L
ogan Ross let his police cruiser idle past the middle of town to survey his domain. Since moving to Honkytonk from San Antonio, he had learned to appreciate the slower pace and savor small things, such as the change of seasons, even if there were only two in Texas. It was certainly different from life in the city.
Here it was on a Friday morning opening a three-day weekend, and there weren’t any commuters honking horns or rat-race executives screaming into cell phones. Nope. Shopkeepers busied themselves around their white limestone stores with their brightly colored windowsills and door frames, putting up sale signs and displaying their wares on unattended tables under their equally bright awnings.
His gaze snagged on Annie’s Antiques, as Annie, not to be confused with the original Annie, who happened to be her grandmother, carefully arranged an array of quilts on an outside table. It was just the type of thing that would attract someone who wanted to make a home. Instead of admiring the quilts, he paused to appreciate the fit of her chic sundress before allowing his gaze to move restlessly on.
Since his buddies had settled down, Logan found himself feeling more and more like he was standing on the outside looking in at happiness that continued to elude him. Both Cody and Joe seemed to thrive on their domestic arrangements, making Logan wonder what he was missing.
Still, life in Honkytonk was good. And Logan thought he might just have found the remedy to the constant lonely ache that settled in his chest at night and gripped his loins so tightly no amount of self-gratification could relieve it.
Shaking it off, his gaze went back to the town, and there
she
was.
Schoolteacher
, came the primal growl rumbling up inside him. Every red corpuscle streaming through his veins rushed south.
The tall, gawky figure striding down Main Street straight toward him zeroed his attention from everything else around him.
Just a glimpse of the unfashionable denim smock she wore was enough to make him hard as rock. Schoolteachers never dressed chic. Still, it didn’t matter to him. She could wear a gunny sack and push his buttons.
His reaction to her still shocked him on some level. She wasn’t his usual type, which was a woman built like a brick house with curves so deep and round he could clamp his fingers on her flesh and steer her like a Porsche.
No,
Schoolteacher
was downright bony, with an angular face. Her medium-brown hair was the same soft shade as the deer he’d stalked through the woods just last weekend. Come to think of it, she resembled the creature with its slender, muscular build and darting glances, too.
Maybe that was the attraction—he equated the woman to prey.
Still, her demeanor and her wardrobe choices made him wince. Prim, buttoned up, unfashionably
homey
. While he watched, she stopped to chat with Annie as she ran a hand over the bright handmade quilts. Some were older and yellowed with time, while others showed less age and were every color of the rainbow. Even as he watched, she picked up the sign that read GOOD PRICE FOR A GOOD HOME.
Standing next to the chic and well-dressed Annie, Logan had to question his reactions to her. But, as ugly as her dress was, it couldn’t hide the slender curve of her hips or the length of her coltish legs. Even her hideous brown sandals turned him on. They made her feet look like a duck’s paddles until you looked closely and saw the slender beauty of her toes.
He’d caught a glimpse of them once when he’d cornered her in the Gas ’n’ Go mini mart squeezing fruit. A plum, to be exact. Just the thought of it made him shift uncomfortably in his seat.
Her long fingers had engulfed it, wrapping around the plump fruit to squeeze gently.
Naturally he’d pictured her squeezing something else just about the same size and circumference. He’d been arrested in place, watching her test the fruit and vegetables for ripeness.
Hell, she’d been so intent, sniffing the stem of a cantaloupe. He had snuck right up behind her and reached over her shoulder for a honeydew before she’d seen him. Her shock had made him smile and had totally knocked her off balance.
She’d backed up, her bottom brushing the front of his denim jeans, and he’d known the exact moment she realized what she’d snuggled up against. Her cheeks had blushed a fiery red, and her soft mouth had gulped like a guppy’s.
He’d mumbled an apology, embarrassed at his lack of self-control, and walked stiffly away, catching a glimpse of a sexy novel in her cart as he passed. But he couldn’t help glancing over his shoulder for one more look.
She’d placed her hands on the melons as though afraid her legs would crumble, and he’d left the store still smiling.
Over the months he’d been in Honkytonk, it seemed as though he was fated to have her because something kept placing her in his path.
The one house that had suited his needs sat at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac right next to hers.
Then the sheriff had selected him as the new liaison at the high school to roam the halls, get familiar with the kids, and lead the anti-drug-use education classes.
His first class had been in the room right next to hers. Of course, she’d dropped the handouts she’d carried the moment she saw him step outside the door of his classroom.
Like a waterfall of white and black, the papers had spilled at her feet, and then she’d sloshed coffee from the cup she carried as she bent over too fast, trying to retrieve them.
He’d knelt at her feet and gathered the handouts, wiping coffee from them on his pant leg before handing them back to her.
When he’d caught the surprised pleasure in her rounded eyes, he’d felt like a hero. But she’d quickly blinked and stiffened, her mouth sliding into that firm, prim line he was beginning to know all too well.
That didn’t stop him from feeling like that guy who’d whipped his cape over a mud puddle for some queen long ago. Perhaps fortunately for him, the woman who stood in front of him didn’t have a clue what more he was willing to do to please her.
Somehow, someday soon,
Schoolteacher
was going to come to him for instruction.
Over the past weeks, he’d fed her tantalizing glimpses of his body and his interests.
He’d padded barefoot to the mailbox when he’d spotted her car pulling into her driveway. He’d purposely worn a thin pair of sweatpants that fell beneath the notches of his hips and molded his sex in blatant detail.
He’d invited his friends for barbecues on his back deck and left the windows open so that she might hear their rowdy shouts when they watched a game on the television.
One night after he’d spotted her standing in the field between their lots with her telescope pointing toward the sky, he’d made damn sure she had more interesting sights to train her lens on.
Perhaps he’d shared a little too much. Maybe he’d even frightened her. But it was best she understood his needs from the outset. Besides, fear was something he could twist into obsession.
In the meantime, he trailed her surreptitiously in his patrol car, pulling into a parking space when she entered a shop and then continuing to trail her when she came out.
How she could have failed to notice him, stalking her along the narrow street, mystified him. But then again, most times he saw her, her eyes seemed blurred as though staring at something in the distance.
Schoolteacher
seemed perpetually lost in a daydream.
How he wished he could slide inside her mind. Were her dreams filled with erotic images of bodies dipping and writhing toward ecstasy? Or were they more romantic?
Logan grimaced, wondering if he’d have to do some research to figure out what a woman like her would find irresistible. His gaze passed the bookstore with its blue and white awning and tables set on the sidewalk for passersby to stop and sample the books.
Logan glanced at his watch. His lunch break was coming up. He had just enough time.
A breeze tugged at the hair Amy Keating had scraped back into a ponytail to keep it out of the way, and she hoped the wind didn’t continue to build, or this night’s expedition would be a bust.
If the sky remained clear, and the wind didn’t interfere too much with her charts and equipment, she’d be closer to her self-imposed goal.
Concentrating on the celestial bodies on Messier’s list, rather than the corporal and virile specimen next door, had proven the greater challenge these past weeks.
Her neighbor commanded attention wherever he went. She wasn’t the only one to notice.
The day he’d surprised her in the hallway at school, and she’d dumped the work sheets she had prepared for her class at his feet, she hadn’t been the only female in the vicinity to sigh as his big, brawny body folded gracefully to the floor. When he’d dried her coffee-stained papers on his thick, muscular thigh, she hadn’t been able to drag her eyes from him. Something in her chest had tightened. Sensual awareness had sharpened to an exquisitely honed edge.
As he’d lifted the papers to return them to her, his fingers had slid along her palm. A little electric current had passed from him, and she’d stiffened with shock. Heat curled deep inside her.
As she’d sputtered her thanks and then hurried through her door, she’d heard Carla Banks and Vanessa Rosas in the hallway giggling. She must have looked like a red-faced fool. But what woman wouldn’t melt into a puddle at just a glimpse of his powerful frame and handsome face? That he’d been clothed in a crisply starched deputy’s uniform had only added to his masculine charm.
His universal appeal had given her the strength of will to carry on as usual, despite the constant distraction of seeing him everywhere she went. If she didn’t know any better, she might have thought he was stalking her, which could only be wishful thinking on her part. What on Earth did she have to offer a man like that?
While she knew she wasn’t a complete bow-wow, she was honest enough with herself to admit that she was plain. Her hair was a nondescript brown, her skin colorless with a smattering of freckles that looked like droplets of mud on a pale blanket of snow. It was her height, however, that was her most notable flaw. Nearly six feet tall, she was too large to inspire a man’s protective instincts—something she completely, secretly craved.
Not for the first time in her twenty-eight years, she wondered how wonderful it must be for one of
those women
, the full-figured Barbie dolls whose heads snuggled nicely against a man’s chest. Hers, she imagined, would lie atop Deputy Ross’s broad shoulders.
Annoyed with herself for wasting time yearning for something she’d never have, she pulled a flashlight from her bag and turned it on. The red lens was just bright enough to check her star chart for settings for her scope without destroying her night vision.
M43—the Orion Nebula—beckoned.
In the distance, the growl of a powerful engine rumbled loudly as it approached. Neighborhood dogs barked. Car doors slammed shut. Laughter pierced the air—a feminine squeal, followed by low, rumbling, masculine chuckles.
Lord, no. Not again.
She’d recognized the woman’s voice. Although the last time she’d heard it, Sarah Michelson was cursing a filthy blue streak. And no wonder, after what the two of them had done to her.
Yet she was here again. Did that mean…?
No, Amy wasn’t going to peek. The last time had been devastating. She’d been in this same exact spot, at approximately the same time, when she’d trained her telescope on that special room of his with the window facing this very field.
Oh, the things she’d seen!
Her cheeks had burned for days. Her body had felt tight, hot, so filled with sexual frustration she’d fished out the vibrator her sister had given her one Christmas from its box underneath the bathroom sink.
For several nights afterward, she’d lain in her bed, rolling the smooth gel head over her sex, plunging it deep into her core, trying to satisfy the cravings the trio had awakened.
Light spilled across the clearing, shining from the naughty room, bleaching the dried grass a pale gray.
Amy stood in the darkness, just beyond the light, staring at the ground.
I’m not going to watch, I’m not going to…
She closed her eyes briefly, calling for inner fortitude, and then lifted her tripod to reposition it, pointing the scope toward the room.
She adjusted the focus, zooming in on a patch of pink skin. A protruding nipple.
Oh. My. God.
An aroused nipple surrounded by a very round and generous breast.
A dark figure stepped in the way, blocking her view.
Her head jerked up, and she stared into the window. Logan Ross leaned against the window frame. His features, burnished by the subtle lighting in the room, were drawn and taut—and he was staring directly at her!
She whirled around, pressing a hand against her chest. He knew! Sweet Jesus, what did he think of her now?
Slowly she glanced over her shoulder, pretending to reach for her bag, and then caught his gaze again. He straightened, moving away from the window.
He strode toward Sarah, lifting her hand and bringing her forward, placing her in front of the window but not so close that Amy couldn’t see most of her shape, head to knees.
Slowly he peeled away the blonde’s clothing while Joe Chavez took a seat at a small wooden table and watched, his gaze never leaving Sarah’s pretty body as it was bared one piece at a time.
When she was completely naked, Logan lifted her hand and twirled her under his arm as though dancing her around in slow-motion, and Amy understood.
He was letting her watch them. Inviting her to do so.
Amy swallowed, her eyes filling as the painful yearning swamped her again. Everything missing from her staid little life was there on display.
But why was he doing this? As punishment for intruding on their games? Or was he trying to tempt her?
Her
, plain Amy Keating?
While both possibilities struck a chord of fear inside her, still she couldn’t drag herself away as Logan led Sarah to a wooden frame she hadn’t seen in the room the last time she’d spied on the three of them.