His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1)
Read His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1) Online
Authors: Terri Osburn
ALSO BY TERRI OSBURN
Anchor Island novels
Meant to Be
Up to the Challenge
Home to Stay
More to Give
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Terri Osburn
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477828786
ISBN-10: 1477828788
Cover design by Anna Curtis
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957574
For Nalini. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
Contents
Chapter 1
The Nashville heat hit Lorelei Pratchett like a wet blanket, smothering her will to live. Not that she had much of one to begin with. The dream of becoming the next Meryl Streep, which she’d chased for more than ten years, remained so out of reach she’d have to launch herself into outer space to even get close.
And now she was back in Tennessee. The land of conservatives, camo, and country music. Freaking awesome.
Granny had said she was sending someone to pick Lorelei up at the airport, but she’d danced around the details, leaving her granddaughter clueless as to whom or what she should be looking for. A taxi from the airport up to Ardent Springs, sixty-five miles northwest of Music City, would cost more than Lorelei could afford.
To be fair, a cab ride to the end of the runway would cost more than Lorelei could afford.
Dragging two suitcases, which contained all of her worldly possessions, she shuffled over to the closest bench to remove her knockoff
Manolos and give her feet a rest. Her favorite suitcase, the black one with a smattering of cherries, fell over when a wheel popped off and rolled away.
“And we have a runner,” she said to no one in particular. Lorelei didn’t blame the little spinner. She’d make a break for it, too, if she had the chance. Correction. If she had the
choice
.
Before she could catch the wayward wheel, a handsome skycap snagged it off the sidewalk and returned it with a smile. “This one’s trying to get away,” he said, pearly whites gleaming, twang intact.
“Good thing you caught him before he hopped into a cab.” If he thought she would tip him for retrieving that wheel, Mr. Skycap was sadly out of luck.
The sarcasm seemed to go over his head. “Do you need help getting it back on? I have a screwdriver over here.”
“No help needed,” she said, unzipping the front compartment of the suitcase and dropping the wheel inside. “But thanks for the offer. Don’t let me hold you up. I’m sure you have skycappy things to do.”
His smile faded as the man nodded and returned to his post. She probably shouldn’t take her bad mood out on strangers, but her mouth had yet to get that memo.
“Still a charmer, I see,” drawled a deep male voice from behind her.
Lorelei closed her eyes before turning around. Granny wouldn’t be that mean. Maybe he was flying out, never to return.
Ha. As if Spencer Boyd would ever leave his beloved Tennessee home.
Turning slowly in her seat, Lorelei leaned back and looked up into her high school sweetheart’s face. She blocked the waning sun with one hand, but could still only see him in silhouette. He looked broader than she remembered, but the hat was the same. In twelve years the man couldn’t buy a new cowboy hat?
“Hello, Spencer,” she said, employing every acting skill she’d ever learned to keep the surprise out of her voice.
“Lorelei,” he responded with a nod. “This all your stuff?”
A sarcastic retort tickled the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it down. “This is it. Please tell me you’re parked close by.”
With a head tilt to the left, he said, “Short-term lot right across the street here.”
Lorelei replaced the yellow high heels, then rose to her feet. The move put her at eye level with her chauffeur, which put him around six foot two, since she was five ten and wearing four-inch heels. Broader and taller, Spencer Boyd had grown up while she was gone.
Not that he hadn’t been handsome in high school. Quite the opposite. Every girl at Ardent Springs High tried to catch Spencer Boyd, but he’d only ever had eyes for Lorelei. Until she’d refused to accept a lifetime sentence in their tiny town popping out a passel of rug rats with the last name Boyd.
Back in the day, Spencer had been wiry and thin, with the potential for more, and he’d certainly fulfilled that potential. His broad shoulders were accompanied by a solid chest, narrow hips, and thighs that were made for denim. Lorelei had once known the body before her in the biblical sense, as Granny would say. Back when it was hard angles and so thin she could count his ribs.
There would be no rib-counting now, but she felt safe in the guess that a six-pack lurked beneath the button-down.
“You look good, too,” he said. One side of his mouth tilted up in a grin that lacked any of the distaste she expected to see. The brown eyes held her blue ones, as if daring her to deny where her thoughts had wandered.
Lorelei pulled the yellow jacket tight across the front of her little black dress. “Shall we?” she asked, stepping to the edge of the curb, ignoring the suitcases at her feet.
“Allow me,” Spencer said, a hefty dose of sarcasm dripping from each word. They’d always had that in common. “It’s the gray Dodge on the right, two rows back.”
After checking for oncoming traffic, Lorelei stepped off the curb
and followed his directions. She didn’t need the word
pickup
included with
gray Dodge
to know that’s what she was looking for. That was a given. Males—and many females—in Ardent Springs had always driven pickup trucks.
Lorelei doubted that had changed in the last dozen years.
But she had forgotten another characteristic of Ardent Springs residents. They loved their dogs.
As she made the last step up to the passenger door, a large black beast hopped up in the truck bed and barked right next to her head. Lorelei jumped back, slamming her hip into the side mirror of the neighboring Honda.
“Holy crap! That thing nearly gave me a heart attack!” Her hip hurt like hell, but her pride was the real injured party. “You brought a stupid dog all the way to the airport?”
Spencer threw her suitcases into the truck bed, shoved his hat off his forehead, and shot her an angry look from the opposite side of the truck. “Champ here has a guaranteed ride home. You insult my dog again and you won’t be so lucky.”
Lorelei rolled her eyes. “Granny is so going to pay for this,” she mumbled under her breath. Once Spencer unlocked the doors, she jerked hers open, but found climbing in wasn’t so easy. She tried several angles, working to make sure her dress didn’t slide up to her belly button, but nothing was working.
In her concentration, she hadn’t noticed Spencer come around the back of the truck.
“In you go,” he said, lifting her off her feet as easily as he’d tossed her suitcases through the air. Lorelei landed with an oomph on the bench seat, her dress high enough to reveal more than she was comfortable flashing her former boyfriend.
Thankfully, he’d been traipsing back around the vehicle and hadn’t seen a thing. She hoped. Dress straightened and seat belt fastened,
Lorelei checked her reflection in the side mirror, dabbing a bead of sweat off her forehead and straightening her hair.
Spencer hauled himself into the cab using the steering wheel for leverage. Seat belt buckled, he opened the console and pulled out a dog biscuit.
“A snack for the road?” she asked, shooting him her most insincere smile.
The driver ignored her, slid the back window open, and waited. A large black head popped through the opening, took the biscuit, then popped back out.
“You want one, too?” He pointed to the slot in the console where the treat had come from.
With a curled lip, she answered, “I had six peanuts on the plane. I’m good.”
“Suit yourself.” Spencer started the truck, slid on a pair of sunglasses, and put the wheels into motion.
Lorelei noted the time on the radio and calculated how long the drive would take. If Nashville traffic was the same as it used to be at five thirty on a Friday, she had nearly two hours to enjoy the scintillating company of the cowboy beside her.
Snatching a pair of sunglasses from her purse, she opted for the cowardly way to handle the situation. She’d take a nap. Spencer paid the parking attendant, then rolled the truck onto Donelson Pike. As they drove toward I-40, she watched the sunset to her left.
Hard to believe less than twenty-four hours ago she’d watched that same sun set over the Pacific Ocean. A sigh escaped her lips, and she relaxed for the first time in weeks. Maybe months.
Lorelei hadn’t expected this feeling of relief. As if she’d found her soft place to fall. Not even the scorching presence of the man beside her, the man whose ring she’d once worn, could dampen the feeling of home.
She may not have wanted to come back to her hometown, to face the demons she’d left behind—not that the demons she’d accumulated in Los Angeles were any better—but now that she was here, maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Granny was right—home was exactly what Lorelei needed.
The unexpected contentment made her sigh again, and then she turned her head to steal a glance at Spencer. The question tapped at her brain.
Ask him,
it said.
Ask him why he came to get you
.
The last time she’d seen him, a few days before she’d left for California, they’d reached an impasse. An obstacle too big for people their age to overcome with any kind of grace or tact. He’d refused to leave Ardent Springs. She’d refused to stay. Neither wanted a long-distance relationship since neither believed the other would change their mind.