Professionally and personally.
She’d left her parents’ place and bought a small house near the main square of town—hardly the bustling metropolis she envisioned herself living in, but still a step in the right direction. She’d sold her piano, packed away her chess set and adopted a puppy from the local SPCA. She’d ditched her old tennis shoes and sweats and spent an entire day shopping in San Antonio. And she’d left her job as a nail technician for an exciting career helping clueless women revive their stale relationships.
At least, that had been the job description listed online. In reality, however, it was more like a semi-embarrassing career giving verbal instruction and hands-on demonstrations for every sexual technique in the eighty-five-page course syllabus she’d recently memorized.
She ignored a niggle of regret. Sure, it wasn’t exactly what she’d envisioned, but it was much more stimulating than listening to customers debate the merits of acrylic verses gel.
Bottom line, she’d said goodbye to her old routine, including Dayne.
She wasn’t sure if he’d taken the news well or not—she’d broken up with him via voice mail—but he had left her a message agreeing to give her some space. She knew he thought she was just going through a phase and that she would change her mind.
She wouldn’t, even if she did sort of miss him.
Not that it was Dayne she actually missed. It was the idea of having a steady boyfriend, even one whose idea of a romantic evening was a slap on the rump and a “Hop on, honey!” But steady was overrated. For ten years they had drifted along, never seriously discussing their future. She wasn’t even sure if Dayne wanted to get married or have kids.
No more. She needed a new man. Someone romantic. Wild. Spontaneous.
Which was why she’d signed herself up for several online dating services. She’d also paid for a class at the local junior college—Mingling in the New Millennium. She’d become a faithful Cosmo magazine subscriber, and had started reading the weekly “Sex in the Saddle” column in the San Antonio Star. She’d even entered the Valentine’s Day contest being sponsored by the newspaper. In honor of the holiday, the Star was offering a free sensual home makeover—Romancing the Room they were calling it—to the geekiest subscriber. To enter, she’d had to describe in fifty words or less why she deserved to win.
She’d done it in thirty.
Of course, she didn’t expect to win. The contest was open to any and all readers—those who actually lived in the city as well as the surrounding areas—so the paper had undoubtedly been flooded with entries from equally clueless individuals.
Still, it was the principle of the thing. Writing the entry had been her way of saying goodbye to the old Cheryl Anne. She was taking every possible step in her life to ditch the blah and grab some va-va-va-voom.
She stared at her small living room lined with the folding metal chairs she’d borrowed from the seniors’ center. Rather than take her mother’s old gingham couch that was collecting dust in the attic, she’d made up her mind to buy all new furniture. She’d even invested in several decorating magazines and mapped out the perfect decor for her new home—lots of pale colors and clean accents. Something tasteful and modern—the opposite of the paisley-print room she’d had at home.
All the more reason to can her doubts and get her act together. She needed money and so, she had a job to do.
She finished up with the banana and added it to the overflowing stack that sat in a fruit bowl near her Pleasure Chest. The three dozen extra-large, passion purple vibrators she’d ordered hadn’t come in yet and so she’d had to improvise. She’d wanted cucumbers because they had a wider girth and were, therefore, more challenging to women with smaller hands, but Mr. Presley at the Piggly Wiggly had been running a special on Chiquitas. Since she’d sunk most of her money into the vibrators, she’d gone the cheaper route.
A bad move, she decided as she eyed the long, slender fruit. This was her first workshop. It would set the stage for all others to come. The registrants would either tell all of their friends, who would tell all of their friends, who would tell all of their friends, or demand their money back. The last thing she needed was to cut corners, particularly with Old Lady Shubert signed up.
The woman was always the first picked for the tug-o-war team during the senior Olympics. And she’d been single-handedly responsible for cracking and shelling the twelve dozen pecans used in the pies featured at the last Senior Ladies’ Bake Sale. Five seconds in the Widow Shubert’s grip and the banana would be history.
“I need cucumbers,” she announced to the ball of sleeping fluff parked under a nearby folding chair.
Taz, part doormat/part frantic puppy, lifted his head and started to wiggle his tail.
“Sorry, buddy. You can’t come this time. But I promise to take you for a walk this evening if all goes well.” She scooped up the dog and headed for the bathroom. She set him on the brand-new pet bed set up in one corner, rushed back to the kitchen and snatched up her purse. If she hurried, she could make it before the market closed—
“Congratulations!” the cry rang out as she hauled open the front door and found herself blinded by several camera flashes.
She blinked and tried to focus on the handful of strangers crowding her front porch. “Excuse me?”
“Cheryl Anne Cash?” asked a hunky, handsome man with the whitest teeth she’d ever seen. He wore slacks and a pullover Henley, and she knew right away that it wasn’t the UPS guy.
“Yes.” Click. She blinked frantically, trying to see as a dozen red roses were thrust at her. “Wait—” Click. “What—” Click. “I don’t—” Click, click, click! “Who are you?”
“Randy Miles.” A strong warm hand clasped her free one. “I’m the marketing and promotions manager for the San Antonio Star. And this is Darryl Boyd—” he pointed to the man wielding the camera “—one of our photographers. And Kimberly Jackson from Alamo City Interiors. And her assistant, Angela Stone. And Jimmy Powell from Powell Renovations. And this—” he indicated the petite blonde next to him “—is Lauren Nash, the editor for our weekly ‘Sex in the Saddle’ column.”
“Hey there, honey.” The woman waved French-manicured fingers while Cheryl’s brain raced to process the smiling faces and figure out what was happening.
The newspaper? Here? Now? But that could only mean—
“Your entry blew everybody away. Twenty-eight and still living at home?” Randy went on. “With your parents and an older brother? Definitely a first.”
“I loved the part about the portable snake bite kit that you carry in your purse,” Lauren chimed in.
“Used to carry,” Cheryl blurted. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“You’re definitely our most sensually clueless subscriber,” Randy went on, “which means that you, Cheryl Anne Cash, are the winner of our Valentine’s Day Romancing the Room Makeover!”
The words registered. Shock bolted through her and her mouth dropped open and—
Click!
2
DAYNE BRANSON liked sex.
Hell, he loved it.
As much as the next red-blooded cowboy with a weakness for great legs and an addiction to soft, sweet-smelling skin. And he certainly didn’t have a problem with a woman trying to sex up her life.
Unless, of course, said woman was the one who’d dumped him a few weeks back.
“I told you it was Cheryl Anne’s place.”
Dayne tipped back the brim of his straw Resistol and stared at the cars that crowded the curb outside the small two-story traditional that sat on the corner of Main and Fifth in the heart of downtown Skull Creek. It was Cheryl Anne’s new house, all right. His muscles stiffened and his gut twisted.
“I told you that was a five and not a seven,” the man sitting next to him in the Chevy truck told him. “Margene’s fives always look like sevens when she comes back from the beauty shop.”
Dayne’s gaze shifted to the work order taped to his dash. When he’d fir
st glimpsed the address for his next job, he’d hoped like hell that it was wrong. It had to be because no way was his Cheryl Anne the one getting the romantic home makeover being sponsored by the San Antonio Star.
And so he’d convinced himself that Margene had made a mistake. The woman was sixty-four going on seventeen. She had an addiction to leopard-print pants and a weakness for manicures. She was also filling in for her granddaughter—Dayne’s secretary—who was on maternity leave.
Margene had just come back from the local beauty salon, To Dye For, when she’d gotten the call that someone in town had won a makeover. The designer in charge—-a Randy something or other—wanted a local contractor to handle the remodeling crew. Margene had filled out the appropriate work order, but she’d been hampered by two inches of acrylic tipping each finger.
Dayne could hardly read the thing.
Enter Scotty “Hammer Toes” Hodges. Scotty was Dayne’s electrical assistant. He was also Margene’s grandson-in-law and the soon-to-be father of her first great-grandbaby. He and his wife lived with Margene and so he’d had plenty of practice deciphering her scribble. He wore a T-shirt, blue jeans, work boots and an expression that said Yep, I was right.
“See there?” Scotty pointed to the San Antonio Star emblem emblazoned on the side of the white van parked in Cheryl’s driveway. “I told you it was the newspaper and not the bar association. Margene always does that funny little squiggle that makes everything look like a B when she gets rhinestone tips…”
Dayne’s gaze swept the cluster of vehicles, from the newspaper van to a brand-spankin’ new black BMW to another van that read Alamo City Interiors. Dayne shifted the truck into Reverse and angled himself between Herman Anderson’s brown Pinto—Herman was a reporter for the local Skull Creek Gazette—and a sweet cherry red Corvette that belonged to Mayor Hallsey.
“I told you the mayor would be here,” Hammer Toes said as they climbed out. “The man never misses a PR opportunity.”
Dayne grabbed his clipboard and the pair of Costa Del Mars hanging from the rearview mirror. Sliding on the sunglasses, he tried to calm the churning in his gut. He had a bad feeling about all of this. A feeling that multiplied when he saw the UPS guy pull up across the street and climb out of his truck with a massive box that had SEXTOYS.COM stamped in big red letters across the side.
“Let me help you with that,” Dayne said as he and Rich Boyd—aka the UPS guy—collided near Cheryl Anne’s mailbox. Dayne and Rich had gone to school together and were old friends. “I’ll make sure she gets it.”
Rich took one look at his watch and another at the crowd milling about on Cheryl’s front porch and handed over his handheld PDA. “Sign here,” he told Dayne as he winked. “And have fun, buddy.”
If only.
Cheryl Anne had told him to hit the trail. Get out of Dodge. Take a friggin’ hike. She’d bucked him off way before the eight-second buzzer and so the fun she intended to have with this box of goodies did not include him.
Time, a voice whispered. The same voice that had urged him to keep his distance, play it cool and wait. She would eventually come crawling back. They were perfect for each other. He’d known it from the first kiss way back when. He’d felt pretty damned certain she’d known, too.
Obviously not.
“I told you Cheryl Anne was the one throwing the sex party,” Hammer Toes said as he pointed to the box. “Connie Jackson down at the pharmacy said she saw Cheryl Anne passing out the flyers herself. I told you—”
“HT?” Dayne cut in.
“Uh, yeah, boss?”
“Shut up.” Dayne adjusted his grip on the box, gathered his control and started up the front walk.
“WE’VE MADE arrangements for you at the Skull Creek Inn,” Lauren the “Sex in the Saddle” columnist said as she hustled Cheryl toward the front door. They’d given her all of ten minutes to pack her clothes, a few decorating magazines and her Pleasure Chest, and say goodbye to Taz, all the while briefing her on what was about to happen.
Four rooms. Seven days. Complete transformation.
“My assistant went on ahead to kennel your dog and make living arrangements for you,” Lauren went on. “Before you know it, it will be Friday—Valentine’s Day—and you’ll have a home that oozes sensuality.”
“I don’t see why we can’t both stay here.”
“With the amount of construction that will be going on? Why, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen. We’ll be ripping out everything. The flooring. A few walls. The kitchen cabinets—”
“But I sort of like those.”
“No, you don’t. Why, they’re all but falling off the hinges. Trust me, you’ll love everything. Once we’re done, this place will see more action than a sports bar during the NBA play-offs.”
“But I’m teaching a class tonight.”
“You’ll have to reschedule.” Lauren hustled her closer to the door. “Order room service. Watch movies. Relax.”
“I’m really not the room-service type.” She tried to dig in her heels, but she kept moving forward. “In fact, I wasn’t even aware that the Inn had room service. The last I heard, Winona delivered the occasional slice of cake and coffee. But that’s only when she’s in a good mood, which isn’t very often—humphf!” She came up hard against a large cardboard box that had suddenly appeared in the doorway.
Her head snapped up and her gaze collided with a familiar pair of aqua-blue eyes.
Heat sizzled through the air between them and awareness zipped up and down her spine. For a split second, she forgot about the cameras and the newspaper crew and the interior decorators.
Instead, she found herself thinking about how transparent his eyes were and how she would really, really like to see him naked.
Again.
Dayne Branson set the box down near his booted feet and then there was nothing between them except warm, sizzling air. “Hey, there, stranger.” His deep, rumbling acknowledgement sent a trembling down her spine. Her heart pounded faster and excitement bubbled inside of her.
A false sense of excitement, she reminded herself. While her reaction to Dayne was every bit as fierce as what she’d felt that night at the riverbank—the night of her eighteenth birthday—it wouldn’t last. Once he peeled off his clothes and they hopped into bed, it would be the same old, same old. She would be disappointed and he would roll over and fall asleep, and that would be the end of it.
Like always.
Nod politely, turn and head for the back door. Now.
“Hey.” So much for now. She smiled. Her eyes, the traitorous things, drank in the sight of him.
He was still as tall, as hunky, as hot as she remembered. With short, whiskey-blond hair, the faintest hint of stubble darkening his jaw and eyes so blue and translucent she could surely drown in them, he had the kind of rugged good looks that made women want to rip off their panties and scream “Ride ’em cowboy!”
And then there were the dimples. He had the most incredible indentations that sliced into his cheeks when he grinned the way he was doing right now.
She had the sudden urge to press the pad of her finger into one tiny crease.
She forced her gaze away from his face, down the smooth column of his throat, the frantic beat of his pulse and the bump of his Adam’s apple, to the neckline of a clean white polo shirt that had Branson Construction embroidered in black letters across the left pocket. A pair of crisp, creased jeans clung to his muscular thighs and cupped his crotch. The hem bunched atop polished brown cowboy boots.
An image slid into her head of a pair of scuffed boots tossed on the river bank, worn, frayed denim piled in a nearby heap, a white Born to Raise Hell T-shirt puddled on the rich green grass…
“…is this?” Lauren’s voice came from behind and yanked Cheryl back to reality, to the all-important fact that Dayne had tossed that T-shirt a long, long time ago, along with the bad-to-the-bone attitude and dangerous aura that had made him so damned appealing.
Cheryl’s head snap
ped back and she gathered her composure.
“Dayne Branson.” He tipped his hat in Lauren’s direction, but his gaze never left Cheryl’s. “At your service.” His lips moved around the words so seductively that, for a few heart-pounding moments, her mouth went dry.
“Ahh, the local contractor,” Lauren said. “Finally. We’re already seven and a half minutes off schedule. Get her out of here,” Lauren said to one of the assistants milling nearby. “And you—” she motioned to Dayne “—come with me.”
Dayne didn’t budge. “It’s good to see you.” His gaze never left Cheryl Anne’s.
“I—I have to leave,” she blurted, averting her eyes and sidestepping him before she gave in to the urge to press her body against his. “It was good to, um, see you, too.” Not. Seeing him was anything but good. Because then her hormones started with their damned wishful thinking and she found herself forgetting—at least initially—that he’d morphed into Mr. Safe and Reliable. “Take care.”
“Don’t forget your penises.” His deep, husky voice brought her whirling back around in time to see him heft the large cardboard box he’d toted inside.
She noticed the SEXTOYS.COM logo and heat shot from the tips of her toes to her hair follicles. His eyes glittered with jealousy…and something else. Something dangerously close to passion, and her heart stalled.
Dayne? Passionate?
Yeah, right. The last time she’d seen him with that gleam in his eyes, he’d been standing on the riverbank, kicking off his boots.
“I think that’s penii,” she blurted, eager to do something with her mouth that didn’t involve kissing him and breaking her self-made vow—out with the old and in with the new. She took the box he handed her. “It’s plural.”
“It’s heavy.” His gaze met hers. “I could give you a hand.”
“Thanks, but no thanks. I can handle it on my own.”
His deep voice followed her. “That, sugar, is what I’m afraid of.”
IT WAS worse than he’d originally thought.
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