The woman nodded. “And I was hoping you could give Brad a little extra something. I want a litter of baby rabbits. I’m giving them to my nieces and nephews for Easter and time’s running out. While the real Brad did just fine in that department, this one doesn’t seem all that interested.”
“We don’t really do fertility treatments here. We like to let nature take its course.”
“But I’ve had them in the same cage for six months and nothing. I don’t think he’s interested.”
“I don’t think he’s a he,” Jenna said as she picked up the first rabbit and took a look. “In fact, I’m positive. This is a female.”
The woman’s expression fell. What am I supposed to do with them now?”
“Take them home and love them?” Jenna offered.
The woman gave her a scathing look. “I don’t love them. They were my Easter project. My sister-in-law gave out baby chicks last year and it’s all my nieces and nephews have talked about since. I can’t show up with some marshmallow Peeps now and look like the lame aunt again.” She seemed to think. “Then again, I could get them these two-foot chocolate bunnies I saw online. Chocolate trumps a live animal, don’t you think?”
“But what about Brad and Angelina, here?”
Claire gave her a hopeful expression along with the two leashes. “Surely you could hook them up with a good home? You’re a vet, after all.”
* * *
“I didn’t mean to shoot off his toe. The old bastard got in my way, is all,” Haywood Tucker said for the umpteenth time as Hunter led him into a cell and steered him to a nearby bench.
“You’re lucky you didn’t kill him.”
“He’s the lucky one.” Haywood adjusted the ball cap on his bald head. “Lucky he didn’t take a piece of concrete to the gut. Though I can’t say as I would regret it if he had. He’s been poaching my figs for six years now. It’s about time he got what’s coming to him.”
“That tree isn’t yours or his. The judge hasn’t decided yet.”
“He will and when he does I’ll be due an apology for damned sure.”
“The only thing that’s coming to you is breakfast. You’re in for the night.”
“But Sheriff—”
“And all day if you can’t post bail. Let Bobby know when you’re ready to make your call.” He locked the cell door, turned on his heel, and headed down the hall to his office. An oatmeal bar sat on a paper plate on his desk with a note from Marge that read Eat already.
He took a few bites and finished up the paperwork he’d left earlier that day before finally calling it a night.
The drive home took longer than it should have if he’d been headed to the small house that sat at the edge of town. Instead, he found himself feeling anxious. Restless. So Hunter hit the road leading out of town and opened up the gas a little. Air rushed through the windows, temporarily distracting him from the heat coiling inside him.
Thanks to the memory of Jenna’s body so soft against his.
Christ, he was pathetic.
He’d been so busy with work that he hadn’t had the time to drive to Austin and blow off a little steam. Something he couldn’t do right here in town. He was the sheriff, after all. That meant no hooking up with just anyone. Folks looked to him to be an example. That meant no one-night stands. No, if he was going to hook up here in town it had to be with a woman who meant something to him. And he’d yet to find one.
Not that he’d been looking.
Hell, no. He had enough on his shoulders without adding the responsibility of a relationship to the mix.
No, he couldn’t hook up with anyone in town. That meant driving somewhere else and he just hadn’t had the time.
Or the energy.
He was full of it tonight. Enough to push him well past the county line. But instead of stopping off at Diamonds & Denim, he left the neon lights in his rearview and turned onto the road leading out to the rodeo arena.
The motion was instinctive. Something he’d done so many times in the past that he never really gave it much thought.
Then.
But things were different now. He didn’t belong out here anymore than he belonged on the back of a bucking bronc.
He wasn’t that same man.
He couldn’t be.
No matter how familiar the feelings pushing and pulling inside of him.
Fuck.
He hit the brakes and watched the spray of gravel as he swung the SUV around and headed back toward Rebel. He thought of stopping off to see his Mimi, but he knew it was well past her bedtime. Instead, he headed for the small two-bedroom Colonial just off Main Street.
Pulling into the driveway, he killed the engine and eyed the small front porch, the single bulb burning next to the door. He thought about going inside, climbing into bed and getting some much needed shut-eye, but he couldn’t seem to move.
Instead, he leaned back and tipped his hat down over his eyes. And then he let his thoughts wander for just a few moments.
What it would be like to be just a man again.
One who could touch Jenna Tucker if and when he damn well pleased.
CHAPTER 7
“Don’t be mad,” Jenna said when she walked into the house to find a barking Jezebel waiting for her. The dog took one look at the two balls of white fluff in the cage and started growling. “I couldn’t let Claire Westbrook toss them out of her Volvo on her way home, and you know that’s what would happen. That woman doesn’t have a nurturing bone in her body. Besides, it’s not like they’re competition. You’re still my number-one dog.” A bark drifted from outside and she added, “My number one Yorkie/poodle/grade-A mutt, that is.” The whimpering outside quieted and she set the rabbit cage on the kitchen table before scooping up the white ball of canine fluff she’d brought home months ago from the veterinary clinic.
Jezebel had been a stray she’d found hurt and bleeding by the side of the road. She’d patched up the little dog and brought her back to the Tucker spread on a temporary basis. Until a good home could be found.
That had been over a year ago.
“Let’s get you a treat,” she murmured, grabbing a handful of Milk-Bones and a bag of Doritos. She was just about to head into the living room when her cell rang.
She sat Jez down and plucked the iPhone off the kitchen table. The number registered Unavailable, but that was nothing new. She received tons of calls from worried pet owners, some of whom registered while others didn’t. “Dr. Tucker,” she said as she pressed the Answer button. “How can I help you?”
“Jenna?”
The man’s familiar voice whispered through her head and her stomach tightened. Chuck Wallace had been her most recent breakup. They’d dated for a little over two months. He owned the local cleaners where she took the occasional DRY CLEAN ONLY label. He was average height. Medium brown hair. Decent looks. A nice enough guy. And that was the trouble in a nutshell.
He was nice.
Which was why she’d gone out with him in the first place. But then she’d realized that hopping from man to man, even a nice man, wasn’t helping her reputation in the slightest.
She’d told him she couldn’t see him again, and then he’d asked her to marry him.
He’d been asking ever since, even though she’d made it perfectly clear that she didn’t like him like that. They’d slept together once and while it hadn’t been all that great for her, he couldn’t seem to let it go. She was The One. At least that’s what the card on the last flower arrangement had said. And the frosting on the vanilla sheet cake he’d had delivered to the clinic last month. And the sky-writing crop duster that had painted the sky white just this past weekend.
“Listen, Chuck. I know you think I’m going to change my mind, but I’m not. It’s over.” She gathered her courage. “You’re not the guy for me.”
“You say that, but you haven’t gone out with anyone else since we broke up. That says something, Jenna.”
It said she was turning over a
new leaf, but Chuck wasn’t getting the message.
“I’m not interested in dating anyone.”
“That’s what you say, but a woman like you needs a man. You deserve one.”
“I don’t need a man. I’m too busy for a relationship.”
“You don’t have to play hard to get, Jenna. You’ve got me. I’m hooked.”
“I don’t want you, Chuck. You’re a great guy, but—”
“You don’t have to flatter me. I’m all yours, honey. I’m head over heels. Yours for the taking.”
So much for just giving it to him straight, which is what Callie had always told her. She’d finally started taking her eldest sister’s advice, but it wasn’t getting her anywhere. The guy wasn’t listening.
“I can’t even think straight,” he rushed on. “Do you know I shoved a silk cardigan into the washing machine and steamed Mr. Merriweather’s wash-and-wear leisure suit? I don’t know whether I’m coming or going, Jenna. I need to see you—”
“Beeeeeeeeep,” she cut in, doing her best imitation of an incoming call. It was a lame move, but she was desperate. “Sorry, Chuck. I’ve got to take this. It’s an emergency.”
“But—”
She hit the Off button and set the phone down. It rang again, the Unavailable flashing, and she sent the call to her voice mail.
She ignored a rush of guilt—she’d tried to let him down easy—and snatched up her snacks. She’d wasted too much time on too many guys who weren’t right for her because of guilt. Because they really were all great guys and it seemed such a shame to cut them loose simply because she didn’t feel it.
That breath-stealing, bone-melting rush of heat that she’d felt when she’d climbed onto the back of that motorcycle with bad boy number one all those years ago.
The thought conjured a memory of hard muscle pressing her down into the kitchen floor, bullets whizzing overhead. Her nerves tingled and her nipples pebbled and …
She shook away the memory. There’d been no it with Hunter DeMassi. He was the sheriff, for heaven’s sake. A pillar of the community. Far from the wild, rebellious bad boys she’d gotten hooked on in her youth.
What she’d felt last night had been a fluke. Any normal, healthy, red-blooded female who’d been on the wagon for as many months as she’d been would have had the same reaction. She’d simply been so close and he’d been, well, a lot more muscular than his uniform usually let on. His shoulders broad. His arms ripped with muscle. And the smell … There’d been something oddly dangerous.
Um, yeah. The moment, remember? The gunshots? The bullets?
It hadn’t been the man himself who’d hollowed out her stomach and made her want to throw her arms around him and kiss him for all she was worth.
Circumstance.
The subject closed, she grabbed her snacks and headed for the living room. Depositing everything on the coffee table, she flipped on the ancient console television. The screen blazed to life, shifting from green to red before settling somewhere in between for the watered-down color. “We’ve got to get a new one.”
A new everything, she reminded herself as she turned and headed back to the kitchen for a drink. She retrieved a soda from the avocado-green refrigerator and set it on the old scarred Formica counter.
Old. Scarred. That described the entire house and all that was in it. The place was full of the original furnishings that had been there when Jenna and her family had moved in with her grandpa all those years ago.
They’d done it to help him out, but Jenna knew that her own father had needed help as well. While Rose and James Junior had given their daughters plenty of love when they’d been alive, they hadn’t showered them with much else. Her father had been a ranch hand who’d traveled here and there, taking jobs where he could find them until he’d finally moved back to Rebel with his wife and three daughters. He’d settled into his childhood home to look after his father who’d taken a nosedive straight into a jar of moonshine after his wife’s death years before.
James Harlin hadn’t come up for air in all the time that had followed. Until he’d lost his son and daughter-in-law in a car accident. He’d cut down then not because he’d wanted to straighten up and take care of his granddaughters, but because Callie had made him.
Jenna’s eldest sister had flushed every drop of shine down the toilet as fast as James Harlin could brew it up. That hadn’t kept him from indulging, but it had slowed him down a little.
Enough that he hadn’t been such a mean SOB all the time.
She stiffened against the sudden softening in her chest. So what if he hadn’t been a total dick twenty-four/seven? He’d still been a major ass ninety-nine point nine percent of the time and she wasn’t going to waste her tears on him.
Her eldest sister had fought some demons where James Harlin was concerned and while Jenna knew Callie had made peace with her past, she wasn’t going to betray her sister by mourning a man who’d rarely had a kind word for his own flesh and blood.
Even if he had let her sit with him and watch Family Feud instead of doing her homework while Callie and Brandy had been at their after-school jobs. And then there’d been the time that he’d picked her up at the middle school because she’d nailed Darla Sue Chantilly in the mouth with a dodgeball for calling her a white trash Tucker.
He hadn’t come in apologizing like Callie usually did. No, James had marched in there as proud as you please, told the principal and Darla Sue’s parents where they could stick it, and had a good chuckle when Jenna had given him the play-by-play of what had gone down after Darla had called her the name in front of the entire girl’s sixth grade gym class. He’d laughed himself pink and then bought her an ice cream sandwich at the Pac-n-Save.
The memory rose up as she opened the freezer and spotted the familiar box of frozen treats stuffed in the back.
He’d always had a thing for ice cream sandwiches. He’d eaten one every night before bed. When he hadn’t been drinking, of course.
She balled her fingers and moved around a few packs of frozen vegetables and an ancient half-empty ice tray. James Harlin was gone now and she was no longer the same rambunctious girl she’d once been. She was a full-grown woman and she was conducting herself as such. That meant no more bad behavior.
And no more ice cream sandwiches.
She found the quart of raspberry sorbet she’d picked up at the store a few days before and closed the freezer. Grabbing a spoon from a nearby drawer, she headed back into the living room and sank down onto the couch next to Jez.
“Let’s see who gets a rose tonight.” She handed Jez a Milk Bone, popped the lid on the sorbet, and sank her spoon deep. The first bite went down cold and smooth just as a knock sounded on the door.
Chuck. Would the guy never give up?
She shoved another bite into her mouth as she got to her feet. She grabbed the doorknob just as a burst of white hot pain hit her temples and she grimaced.
“I really appreciate the thought, but it can’t happen between us,” she said as she yanked open the door. “You just don’t turn me on. You’ll never turn me on. Never.”
“Is that so?” came the deep, rumbling voice.
She blinked through the pain and found herself staring into Hunter DeMassi’s bluer-than-blue eyes. Her throat closed on an explanation and it was all she could do just to breathe as his full lips hinted at a wicked grin that did sinful things to her heart.
“Never say never, sugar.”
CHAPTER 8
Wicked?
There was nothing wicked about Hunter DeMassi or his grin.
That’s what she told herself as she sat in her living room and tried to ignore the man hammering at her front door. He’d brought a few two-by-fours to nail up inside to cover the holes until he could bring out a new door.
She’d protested that everything was going to get tossed out anyway with the renovation—after she’d given a lengthy explanation that she’d thought he was someone else when she’d answered the door—
but he’d insisted on the repair.
“Toss it out when the time comes, it doesn’t matter.” He’d shrugged his broad shoulders. “I promised to fix it and that’s what I’m doing.” He’d winked then. “And if this guy Chuck doesn’t ring your bell, you’re right to cut him loose.”
“My show’s on,” she’d blurted, eager to escape the strange glimmer in his eyes.
A look that said he knew exactly how to ring her bell if given half the chance.
Crazy.
This was Hunter DeMassi. Public servant extraordinaire. Pillar of the community.
He didn’t ring bells. He spent his time keeping law and order and helping out with the middle school car wash and judging pies for the annual ladies’ auxiliary bake-off. He was a stand-up guy. Wholesome. Nice.
With one sexy, wicked-as-all-get-out grin.
The notion struck and she reached for the sorbet. She swallowed a mouthful. The pain of another brain freeze splintered her temples and killed the crazy thought.
Sexy and wicked?
Hunter?
She was losing it.
Grabbing the remote, she hit the volume and pushed it louder to drown out the hammering coming from the doorway. Her gaze fixed, she did her best to concentrate on the good-looking guy handing out roses.
He came up short and the girl left without a flower burst into tears.
Definitely melodrama. The guy was cute in his tuxedo, but he looked too … good.
No scuffed-up boots or ripped jeans or kiss-my-ass attitude.
The kind that really got Jenna going.
Her weakness, or it had been back before she’d made up her mind to clean up her act.
“That’ll do it for now.” The deep voice drew her attention to the doorway and the man who stood there buttoned up in his crisply ironed uniform, his regulation black shoes polished to a nice sheen.
Nice, she reminded herself.
A fact she would have been able to remember except that it was late and a five o’clock shadow had crept across his broad jaw. His hair was slightly disheveled and if she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn he’d just rolled out of bed …
Tempting Texas Page 4