by Lori Wilde
“C’mon, you gotta have hot fantasies.” Tasha’s voice took on a sultry quality. “What are they? A little BDSM? Role-playing? Booty call in scandalous places? A park bench, a pool, a carnival carousel?”
“A carousel?”
“Hey, it happens.”
“Tasha, did you have sex on a carousel?”
Her friend shot her a sneaky grin. “Once, maybe. I’ll never tell.”
Through lowered eyelashes, Kelsey tossed the rose bouquet into the trash on top of Clive’s crumpled letter.
You were safe.
“Quit playing coy and cough ’em up,” Tasha said. “Name your fantasies. Scottish Highlander in a short kilt and no undies? Or football player wearing those skintight pants? Fireman? Doctor? Construction worker?”
“The YMCA players?”
Tasha heehawed. “No more gay guys for you!”
“Hmm, there is one fantasy . . .” Kelsey mumbled.
“Just one?” Waving her hand, Tasha said, “Never mind, not judging. One is plenty. What is it?”
Not what, who. “Forget it.”
“Is he a real person?” Leaning in, Tasha’s breath quickened. “A celebrity? Or . . .” Wickedly, her voice dropped even lower. “Someone you’ve met?’
Unbidden, Noah MacGregor’s face popped into Kelsey’s head. In her mind’s eye, Noah looked as he had the last time she’d seen him. Seventeen years old, the same age she’d been, and six-foot-five. Linebacker shoulders, narrow waist, lean hips. His muscular chest bare, hard abs taut with her lipstick imprinted on his skin. Unsnapped, unzipped jeans.
Wild hair.
Wilder heart.
Rattled and rocked, her safe little world tilted. Noah was so big, so tall, and he had a wicked glint in his eyes. An honest man, independent and sexy, and one hot look from him had sent her heart scrambling.
That final night, they’d been making out on the dock at Camp Hope, a grief camp for children on Lake Twilight. Both junior counselors that year after having attended the camp every summer since they were eleven.
On the dock, a blanket and candles and flowers. Courtesy of her romantic boyfriend.
Fever pitch kisses.
They were ready to have sex—finally—when he’d jumped up, breathing hard. His angular mouth, which tasted of peppermint and something darkly mysterious, pressed into a serious line. Noah’s thick, dark chocolate locks curled around his ears, and his deep brown eyes were enigmatic.
In her bikini, she’d blinked up at him, her mind a delicious haze of teenage lust and longing. “What’s wrong?”
“Did you hear something?” Noah peered into the shadows.
Propped up on her elbows, Kelsey cocked her head. Heard the croak of bullfrogs and the splash of fish breaking the surface of the water as they jumped up to catch bugs in the moonlight. “No.”
Doubled fists, pricked ears, he remained standing, ready for a fight if one came his way. Ready to protect her. Her pulse sprinted. Proud and brave and strong, he looked as if he were a hero from the cover of the romance novels that she loved to read.
She’d fallen deeper in love with him at that moment. Head right over heels. Over banana splits at Rinky-Tink’s ice cream parlor, they had shyly said the words to each other. I love you. Then again when he’d carved their names in the Sweetheart Tree in Sweetheart Park near the Twilight town square. Sneaked off that summer for trysts after their campers were asleep.
They’d kissed and hugged and petted but hadn’t yet gone to third base. Tonight was the night. On the pill. A box of condoms. They were ready and eager. Kelsey reached for him, grabbed hold of his wrist and tugged him to his knees. Their first time. Both eager virgins dreaming of this for weeks. Souls wide open.
“Come . . .” she’d coaxed. “Don’t worry, it’s after midnight. Everyone is snug in their cabins.”
Allowing her to draw him back beside her, Noah branded her with his mouth and covered her trembling body with his own.
Hot hands.
Electric touch.
Three-dimensional!
The night was sticky. Raw with heat and hunger. Calloused fingertips stroked cockily against her velvet skin. The boards of the dock creaked and swayed beneath their movements as he untied her bikini top.
Footsteps.
Solid. Quick. Determined.
Filomena!
From nowhere, her mother was on the dock beside them and grabbing a fistful of Kelsey’s hair in her hand, her mother yanked her to her feet. Kelsey’s bikini top flew into the lake.
Angry shouts.
Ugly accusations.
Threats.
Regular life stuff with her mother when things didn’t go Filomena’s way. Mom, dragging her to the car parked on the road after she’d driven up with the headlights off. She’d sneaked up, hoping to catch them in the act. How had her mother known they would be here? Blinded by the idea that Filomena had been keeping tabs by tracking her every move via her cell phone, Kelsey’s fears ratcheted into her throat.
A hard shove and Filomena stuffed Kelsey into the car’s back seat and shook a fierce fist at Noah, who’d followed them. Warned him to stay away. Promised litigation and other dire consequences if he dared to contact Kelsey ever again.
“Noah!” Kelsey had cried as her mother hit the childproof door locks to prevent him from opening the door and springing her free.
Pounding on the car window with a heavy fist, Noah demanded her mother have a rational conversation with him.
Stone-faced, Filomena started the car.
“I’ll come after you,” Noah yelled to Kelsey. “I’ll find you, and we will be together. We won’t let her win. Promise.”
Kelsey wanted to cling to that flimsy promise. Take it to mean something. Fervent hopes. Girlish dreams. But even then, she knew her mother would ruin it.
“Over my dead body,” Filomena yelled.
“Noah, just go,” she’d cried, wanting to spare him.
“Kelsey!” His face was ghostly in the night, his eyes silver dollars as he pressed his face to the glass.
“She’ll run over you. Get out of the way. Go!”
Filomena floored the car, leaving Noah standing desolately in the middle of the road.
Sobbing and shivering, Kelsey sat half-naked in the Cadillac’s back seat, and she never saw Noah again.
Years later, out of curiosity, Kelsey searched for Noah and found him on social media, and learned he was a successful point guard in the NBA and married to a drop-dead gorgeous model. Did not friend him. Far too late to rekindle childhood flames. Lost hopes. Empty dreams. Ancient history. Soon afterward, she’d met Clive, and that was that.
But now, here she was, dumped and half-drunk. Nothing to look forward to but her mother’s predictable holiday harangue. Plenty of reason to hate the holidays. This year, she had little choice but to review her life mistakes.
Ho, ho, ho. Merry freaking Christmas.
About the Author
New York Times and USA Today bestselling author LORI WILDE has sold over eighty works of fiction to four major New York publishing houses. She holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Texas Christian University and a certificate in forensic nursing from Kaplan University. She is a member of the International Association of Forensic Nurses. Her first New York Times bestseller and the third book in her Twilight, Texas series, The First Love Cookie Club has been optioned for a television movie. Readers may write to Lori at [email protected].
www.loriwilde.com
www.twilighttexas.com
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By Lori Wilde
The Stardust, Texas Series
Love of the Game
Rules of the Game
Back in the Game
The Cupid, Texas Series
To Tame a Wild Cowboy
How the Cowboy Was Won
Million Dollar Cowboy
Love with a Perfect Cowboy
Somebody to Love
Love at First Sight
One True Love (novella)
The Jubilee, Texas Series
A Cowboy for Christmas
The Cowboy and the Princess
The Cowboy Takes a Bride
The Twilight, Texas Series
The Christmas Key
Cowboy, It’s Cold Outside
A Wedding for Christmas
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
Christmas at Twilight
The Valentine’s Day Disaster (novella)
The Christmas Cookie Collection
The Christmas Cookie Chronicles:
Carrie; Raylene; Christine; Grace
The Welcome Home Garden Club
The First Love Cookie Club
The True Love Quilting Club
The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club
Available from Harlequin
The Stop the Wedding Series
Crash Landing
Smooth Sailing
Night Driving
The Uniformly Hot Series
Born Ready
High Stakes Seduction
The Right Stuff
Intoxicating
Sweet Surrender
His Final Seduction
Zero Control
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from The Christmas Dare copyright © 2019 by Laurie Vanzura.
to tame a wild cowboy. Copyright © 2019 by Laurie Vanzura. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JUNE 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-246830-7
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-246829-1
Cover design by Guido Caroti
Cover photographs © Panya7/Shutterstock (sky); © Andrew Orlemann/Shutterstock (rodeo); © Rob Lang/roblangimages.com
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