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One Hot Texan
Jane Sullivan
HE NEEDS A WILLING WOMAN…Rebel Cole McCallum is back home, but not by choice. If he doesn't get married soon, he's going to lose his inheritance. But who would want to marry a complete stranger? Lucky for him, he has his pick of women. What this bad boy didn't plan on, though, was choosing the least likely candidate…and finding her irresistible.SHE'S WILLING TO OBLIGE…Wallflower Ginny White is ready to break free of her prissy reputation. When she discovers sexy Cole McCallum has returned, she knows he can teach her a thing or two. She's sure she's hit the jackpot when he asks her to marry him, even if it's only temporary. Six months is more than enough time to make this one hot Texan hers…!
“Cole? What’s the matter?”
“Ginny, this is…this is your first time.”
“Yes. I know.”
He slipped away from her. “I feel like somehow I’ve pushed you into this.”
She couldn’t believe it. Was this Cole McCallum talking? Where was the cockiness, the self-assuredness, the arrogant overconfidence she’d come to know so well?
“Cole, I want this. I want you. Don’t you know that?”
“You say that now, but are you sure?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Just kiss me.”
After a moment of hesitation, he lowered his mouth to hers in a soft, gentle kiss. Ginny wanted more. Much more.
She grabbed his shirt, and pulled him down to her. It was a kiss so hot and wild and intense that Cole couldn’t do anything but go along for the ride. Finally she pulled away, still gripping his shirt.
“Ginny? Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Yes, damn it! What am I going to have to do to convince you? Rip your clothes off? Rip my clothes off?”
Cole blinked with surprise. Then a smile spread slowly across his face. “Can I have both?”
Dear Reader,
Do you remember the girl in your high school class who didn’t talk much, who was smart but socially inept, the one who the boys didn’t even know existed? Do you remember the boy with the streetwise attitude who was sexy as sin, who drove the teachers crazy at the same time he made the girls swoon? What if these two people were to meet again ten years later and sparks suddenly flew?
As a writer, nothing is more fun to me than to put a hero and a heroine together who are complete opposites, then watch the fireworks. On the surface, it seems as if Cole McCallum and Ginny White are the most unlikely couple ever to share a kiss. But looks can be deceiving. Is it possible that the good girl and the bad boy are perfect for each other?
I had a wonderful time writing my first Harlequin Temptation novel, and I hope you enjoy it. Visit my Web site at www.janesullivan.com, or write me at jane@janesullivan.com. I’d love to hear from you!
Best regards,
Jane Sullivan
Books by Jane Sullivan
HARLEQUIN DUETS
33—STRAY HEARTS
48—THE MATCHMAKER’S MISTAKE
One Hot Texan
Jane Sullivan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Mom and Dad, who always believed I could do it.
Contents
Chapter 1 (#u64eb0cfe-fd35-5304-95e9-97f16a91b290)
Chapter 2 (#u20128499-5c7a-5ba9-bcb2-901dbbcbb6c6)
Chapter 3 (#u4c828cce-d1f4-5db2-abe8-3cb69f69480d)
Chapter 4 (#uad87b561-0496-5ddc-bc02-2a9240b300db)
Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
1
THE CLOSER Cole McCallum came to the city limits of Coldwater, Texas, the more he wanted to swing his classic Porsche around in a tire-squealing one-eighty and head back to Dallas where he belonged. He thought he’d seen the last of this godforsaken place, only to have fate step up and slap him in the face one more time.
His first introduction to Coldwater had been eleven years ago, when he’d been forced to leave Dallas and come here for his senior year of high school. His father had been thrown in jail for writing one too many hot checks, and his mother hadn’t been around since he was seven years old, so a family court judge had ordered his custody turned over to a grandmother he barely knew. He arrived with a chip on his shoulder the size of a concrete block. Throw in a pair of skintight jeans, a black leather jacket and a go-to-hell attitude, and the uptight citizens of Coldwater had naturally assumed he was the root of all evil. He didn’t let them down.
Out of pure mischief, he committed a few minor infractions around school during his first few weeks, then dated a few of the more kiss-and-tell girls. Gossip took care of the rest. For the next year he got blamed for everything from graffiti on the water tower to Angela Putnam’s period being late. And he didn’t care enough to try to set anyone straight. Only his grandmother had known better, but even her reputation hadn’t been able to salvage his. With the exception of the girls who swooned at his bad-boy image, the townspeople would have voted him most likely to turn up on a post-office wall. And that’s why, at eighteen, he’d burned rubber on his way out of town, catching the best view of Coldwater he’d ever had—the one in his rearview mirror.
And now he was going back.
He followed the gentle curve of the two-lane blacktop, passing tin barns and mobile homes alternating with fields of cotton and corn and an occasional paint-starved farmhouse with a pickup truck out front. This corner of nowhere was home to people who didn’t know there was a world beyond it. But he knew. He knew how a kid from nothing could leave a place like this and make something of himself. At the same time he burned with anger at how everything that same kid had fought so hard to gain could be ripped out from under him in the blink of an eye.
Cole still remembered how it felt to stand on that cold Dallas street in the middle of the night, soot clinging to his skin and heat from the massive blaze fanning his face, watching his half-finished real-estate renovation project—the one that could have made him a millionaire—light up the Dallas skyline like the fires of hell.
And watching his dreams go up in smoke with it.
He came around a bend and headed into the main part of town. He passed Blackwell’s Pharmacy, A New You Dress Shop and Cut & Curl, where a handmade sign advertised twenty percent off acrylic nails on Tuesdays. When he reached Taffy’s Restaurant, he pulled into a parking space next to a slick new pickup. It belonged to Ben Murphy, though he wouldn’t have known that if not for the ancient hound dog hanging his head over the tailgate.
At least the old man had shown up.
Cole stepped out of his car, went to the back of Murphy’s truck and scratched the old dog behind the ears.
“Hey, Duke. I figured you’d be long gone by now.”
The dog licked his hand, and Cole smiled ruefully. Duke was far happier to see him than Murphy was going to be.
He gave the dog one last pat on the head, then turned toward the sidewalk. In the beauty-shop window next door, he saw a skinny brunette with a headful of rollers staring at him. She tapped a big-haired blonde on the shoulder and mouthed, Cole McCallum. The woman spun around, and when she caught sight of him her eyebrows flew halfway up to her hairline.
By the time he reached the door to the restaurant, the beauty-shop window was filled with half a dozen women in various states of beautification, from sopping wet hair to kinky hair to hair sprouting crinkles of silver stuff that looked like aluminum foil.
He couldn’t resist. He turned toward the window and gave the ladies a great big smile.
A dozen eyes widened in unison. In the next second the women turned to each other, their mouths moving at the speed of light, probably repeating legends about him for the gospel truth whether they were actually true or not. Around here, any stranger made people stop and stare. But Cole McCallum, who was once rumored to have made it with the entire cheerleading squad in one night, warranted an all-points bulletin. And no doubt the things they’d read about him lately in the Dallas Morning News had only fueled the gossip.
He went into the restaurant and spotted Ben Murphy sitting in a booth by the far window. The chattering din of the restaurant fell silent as patrons peered over their newspapers or stopped mid-bite to watch him walk across the room. The only sound he heard was a hushed, rapid-fire argument behind the counter, where a trio of waitresses gave him sidelong glances as they tried to determine which took precedence when it came to waiting on a particular table—seniority or station assignments.
Cole slid into the booth across from Murphy and was greeted with a deadpan stare. The old man’s jaw was set in stone, his blue eyes unreadable. All seventy-two of his years were etched into his face, solidified by the harsh Texas sun. He held a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, and Cole couldn’t remember a time he’d seen him without one. Murphy was the closest thing to a grandfather he had by virtue of the fact that he’d married Cole’s grandmother. That was where their relationship began—and ended.
A waitress appeared at the table, and it took Cole a moment to realize it was Mary Lou Culbertson, stuffed into a baby-blue waitress uniform that had probably been a really good fit ten years and twenty pounds ago. She cocked one hand against her hip and slid her other hand along the top of the booth behind him.
“Hey, Cole. Long time no see.”
“Mary Lou.”
“I read about you in the papers. You had a pretty tough time of it, didn’t you?”
“It’s over.”
“Whatcha doin’ back in town?”
“Taking care of a little business.” He flashed her a smile. “How about a cup of coffee?”
“Sure.” She purred the word, as if he’d just asked her to get naked in the back seat of his car. As she sashayed toward the coffeepot, Murphy raised an eyebrow.
“Still charming the ladies, I see.”
Cole didn’t reply. Instead he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out several legal-size sheets of paper. He opened them up and tossed them on the table.
Murphy eyed the papers. “I wondered if you’d be back. Cutting it a little close, aren’t you?”
“According to Edna’s will, as long as I’m married within six months of her death, then stay on the ranch with my wife for six months, the deed goes to me. The way I figure it, I have until Sunday to move in.”
“You thumbed your nose at this six months ago. Said hell would freeze over before you got married and came back to live at the ranch.”
Yeah, and six months ago he’d had money in the bank with big payoffs on the horizon. Now he had exactly nothing. He shrugged offhandedly. “People change.”
“Some do. Some don’t.” Murphy chewed his toothpick. “And some become hotshot real estate investors who solve their problems with a book of matches.”
Murphy’s words slammed into Cole, making anger surge inside him. He struggled to keep his voice in check. “Guess you didn’t read the paper two days ago. My partner was convicted. I wasn’t.”
Murphy shrugged. “So you had a better lawyer.”
A hundred nasty retorts welled up inside Cole’s mind, and it was all he could do to contain them. Nothing ever changed in this town. Nothing.
When he left Coldwater at age eighteen, he’d started renovating tiny, dilapidated houses, making a little money here and there and then rolling it over into bigger and bigger investments. Over the years, he amassed a large portfolio of rental property and a huge stash of cash.
Then, in a move that raised more than a few eyebrows, he and a partner bought Seven-Seventeen Broadway Avenue, a huge turn-of-the-century apartment building on the outskirts of downtown Dallas. The condition of the building left a lot to be desired, and the area was practically an abandoned ghetto, but the building had a period charm unlike any Cole had ever seen. Because of nearby renovation projects along with the growing desire of young urban pioneers for downtown addresses, he decided to take the risk and create luxury condominiums, hoping the yuppies would bite and other investors would follow suit.
Then came the fire.
Cole thought it was the worst thing that could possibly happen, until the blaze was ruled arson and he and his partner became prime suspects. Investigators speculated that they’d gotten concerned that their huge investment in such a questionable area wasn’t going to pay off after all, so they’d torched it for the insurance money.
Cole had spent his last dime on the best attorneys he could buy, trying to convince a jury that he’d had nothing to do with the crime, all the while assuming his partner hadn’t, either. Then it turned out the guy had a mountain of gambling debts Cole hadn’t even known about, which had driven him to set the fire to try to collect the insurance money.
The fury Cole felt the moment he realized his partner’s betrayal was superseded only by the gut-wrenching defeat he felt when he looked at that fire-ravaged lot. Because the fire had been deliberately set, the insurance company hadn’t paid a dime, and Cole was left with nothing but a huge stack of attorney bills and a reputation that was in the toilet. Never mind that he’d been exonerated. The press had been quick to proclaim his alleged guilt on page one, then bury his innocence on page sixteen, and all the doors he’d worked so hard to open in the last ten years had suddenly slammed in his face.
Then he remembered his grandmother’s will. He had one last shot to pull himself out financially and get back on top again, and he intended to take that shot—even if he had to spend another six months in Coldwater to do it.
“So where’s the little woman?” Murphy asked. “Don’t recall hearing anything about you getting married.”
“She’ll be here Sunday.”
Cole held his breath, afraid Murphy was going to ask him more questions about his wife. Instead, he moved his toothpick to the other side of his mouth and gave Cole a warning stare.
“Part of the deal is that you work on the ranch.”
“I’ve done it before.”
“And hated every minute of it.”
Cole couldn’t argue with that. Still, he’d worked hard on the ranch the year he lived there, and Murphy knew it. Cole would have shot himself before giving the old man the satisfaction of telling Edna he wasn’t pulling his weight.
Mary Lou put a cup of coffee down in front of Cole with a provocative smile. As she walked away, Cole shoved the cup aside.
