Jane Sullivan - One Hot Texan

“Ginny, this is…this is your first time.”

“Yes. I know.”

He slipped away from her. “I feel like somehow I’ve pushed you into this.”

She couldn’t believe it. Was this Cole McCallum talking? Where was the cockiness, the self-assuredness, the arrogant overconfidence she’d come to know so well?

“Cole, I want this. I want you. Don’t you know that?”

“You say that now, but are you sure?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Just kiss me.”

After a moment of hesitation, he lowered his mouth to hers in a soft, gentle kiss. Ginny wanted more. Much more.

She grabbed his shirt, and pulled him down to her. It was a kiss so hot and wild and intense that Cole couldn’t do anything but go along for the ride. Finally she pulled away, still gripping his shirt.

“Ginny? Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Yes, damn it! What am I going to have to do to convince you? Rip your clothes off? Rip my clothes off?”

Cole blinked with surprise. Then a smile spread slowly across his face. “Can I have both?”

Dear Reader,

Do you remember the girl in your high school class who didn’t talk much, who was smart but socially inept, the one who the boys didn’t even know existed? Do you remember the boy with the streetwise attitude who was sexy as sin, who drove the teachers crazy at the same time he made the girls swoon? What if these two people were to meet again ten years later and sparks suddenly flew?

As a writer, nothing is more fun to me than to put a hero and a heroine together who are complete opposites, then watch the fireworks. On the surface, it seems as if Cole McCallum and Ginny White are the most unlikely couple ever to share a kiss. But looks can be deceiving. Is it possible that the good girl and the bad boy are perfect for each other?

I had a wonderful time writing my first Harlequin Temptation novel, and I hope you enjoy it. Visit my Web site at www.janesullivan.com, or write me at jane@janesullivan.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Best regards,

Jane Sullivan

Books by Jane Sullivan

HARLEQUIN DUETS

33—STRAY HEARTS

48—THE MATCHMAKER’S MISTAKE

One Hot Texan

Jane Sullivan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Mom and Dad, who always believed I could do it.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

THE CLOSER Cole McCallum came to the city limits of Coldwater, Texas, the more he wanted to swing his classic Porsche around in a tire-squealing one-eighty and head back to Dallas where he belonged. He thought he’d seen the last of this godforsaken place, only to have fate step up and slap him in the face one more time.

His first introduction to Coldwater had been eleven years ago, when he’d been forced to leave Dallas and come here for his senior year of high school. His father had been thrown in jail for writing one too many hot checks, and his mother hadn’t been around since he was seven years old, so a family court judge had ordered his custody turned over to a grandmother he barely knew. He arrived with a chip on his shoulder the size of a concrete block. Throw in a pair of skintight jeans, a black leather jacket and a go-to-hell attitude, and the uptight citizens of Coldwater had naturally assumed he was the root of all evil. He didn’t let them down.

Out of pure mischief, he committed a few minor infractions around school during his first few weeks, then dated a few of the more kiss-and-tell girls. Gossip took care of the rest. For the next year he got blamed for everything from graffiti on the water tower to Angela Putnam’s period being late. And he didn’t care enough to try to set anyone straight. Only his grandmother had known better, but even her reputation hadn’t been able to salvage his. With the exception of the girls who swooned at his bad-boy image, the townspeople would have voted him most likely to turn up on a post-office wall. And that’s why, at eighteen, he’d burned rubber on his way out of town, catching the best view of Coldwater he’d ever had—the one in his rearview mirror.

And now he was going back.

He followed the gentle curve of the two-lane blacktop, passing tin barns and mobile homes alternating with fields of cotton and corn and an occasional paint-starved farmhouse with a pickup truck out front. This corner of nowhere was home to people who didn’t know there was a world beyond it. But he knew. He knew how a kid from nothing could leave a place like this and make something of himself. At the same time he burned with anger at how everything that same kid had fought so hard to gain could be ripped out from under him in the blink of an eye.

Cole still remembered how it felt to stand on that cold Dallas street in the middle of the night, soot clinging to his skin and heat from the massive blaze fanning his face, watching his half-finished real-estate renovation project—the one that could have made him a millionaire—light up the Dallas skyline like the fires of hell.

And watching his dreams go up in smoke with it.

He came around a bend and headed into the main part of town. He passed Blackwell’s Pharmacy, A New You Dress Shop and Cut & Curl, where a handmade sign advertised twenty percent off acrylic nails on Tuesdays. When he reached Taffy’s Restaurant, he pulled into a parking space next to a slick new pickup. It belonged to Ben Murphy, though he wouldn’t have known that if not for the ancient hound dog hanging his head over the tailgate.

At least the old man had shown up.

Cole stepped out of his car, went to the back of Murphy’s truck and scratched the old dog behind the ears.

“Hey, Duke. I figured you’d be long gone by now.”

The dog licked his hand, and Cole smiled ruefully. Duke was far happier to see him than Murphy was going to be.

He gave the dog one last pat on the head, then turned toward the sidewalk. In the beauty-shop window next door, he saw a skinny brunette with a headful of rollers staring at him. She tapped a big-haired blonde on the shoulder and mouthed, Cole McCallum. The woman spun around, and when she caught sight of him her eyebrows flew halfway up to her hairline.

By the time he reached the door to the restaurant, the beauty-shop window was filled with half a dozen women in various states of beautification, from sopping wet hair to kinky hair to hair sprouting crinkles of silver stuff that looked like aluminum foil.

He couldn’t resist. He turned toward the window and gave the ladies a great big smile.

A dozen eyes widened in unison. In the next second the women turned to each other, their mouths moving at the speed of light, probably repeating legends about him for the gospel truth whether they were actually true or not. Around here, any stranger made people stop and stare. But Cole McCallum, who was once rumored to have made it with the entire cheerleading squad in one night, warranted an all-points bulletin. And no doubt the things they’d read about him lately in the Dallas Morning News had only fueled the gossip.