One Starlit Night
Page 1
Table of Contents
One Starlit Night
Copyright
Praise for Stacy Dawn and…
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
A word about the author...
Other Titles by this Author
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
One
Starlit Night
Wayback, Texas
by
Stacy Dawn
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
One Starlit Night: Wayback, Texas
COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Stacy Dawn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com
Cover Art by Tamra Westberry
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Yellow Rose Edition, 2012
Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-418-1
Published in the United States of America
Praise for Stacy Dawn and…
LUCK BE A COWBOY
“Ms. Stacy Dawn definitely lived up to her reputation with this book. I enjoy her style so much that I read all her books possible. Her characters were dynamic, yet comical. Her situations are so funny that it’s impossible not to laugh. There were also some poignant moments in the book. I found myself immersed in the characters and felt as if I was there in person. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes to laugh and maybe shed a tear while reading a fabulous book.”
~Brenda Talley, The Romance Studio (5 Hearts)
CHEATIN’ HEARTS
“Stacy Dawn had me laughing and completely drawn into Cheatin’ Hearts at the first page. Quite a feat when you consider the story is told in eleven pages. If you are looking for a light, quick romance, CHEATIN’ HEARTS fits the bill.”
~Amanda S, Fallen Angel Reviews (5 Angels)
STANDOFF AT THE WATERIN’ HORSE SALOON
“Wow. This is such a cute, funny story. Stacy Dawn has managed to pack the pages full of action, humor and intensity. I found myself laughing out loud in the first paragraph and I didn’t stop until the very last word! Any story that can hook you in a few paragraphs, create friends within a few pages and leave its imprint on your mind after so short a time deserves the praise. This one does all that and more!”
~Lily, The Long and Short of It Reviews
Dedication
You never know where a path will take you until you venture down it. Some are short and pleasant,
others are long and grueling, and some, a very special few, take you on the adventure of a lifetime.
This is dedicated to this garden’s path and all those I’ve met upon it—one of the best adventures I’ve ever had.
Chapter One
She’d never witnessed anything so beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
Eyes wide, one hand death-gripped to the folder against her breasts and the other pressed tightly against her mouth, Elizabeth O’Leary stared in fascination and fear as the dust fogged up, blurring the man and beast combating in the rodeo arena. The cheers and taunts from others gathered to watch only spurred the hefty bronco on. In all logic, the cowboy atop should have been tossed around like a rag doll, but the hard thighs and molded shoulders matched the beast’s strength, thrust for powerful thrust, like a lover.
Why did I have to think of it that way?
Her hand moved back to brush against her cheek, heated at the sudden onslaught of memories of that particular solid body atop hers.
Flashes snapped and whirred, startling her out of the vivid vision. For the first time, she noticed the photographers and reporters avidly watching the demonstration. Her brows creased. Not that she had come to the rodeo grounds much in the last couple years, but when had the Yellow Rose Arena become such a paparazzi zone? It was only Thursday afternoon, for goodness sake; the qualifying didn’t even begin until tomorrow afternoon, continuing through Saturday and finishing up with the crowd-drawing finals on Sunday.
An angry snort drew her attention back to the inner-ring combat and Elizabeth involuntarily clutched the weathered accordion folder tighter to her chest. She watched in horror as furious nostrils flared, the saddled bronc fighting madly to throw the man from its back.
Grey! Oh God! He’ll be killed! The thought flew in haphazard shards in her mind like the dust around the warring pair.
This was a mistake—in more ways than one. She should have just grabbed Henry’s receipts and audit papers from the manager’s office and left quickly. But something had pulled her to the practice ring...a single name called out in a squeal of feminine giggles and overt appreciation. His name had overridden the stab of finger-curling jealousy, had grabbed her chest and yanked her unwillingly over.
“Hey...oh!” Shouldered from one side by the excited group and pushed into the elbow of a cameraman on the other, the momentum jostled her arms and the folder slipped from her grasp.
“Sorry about that, missy,” the burly man said absently. “Didn’t see you there.” She might have believed his apology had he attempted to help retrieve the few papers scattered from the pack.
Elizabeth puffed her bangs up in a huff of mixed self-contempt and frustration. If not for the manager, Henry Garza’s, audit appointment first thing Tuesday morning—which he neglected to tell her about before this morning—she would have never set foot on these grounds again.
“Clients come first. They pay the bills,” Granny O’Leary’s smoke-scarred voice scolded her in her head. Heaven knew she understood that fact these days, but still, if she’d had the choice...
At the exact moment she stuffed the last windblown scrap back to safety, a loud buzzer went off above the crowd. Her gaze automatically darted to the ring just in time to see the body of the cowboy sail through the air like a tossed away, dented soda can.
“Grey!” The name tore from her lips involuntarily and she clasped a hand over her mouth to silence the terrified screams clogging her throat.
Painfully still moments coursed by before she saw the gloved hands brace themselves in the dirt and a dusty blond head raise.
Still crouched on the ground over her folder, she was in perfect alignment for eyes the color of buffed steel to lock onto hers.
Oh God. This was exactly what she had wished for—and prayed to avoid. The ever logical side of her argued that the recognition tilting the corner of those sculptured lips up was just her imagination. The bold woman she’d locked up deep inside over the past two years said otherwise. He knows, he remembers.
Forcing herself to break the eye contact, Elizabeth shook her head and clasped onto logic like a rock wall. Being pragmatic had never let her down before, and even, in a roundabout way, it had worked out that one weak moment, too. Hadn’t she gotten what she wanted? At least for the most part.
She grabbed up the bulky folder of receipts and invoices and pushed off the dirt into an angry half-run away from the ring. She’d be fooling herself to think someone like Grey Wulfsen—hailed “the Lone Wolf” on the rodeo circuit—would remember one slight waif stumbling into his campsite nearly two years earlier. As for what happened after that...well...being a handsome rodeo cowboy on the circuit for years, it probably hadn’t been the first time for him, even if it had been for—
“Lizzie?”
A name she hadn’t heard for too long in a voice she could never forget slammed her heart into her throat and stuttered her feet over the uneven ground.
Ohmygod. He does remem—
She didn’t even let the thought finished and definitely didn’t risk a look back. Instead, she weaved through the light crowd as if the hot breath of an angry bull breathed down her neck. If Grey did remember her, then that might not be a far off analogy.
“Lizzie!”
The deep voice calling out, even slightly quizzical as it was, caused all sorts of electro-magnetic currents to zing, zap, and stir each nerve ending.
Guilt ate at her for making a coward’s retreat, but to call her surprised was an understatement at the moment. Just this morning, she had convinced herself that out of all the rodeos going on in the country, the odds Grey would be at this one, on this day, a full twenty four-hours before the events even began, were slim to nil.
Funny, numbers had never let her down before.
A low jangle repeated behind her and matched the heavy, patterned footsteps getting closer, but she didn’t stop; she couldn’t. It wasn’t the fact that he remembered her; it was the one thing he wouldn’t remember that kept her feet moving. The one thing she’d inadvertently taken away with her that night.
Elizabeth ducked into one of the tented concession stands. Her lungs expanded and contracted at a frantic pace and refused to accept air.
The jangle of spurs and thick flap of chaps passed by.
She dropped her head to her chest. Coward. Maybe, but the little courage she retained inside clung to the one truth she knew for sure—no matter how much her heart pounded and begged her to step out into the light, she was doing the right thing. Come Monday morning, Grey would be gone with the other nomadic cowboys, off to the next rodeo and the next gaggle of groupie girls, and her life would be back to normal—almost as if she’d never been held by him in the first place.
It had worked before.
After a few minutes of oxygen intake and visually planning a direct route to the parking lot, Elizabeth reached for the canvas. She whipped her hand back when she heard the sudden rasp of Grey’s voice beyond the curtain.
“Hey, Henry. Did you just see a young woman pass through here? Lizzie?”
Grey’s voice gave her name a sensual edge that seeped through her chest, straight to her core. Her lids fluttered close and she bit her lip against the searing sensation.
“A Lizzie?” Henry Garza finally questioned.
She could hear the puzzlement in the cheery voice of the rodeo manager. Just her luck. Of all the people Grey could have stopped to ask, he picked the one who actually knew her. Shit.
“Nope, sorry there, Grey. Don’t think I know a Lizzie.”
Behind the curtains, a relieved snort escaped her lips and she whipped a hand to her mouth to cover the sound. Of course Henry wouldn’t know who he was talking about; Granny O’Leary was adamant that her granddaughter be addressed with her proper given name. And no one had ever contradicted the strict widow.
“Are you sure?” Grey continued, frustration evident in his voice. “You couldn’t have missed her. Beautiful, dark hair, pale skin, and the prettiest blue eyes you’d ever seen?”
Elizabeth’s heart tripped and she twisted a few strands of hair between her fingers. He can’t be talking about me.
A low whistle preceded Henry’s grizzled laugh and she couldn’t resist a peek through a small tear in the canvas. Thankfully, Grey’s back was to her, but that only gave her a clear reminder of his true height, strong shoulders, narrow waist, and...
She gulped and snapped her gaze to Henry.
“Sure sounds like a beaut’. Wish I had seen her, son. If I was younger, I might’ve given you a run for your money.”
Elizabeth’s lip twitched at his teasing. The father-figure rodeo manager never had eyes for anyone but his wife.
A frustrated sigh shook the shoulders in front of her. She whipped back from the canvas as they turned. If her heart wasn’t beating hard enough to shake her whole body, she might have felt sorry for him.
Does he really see me as beautiful?
She’d always been little more than a shadow behind the Widow O’Leary. No one had ever really paid attention to her. Hell, unless it was tax season, or someone needed bookkeeping or financial advice, she’d always been practically invisible in this town. The biggest gossip she’d ever been part of was barely a blip on the Wayback grapevine less than two years ago. Even as unconventional as they all thought she’d been, her fifteen minutes in the town’s eye had faded quickly.
In truth, the only time she hadn’t been invisible was...with Grey.
He had seen her, really seen her.
Elizabeth frowned and scuffed at the dirt with the tip of her boot. She almost wished he hadn’t seen her. She’d held tight to the memory of that night, and might even risk the chance for one more—except she wasn’t the only one hiding in the background this time. And if Grey had found her both then and now, there’s no way he would miss...
Chapter Two
“Elizabeth? Are you okay?”
Approaching the parking lot, she gave her friend, Paige, a quick nod in answer but avoided eye contact. Okay, in truth, two people saw her, and right now, she so wished she was invisible to her, too.
Elizabeth squatted down beside the curly-headed moppet banging away on a pink stroller bar. “Hey there, darlin’. Were you a good girl for Auntie Paige?”
Small hands darted out and Elizabeth set the accordion folder down to give the sweet-smelling fifteen-month-old a tight hug. She brushed away the blonde wisps on her daughter’s forehead as burnished steel eyes stared back in delight.
Her heart stuck in her throat and her smile faltered.
“Elizabeth?”
She snapped out of her reverie, stuffed the folder in the bottom of the stroller, and pasted on a bright smile for her friend. “Thanks for watching Gretal for me,” she said as she stood. “All those hoof holes are hell on a stroller. Would have bounced her brains right out.”
Paige reached back to adjust her thick red pony-tail. “Never a problem. And as you’re always telling me, it’s good to get out of the Ride ’n’ Bowl every now and then. We watched the ponies coming in, eh, kid.”
She tapped the child’s nose, and Gretal giggled that unbashful laugh Elizabeth loved so much.
Her friend’s lips twitched and one exquisite brow rose. “But what just happened with you? You darted back here as if that bull, Deuce, was after you.” She leaned in and studied Elizabeth’s face. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost swear that red in your cheeks meant you’d been blushi—”
“Lizzie?”
Elizabeth froze—which was odd considering an instant heat burnt its way up from the pit of her stomach. Her head turned slowly around, and then up, to reach the face of the tall cowboy standing not five feet away.
Where had he come from? She was sure she’d lost Grey after he left the food area. Yet there he stood, her nightly fantasy a reality once more.
Dust clung to his black and white striped shirt and leather chaps. A sweat-stained smear of dirt grazed his forehead beneath his Stetson, but that did nothing to minimize the ruggedly-handsome features.
The only way to describe him was like a Viking cast into the future of the Wild West. Dusty, broad, blond, formidable...and all male. When her gaze returned to his face, it was all she could do to hold her fingers back from brushing away the dirt clinging to the square, stubb
led jaw.
Elizabeth gathered what little sense she had left and did the only thing she could—lie. “I’m sorry, you must have me mistaken for s-someone else,” she stuttered, moving around to block the stroller.
Those silver eyes smiled, zeroed straight in on her and called her a liar outright. So potent were they that her throat instantly dried and she ducked away from their knowing stare.
Lizzie? Paige mouthed the word with a raised brow and a grin.
Elizabeth widened her eyes and darted them from Gretal to the car, begging without words for help.
A gentle yet urgent hand smoothed around her wrist and brought her attention around to her arm.
“Are you sure?” Grey chuckled. “I don’t think I’m mistaken. I’d know those blue eyes anywhere.”
The voice was far too confident and his touch only brought a dizzying fullness to her head. She couldn’t even be sure of her name at the moment.
“Don’t mind me. I’m just going to get the kid in the car.”
Paige’s curious voice sounded a thousand miles away, but Elizabeth’s brain registered a thankful reprieve for her best friend’s unquestioning cooperation. No doubt, she’d have a great deal of explaining to do later...but first, she had to get out of here.
Squeals of girlish delight followed by the onslaught of three pairs of bouncing breasts in tight T-shirts pushed between her and Grey.
What the...? Okay, not exactly what she’d had in mind as a distraction.
The three women pawed Grey like he was some movie star; they oohed, awwed, gasped, and giggled until the sounds became worse than nails on a chalkboard.
Shoved out of the way, her arm was yanked from his grasp. Elizabeth vaguely registered the frown on Grey’s face beneath red, manicured nails, but she was too busy grinding her teeth against an unrealistic need to use her own claws on the women’s eyes.
With a deep breath, her brain returned to coherent thought and she turned and stumbled toward the stroller.
At the car, she tossed Henry’s file into the back, expertly folded the device flat, and shoved it in the trunk. Scrambling into the driver’s seat, she took a quick check in the backseat to make sure Gretal was secure in her car seat, then click-locked her own seatbelt.