Craving Country

by Gorman, A.

  “Eddie, please.” She reached for him, but he evaded her grasp.

  Chicago. Fine. He’d let her go and get famous. Let her have the fancy things she apparently wanted. She was always too good for this place.

  The bell rang, the same one that had sent him and Ariel to class years ago, and students scrambled past him, swarming like the memories that suddenly overwhelmed him. They’d met right here, on the first day of kindergarten. The principal had sent him and the other Native American kids to stand at the back of the lunch line. He’d bumped into Ariel when his friend had pushed him, but she’d smiled and given Eddie her gum, right from her mouth. He’d given her a kiss on the cheek. They’d been happy together, all through school, no matter what anyone else said or did. They made their own world, and they loved each other in it.

  Damn it, I will not let this woman leave me! He’d make her happy whether she wanted it or not. Eddie spun around and marched toward her, stopping short when he rounded the corner and heard her on the phone.

  “Yes, that’s perfect. I’ll meet you tonight at six.” She slipped her phone into her apron pocket and smiled at him.

  What the hell is going on? “So that’s it? You’re leaving me again?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Let me finish my sentence before you get all huffy again. I want to stay here.”

  Eddie blinked, not comprehending.

  “Yes, that’s what I said. I’m staying here.” She drew out the word as if trying to explain the concept to a particularly dimwitted man. “With you.”

  “Here with me?” Blood roared in his ears as the room spun.

  Ariel moved close to him and laid her hand over his pounding heart. “I’m not leaving you again. I’m not leaving Bitterweed.” She sighed and shook her head. “You’ve always been home.”

  He caught her face in his hands and searched her eyes. “You’re sure?”

  She nodded as much as she could in his vise grip. “You’re stuck with me.”

  Eddie wrapped his arms around his love and held her tight, kissing her with all the love and lust that had been brewing for the last fifteen years, his entire life.

  She moaned on his lips and sank her hands in his hair, clutching him closer. He stumbled forward and crushed her against the wall. He’d caught himself on his hands, but she kept pulling.

  Laughing, he pushed back. “I’m going to hurt you.”

  “You’ve never hurt me.” She frowned and refused to look at him, staring at her feet instead.

  He curled a finger under her chin and tipped her head back, one last doubt still nagging at him. “Who are you meeting tonight?”

  Her eyes brightened, and she smiled. “The real estate agent. I’m taking Mom’s house off the market.”

  “Wow, you really are stuck here.” Eddie’s already pounding heart sped into overdrive while the woman he’d love from beginning to end melted in his arms.

  She shook her head. “Not this time. I’m staying because I want to. I choose to.” Ariel let out a deep, soul-cleansing sigh and rested her cheek on his chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this content.”

  “Content? Is that all?” Eddie grumbled, fearing he’d disappointed her somehow, but all his worries disappeared when she smiled into his eyes.

  “That’s everything.”

  About the Author

  When I was in the third grade, my teacher wrote “tends to daydream” on my report card. What did she expect from a girl raised on fairy tales? Those fanciful stories led to the romance novel addiction I acquired in junior high. When I’m not lusting after my next bad boy hero, I’m looking for inspiration in sci-fi and action movies, football players, morally ambiguous lawyers, muscle cars, and kick-butt chicks. We all need to get away from reality for a little while. I prefer to escape with a flirty, fun, sizzly sexy romance.

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  Fallen Star

  By: Carolyn LaRoche

  Brady

  “Okay, kid. Which one is it?” Brady looked in his rearview mirror at the teenage boy slouched in the back of his patrol car.

  The boy scowled and answered without making eye contact. “The white one.”

  Every other house they passed was some version of white. This kid now danced on Brady’s last nerve. He should have just arrested him and let the system take over. A twinge of guilt flared as he caught another glimpse of the kid in his rearview mirror. That same sad, lost expression that had haunted him for over a decade reflected back at him.

  “Could you be a little more specific? Like maybe a house number? If you make me look it up—” Brady asked, working really hard to keep his annoyance in check.

  “Three ninety-eight,” the boy mumbled.

  Brady scanned the numbers painted on the curb and the sides of mailboxes until he spotted the correct one. Pulling his patrol car over to the curb, he let out a long breath.

  “Oh my God,” he heard the boy mumble. “What is wrong with her?”

  The boy sounded as annoyed as he felt, but when Brady looked at the yard in front of the modest rancher style home, he let out a chuckle. Sure enough, the woman cutting the grass wore sky-high red heels.

  “Can you just let me out here? I promise I won’t skip school again.” Now the kid sounded desperate.

  “Oh, I’ll be letting you out. Just as soon as I have a word with your mother.”

  “That’s not my mother. She’s my aunt, and she’s freaking crazy. Why don’t you just take me to the police department and put me in jail?”

  Brady glanced back over at the woman. She had her long, blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. The thick waves cascaded over the shoulders of her red sweater, and big sunglasses sat perched on top of her head. Tight-fitting jeans stretched over curves that went on for miles as she studied something on the ground. A little movement in his boxer briefs at the site of her caught him off guard, but he ignored it. “Just because she’s cutting the grass in red high heels doesn’t make her crazy.”

  “No, it just makes her an idiot.”

  The woman looked up at him, and as they made eye contact, he felt a little jolt of electricity shoot through him. Ignoring that as well, Brady got out of the car and pulled open the back door. “Look, Michael, you aren’t in a position to be criticizing other people’s choices right now.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. “Everyone cuts class. It’s not like it’s against the law.”

  “Actually, yes, it is. Come on, man, get out of the car.”

  “Please don’t talk to her. Just drop me off and leave. I’ll explain everything, I promise.”

  Damn, the kid actually looked desperate. “Sorry, son. I don’t have a choice. Unless your mother’s home?”

  Michael laughed, without an ounce of humor. “Yeah, right.”

  “Well, then Aunt Idiot it is.”

  “Who’s an idiot?”

  Brady spun around to face the woman suddenly standing behind him. “Um, hello, ma’am. This your nephew?”

  She glared at the boy standing next to the police car. “What’d he do now?”

  “Thanks, Aunt Dee. Nothing like throwing me under the bus.” Michael crossed his arms over his chest and glared right back at his aunt.

  “Looks more like a police car to me, pal. What would your momma say?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t we ask her? Oh, wait, we can’t.” Michael walked over to the front porch and dropped down on the top step, looking like a lost puppy.

  Brady returned his attention to the oddly familiar woman standing in front of him who now had that hot glare of hers focused on him. He tried to ignore the w
ay her hands rested on her hips, accentuating the perfect curve and remember why he was there. His gaze wandered to the bright red shoes she wore, and a smile tugged at his lips.

  “You got a foot fetish or something?”

  He nodded at her feet. “Those are an unusual choice for doing yard work.”

  “I’m pretty sure my footwear isn’t a legal issue. So, what’d Mikey do this time?”

  Brady shook his head. She was a feisty one. That kind of appealed to him. He extended his hand. “I’m Sheriff Collins.”

  She ignored the gesture. “Yeah, I know.”

  He lowered his hand and let it rest on the butt of the gun on his duty belt. “Well, I don’t know who you are.”

  “Deanna Loomis. Are you going to tell me why you’re hauling my nephew home in the back of a cop car when he’s supposed to be hating his life in Algebra class?”

  Brady leaned back against his cruiser and crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, Ms. Loomis—”

  She waved a perfectly manicured hand in the air between them and sighed in exasperation. “Just call me Dee.”

  “Okay, Dee. I found Michael hating his life behind the old community center building, experimenting with fancy vocabulary and a can of spray paint.”

  “Aren’t they tearing that place down now that the new one is almost done?”

  “That’s not the point. He’s supposed to be in school. And tagging the F word on buildings that don’t belong to him is against the law.”

  She frowned, looking over her shoulder at the boy on the steps. “Then why didn’t you arrest him?”

  Brady shrugged. “Who knows? Because I’m a nice guy?” It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that Michael had reminded him of his own little brother. Maybe if someone had given Ryan a second chance, things would have turned out differently.

  Dee pursed her lips and studied him, her gaze roaming up and down the entire six feet of his frame, and shook her head. “Sheriff Brady Collins, I believe you are a lot of things. I’m absolutely certain you are cocky and probably totally full of yourself. I can see you are as sexy as sin in that uniform, but you know it, and I can see that too. Yes, Sheriff, I’m sure you are a lot of things, but I am not sure nice guy is one of them. I do, however, appreciate you bringing Michael home, so thank you for that.”

  Brady kicked at a rock on the ground in frustration. “What’s your problem, lady?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, pulling the neckline of her top down low enough to expose a perfect cleavage and the fullness of her breasts. Brady forced his gaze up and away from all that creamy skin, reminding himself that he had a job to do, and checking out this woman’s tits was not in that job description.

  Her glare burned into him. “What is my problem? Well, I’ll tell you, since you asked so nicely. Three months ago, my life was perfect, and now I am stuck in this backwoods hell hole that only has three stoplights, one supermarket, and not a single nail salon for miles. I’ve got some mountain man standing in front of a house that isn’t mine, telling me a kid I never asked to raise is a hoodlum, and he, the nice guy that he is, brought him home so he can just run off and do something stupid again.”

  “Well, no one asked your stupid ass to come here, Aunt Dee! Why don’t you go back to Hollywood and blow some director to get another part in another stupid ass movie!” Michael jumped up, stomped his way into the house, and slammed the door.

  Brady looked back at Dee. “Hollywood?”

  Dee stomped one of her ridiculous red shoes against the ground and scowled. “You can’t seriously be that dense. I’ve got to go deal with my nephew. I wish I could promise you he won’t get in trouble again, but I can’t. The way things are going around here, you two are probably going to be great friends.”

  Flipping her hair over her shoulder, Dee turned and stomped off. Brady watched as she tripped going up the steps of the porch and slammed the door as hard as her nephew had. Maybe harder. The whole scene was beyond humorous, and Brady laughed as he slid in behind the wheel of his patrol car.

  Speaking of hard, his trousers were now a whole lot tighter below his duty belt, and it was all Ms. Hollywood’s fault. Nearly two years of living like a hermit had obviously affected his libido. Any hot blonde in tight jeans and sexy heels could have given him a Smoky Mountains-sized hard-on. Except no other woman in this tiny little town had even turned his head since the day he’d been sworn in.

  It wasn’t until he pulled into his spot out front of the station that it dawned on him. How had he not recognized her? Deanna Loomis. The hottest Hollywood starlet of the decade had crashed and burned when her manager stole all her money and run off with her sister. It had been all over the news for weeks. Hell, he’d just seen her picture on the cover of a tabloid that morning at the gas station on his way in to work.

  No one ever mentioned the slut sister had a son she’d abandoned. The son Brady had just found tagging Fuck You on the back of an abandoned building.

  Dee

  Dee slammed the door so hard, pictures rattled. She was furious with Michael, but Sheriff Brady had taken her to her boiling point, and she didn’t even know why. She peeked out the window in the door and watched Brady slide in behind the wheel of his car and drive away. Infuriating wasn’t his only trait. Downright freaking sexy sat high on that list as well.

  “You want to screw him, don’t you?”

  Dee spun on the pointed heel of her red shoe and glared at Michael. “Don’t you talk to me like that.”

  “Why not? I saw the way you were shaking your ass out there.”

  “Michael Aaron! You watch your mouth!”

  Michael met her glare with one of his own. “What you gonna do? Ground me? Run off and leave me with a crazy aunt?” A mock look of fear crossed his face as he dramatically glanced around the house. “Wait. There aren’t any more of you, are there?”

  “I don’t know who you think you are, but you need to stop. I’m not the sister that runs off with men I hardly know. You should talk to your mother about that!”

  “I’d like to. Any idea where the bitch ran off to?”

  Dee took a step forward so that she and Michael stood nose to nose. “I don’t care how angry you are at her or me, you will not call her names like that. She is still your mother, even if she’s made some crappy choices lately.”

  Michael broke their stare down, taking a step back. “I hate you. And her.”

  Before she could respond, he disappeared down the hall. The slam of his bedroom door shook the pictures on the walls again.

  Dee fell back against the door and sighed. This whole parenting thing so wasn’t for her. When her private investigator finally caught up with Miranda and that snake Neil, there was going to be hell to pay. Not only did Miranda and Neil steal a good chunk of her money, they’d stolen her freedom and the great life she’d had. Not that Michael was actually her responsibility. She’d never even met the boy but once when he was an infant. If she hadn’t run to small town Tennessee looking for that lying, thieving bitch sister of hers, she never would have known a fifteen year old had been left to fend for himself.

  The sound of a car door closing caught her attention. Dee turned and yanked open the door just in time to see a police cruiser pull away from the curb. Sitting on the top step of the porch was a business card. She leaned down and picked it up. The front read Sheriff Brady Collins with the address and phone number of the police department. When she flipped it over, the back had a handwritten note. In neat, even letters it said

  Call if you need anything.

  She wadded the card up and tossed it on the hall table before heading back to the abandoned lawn mower. This time when she pulled the cord, the darn thing started right up. Figures. The cards had been stacked so high against her lately, it was possible she might not ever find her way out of this mess.

  Half an hour later, Dee kicked her red heels off and cursed when one of the spikes made a hole in the drywall. She headed to the kitchen to start di
nner, still having no idea what to do with Mikey. The kid was hurting. She understood that. She just didn’t have any idea how to help him.

  The sun had begun to go down earlier now that the end of October had arrived and the house filled with shadows set on fire by the bright reds and oranges of sunset in the mountains. If there were one redeeming thing about this God forsaken hole-in-the-wall town she’d ended up in, it was that sunset.

  Cooking had never really been Dee’s specialty, but she had perfected pasta and sauce from the jar years ago. Soon enough, the entire kitchen smelled of garlic and oregano and crispy Italian bread with melted butter and cheese sprinkled on it. Perhaps she could win her nephew over with food.

  “Mikey! Dinner’s ready!” She dished up two plates and set them on the table and sat down to wait for him. After a couple of minutes, she got up and walked down the hall. Maybe he hadn’t heard her. That boy played his music so loud it screamed from his headphones. He’d be deaf by twenty-one for sure.

  Dee rapped on the closed door. “Mikey! Dinner!”

  No response.

  She pounded a little louder this time and raised her voice. “Michael! I know you’re mad at me. Let’s eat dinner and talk about it!”

  Oh, Lord. Now she sounded like her mother.

  Pressing an ear to the wood, she heard absolutely nothing. The knob turned when she tried it, so Dee peeked in around the edge of the door. “Come on, Mikey. Let’s have—”

  Dee stopped in the doorway and looked around. The room was empty. The window by Michael’s bed was open, letting in a chill breeze that fluttered the curtains.

  “Are you kidding me?” She crossed the room and pulled the curtains apart, sticking her head and shoulders out into the night. The screen stood propped against the brick of the house, and her nephew was nowhere to be seen.