containing the pre-packaged gift boxes, and she eased out of his way without really looking at him, back to the main counter where all the expensive gourmet specialties bathed themselves in soft golden lighting behind the glass.

Wow, spicy mango? Candied lime? Cornflake and chili? Inspirational!

I’ll get some of these for her.

It was a decision that made Tully feel a little giddy and scared.

What, she was actually going to choose a candy assortment for Sugar piece by piece, as if it
mattered?
As if they might find some common ground together, in exploring the exotic flavors? She was going to make a choice based not on her inner emotional balance sheet of anger and pity and, yes, shame, but on the hope of something
meaningful
?

Wow. Way to go, Tully.

The new customer plunked a medium-sized copper-wrapped box down on the counter to Tully’s left, adjacent to the cash register. After her attempt to quantify love and forgiveness in candy form just a minute or two earlier, she pegged his choice as a very ambiguous one.

Neither stingy nor generous, neither token nor whole-hearted.

This was either a boss with a valued secretary that he genuinely wasn’t trying to hit on, or a long-married husband who was very much over the whole thing.

Then Sage came hurrying back to the front of the store, and said, “Ren! Hi!” and Tully’s feelings about chocolate and Valentine’s Day suddenly became a whole lot more complicated. This man right next to her, with the seriously buff body filling his jacket and the aura of professional confidence all over him was
Ren
? Ren
Fletcher
?

The Sweetest Thing
– coming soon!