ONE

June 1985

EVEN BILLY JOEL SINGING about his “Uptown Girl” couldn’t put out the fire burning through my veins. I was too furious to calm down after a phone call from my ex, so I pushed the pedal of my ‘67 Mustang convertible to the floor and let the wind temper my anger. I’d been in Murfreesboro, Tennessee exactly one month, but somehow the jackass had found out where I worked and called me right before I got off shift.

“Stupid jerk,” I hissed, flying down US-41 toward the farmhouse I’d rented. I’d grown up in Nashville and planned to stay there after I graduated from nursing school, but for some reason, when I caught my ex-boyfriend cheating, I decided it was time for a fresh start. I wanted the room to breathe rather than a stuffy apartment in the city, so I applied to hospitals around the state and signed on with St. Thomas in Murfreesboro. I got the breathing room I wanted, and five acres to boot. I loved the solitude of the country, however, mowing five acres—not so much. “He screws any woman who looks in his direction, then blames me for ending things?” I raged at my radio.

Billy Joel ignored me. He was too busy singing to Christie Brinkley about her beauty.

It’s always the blondes that get the guy. Brunettes like me were invisible in a room full of Sun-in using Barbies; it’s been scientifically proven by the FDA. If you put ten blondes in a room with ginormous boobs, the best-looking brunette wouldn’t even get a second look.

Okay, that probably wasn’t true. It’s more likely I’m a little prejudiced since Jonathan threw away two years of my life to hook up with a ditzy blonde.

Looking into my rearview mirror, I realized I still had my nursing cap on and groaned. No wonder the cute guy at the convenience store looked at me funny. I barely stood five foot four, so I wore hats most days to look taller, but my nurse’s cap was not a hat I wanted to be seen in outside the hospital. It was hideous.

Letting go of the steering wheel so I could drive with my knee, I pulled out the hairpins quickly and let the cap drop to my passenger seat.

“Better,” I told Billy, shaking out my long, dark brown hair. Except Billy was gone. Now Steve Perry was serenading me with “Oh Sherrie.” Another blonde. Kill me now.

I rolled my shoulders, trying to relax. I’d just finished the three to eleven p.m. shift in the ER, and I was ready to pull off the damn white support hose they made us wear. St. Thomas hadn’t moved into the twentieth century yet by allowing its nurses to wear colorful scrubs in the ER. White. White. White. Everything was still sterile white. Even our makeup had to be subdued. No perfume. No nail polish. Nothing that made us to stand out was ever allowed. We were to appear clean and competent at all times. If we personalized our uniforms in any way, we’d be written up. And if the disregard for the rules were repeated, we’d ultimately be fired. Well, fired or not, I wasn’t spending another second in these hose. They were sucking the life force from my body.

With comfort in mind, I took my foot off the accelerator and began to brake, looking for a spot to stop. I wasn’t waiting until I got home. I wanted these hose off now.

As I eased onto the shoulder, I ran over something large and heard a loud pop under my car. Afraid I’d hit an animal, I crept forward another twenty feet and felt my steering wheel pulling to the right. Shoot. I knew what that meant. I had a flat tire.

I looked down at my white uniform and moaned; then scanned the road in front of me for any houses with a light on so I could use their phone. Darkness met me. Dangitalltohell. What I wouldn’t give for one of those brick looking portable phones I’d read about. Technology was advancing at a rapid pace at the end of the twentieth century. Pretty soon we’d all be carrying a portable phone and making calls from our car like we were sitting in our homes. And I couldn’t wait.

Throwing my car into park, I opened my door so the interior light would come on and then reached inside my glove box for a flashlight. The stretch of road I was on had no streetlights, and the houses were acres apart, if not miles. I was in farm country, where your closest neighbor required a vehicle to borrow sugar.

“Whose bright idea was it to live in the country?” I grumbled as I climbed out of my car. Steve’s velvet voice still serenaded me as I moved to my trunk, opened it, and found it was still full of boxes from my move.

Dangit, I forgot to empty it.

My nose began to sting with the first traces of tears. I was hungry, tired, and emotionally compromised by my douchebag ex. And now I’d have to change a tire in the middle of the night, dressed in solid white.

I slammed my trunk in frustration, then walked over and kicked my flat tire for good measure. I was done. D.O.N.E. with this day. I would walk to my house and call AAA in the morning.

“Problems?” a very deep, very male voice called out from behind me.

I jumped, not having heard his approach over the radio, and swung around, leveling my flashlight at a twenty-something male. I froze solid in my tracks, scanning him from head to toe as my heart thundered in fear. He was well over six feet tall with broad shoulders that pulled against the fabric of his T-shirt, testing the boundaries of the material.

I dropped my eyes to his narrow waist then down to his equally muscled legs, and my fear morphed inexplicably into awareness. I licked my lips unconsciously at this prime example of a male, my eyes traveling up the length of his body until I met piercing, ultra-blue eyes. They were framed by long lashes and a strong brow; his head crowned with dark blond hair. Hair that was wild like he ran his hands through it in frustration, but not the ugly mullet men wore these days. It was sexy, wild like the man himself, and every inch of him screamed, I’m all male, and I’m dangerous when crossed.

What were the chances I’d run into a harmless wild man in the middle of a dark, dark road?

Not good! So my fear returned tenfold.

Danger, Will Robinson!

“Don’t come any closer!” I croaked out in trepidation, stepping back, self-preservation foremost on my mind.

Scanning his face further, I looked for any signs he might attack and found him smirking at me, his lip twitching as he returned the favor and took in my measure. Then he raised his hands slowly, as if to calm a child, then muttered, “I won’t harm you. You can trust me.”

My bangs had fallen into my eyes, partially obstructing my view of him when he raised his hands, so I puffed them out of my way to clear my line of sight. His smirk grew wider across his face in reaction, calling attention to his mouth. My gaze locked in place on those full lips, wondering if they were as soft as they looked, then my breath hung in the air as he licked his bottom lip. Caught like a deer in headlights, I blinked twice to clear my self-imposed trance and scanned him one more time, looking for any traces he was lying. His muscled arms hung relaxed at his side, not ready to attack me, and his legs were at ease with one hip cocked in a manly stance. He was the best looking would-be attacker I’d ever seen, and I relaxed marginally.

Whether I was naïve or just in serious lust at this point was yet to be determined, but my instincts said he wasn’t lying. So I took a deep breath to calm my nerves. Then another. But my heart rate wouldn’t cooperate. He was just too male, too imposing, too everything for my poor system to handle. “Where did you come from?”

A single perfect brow rose on his forehead at my question, then he jerked his head to the side, mumbling, “My house. I was sittin’ on the porch when you pulled over, so I drove down with my lights off to check you out. Make sure you weren’t a prowler.”

I looked over his shoulder and saw a single light burning in the distance, as well as a truck I hadn’t heard pull up over the music. “So, you live here?” I asked like an idiot, rattled by the sultry timbre of his voice.

Both brows rose in unison, followed by a full-on grin.

Right. Stupid question.

“Do you have a phone I could use?” I rambled on, feeling my cheeks begin to burn. I’d never met a man this distracting, so overtly sexual in my life. “I have a Triple-A membership, and I need them to change my tire.”

He cocked his head at my question, taking in my appearance slowly as he considered his answer. His eyes hesitated for a moment on my breasts, and I felt them grow heavy in response. “You got a spare?” he finally said, his voice husky and rough.

“I—I think so,” I answered, tripping over the words in response to my body’s reaction.

“Then open the trunk, and I’ll change it for you.”

I blinked. “You will?”

His grin returned. “I said I would.”

Not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, I rushed to the trunk, rattling off, “Thank you so much. I work three to eleven tomorrow, and what with needin’ sleep and all, havin’ to deal with a flat tire might have made me late,” as I opened my trunk and looked inside.

Shit. The boxes.

“I’ll just . . .” I motioned to the boxes with my flashlight then grabbed one and tried to pull it out. It was lighter than I expected, so I stumbled back when I hoisted it forcefully and lost my footing, dropping it. The contents spilled out onto the road, and I groaned in horror when I shined the flashlight on the pile. It held my missing bras and underwear.

Kill me now.

He bent at the waist to pick up my unmentionables, and I shouted, “No!” at the top of my lungs, swinging the flashlight away from the garments so he couldn’t see them clearly. His head shot up at my tone and lack of light, along with his right hand holding a pair of black silk undies.

“Those aren’t mine,” I spat out, flustered.

His lips twitched at my denial, then he rolled his lips between his teeth to keep from laughing and handed me the skimpy item. I snatched them from his hand, then dropped to my knees and shoved the rest of my undergarments back into the box.

“I take it these books aren’t yours either,” he mumbled through a smile, as he raised the second box easily out of my trunk. If God were a merciful being like the Bible said, he’d strike me dead right now out of sympathy.

I looked up at the night sky hoping to see a flash of light, but all I saw was a huge moon and stars. Apparently, he had more pressing matters than my total humiliation.

“Just put them on the back seat,” I answered without looking at the man.

He did as I said, then told me to turn off my engine before he moved to his truck and turned on his headlights. I stood well away from him as he worked, hoping he’d forget I was there, but that didn’t last long. The hose from hell were still cutting off my circulation, and now the June heat was causing my legs to itch. I had to get them off before I lost a limb.

“I’m just gonna . . .” I pointed to the front of my Mustang. “I’ve got to get these dang hose off,” I admitted grudgingly.

He looked down at my legs.

“They’re cutting off my circulation,” I continued. “And they itch.”

His eyes popped to mine as he put pressure on a lug nut. “I won’t stop you from takin’ off your clothes,” he said in a deep drawl full of innuendo.

I blinked.

Was he flirting with me?

“Um. Okay,” I replied like a dork, then turned on my heel and moved out of his line of sight.

The instant I yanked down the offending stockings, I moaned audibly in relief as the blood rushed back to my feet. Then I froze when I heard him mumble, “Jesus.”

“Everything okay?” I asked, balling my stockings into a knot.

Nothing. No answer whatsoever. Just the sound of pond frogs echoing in the distance.

“Are you still there?” I inquired, peeking around the hood.

He was still working on my lug nuts, but his eyes were trained on me as I cleared the hood.

“You got a man?” he asked oddly.

I blinked. “Do you mean a boyfriend or husband?”

“Yeah. A man.”

“Not at present.”

His eyes locked with mine and I swear something sparked in their depths. My body reacted instantly as if I’d been touched, then heat flooded my veins. I shifted nervously under the scrutiny of his gaze and wondered briefly what he saw when he looked at me. I knew what I saw when I looked at him: a male in its purest form. There was nothing soft about him. He was all hard lines, deep voice, and had an air about him that screamed he was beyond confident in all things.

With one last scan of my now naked legs, he turned his eyes back to the job at hand, leaving me with an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach. Was he interested in me or was I even his type? What if he was married?

I internally cursed at the prospect he was already taken and decided on a wait and see attitude. If he were the least bit flirty when he was done with my tire, then I’d know how to proceed. And I really hoped he was interested. Not since, well, ever, had I had a reaction this strong to the opposite sex. So strong it was almost dizzying in its level.

Ten minutes later, he finally rose from his work and placed the flat tire in my trunk, closing the lid.

“You’re all set. Take your tire to a garage first thing in the morning and get it fixed. I don’t want you drivin’ around without a spare,” he commanded. His tone was no-nonsense, as if he was used to those around him following his orders without question. What it wasn’t—was the least bit flirty. I must have imagined the spark between us. He wasn’t asking if I was otherwise engaged, it was just small talk on his part while he helped a stranded woman.

Good to know. I’ll explain it to my hormones when I get home. Wild men and nerdy nurses don’t mix. But even knowing that, I didn’t want him to leave. I knew if I got in my car it would be the last time I saw him. Murfreesboro wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t small either. We could go years without crossing paths again.

“You okay?” he asked, sounding concerned when I didn’t immediately agree to take my tire in the next morning.

I jerked, remembering myself, and started to put out my hand to shake his. It was filthy, so I snatched it back and rubbed it on the front of my uniform before I could stop myself.

“Uh, you’ve got a little somethin’,” he began, pointing at the front of my dress. I could hear the humor in his tone. I shined my flashlight on the spot and groaned. What a way to make a lasting impression. He’d forget about me within seconds after I left.

Sighing loudly, I put out my hand. “Thank you for all your help. I’d have walked home if it weren’t for you, Mr.?”

He looked down at my outstretched hand, then reached out and clasped it lightly as if it were made of glass. The moment his fingers wrapped around mine, a tingling warmth rose up my arm and curled into my belly like a shot of whiskey. I looked down, confused, then back at him to see if he felt it as well. He was staring at our entwined hands; his brows pulled together in concentration, then he slowly raised his head and mumbled, “Jesus.”

I searched his eyes expecting some kind of explanation, but he oddly mumbled, “Boom,” before his fingers tightened around my hand.

“Boom?” I questioned, taking a step closer for some reason, drawn like a magnet to my polar opposite.

He scanned my face, stopping at my cheek. I held my breath as he raised his free hand and brushed something from my skin. Closing my eyes at the feel of his warm hand gently caressing my face, I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with his clean scent. He smelled like Irish Spring mixed with hay, like he’d taken a shower then went straight inside a barn to work.

“What’s your name?” he mumbled softly.

“My name?”

“Yeah, baby, your name.”

The way he said baby, like it was the most precious word in the world to him, made my knees grow weak. “Susan. Susan Elizabeth Montgomery,” I supplied without question. At that moment, I couldn’t have refused him anything.

“You look like a Susan,” he mumbled, drawing me an inch closer.

I blinked. “What do Susans look like?”

He took another step, moving within inches of my body until I could feel the heat from him pressing in on me. “Like warm fires, Christmas morning, and the first snowfall of the season. Susans look like home, hearth, and family.”

I swallowed past the knot in my throat, lost in the warmth of his words, and my stomach flipped with excitement when he whispered my name again like he was trying it on for size.

“Do you have a name?” I asked in breathless anticipation. I knew, with absolute certainty, his name would be something manly like Jack or Max. Maybe even Nic, Bo, or Devin.

He grinned slyly like a wolf, his eyes lighting mischievously from within. I could have lost myself in those blue pools for the rest of my life, but unfortunately for my heart, this Wild Man wasn’t a Jack or Max. Not even a Shane, Kade—or something equally cool like Dallas or Lucas. No, his name was one I’d heard from the moment I rolled into town. Oh, it was a great name. Very manly. But it was also the name of a man I’d been warned to steer clear of if I wanted to protect my heart.

“I’m James. James Trevor Mayson,” he whispered softly. “And I’m gonna kiss you now,” the Casanova of Murfreesboro rumbled low.

____________________________

Gold flecks danced in the depths of Susan’s eyes like fireflies on a summer night. James hadn’t been close enough until that moment to see their true color in the dim rays of his headlights, and the beauty of them sucked him under. Light blue. The purest of blue. Like a crystal stream on a hot day that soothed whatever ailed you from the first plunge. Eyes a man couldn’t look away from without going back a second later to make sure they were real.

He’d been fascinated with the pixie-faced nurse from the moment he pulled up and watched her stumble around in the dark like a lost child. She was tiny, angelic looking in her all-white garb, but underneath all that innocence she was sexy as hell.

When she’d opened her mouth to speak, the sound had hit James in the chest like a force of nature, awakening something inside him. Then she asked to use his phone, and the mere thought of some strange man coming to change her tire made his jaw tighten, the need to protect her at all cost had instantly clawed at his brain.

He knew then he wanted her in a way he hadn’t wanted a woman in his life. But fate had confirmed it for him when she’d placed her hand in his. He knew then it was more than just want, but fucking destiny that had her breaking down in front of his home.

All his life he’d heard how his father had taken one look at his mother and boom, knew she was the one. He’d thought his father was just being sentimental when he told the story, but he’d been adamant that when he saw his other half for the first time, he knew it. Said, ‘you feel it in your bones.’

The boom effect, he’d called it.

Now James knew his father wasn’t full of shit. He may not have known just to look at Susan like his father had, but the minute he took hold of her hand the planets aligned, and he’d felt a type of contentment he’d never experienced in his life.

“I’m James. James Trevor Mayson,” he whispered softly. “And I’m gonna kiss you now.”

Susan’s eyes grew wide at his admission, and she gasped, giving him full access to her Cupid mouth. He took it without a second thought, slanting his lips over hers. Heat surged, and his cock grew instantly hard at the taste of her. The kiss was meant to announce his intent to pursue. To lay claim to her in no uncertain terms.

He’d meant to go slow, to draw her in gently so he didn’t spook her, but the hold he had on his self-control was far from steady once he had Susan in his arms.

When she melted into him after a moment’s hesitation, and her angelic voice whimpered with need, his hold on his control broke like a dam and he backed her up until her legs gave way, pinning her to the trunk of her car. Then it was all hands, teeth, and tongues.

She arched in response, pressing her breast into his hand, then she rubbed her heat against his pounding erection, and he lost all control. He’d just wanted a taste of her, to see what an angel felt like wrapped in his arms. But his hips responded to her unspoken need and he rubbed against her until he heard her breath catch, her body spasm in release, and then soften like a rag doll as she came down from her high.

But just as quickly as she’d lit up for him, Susan became furious and shoved him away in outrage, sliding off the trunk.

“Don’t come near me again,” she hissed like a frightened kitten.

That caught him off guard. He expected embarrassed—shy even—since she’d found her release, but not furious. He reacted immediately, unable to hold himself back. If she thought they were done, she needed to think again. There was no way he was walking away. She’d burned for him, as much as he wanted her, or she wouldn’t have lit up for him like the Fourth of July.

“You’ll be seein’ me,” he promised.

“Oh yeah? Well, if I do see you again, I’ll . . . I’ll call the police.”

His lips twitched, then they pulled into a grin that had her narrowed eyes refocusing on his mouth. “Call the sheriff’s office next time you feel threatened, baby,” he advised, then reached out, snagged her by the neck, and kissed the tip of her nose. He looked down at her lips, ready to take them one last time before he let her go, but he stepped back when he heard a car start its engine in the distance.

“Later,” he whispered, looking deeply into her eyes. When her face softened in response to his gentleness, he winked then turned on his heel and headed for his truck, watching the taillights of a vehicle drive away. He’d give her tonight to come to terms with the fact he wasn’t going anywhere, but that was it. He’d been looking for Susan most of his adult life, and destiny had seen fit to drop her in his lap. He wasn’t about to give fate a chance to change her mind.

James paused at his door and looked back at Susan. When she didn’t move, he called out, “Babe, in your car. I don’t want you out this time of night on your own.”

Her glazed over eyes cleared instantly, and then they narrowed into slits. However, what she didn’t do was get in her car.

“Do I need to come over there and put you in it myself?” he threatened.

That got her moving.

When she got to her driver’s side door she paused suddenly, then turned around and smiled broadly at him, shouting, “Looks like I have the last laugh, James Mayson. You can’t see me again if you can’t find me.” The expression on her face said she thought she’d outsmarted him.

He grinned at her spunk, then turned and climbed into his county-issued F-150. The one he drove each day as a deputy sheriff.

He waited for her to pull out, thinking she must be blind to have missed the large decal on his door announcing he was an officer of the law. One who could access anyone’s information.

When she drove off, he watched her taillights until they were specks in the inky darkness, then grabbed his radio and called in to the station.

“63-7 to headquarters.”

“Go ahead 7.”

“Can you run an address for a Susan Elizabeth Montgomery? She lives near US-41.”

“10-4. You need back up, Mayson?” Nettie Smith questioned.

“Nope. I’ve got it all under control, Nettie,” James chuckled, then turned on his ignition and headed back to his house.