Southern Seduction (44 page)

My flight left nearly a half an hour late, which means I have arrived in Colorado Springs later than I anticipated. It doesn’t really matter; I have nowhere to go and no one to see.

I pull my bag from the overhead bin and exit the plane. As I make my way up the terminal, I pay no attention to the people around me. My brain is focused on tomorrow and how far behind I will be at work.

“Excuse me, ma’am. I couldn’t help but notice you glistening from afar.”

I swing around at the voice whispering in my ear and find Jackson standing behind me.

“You’re late, baby,” he says. “I didn’t think you were going to show.” His smile melts my heart.

“Oh my God, Jackson! What are you doing here?”

“I’m throwing caution to the wind, darlin’. I caught an earlier flight so you weren’t left waiting for me ever again. I can work from anywhere, baby. Home is where you are, Savvy. I told you I’d see you soon.”

Throw Caution to the Wind - Recipes:

I have never lived in the South. However, I did get to experience wonderful food and meet wonderful people when I traveled to bury a close friend. The recipes below are some of the fabulous fare I enjoyed while spending a week in Louisiana. I thought I would share some of the dishes that soothed my soul.

Cheddar Cheese Grits

Ingredients:

2 cups whole milk

2 cups water

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 cup coarse ground cornmeal

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

4 ounces sharp Cheddar, shredded

Directions:

Place the milk, water, and salt into a large, heavy-gauge pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Once the milk mixture comes to a boil, gradually add the cornmeal while continually stirring. Once all of the cornmeal has been incorporated, decrease the heat to low and cover. Remove lid and stir frequently, every few minutes, to prevent grits from sticking or forming lumps; make sure to get into corners of the pan when stirring. Cook for 20 to 25 minutes or until mixture is creamy.

Remove from the heat, add the pepper and butter, and whisk to combine. Once the butter is melted, gradually whisk in the cheese a little at a time. Serve immediately.

Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:

For the sweet potatoes

3 cups (1 29-ounce can) sweet potatoes, drained

½ cup melted butter

⅓ cup milk

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 beaten eggs

salt to taste

For the topping:

5 tablespoons melted butter

⅔ cup brown sugar

⅔ cup flour

1 cup pecan pieces

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mash the sweet potatoes and add the melted butter,

milk, sugar, vanilla, beaten eggs, and a pinch of salt. Stir until incorporated. Pour into a shallow baking dish or a cast iron skillet. Combine the butter, brown sugar, flour, and pecan pieces in a small bowl, using your fingers to create moist crumbs. Sprinkle generously over the casserole. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until the edges pull away from the sides of the pan and the top is golden brown. Let stand for the mixture to cool and solidify a little bit before serving.

Southern Fried Chicken

Ingredients:

4 pounds chicken pieces

1 1/2 cups milk

2 large eggs

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons salt

2 teaspoons pepper

3 cups vegetable oil

salt to taste

Preparation:

Rinse chicken; pat dry and then set aside.

Combine milk and eggs in a bowl; whisk to blend well.

In a large heavy-duty plastic food storage bag, combine the flour, salt, and pepper.

Dip a chicken piece in the milk mixture; let excess drip off into bowl. Put a few chicken pieces in the food storage bag and shake lightly to coat thoroughly. Remove to a plate and repeat with remaining chicken pieces.

Heat oil to 350°. Fry chicken, a few pieces at a time, for about 10 minutes on each side, or until golden brown and cooked through. Chicken breasts will take a little less time than other pieces. Pierce with a fork to see if juices run clear to check for doneness. With a slotted spoon, move to paper towels to drain; sprinkle with salt.

The best things in life are shared. Whether it’s a great meal or an excellent book. This book would have never been written without help from the girls at IRAC. You know who you are and I love you all. I sleep less, but laugh more because you took me in. Thanks for believing in this orphan author and making me part of your family.

To my friend, Debbie, who left this world way to soon, I love you and I always will.

Kelly Collins lives in Colorado with her husband James. She’s the proud mother of three young adults who still manage to keep her on her toes and her head spinning. They are her greatest accomplishment.

As a military wife, Kelly has traveled the world like the rock star on tour. This has given her the amazing ability to unpack an entire household in three days—another crowning achievement!

Over her life, she has been a jack-of-all-trades between dental assisting, teaching, and running her home staging business, until finally, one day, she decided to do something she was meant to do. She wrote. And she hasn’t stopped since.

Armed with a glass of wine and her laptop, Kelly loves nothing more than to create an alternate world any woman would want to live in.

You can contact Kelly via social media. It’s always nice to hear from her fans.

Follow Kelly on Facebook for updates, contests and additional information regarding new releases.

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Don’t forget to leave a review on the site where you purchased this book. Indie authors can use all the help they can get.

To my fellow Indie Romance Author Chicks. You guys have supported and motivated me like the coach of an Olympic athlete. You push me harder and elevate me to be better. Love you guys. Hard.

The silhouette of her hair flying over her shoulder as she climbed in the front, first story window was the only thing I could see from my hiding place around the corner.

I tried to focus harder, to see more details of her pretty face, or maybe even catch a flicker of snark in her eye, but the darkness of night and shadows of the big, old house made it impossible. Another part of me, however, had honed in on wondering why in the hell she thought using the
front
window was a good idea for a covert mission. I was a skilled compartmentalizer when needed.

Maybe your first thought is that I’m a stalker.

I could see that, what with the way I was following a girl without her knowledge and skulking around in the dead of night.

Sorry to say, but you’d be wrong.

But, what I was actually doing was probably even more fucked up, so you can take some comfort in that. Or maybe, if you’re normal, that’s the kind of statement that
adds
to uneasiness.

No matter how you wanted to categorize it, it was happening.

Never in my life did I think I would care about someone enough to be following them as they pulled a B & E job, but here I fucking was.

Obviously, when the heart steps up, the brain steps back. Or takes a tropical vacation. Either way, it just gets the hell out of there.

My blood roared in my ears as I crept toward the open window where I had last seen her, my effort to be silent shaking violently through every muscle in my body.

I always found that when I tried to minimize my noisemaking, I felt my loudest. Or when I tried to move with grace, I stumbled all over the place.

Like a Law of Opposites.

My adrenaline wasn’t the result of my own fear, but instead inspired by my worry for her. Sure, I was pretty sure this activity was on the exact opposite side of the law from where I should be as a freshly deputized member of the Sheriff’s department, but I would probably get out of it in the end.

And surprisingly, I was finding that I didn’t really care if I did or not. But I didn’t want a stupid mistake to mess up Zoey’s future. She was smart and funny and deserved a hell of a lot better than tonight. Her intelligence was one of the reasons I was having such a hard time rationalizing this. She was too fucking smart to do something so stupid. She was too fucking
smart
to put so much weight in one, unbelievably
stupid
night.

But I could understand it. The weight of your future can feel unbelievably heavy when you get forced into it. I knew she felt like she was standing at a fork in the road, and instead of having time to rationalize, weigh the options, and think it through, she was just shoved down one side, tripping and careening the whole way.

That didn’t mean that the path she got shoved down was necessarily the wrong one. In fact, I was pretty sure she would find out it was right. But she didn’t get to choose. She was still finding her way. And when you’re already tripping and slipping, your body moving in a way that’s completely out of your control, you don’t always fall the right way. You don’t always protect your limbs or keep your arm from getting broken.

And this was just a larger, much less obvious example of the same problem. She was already fighting a mental battle with her fate, and stupid mistakes like this are sometimes casualties of the war.

I knew how expectations felt and had just recently gotten rid of the load myself. I had a father who needed me and a town that had a whole lot of dreams locked up in my life. My tale of woe always got to people, and the way I carried myself always garnered a lot of respect. I always appreciated that, but like anything good, with it comes bad.

When a whole town places you on a pedestal, that comes with responsibility, and sometimes, the choices you want to make up don’t line up with the ones they see you making.

I wasn’t like Zoey, though. I didn’t feel a need to rebel; I just wanted a little time outside of the fishbowl. A little time to mess up, live life, and take it as it came.