by Peggy Webb
“I admit to a few shortcomings in that department, but I’m not that bad.”
“On the other hand, can you imagine what Charlie would write about the princesses? ‘Eighty-two pretty gals squared off against each other on the playing field.’”
“That’s not bad.”
“I want heart. I want soul. I want drama.” Wayne punctuated each sentence with a right jab in the air.
“We’re wading knee deep in it right now.”
“I want you to ditch the props and get down there as fast as you can, otherwise you’re going to see some real drama.”
“Murder?”
“Mayhem for starters. I can always advance to the big leagues.”
“You’re a hard man.”
“Yep. Now get your posterior out of that chair and on the road.”
“Posterior?”
“I run a family paper around here.”
Clint unwrapped the bandage and flung it onto his desk, then tossed his crutches. “Hey, Wayne, catch.”
Wayne chuckled. “Have fun.”
“I intend to.”
And he did. If he had to go, he might as well make the most of the situation. Look at it this way, he told himself. He’d be surrounded by a bevy of beauties. There ought to be at least one who’d take his mind off C.J.
Eighty-one other girls attended an exercise in tedium called orientation, and every one of them beautiful. C.J. felt like a toad among lilies.
Gathered in a classroom on Millsaps College campus, the young women vying for the title of Mississippi Dairy Princess looked as if they’d been grooming for the title all their lives. With rapt faces turned toward Leroy Levant, the pageant’s director, they nodded and smiled and scribbled on little pink notepads.
If the judges were spying from the wings looking for imposters, C.J. had already lost the pageant. She was not only not taking notes, she was having a hard time to keep from laughing.
“The young woman who represents the dairy industry of the greeeat state of Mississippi—” Leroy paused for an explosion of applause “—must be above, I say above, reproach. No smoking, no drinking, no sneaking out of the dorm after lights…no matter how good-looking your boyfriend is.” Another pause for the giggles that swept the audience.
“Naturally, the big stuff is forbidden. Marriage, pregnancy, felony convictions, any unethical behavior of any sort… You haven’t posed for Playboy, have you?”
Leroy’s question was a direct reference to the scandal that had swept the pageant in l995. The top contender was disqualified when he’d discovered that she was Miss December for a magazine that required she wear nothing but a red hat with a pompom on the end.
Nobody was going to ask C.J. to be Miss December.
She glanced around the audience searching for a certain tall man with black hair, blue eyes and devilment in his soul. Not that she wanted to see him. Far from it. She wanted to spot Clint Garrett so she could avoid him.
Up front Leroy Levant finished his spiel with, “Our celebrity master of ceremonies will be none other than movie star Dolly Wilder.”
Afterward they had social hour, which turned out to be girls dividing into clusters around three punch bowls and ten sheet cakes shaped like the state of Mississippi and iced with black and white to represent Holstein cows.
Left to her own devices, C.J. wandered among them listening to snatches of conversation and searching for a name tag that read Gabrielle Jones. Her roommate.
She didn’t find Gabrielle, but she did find Clint Garrett.
“Oh, just look at what walked in.” The girl gushing over the late arrival looked like Alice in Wonderland complete with flaxen hair and wide blue eyes.
All the girls craned their necks toward the door, and there he stood bigger than life, the bane of C.J.’s existence, the man who drove her crazy with desire and mad with frustration. Hot Coffee’s ace reporter in black leather with his helmet dangling from his hand.
“He looks just like Tom Cruise,” the Alice look-alike said and the brunette next to her giggled.
“Except taller.”
“Yeah. At least a foot.”
Spotting his enraptured admirers, Clint lifted an eyebrow. C.J. wanted to clobber him. The rake. The cad. The virgin hater.
She spun around so she wouldn’t have to look. Furthermore she certainly didn’t want him spotting her.
“Somebody you know?” C.J. nearly bumped into the girl who’d asked the question. “Hi, I’m Gabrielle Jones.” She laughed. “I always get that reaction. French mother, American-as-apple-pie father… Call me Gabby.”
“C.J. Maxey.” C.J. took the extended hand and was surprised to encounter a solid, no-nonsense grip. “Yes, I know him.”
“But wish you didn’t?”
“Something like that.”
If Gabby pursued the subject, C.J. was going to request another roommate.
“Well, C.J. Maxey, since we’re going to be roommates, why don’t we find a quiet spot somewhere so we can get better acquainted?”
“Perfect. Someplace out of here?”
“My thoughts exactly. I know a great hamburger joint.”
“Good. I’m starving.”
C.J. could feel him back there emitting sexual currents, probably trying to reel in one of the raving beauties who wouldn’t be burdened down with an unfortunate case of virginity.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
The flaming redhead with the devil-may-care attitude was the woman Clint would have picked to take his mind off his troubles, but she had one fatal flaw. She was in the company of C.J. Maxey.
He searched the room for another possibility, but out of the corner of his eye he saw C.J. and the redhead leaving. Now where in the devil were they going and why?
How could a man concentrate on charming a comely miss when C.J. was loose on the town doing no telling what?
He needed some fresh air. Maybe he’d take his Harley down to the Ross Barnett reservoir. Maybe peace and quiet was what he needed.
As he hurried out the door he caught a glimpse of long, trim legs and dark feathery hair.
Maybe he’d just mosey down the street and see what C.J. was up to. Given her penchant for getting into trouble, she was liable to need his help.
Chapter Seventeen
C.J. had learned stress eating from Ellie. If she got as big as a house, that’s who she’d blame.
Here she was sitting in a corner booth consuming a triple scoop milkshake featuring three kinds of ice cream, a double-decker hamburger with all the trimmings and a platter of fried onion rings on the side. And all because Clint was crammed up against her pressing his leg against her thigh—deliberately, she had no doubt—while he pretended to be interviewing Gabby.
She and her roommate had been having a nice getting-to-know-you conversation when all of a sudden he’d horned in and had completely taken over.
C.J. was speechless with rage and overactive hormones. Across the table, her roommate didn’t seem to be having the same trouble. She toyed with a diet cola while she told Clint how her life’s ambition was to be Mississippi’s Dairy Princess.
She wasn’t kidding, either. Any fool could see that. In the face of all that sincerity, C.J. felt like a great, big fraud.
“I grew up in the dairy industry,” Gabby was saying. “I’ve been coming to the pageants since I was three years old. Daddy would always say, ‘Someday you’ll be wearing the crown, Gabby, and that’ll be the proudest day of my life.’”
“He must be very proud of you, then.”
Oh, Clint was smooth the way he got his story while posing as a woman’s best friend. The next thing she knew, he’d be hustling Gabby off to the reservoir with a fishing pole, encouraging her to go swimming in her birthday suit.
C.J. tried to drown the green-eyed monster with milkshake, but it didn’t work. He kept poking and prodding until the only thing she could do was excuse herself and go off to the bathroom where she could kick the stall door and pr
etend it was Clint.
She was fixing to do just that when Gabby said, “I’m sure he would have been. Dad was killed in a freak accident on the dairy farm ten years ago.”
Now C.J. felt about two inches tall. She felt like something that ought to be squashed under somebody’s foot.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, meaning she was not only sorry for Gabby’s loss but sorry for reacting like a jealous teenager instead of a sane and compassionate adult.
Nobody paid her any attention, but she stayed anyway. She was completely out of the mood to kick doors, especially after Clint said, “I suppose your mother’s here to watch,” and Gabby told him, “No. We couldn’t afford for Mom to come. But she’s keeping her fingers crossed.
“Please don’t print that,” she added. “I don’t want sympathy support because of a sob story.”
“You have my word of honor,” Clint said.
C.J. couldn’t even be miffed about that. He was a man of honor, otherwise he’d have taken full advantage of her on more occasions than she cared to remember, especially on the night she had too many green monkeys.
“Thank you,” Gabby said. “I’m here because I want to help promote the dairy industry my father devoted his life to.”
And I’m here under false pretenses.
All too aware of the heart-wrenching story unfolding across the table and Clint’s body heat, C.J. attacked her onion rings as if they were going to fight back. Suddenly there was a lull in the conversation and she looked up to see Clint staring at her.
“That looks delicious,” he said, and although she knew darned good and well he was talking about onion rings, all she could think about was the two of them tangled together in the back seat of his Corvette.
“It is.” She licked her bottom lip. “I’ll give you some.”
“You will?”
His tone of voice, his body language, his eyes…everything about him shouted sex. The air between them sizzled. It’s a wonder Gabby didn’t feel the heat.
“Anytime,” C.J. said.
“I think I’ll help myself, then.”
“Why don’t you do just that?”
“You’re sure you won’t mind?”
“On the contrary. I’d be delighted.”
“Good.”
Without taking his eyes off her, Clint reached into the plate and nabbed an onion ring. The way he savored it ought to be X-rated. She watched, drooling, but who cared? She’d made a fool of herself over him so many times, what did one more matter?
Gabby cleared her throat. “If you guys will excuse me, I’ll head on back to the dormitory. I promised Mom I’d give her a call.”
C.J. roused from her steamy stupor long enough to say, “See you later, Gabby.”
Then she was left all alone with Clint. Not really, of course, because the restaurant was crowded, but that’s how she felt.
Just how she’d gone from fury to frenzy was a mystery to her, but she was too busy panting to figure it out.
Clint lifted another onion ring off the plate. “Open wide, C.J.”
She bit down, and he leaned over and took the other end in his mouth. When their lips met in the middle, he made no bones about his motives…or hers. Clint Garrett was out to kiss her, and she was out to let him.
There’s something exciting and rewarding about kissing in public. It makes a woman feel as if she’s been claimed by her special man. A public kiss shouts, “Hands off, everybody: she’s mine.”
C.J. closed her eyes and murmured, “Hmm,” not caring who saw or heard.
“You like that, do you?”
“There’s more where that came from.”
“Good. I’m greedy. I want it all.”
They ate the rest of her food the same way, including the hamburger. By the time they’d finished it was dark.
“I’ll walk you back to your dormitory.”
Outside he slid an arm around her waist and she fell into step beside him.
“Does this mean we’re becoming friends, C.J.?”
“It looks that way.”
“It feels that way.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Beats fighting.”
“I agree.”
“Though I’ll have to admit that the last fight we had was a lot of fun.”
“You enjoy falling?”
“Yes, as long as you’re on top.”
All sorts of erotic images spun through C.J.’s mind, and she played the game she’d played a dozen times since that ill-fated night. What if she had made love with Clint? Would she have been a one-night stand, or would they still be sharing a bed? What if he hadn’t pulled back at the last minute? Would it have been merely sex or something more?
What if they’d fallen in love?
“Are you thinking about the pageant, C.J.?”
“No.”
“Neither am I.”
“The dorm’s just up ahead,” she said.
He pulled her off the sidewalk and into the deep shadows of an enormous magnolia tree, and there he kissed her with an intensity that seared her soul.
I’m falling in love, she thought. He pulled her closer and deepened the kiss and she thought, I am in love.
Heaven help her, C.J. Maxey had fallen for the wrong man. Oh, he had his good qualities. In fact, he had many wonderful qualities—lively wit, a great sense of humor, an old-fashioned streak of honor, intelligence, kindness. The list could go on and on, but the bottom line was, Clint was not the marrying kind.
He might as well have traveling man tattooed on his forehead. He’d made it perfectly clear he didn’t have roots and didn’t want any.
What was she going to do?
“I like you, C.J. Maxey.”
A beam of moonlight found its way through the branches and fell across his face, and she gazed at him, blinded by blue eyes and love.
“As crazy as it seems, I like you, too.”
“I hope you win this pageant and all your dreams come true.”
She didn’t want to win. Not anymore. Not after seeing girls like Gabby to whom the title and the scholarship money would mean so much.
But saying so would have been ungracious, so she merely said, “Thank you.”
“You’re a rare woman, C.J. You deserve the very best of everything. You deserve a great life and a great man, somebody worthy of you.”
“Clint…”
He put a finger over her lips. “I’ll be around all week. If you need anything, give a yell and I’ll come running.” His smile was bittersweet. “Just like a regular hero.”
“This sounds like goodbye.”
“It is. After this week, I’m leaving.”
Her heart tried to pound its way out of her chest. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
“Where are you going?”
“Someplace different.”
Someplace where she wasn’t. All her instincts screamed that she was right.
“Is it because of me?”
“No.”
Was he lying? Or was she fooling herself about her importance to him?
She would probably never know.
“I wish you all the luck in the world,” she said, and he looked at her as if he’d expected more.
But what more could she say? She had nothing to guide her except a few mind-boggling kisses. No pretty words, no promises, nothing.
The silence between them stretched for eons, while C.J. replayed every encounter she’d had with him. They’d shot sparks off each other from the very beginning. Being together had never been easy for them, but it had never been dull.
And she was going to miss him terribly.
“Clint Garrett, you’re the best time I ever had.”
He lifted an eyebrow and gave her the cocky smile she’d loved so well. “That goes for me, too, C.J. Maxey. You’re still the damnedest woman I ever met.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“That’s the way I meant it.”
They got lo
st in another deep silence. Sexual currents zinged between them, and C.J. wondered if he felt the same tugging on his heartstrings that she did. Probably not. If so, why was he saying goodbye? Why was he leaving town?
“Well…” she said, hoping he’d say, “I’ve changed my mind. I was just testing you to see how you felt about me. I’m not really going to leave. I love you.”
Foolish fancies. Of course he wasn’t going to say any of those things. After all, he was who he was, and she was who she was.
Still, she had to touch him. One more time.
She put her hand on his broad chest, right over his heart. “Take care of yourself,” she whispered.
“You, too.” He covered her hand with his, ever so tenderly, ever so briefly.
And then he vanished into the night. Quickly. Before she could look into his eyes and see his soul.
Chapter Eighteen
That was a first for Clint—saying goodbye, telling a woman his plan. The only excuse he could make was that C.J. wasn’t just any woman. She was a rare combination of wit and intelligence, the kind of woman he’d have fallen for if he were the falling kind.
Sitting in the back of the auditorium watching the contestants rehearse for Friday night’s events, he amused himself thinking of ways he could help C.J. win.
Just look at her. Poised, classy, winsome. She deserved to win.
And he was going to do everything he could to help her cause. Not that she needed his help. Scuttlebutt had it that C.J. Maxey was taking the pageant by storm. Seems the judges had taken a liking to her refreshing honesty and her wholesome good looks.
The newspapers splashed C.J. all over the headlines, touting her as the clear front-runner in this year’s hotly contested dairy princess pageant.
C.J. glanced at the byline. Wouldn’t you know? Clint Garrett. He made her sound like a cross between Greta Garbo (all that mystery) and Gwyneth Paltrow (all that class).
She would have been flattered and somewhat amused if it weren’t for Gabby. C.J. glanced at the other twin bed where her roommate sat reading the same evening edition of the newspaper.
Gabby looked up and smiled. “Congratulations, C.J. It couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”