The Other Brooks Boy (Texas Wildfire Series) (22 page)

Four months
later, a warm and salty Caribbean breeze was the only thing in the world
troubling Cara as it ruffled her hair, making it tickle her neck. Delicious
laziness from a morning spent in bed with her husband made her ignore the
tickle and simply enjoy lying in his arms in a hammock near the ocean.

Cara kept her
eyes closed against the dappled sunlight teasing through the palm leaves
overhead and listened to the sounds around them. She could hear Maddie and Ryan
laughing at one another as they were learning to surf in the tame waves washing
up lazily on the beach a few dozen yards away, and closer, in the shade of a
large palm tree, she could clearly hear Etta and Barbara's conversation as they
ogled the man eye candy walking up and down the beach.

"Oh, I
don't think so, Miss Barbara. Not that old coot. Think younger ... like that
one with that little bitty thong
thang
on there.
Yeah, him. Get your inner cougar out to play, girlfriend," Etta told
Barbara, making Cara grin and Greg's chest rumble quietly with laughter beneath
Cara's ear.

"Dear Lord
... there's no telling what those two will get into before we get them back on
a plane for home," Greg said quietly for Cara's ears only.

They'd been
married on this very beach two days ago, with friends and family in happy
attendance. Uncle Taddy had flown his family down on their private jet,
stopping by Texas to pick up Ren and his girlfriend, Callie. Nonna had even
made the adventure, though Cara didn't think she'd seen her grandmother without
rosary beads in hand the entire time she'd been on the island.  It had
been a gift to have her family in attendance for the wedding. Cousins Maddie
and Francesca's daughter, Lexie had hit it off beautifully, even getting a
little tearful as the Maggios had flown out this morning, back to Texas and
California.  Barbara, Etta and Cara's kids would fly home in the morning.

Greg's college
roommate, Rand Hamilton and his lady, Rachel had also joined them for the
wedding. Greg noted that it was the first time he'd ever seen his friend truly
happy. They were packing at this moment for an afternoon flight out, but Cara
and Greg would stay for a full ten days of honeymoon happiness. 

And delirious
happiness is exactly what Cara felt, her hand rubbing softly up and down across
the serrated muscles of her husband's abdomen. It seemed as though the world
had finally righted itself, and she couldn't imagine being happier or more at
peace. She hadn't a care in the world right now. The breeze cooled them, the
shade offering protection from the Caribbean sun, and a profound lethargy held
her in its powerful grip. She didn't ever want to move from this exact spot.

"You'd
better quit that rubbin' around on my stomach, or it's gonna to get you in
trouble," Greg told her, taking hold of the tempting hand and bringing it
to his lips for a soft kiss.

"Not
afraid," she said quietly, too sleepy to put more energy into it.

He rolled over to
face her, pulling her closer and tangling his legs with hers. The movement made
her fuss and grumble, but she never opened her eyes, just pouted.

"What are
you fussing about?"

"I was
comfortable, thank you." She still didn't open her eyes. "And I'm
sleepy." She snuggled in closer to his chest and pressed a kiss there.

His hands now
did some wandering of their own over the dip in her back, the swell of her
bottom, covered only by a string bikini. "Why are you sleepy? You've been
so lazy," he said, chuckling at her.

"It
happens," she said, her voice slightly muffled between them. "It was
a lot worse with Ryan than with Maddie. With him, I could have slept the whole
nine months."

His hands
stopped abruptly, his whole body suddenly filled with a tension that hadn't
been there before, but he said nothing.

After a moment
of letting that sink in, Cara tilted her head back and opened her eyes to find
him staring intensely at her, an expression brimming with emotion on his
handsome face. She smiled at him timidly.

"Are you
freakin' kiddin' me?" he asked.

She shook her
head. "Nope. Took the test this morning."

Now his eyes
closed and he released a breath he'd obviously been holding. "Oh, my
God."

She tucked
herself back into the shelter of his chest and allowed him some time to decide
how he felt. It was the least she could offer. She'd had a couple of weeks to
get used to the idea herself.

Slowly, she felt
him relax some and he pressed a kiss on the top of her head, his arms hugging
her all the tighter.

"Are you
okay?" she asked, not certain she wanted to hear his answer.

"Yeah, just
completely astounded," he admitted. "We're pretty old to be starting
all that. Hell, we've got one starting college in the fall."

She nodded
against his chest, loving the ownership he had in her kids. "Yes, and
she'll have a little sister or brother to meet when she comes home for
Christmas break."

He started
chuckling, a slow rumble in the beginning, but as she looked up at him and
grinned, he threw his head back, and the chuckle grew until it was a full belly
laugh that made Cara laugh, too, and drew the attention of Etta and Barbara, as
well.

"Hey ...
y'all need to settle down over there, or get a room, you hear?" Etta
warned them.

"Hush,
Etta," Cara called, laughing still. Greg quieted and found her mouth with
his for a soulful kiss that made her simmer.

"Humph.
That ain't no way to speak to a guest, now is it," she yammered on, but
they completely ignored her, wrapped up in their own bliss.

~The
End~

Diane
Roth is a native Texan, a Pediatric Nurse, a wife, mother, and grandmother, who
has been writing Romance for the past twenty years. Thankfully, her husband, a
man who has inspired every single one of her heroes to one degree or another,
recognized early on that her writing behooved him, and he has always loved to
cook. It's been a match made in Heaven for thirty-five years now.

Thank
you for purchasing this book. Your honest review is invaluable and greatly
appreciated. Please take the time to return to your eBook retailer and write a
review.

Watch
for future releases in the
Texas Wildfire Series
including
Wayward
Son
, Ren and Callie's story, scheduled for release in December 2013, and
Rand and Rachel's story, title TBA, coming in 2014.

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notification of new releases, sign up for Diane's newsletter here:

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Continue
reading for an excerpt of Diane's next release

Wayward
Son

Coming
December 2013

Wayward
Son

by

Diane
Roth

If there was anything Callie Cameron
dreaded more than change, she'd be hard pressed to name it. She recognized it
was a very narrow minded way to look at life, but that was just too bad. Change
bought packing a whole set of the unknown. And the unknown brought the
wearisome task of wrestling it all into a neatly packaged, conforming,
controlled, predictable entity. It generally took her six months or more to
manage that. At least it did with bosses. Other things took a lifetime, and
Callie hadn't quite mastered some of those categories. But bosses, she could
manage. This one shouldn't prove any more difficult than the three before him,
she figured. She was, however, growing weary of the task of breaking in new
Plant Managers or Chief Operating Officers or whatever Corporate might decide
to call them this quarter. Italia Carpet and Tile Distribution Center outside
Sweet Springs, Texas seemed to be the corporate revolving door for mid-level
executives ... a place to make it or break it, do or die, and Callie had helped
more than her share of deadbeats and do-gooders move right along to their
eventual destination on the career ladder. It made no difference to her which
way they went as long as they stayed out of her way and let her run the place
like she always had.

She'd spent the whole day cleaning out
the executive office in preparation for the new arrival. She rubbed at the back
of her gritty neck and wondered what she might scrounge up for dinner as she
drove the winding highway home well after dark Tuesday evening. She hadn't
intended to stay so late. Finding time for a deep clean of the place was a rare
thing, and once she'd gotten started, there didn't seem to be a stopping place.
She'd spent the last two days at it, and at this point, would almost fall into
bed hungry rather than try to cook something.

She rounded a particularly sharp turn in
the road and pulled up short at the sight of a car in the ditch. One headlight
illuminated the figure of a man standing near the front of the vehicle
surveying the damage, and the other headlight shone crazily into the night sky
with a cockeyed beam full of smoke and dust.

Callie pulled over so her lights shone
on the disabled car, parked, and got out of her pick up.

"Anyone hurt?" she asked,
approaching the man.

He turned to look at her, panic all over
his features. "Yeah. This deer is in pretty bad shape, I think," he
said.

Callie rounded the front of his smashed
up, expensive, red foreign car and found a nice ten point buck laying on the
grass dead as a doornail. Callie lifted his head by the velvety rack, then lowered
it back to the grass. "That's a nice ten pointer you bagged. And, yeah,
I'd say he was in pretty bad shape," she muttered.

The man looked even more stricken.
"Well, do something for him."

Callie laughed. "And what would you
have me do?"

"I don't know. Can you do CPR on a
deer?" he asked, frustration and urgency coloring his words.

"Only on Grey's Anatomy," she
said. She tried to see into the interior of the car, but the headlight in her
eyes prevented it. "Anyone else in the car with you?"

"No," he said absently, then
came a little closer to the deer and nudged at his flank with the toe of a very
nice, stupidly expensive Italian leather driving loafer. "Is he really
dead? Are you sure?"

"I'm certain. You'd be nicely
impaled by now if he weren't."

His expression indicated he believed
that possibility fully as he took a step or two backward.

"Is your car drivable?"

"Hell, no. When I hit him, I blew
both front tires, and I think the radiator is gone, too. Smells that way,
anyway," he said, and continued to mess with his cell phone.

Callie nodded. "Better call a tow
truck."

He raised his phone and shook it at her.
"How am I supposed to do that when I can't get a freakin' signal in the
middle of this god-forsaken nowhere?"

Callie raised an eyebrow at him and
fished her own phone out of her back pocket. "You just have to have the
right carrier out here." She scrolled through her contacts.

"Oh, and you just happen to know
the tow truck number by heart, right?" he asked sarcastically.

She eyed him a little more suspiciously,
his increasing volume and anger beginning to make her uncomfortable. "Not
exactly. But I do have his number in my contact list."

"You get a kickback on all the tows
you call in?" he asked, his smart ass tone of voice really grating on her.

"Only the ones involving ass wipes
who drive too fast and wear prissy footwear," she said, giving him a
little sass back. She got an answer on the other end of the line before the
jerk could reply. "Hey, Manny ... it's Callie. I came up on a guy who's
hit a deer out here on 281, right after the cemetery. His car's going to need a
tow. Both front tires are blown." She listened while Manny repeated their
location. "That's right," she told him. "Just past the Emory
place." Manny asked her about the condition of the deer. "Dead, but
I'll ask the guy about it. Sure thing, Manny." She disconnected.

"Manny's coming. It'll take him
about twenty minutes, I guess, to get here."

The man just looked at her
dispassionately. "These shoes are not prissy," he said, taking her so
by surprise she had to stifle a laugh.
That was his most pressing issue?

"Dude, those shoes are prissy
enough to get your ass kicked around these parts," she said and gave up
trying to hide her amusement.

It didn't sit well with him. "Lady,
these shoes cost more than your sorry old pickup," he said, his eyes
narrowed into little slits.

"Guess that's the high cost of an
ass-kickin' these days. Sucks to be you," she said and turned to go, done
wasting her time trying to help the ungrateful jerk.

"What the hell? You're just going
to leave me here?" he yelled, incredulous at her lack of good
Samaritanism.

"Sure am." She yanked open the
door to her pickup with a screech of rusty hinges, then climbed in with another
squeak of worn out shock absorbers.

"And if the tow guy doesn't show
up?" he yelled, clearly beyond irritated with her.

She started her truck and pulled back on
to the road slowly, stopping just as she came even with his car. "Then I
think you're gonna get your money's worth out of those prissy shoes," she
said with a smile.

"Oh, for the love of--," he
said, turning away and driving both hands into his hair. Suddenly he turned
back to face her. "And the deer?"

"Oh, yeah ... the deer. Manny asked
if he could have him for the freezer," she said. "I almost forgot to
ask you."

"You have got to be kidding
me," he said, then in frustration, kicked up the sand at the edge of the
road with those expensive loafers and let loose a string of cuss words that
would have blistered a sailor's tongue.

Callie just chuckled and drove off,
feeling not one ounce of regret for leaving the spoiled brat to his
predicament.

She might have
been a little more regretful had she known she'd meet this man again, and the
tables would be turned decidedly in his favor.

Wayward Son
excerpt

Copyright© 2013
T.D.L. Rothrock