“I’m telling you, Luce, this project for San Antonio Waterways is going to be my ticket out of this one-horse town.” Celia Villarreal exited her online conference call with her employer, DigiLife Marketing, then celebrated the moment with a butt-wiggling chair dance. “I’ve got over a dozen successful graphics campaigns in my portfolio now, but this latest project is the crown jewel. PR and ad companies are going to be beating a path to my door.”
“If anyone can get recognition for the strength of their artwork alone, it’s you, Cel.” Wiping down the round tables in the dining area of Pauline’s Praline Sweet Shoppe, the owner of the sweet-smelling bakery and ice cream parlor, Lucy Jax, shot her a quick look. “You’re still set on sending out your portfolio to everyone who’s hiring graphic artists?”
“To everyone who’s in a big city, yeah. In fact,” Celia added, fingers dancing over the keyboard, “I’m just about to send it out...now.” With her heart in her throat, she clicked on the send button, then pressed a hand to her chest.
Done.
Finally, she was taking the all-important step of getting out of a town where she’d become as unpopular as black jelly beans at Easter.
Thank goodness.
Lucy made a sad sound. “Even if you get a new job elsewhere, who says you have to move? Your work is mainly digital, right?”
Celia turned in her seat to stare at her friend. “Have you forgotten what the past eight months have been like for me?”
“I know, I know. And even if this town hadn’t decided to act all holier-than-thou, you’ve always wanted to live in one of the big cities—San Antonio, Austin, Dallas. Anywhere but Bitterthorn. But take it from someone who’s lived in a big city, honey. You’re not missing a thing.”
“I can’t stand to hang around any longer, Lucy. This town... I just don’t see how I can have a future here.”
“It pisses me off so much,” Lucy muttered, attacking a table with the rag. “You did nothing wrong. Nothing. This whole town is full of self-righteous, hypocritical assholes.”
“Not the whole town.” Celia’s throat wanted badly to knot up as the stress of pain and regret tried to rise to the surface. To combat them, she turned her attention to closing the programs on her laptop. “I’ve got you and Sully, Coe, Pauline and Willard.”
“Yeah, a bunch of boring old married stiffs.”
“I’ve also got a couple friends from my high school girl posse who still live in town, so there’s that. And whenever I get so lonely I can’t stand it, I’ve always got the option of heading out to Beeville to visit my parents and abuela. Added to that, my work with DigiLife takes me to San Antonio at least a couple times a month. Life could be worse.” Celia glanced at the older woman and had to smile. Six months pregnant with her third kid and owner of one of the more popular places in the tiny town of Bitterthorn, Texas, Lucy Jax had the aura of a full-tilt dynamo. “But it could also be so much better.”
“There’s no rush, you’re still so young—”
“I get the feeling you still see me as the captain of the cheerleading squad at Bitterthorn High.” With a sigh, Celia came to her feet and closed her much-adored laptop. She’d once been one of the most popular people in town, but for the past few months, her laptop had become her main source of socialization. “News flash, Luce—I turned twenty-two last week. Though I’ll admit, I’m trying to forget about that since I’m never celebrating that fucking thing ever again.”
At the mention of Celia’s birthday, Lucy grimaced. “Hate to say it, but you might be right about that whole seeing you as a kid thing. I just now had to stop myself from telling you to watch your language.”
“I need to start dropping more F-bombs around you, don’t I? Seriously, it’s like my favorite word.”
The other woman’s chuckle was interrupted by bell jingle as the shop’s door opened, and when Lucy’s face lit up Celia didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. That starry-eyed look always showed up whenever her friend’s husband made an appearance.
“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here.” All smiles, Sully Jax came through the door, holding his two-year-old son, Coby, on his hip, while guiding his four-year-old daughter, Josie, into the store with his free hand. “Ready to go home, babe?”
“That’s my cue to bounce.” Celia waved a quick greeting at the invading Jax family before she bent to unplug her laptop. “Thanks for the company and use of your WiFi, Luce. It’s so much better here in town than it is out at the barn.”
“No problem, sweetie.”
“Eventually this whole area will have broadband,” Sully offered. “But for now it’s still the old-fashioned cable shi—stuff,” he quickly amended when Lucy hissed at him.
“Luckily I’ll be long gone from Bitterthorn and its crummy internet service by the time that happens.”
Sully’s smile dimmed. “Still determined to leave, I take it?”
“It’s past time for me to spread my wings, Sully.”
“Past time? What’s the rush, Cel?”
“Pfft, rush? You kidding? I would have flown the coop a long time ago if I’d been financially able.” Biting her lip, Celia turned back to the table to slide the laptop into an insulated leather messenger bag. There were one or two somewhat scandalous people in town—the youngest Brody brother, Des, who was actually a half-brother and the result of a torrid affair, and the crotchety former mayor, Patricia Weems, who seemed to be merely tolerated out of long habit.
Then, of course, there was Celia herself.
As far as she knew, she was unique to that thin list of gossiped-about people. Unlike the others, she was the only one who was treated like a leper by most of the bachelors in their tiny town. If she didn’t want to die alone with thirty cats as her only family, it was clearly time to find greener pastures.
“Let me guess,” came a deep, pleasant voice from the doorway that made Celia freeze in place. “I’m too late to get the last of whatever today’s special was, right?”
“Ry.” At the dessert display case with Josie, Lucy offered a cautious smile, before throwing Celia a covert glance. “Uh, well. Unfortunately I’ve already closed out the register, so you’re too late to buy anything. But that doesn’t mean I can’t offer you something for free before you get on your way.”
That’s it, Luce. Shuffle him right out the door...
“I wouldn’t hear of it, Lucy. Besides, I’m actually here to see Celia.”
It was a miracle Celia didn’t shriek in horror.
Shit.
She really should have left Bitterthorn before now. Like yesterday. An hour ago, even.
But, no.
She just had to be there, in the same dinky little town as Ryland Brody, courting this type of unparalleled disaster. A disaster she’d gone to great lengths to avoid for months.
Great.
“Oh,” came Lucy’s surprised murmur. Small wonder she was surprised. Her friend knew better than anyone why Ryland Brody was the last man on earth Celia wanted to see. “I would say you were in luck, but I’m afraid your timing’s off. Celia was just on her way out, Ry.”
Bless you, Lucy.
“There’s no luck to it,” came the reply in that charming Texas drawl that nevertheless stabbed her with invisible knives. “I ran into your husband outside, and he told me you and Celia were in here together, undoubtedly wrapping things up. Hey there, Celia.”
No, no, no, no...
She’d managed to avoid Ry Brody since she’d screwed up her life all those months ago, though it had been increasingly difficult to dodge him over the past several weeks. Lately it seemed like everywhere she went, Ry was either already there or he magically showed up minutes later. Holding a door open for her at the post office; trying to start a conversation at the hardware store while she browsed through the garden section; standing behind her at the check-out lane at Abel’s Market; giving her a thumbs-up as she painted a mural on the windows of Lucy’s bakery.
She’d yet to speak a single word to him.
Not surprising, she thought defensively. Even if the remembered shame and humiliation made basic communication impossible, the fear of what the town would do to her if she even looked his way kept her silent. Her life had become a slow-rolling nightmare, all thanks to her idiotic behavior with one of Bitterthorn’s billionaire Brody brothers.
If only she could wake up from that nightmare now.
Sadly, since there was no waking up from reality, Celia hauled her messenger bag’s strap across her body and forced herself to turn around.
God, the bastard was beautiful.
Then again, all the Brody men were stunners.
Assholes, of course.
But stunners.
Chiseled—there was no other way to describe both Ry’s striking facial features and his work-hardened body. His bottle-green eyes looked out at the world from under a surprisingly elegant sweep of winged eyebrows. Unlike his younger brothers, Ry kept his hair almost military short. He had no piercings that she could see, and the only jewelry he sported was a piece of green malachite in black titanium around his neck, a mineral found all over the Brody family’s Black Angus cattle ranch. There were also tattoos on his forearms that she’d glimpsed over the years of ogling him from afar—a spiky tribal design on one forearm, and a compass pointing to true north and the words Green Rock Ranch on the other.
It wasn’t fair that the one man she couldn’t bear to look at was so insanely gorgeous.
“Hello.” Smiling was beyond her, as was the strength to look him directly in those laughing glass-green eyes. The last time she’d looked directly into those eyes, they’d been laughing as well.
At her.
Oh, God, she was going to barf.
If possible, his mega-hotness levels went up a notch when his smile intensified. “You’re one tough lady to nail down, you know that?”
“Hm.” Considering she’d been avoiding him as if he were Death coming to reap her soul, there wasn’t much left to say.
“By the way, happy belated birthday. It was last week, right? Groundhog’s Day?”
Lucy choked while Celia just managed to keep the acid-filled tears of stress from boiling to the surface. But damn, the effort it took to hold on to her composure almost broke her in half. Was this bastard seriously asking her that? “Why were you looking for me?”
“I’ve got a business proposal I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for a good while now. Since it’s almost six, why don’t we talk about it over dinner? My treat.”
“Dinner.” For a full second she doubted her hearing. Then her brain plunged into hyper search mode for a plausible excuse to get out of the invite, only to come up with a whole lot of nothing. “No. Just, no. I have to go—”
“It’s a big project. Since I’ve heard you charge by the hour, this could be the biggest job you’ve been offered this year.”
Stubbornly she shook her head. There wasn’t enough money in the known universe to make her suffer through being in his presence. “Sorry—”
“Word is you’re working on building a nest egg to make a move out of town. This might be the project that’s going to get you where you’ve always been destined to go.”
“Leave it to Bitterthorn to not care what I’m doing, but still it knows all about me anyway,” she muttered, then paused when the cold, calm logic of what he said sank in.
A job.
A well-paying job offered by the gazillionaire Brodys, in addition to what DigiLife Marketing paid her.
Hm.
The cost of living in Dallas or Houston was twice as much as Bitterthorn. Yes, it was the dreaded Ryland Brody who was offering her a freelance job, but it was still money. Seriously good money.
And money was the key to getting the hell out of Bitterthorn.
Put that way, there was no need to waffle.
“Fine. Name the restaurant and I’ll follow you in my car.”
* * *
Maybe it was a dick move, but Ry led Celia to The Spot.
Parking his silver heavy-duty pickup truck, he climbed out as the sun sank in the west, then stood by the empty parking slot he’d left open for Celia near the bar and grill’s main entrance. She had a kickass car, and the sight of it never failed to bring out a smile. It was a fierce-looking vintage Camaro-IROC speedster, with its original yellow and black paint and a souped-up, throaty V-8 engine growling under the hood in a way that vibrated the chest and begged anyone with a soul to get behind the wheel and race the wind.
The whole town had been abuzz when the bubbly, popular captain of the cheerleading squad had picked it up from the town’s best mechanic, in part because that vicious-looking machine could have easily been certain death in the hands of a teenager. But from day one, Celia had driven that sexy beast like a little old granny on a Sunday outing. Eventually talk about her imminent demise faded away.
He’d never stopped looking out for that Camaro, though, no matter where he went. He couldn’t wait to teach her how to drive that monster good and proper.
He couldn’t wait to teach her a lot of things.
But, first things first.
Whether she liked it or not, Celia Villarreal was done avoiding him. There was no better place to convince her of that than the restaurant where it had all begun.
The Spot.
Part of him braced for her to drive right on by while flipping him the bird. Respect bloomed at the steel that had to be in her spine when the Camaro rumbled its way into the parking lot and came to a stop beside him. Its throaty growl cut off abruptly, but the dangerous sound of it lingered as she shot out of the car, eyes blazing in the twilight.
* * *
Maybe the danger snapping in the air wasn’t coming from the sound of the car after all.
“I don’t know about you,” he began with an easy smile, unconcerned that she had the look of a woman who wanted to take up kickboxing with his head, “but a table out on the deck overlooking the creek sounds pretty damn fine. What do you think?”
“What sounds good to me is getting this over with. We can talk right here in the parking lot, right now.” She crossed her arms, leaned back against her car and gave him a look that told him God Almighty didn’t have the power to make her budge. “What is it that you want from me?”
In the waning light, Ry took his time studying her. While most of the country was still enjoying winter in February, in South Texas the warm breath of spring was in the breeze that sifted through the lush silk of black hair that fell to her shoulders. Her eyes were liquid black magic, widely spaced and so large she appeared almost doll-like. When those eyes were made-up as they had been during the party held in her honor eight months ago, she’d been more stunning than any goddess.
Now, of course, she was trying to murder him with her glare alone.
But by damn, she was still one hell of a looker.
“What is it that I want from you?” Ry repeated, not bothering to stifle the urge to look her up and down, and all the way back up again nice and slow. If there was a finer pair of legs in all of Texas, he had yet to see them. “Oh, darlin’. That list is long and varied, you’ve got my honest-to-God word on that. But right at the top of my list of wants and desires—at least at this moment in time—is to get your ass planted at a table next to me, sipping a cold beer or margarita while we go over what I’d like done for Green Rock Ranch.”
“I don’t drink, so let’s skip that part. We can talk right here.”
“You drank that night, right here at this very bar.”
The color in her face went nuclear. “I don’t remember half of what I did or said that night, okay? It was a graduation-slash-belated birthday party my friends threw for me.”
“Birthday? That party happened in June. Do I have your birthday wrong?”
“No, it was last week—Groundhog’s Day.” She gave him an odd look, as if she couldn’t figure out why he cared one way or another when her birthday was. “Since I was buried in projects that dictated whether or not I would graduate when my birthday rolled around, I told my friends I refused to celebrate my twenty-first birthday until I was safely graduated. That night last June was the, um...the result.”
She was cute when she was mortified. “Ah, I get it. Yeah, you definitely did celebrate that night.”
She shifted, and he could have sworn she’d just stopped herself from kicking him. “Look, I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to you for anything horrible that I did while under the influence. I can assure you it’ll never—repeat, never—happen again.”
“Damn, really? And I had such high hopes. You need to loosen up, darlin’,” he added when she made a furious sound and turned to get back into her car to leave his ass flat. “I’m the worst tease you’re ever going to meet, I’ll admit that right here and now. But I’m never mean or malicious about it, and I’ll always invite you to give me shit back in spades. I love it, the sassier the better. And unless I’m very much mistaken, you are more than capable of bringing the sass. Am I right, or,”—he leaned in until his face hovered so near hers he could feel her sweet breath feather like a caress over his mouth—“am I right?”
Out of the corner of his eye he saw her hands bunch into fists. “Let’s just get this over with.”
Slowly he smiled.
As a start, it was damn promising.