Liz Talley - A Taste of Texas

But now she wasn’t so sure.

Maybe it was being in a place bathed in memories. Or maybe it was seeing Brent. Or perhaps it was the fact she felt so not herself sitting on a pew in her aunt’s backyard. So not like the woman she’d become.

Rayne Rose Albright was successful beyond all expectation with a New York Times bestselling cookbook, a restaurant that repeatedly made top ten lists and a possible deal on the bubble at the Food Network. She even had her own line of ruffled aprons under production with an Austin designer.

A lot of good it did her. Not when she could barely crawl out of bed some mornings. Not when her child chewed holes in his shirts for fear of being lost or left behind. Not when crazed fans penned weird letters and showed up on her front doorstep. What good was money, fame, success?

Not much if you were miserable.

Rayne opened the door and stepped into the old Victorian house. The smell of fresh bread wrapped around her, soothing her, reminding her why she was there—to recapture the simplicity of life. She took a deep breath. Then released it.

The house exuded charm from every nook and cranny. It would make a fine inn, a retreat for wealthy cosmopolitans who wished to experience a trip to trouble-free times. Most of the work they’d do over the next month was cosmetic in nature. Aunt Frances had always run a tight ship. The antiques were well-polished, the decor was country without being cliché and the house was in fairly good repair. They needed to shore up the front and back porches, repaint windows and doors, replace fabrics and purchase some new furniture. And get the backyard tamed and productive with a veggie garden, pretty herbs and edible flowers.

The highlight would not be in the surroundings, but in the smells, sensations, tastes of the bounty of the earth.

And that was Rayne’s job. To create a menu of simplicity and sophistication.

She entered the kitchen and quickly set about tucking away ingredients before pulling the golden loaves of bread from the Viking ovens. They looked perfect. She set them on a cooling rack just as something brushed against her ankle.

“Ack!”

A streak of ginger raced by her. She trotted backward, banging into the baker’s rack.

What the heck?

She scurried after the animal, hoping it was merely a cat and not something more menacing.

It was just a cat.

A fat ginger cat that paced at the front door.

“Rumple,” Henry called from the stairway.

She looked up at her child as he ran down the stairs. “Careful, Henry.”

Henry paid no heed. Simply tumbled down, tossing the book he’d been clasping onto the bench. He dropped to his knees and started stroking the fur of the now-purring cat. “This is Rumpelstiltskin ’cause he sleeps all day. Aunt Fran calls him Rumple. He lives next door. At that guy’s house.”

The Hamiltons’ cat. They’d always had one. She remembered Sweettart, the gray tabby that followed Brent around like a dog for years. He’d stroked that ragged-eared tabby the way Henry stroked the one now curling about her ankles. The purring cat rumbled as he arched against Henry’s strokes.

“Well, he doesn’t need to be in the house.” She swung the door open and toed the cat with her bare foot. “Out, Rumple.”

“Stop,” Henry cried. “I like to pet her. She loves me.”

“Keep it on the porch. And take your book,” she called out to the boy as he followed the cat through the oval-paned door.

Before she shut the door, she caught sight of Brent heading toward his truck. His brown hair curled over his ice-blue polo shirt collar and his jeans hugged a pretty spectacular butt. He drummed a beat against his thigh with his right hand as he’d always done. The phrase “Idle hands are the Devil’s tools” popped into her mind. Yes, that man knew how to create sin with those hands. She remembered the mischief they’d stirred in her… and how much she’d liked those new feelings. But then again, lots of girls had cause to remember those hands. That thought was cold water down her back.

She stepped away from the door.

Brent had cultivated a reputation he’d been content to keep all these years. Who could blame the girls of Howard County? It would be hard for most women to resist the potent combination of Brent’s charm and physical hotness. He was the kind of guy a gal would be content to watch mow a yard or unclog a toilet. He was beauty in motion. Always had been.

Hunger struck her out of nowhere.

And it wasn’t for the bread she’d set out to cool. It was the same old hunger she’d first felt long ago, stirring that summer night she’d pulled on her new pink-striped nightgown, a parting gift from her parents. She’d be staying with Aunt Frances in Oak Stand for high school while her parents and sister headed north to New York State to live in a commune for artists. Rayne had tied the satin ribbons on the shoulders and moved to the window to draw the shade. Brent’s shades weren’t drawn and she caught sight of him across the empty darkness between the two houses. She tucked herself behind the curtain as Brent dropped his towel and ran a comb through his hair. At fifteen, his bare backside had been as intriguing a sight as she’d ever seen. A strange warmth had curled round her midsection and taken up residence in her tummy. It was the first stirring of desire, the first step she’d taken down the path of obsession with Brent.

And it was a path that had gotten her nowhere because fifteen years ago Rayne Rose had been oatmeal to Brent’s French crepe with chocolate-raspberry sauce. He’d sampled her when he had nothing better to do. She’d never been important enough to acknowledge as she sat in the stands watching him play or at the dances where he hung out with the cool kids. But still, she’d loved the boy he was when he was with her. When no one else was around and he became hers alone.

She’d been such a fool.

Yet despite what she’d told Aunt Frances moments before, she still wanted a taste of Brent.

BRENT EYED THE BOARDS above the wide porch of the Tulip Hill Bed-and-Breakfast. “These are going to need replacing before we paint. I know they don’t appear to be rotten, but they are. Won’t take much time though.”

Frances Wallace peered up assessingly. “How much time? Rayne’s already riding me, wanting to hire people from the city to get this finished.”

Something inside him started at her name. Rayne Rose. He’d always loved her name, loved the way everyone said her first and last name together. The vision of an orangey-pink rose like the ones his mother grew appeared in his mind. Those dew-kissed flowers were almost the color of her hair. So pure and fresh, just like Rayne. He dashed the image aside to focus on the flaking paint above his head. “Two or three days at most. Then I’ll finish sanding and apply fresh paint. Two weeks on the total project.”

“Okay.” Frances nodded. “It’ll take that long for Meg to arrange hiring someone from Dallas anyway. I’d be obliged to you, Brent. I know you’re busy this time of year.”

“Not too busy for a neighbor, Mrs. Frances.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked around the half-sanded porch. Frances had given him gingersnaps when he was a kid and let him catch ladybugs in her garden. How could he not help her when she needed someone to do exactly what he did—restore and renovate? At that moment, he wondered what the cause of all this upheaval was. What was Rayne doing back in Oak Stand? And why had she pulled her son away from school and baseball to refurbish her aunt’s bed-and-breakfast? He had questions, but no right to ask them. So he asked what he could. “So who’s this Meg?”

Frances was about to answer when a huge rattling truck roared into the tree-lined drive. The red truck belched as the engine died. Big Bubba Malone.