The reviews are rolling in for Leslie Kelly…

“Sexy, funny and little outrageous, Leslie Kelly is a must read!”

—New York Times bestselling author Carly Phillips

“Leslie Kelly is a rising star of romance.”

—New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Ms. Kelly never fails to deliver a captivating story.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Leslie Kelly writes with a matchless combination of sexiness and sassiness that makes every story a keeper.”

—Romance Junkies

“Leslie Kelly is a master of amusing contemporary romance!”

—Word Weaving

“You can always count on Leslie Kelly to keep readers laughing and entertained with dazzling characters and passionate romance.”

—The Romance Reader’s Connection

“Leslie Kelly has the magnificent ability to create marvelous storylines with truly memorable characters.”

—Writers Unlimited

“Leslie Kelly writes hot, steamy stories with lots of humor and tons of romance thrown in.”

—Romance and Friends

On Killing Time…

“Delightful and entertaining from the first page to the last. I highly recommend Leslie Kelly’s Killing Time.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Sassy, flirty and oh so sexy, Killing Time makes for great summer reading.”

—Round Table Reviews

“A fun, sexy and unique story.”

—A Romance Review

“Kelly tells a high-energy story and delivers a satisfying read.”

—All About Romance

“Intrigue, passion, excitement and more are a given with Killing Time.”

—In the Library Reviews

“Leslie Kelly has written another amazing story.”

—Romance Junkies

“Leslie Kelly’s latest…is a deliciously madcap adventure filled with the sexy and the zany!”

—Romantic Times

“When you pick up Killing Time, and I strongly recommend that you do, make sure you have plenty of time to read because you will not want to put it down!”

—Fallen Angel Reviews

She Drives Me Crazy
Leslie Kelly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With sincere thanks to my agent, Ethan Ellenberg. Ethan, without your encouragement and support, this would never have been possible.

And to Bruce. You make it all worthwhile.

Thanks for making me truly believe in what I write.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“JOHNNY, YOU GOTTA SEE THIS. There’s a giant set of hooties hangin’ over exit 23.”

County prosecutor Johnny Walker, named for his father’s favorite brand of fire in a bottle, barely looked up as he continued to pump gas into the tank of his SUV. It was too early in the morning to try to decipher Lester’s sexobabble.

Coming from anyone else, the pronouncement might have raised Johnny’s curiosity. But this was Lester, owner of one of the only two gas stations in Joyful, Georgia. Lester might not remember his nickname from high school, but Johnny—and most of the female population—still mentally referred to him as Lester the Lecher.

“Here you go, Les.” Johnny tugged a twenty out of his pocket and extended it toward the other man.

Lester paid no attention. He continued to stare skyward. A tinge of curiosity finally made Johnny turn around. Following Lester’s stare, he beheld what had so captivated the man.

The letch was right. A big giant set of hooties…er, woman’s breasts…was clearly visible on a billboard by the highway exit. “I’ll be damned,” Johnny muttered, not believing his eyes. He couldn’t help adding, “Nice rack.”

Now, wouldn’t that give the residents of this nasty town something to gossip about when they woke up this morning? Yessir, the townsfolk of this warm, syrupy burg—as falsely sweet as a sugarcoated lemon drop—would glance out the window while munching their corn flakes and behold a pair of snow-capped mountains standing over the interstate. Because from here, the white tassels barely covering the five-foot-in-diameter nipples did indeed resemble snow.

Lester continued to pay silent, drooling homage to the fleshy hills glistening in the morning sun. Finally, he whispered, “Whaddaya suppose it’s for?”

Johnny shrugged. “Haven’t you heard? Sex sells. It could be advertising anything from toothpaste to Viagra.”

“Nah, it wouldn’t work,” Les said with a snicker. “One look at that and a man’d realize he don’t need Viagra.”

Personally, Johnny hadn’t needed to be titillated by pinups, magazine centerfolds or Victoria’s Secret catalogues in oh, about forever. Nope, it had been the real thing or nothing since he was fourteen and a girl named Cherry Hilliard had lived up to every one of those “on top of Cherry Hill” jokes he’d heard whispered about her in the locker room.

Darn shame Cherry had found religion and married Reverend Smith. Cherry Smith just didn’t have quite the same ring to it.

“One way to find out.” Lester reached for the passenger side door handle of Johnny’s SUV. “Let’s go check ’er out.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to drive down to Bradenton for a meeting. Besides, you have another customer,” Johnny said as he watched Fred Willis, a local deputy who Johnny had gone to high school with, turn his squad car into the station.

Fred had apparently noticed the breasts, too. He was paying no attention to his driving, and almost clipped Johnny’s back fender as he pulled up a few inches from the pump. His ancient, dingy tan squad car gave a rusty belch as it shook, rattled and rolled to a stop. “You see that?” he yelled from the window.

“You bet…let’s go!” Lester dashed around to Fred’s passenger door and hopped in. The two drove off, not sparing Johnny a second glance.

That wasn’t too surprising, since Johnny couldn’t fairly call himself one of Fred Willis’s favorite people. Particularly because Johnny got such satisfaction in setting free the poor bumbling criminals Fred and his boss, Sheriff Brady, managed to round up in this relatively crime-free area.

Give him a real crime or criminal, and he might give a damn about doing his job. But, hell, here in Joyful? The jail cell doors might just as well stand open for all the effort Johnny took to keep their occasional occupants inside them. Course, that was probably more effort than Sheriff Brady made to ensure the innocent folks who had the misfortune of being from the wrong side of town were kept out.

In Joyful, the justice system was equally balanced. If you were rich and arrogant and committed a crime, the police took care of you. If you were poor and trashy…Johnny Walker did.

Still holding the twenty, Johnny walked into Lester’s grimy office and left it on the counter near the register. He gingerly picked up a half-squashed plastic water bottle and set it on top of the bill, so it wouldn’t blow away in the warm summer breeze already wafting through the open door.

Looking around, he grimaced in distaste. Hopefully no one else would come to the station and enter the office looking for Lester. The magazine photos plastered across the back of the door would probably make Virginia Davenport, president of the Daughters of the Confederacy, drop dead of sheer outrage.

And with his luck, the sheriff would call it murder and want Johnny to prosecute.

“Hooties over Joyful,” he mused aloud as he again glanced at the billboard and got into his car. “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

As he drove out of town, Johnny was struck by the strong feeling that something interesting was about to happen.

He couldn’t wait to find out what it was.

CHAPTER ONE

“EMMA JEAN FRASIER’S coming back to Joyful.”

Cora Dillon wondered if the years of sleeping beside her husband Bob, who sawed logs louder than any lumberjack, had finally taken their toll. Her hearing, without doubt, had just failed her. She stared at fancy-pants Jimbo Boyd, whose round face was filled with self-importance. She didn’t know why, considering what a rotter he’d been as a boy. And leopards didn’t change their spots. Not in Joyful, Georgia, anyway.

“Emmajean Frasier,” Cora said, drawing out the name.

Jimbo nodded, then reached into his desk. He pulled out a bunch of keys stuck on a ring shaped like the hood ornament on the namby-pamby car he was so proud of. “I need you to get the house aired and cleaned today. And I want it done right.”

Cora straightened and narrowed her eyes. Imagine, snot-nosed, dirty-pants Jimbo Boyd telling her how to clean a house! Hadn’t she worked as a cleaning woman for him and half the town for the past ten years? Something was definitely wrong with him. Maybe the glue he used on his shoeshine-black toupee, which looked about as real as the one worn by that Captain Kirk on the TV, had seeped through his skin and affected his brain.

“Emmajean Frasier’s coming back to Joyful. Now there’s a trick I’d like to see,” Cora replied with stoic calm, “considering she’s been dead more’n a year.”

“Dead?” Jimbo began to sputter. “No, no, Cora. I don’t mean Emmajean…I mean Emma Jean…the granddaughter.”

“Granddaughter?”

Jimbo shook his head and huffed. “Yes. Her mama’s folks have money and raised the girl overseas. She spent a year here, though, her last year of high school. ’Bout ten years ago.”

Cora thought on it. “Possible, if it was exactly ten years ago. That’s the year my youngest girl lost her husband and me’n Bob went out to be with her. Always told her the rotten sum-a-gun she married was a brainless fool.”

Jimbo pasted a look of false sympathy on his face, managing to look more concerned than annoyed, though Cora knew better. “I hadn’t realized your girl had been widowed.”

Cora snorted. “Widowed? He didn’t die. I just toldja he got lost. Got drunk in the woods and wandered around for days rantin’ about giant beavers. Ended up in the nuthouse in Terre Haute. We stayed a while to take care of Cora Jr. and the kids.”

Jimbo made a rude sound and Cora’s fingers itched to give his ears a good boxing. She didn’t, though. Jimbo Boyd did own the only real estate office in Joyful, and sent a lot of work her way. Not to mention he was the blasted mayor.

“She’ll be here late today, so I need this done now.”

She scowled. “I didn’t see a granddaughter at the funeral.”

“She wasn’t there. She was sick or busy or something.”

That made Cora pause. Too busy to come to her grandma’s funeral? Disgraceful. She harrumphed as she took the keys from Jimbo. Then she paused, remembering a wicked old scandal. “Wait, the Frasier girl…is she the one…”

Jimbo nodded, his own eyes glowing with speculation.

Cora smirked, no longer surprised Emmajean’s grandchild hadn’t had the nerve to show up in Joyful again. Not given the way she’d left it. “I suppose I can have the house cleaned to Miss High-and-Mighty’s satisfaction.”

THOUGH IT GALLED HER, Cora spent the morning getting Emmajean Frasier’s two-story Victorian-style house sparkling. She was determined no spoiled long-lost grandchild would come to Joyful and turn up her nose at the life her grandma had lived.

Cora talked to herself while she worked. She talked to Emmajean, too, though they hadn’t been very friendly in life, what with Emmajean holding the title of “Champion Pie Maker” five years running, and Cora feeling more entitled to it.

Though Cora didn’t really believe in haunts, she figured she’d best be sure Emmajean didn’t take offense to Cora being in her house. Particularly when she started looking through her recipe box.

“Drat,” she muttered, realizing the other woman must have hidden her best recipes, or memorized then burned them.

Cora had tried that once, when she was having chest pains and thought she was dying. When the doctor’d said it was just gas, and she realized she’d forgotten to memorize her red slaw recipe before she’d burned it, Cora had fumed. She’d tried for days to re-create it until Bob swore the next time she put a helping of red slaw in front of him, she’d be wearing it atop her head.

Wanting to take one more peek around for Emmajean’s recipes, Cora opened a drawer in the old-style rolltop desk in Emmajean’s bedroom. Funny, everything in there was all jumbled up, not neat like the rest of the house. Like someone had looked through it.

Cora shrugged off the thought and began to dig through the drawer, which was full of memories. Photos. Letters. Pictures of a little girl, probably the scandalous brat who hadn’t bothered coming to her grandma’s funeral. There were postcards, newspaper clippings and flyers with Emma Jean Frasier’s name on them. And, near the very bottom, a glossy color brochure.

Cora Dillon sucked in a shocked breath and stared at the brochure in her hand. “Dirty pictures,” she muttered.

Emmajean Frasier’s granddaughter had peddled nasty pictures of naked people, and statues of even more naked people, at some New York gallery that pretended the pornography was art.

“Well, wait until the town of Joyful learns Emmajean Frasier’s granddaughter went off to sell dirty pictures.” Considering the scandal, the details of which she’d finally remembered, they’d likely not be too surprised.

She wasted no time in spreading the word, and the game of “whisper down the lane” was well underway by lunchtime.

By 1:00 p.m., the women at Sylvie Stottlemyer’s bridge club were tittering over it. They gleefully repeated the scandal of May 1995 involving Emmajean Frasier’s granddaughter as they trumped and made their rubbers.

By two, the guys working on the line at the machine parts factory north of town were speculating on precisely what kind of pictures had been involved. Whether they were X-rated or triple-X. And whether they might still be available on the Internet.

By three, the two different rumors about Emma Jean and the billboard had caught up with one another and been mixed together in the great seething cauldron of gossip. Now things began to make sense…because the club advertised on the billboard was being built on old Emmajean’s land.

By four, the term “gone off to sell dirty pictures” had been replaced by the term “gone off to make dirty pictures.”

And by 5:00 p.m., the whole town of Joyful knew with titillated certainty that the person building the new club was Emma Jean Frasier—aka the porn star.

EMMA JEAN FRASIER hit Joyful late Friday afternoon, not sure whether to be glad her long trip had ended, or sorry she couldn’t just keep on driving.

Florida sounded good. West Palm. The Keys.

“Not happening,” she muttered. Joyful had been her destination, and Joyful was where she’d arrived.

At least no one pointed. Nobody ducked their heads together to whisper. She felt pretty sure she didn’t see any tar being boiled, feathers being plucked or big scarlet letters being cut out for prominent display on her chest. Not that they did that kind of thing anymore.

She hoped.

Glancing at herself in the rearview mirror, she smothered a groan. Sixteen solid hours of driving with the top down under the blazing sun, or the humid, cloud-filled night sky, played absolute hell on a three hundred dollar color job. Even if the color job had been done by Floyds on Fifth in New York.

“No more three hundred dollar color jobs for you, babe,” she told her sun-pinkened reflection. No more lunches at trendy New York restaurants. No expensive cooking classes she could try, but inevitably fail due to her notorious inability in the kitchen. No more trips upstate in the autumn, or wine-tasting clubs or sponsoring shows for promising young artists. No parties in her pretty Manhattan apartment, either.

Gone. Done. Finito. Over and out, with a single hour-long meeting with her attorney.

“Flat broke,” she whispered, unable to hear her own voice.

The summer air rushing over the windshield stung her eyes, bringing a harsh tear to them. It’s only the wind, she told herself. She certainly wasn’t crying over stolen money. Nor over lost jobs, SEC investigations or worthless stock.

Emma had received the invitation to return to Joyful two weeks ago, on the very day she’d found out. An interesting twist, being invited to come to Joyful for her high school reunion the same day she’d learned her only remaining asset was her grandmother’s house in that same town.

She didn’t know if she’d have ever returned if she’d had any other choice. Not for the silly teenage reasons that had driven her away—and kept her away for several years—but simply because there was no one to come home to anymore.

Grandma Emmajean was gone. Just the house remained, not the home.

Her grandmother’s death was a blow from which Emma was still recovering. She’d been unable to face the memories in the warm, sunny-yellow house the old woman had left to her. Her parents had handled all the legal paperwork surrounding Emmajean’s will, and had arranged for her property to be managed by a Realtor in town. Emma had tried not to think about it since.

“Better think about it now,” she mused as she saw more and more that looked familiar to her.

Her foot lifted slightly off the gas pedal as she spotted the old lumber mill on the outskirts of town. Just west of here, near the highway leading down to Atlanta, would be the old pecan orchard her grandmother had owned, the orchard that was now Emma’s. Her heart clenched. She wasn’t quite up to visiting the orchard yet.

She’d soon come to the Chat-n-Chew. The combination gas station and restaurant—where Emma and her high school friends used to try to buy beer—sat right on the main road. She decided to stop, needing to fuel up and grab a cold drink. She also needed to deal with the memories hitting her from every direction, some eliciting a gentle smile but most bringing a hint of sadness for their association with Emmajean.

The blaze of sunlight sent a shimmer of heat reflecting above the blacktop road, and Emma’s eyes grew a little hazy. The tears lurking behind her lids began to spill onto her cheeks.

She was home. In Joyful. But the one person who epitomized the meaning of the word “home” wasn’t here to welcome her.

She blinked rapidly. Fatigue from being behind the wheel for so long was making her overly emotional. Shrugging her shoulders, she ran a quick hand through the tangled mass of short curls surrounding her face and took a deep breath. The air was warm and thick, redolent with the smells she’d always acquaint with the South—earth, pine and a faint wisp of fruit from some nearby orchard. Her tears dried almost immediately.

Before reaching the Chat-n-Chew, Emma suddenly remembered the little park, down a gravel road that cut back to the local grange building. Almost holding her breath, she slowed as she drove by, peeking down the road, unable to see much, other than a tangle of woods and the roof of the grange rising above it.

But she knew what was hidden behind those woods. The park. The gazebo. Emma’s breath came faster as a different memory overcame her, and a new face intruded on the images of the past.

“Johnny,” she said, his name tasting unfamiliar on her tongue.

She hadn’t thought of him in ages. Well, at least not in weeks. His wide, heartbreaking grin and the spark of devilment in his eyes had never been too far from her thoughts, even though the rest of Joyful had been.

Johnny Walker had been her savior and her downfall, all in the very same night. He’d given Emma her first lesson in raw, hot passion. A lesson she’d never forgotten—and had never come close to repeating.

Then he’d given her a lesson in betrayal.

“The bastard.”

Could he still be here?

No. He’d hated this town. He’d wanted nothing more than to shake its dust off his boots and get out even then. Johnny would be long gone from Joyful. No question about it.

And Emma Jean Frasier wouldn’t have it any other way.

“THE PORN STAR’S pulling up outside!”

Johnny paused, his fingers resting lightly on the can of spaghetti sauce he’d picked up off the grocery store shelf. Porn star? Now, there was something you didn’t hear mentioned often in Joyful, Georgia. Livestock auctions, yes. Dances at the VFW hall, storm warnings, gossip about whose husband was spotted with a female impersonator down in Atlanta…yes.

But porn stars in Joyful? Nossir, he didn’t think he’d heard that one before. Though, given the controversy of a proposed new twenty-four-hour strip club on the outskirts of town, he couldn’t claim too much shock.

Wouldn’t that give the biddies something to chew on? As if they all weren’t already in the middle of a frenzy over the billboard advertising Joyful Interludes, the new club, which had shown up this morning. Now they were likely planning pickets, boycotts, religious protests. Soon they’d be talking legal action. Then they’d be knocking on his door.

Add a porn star to the mix and Joyful might just erupt of sheer titillation.

“Didja hear me?” the voice continued. “Joe Crocker down at the Chat-n-Chew says the porn star who’s opening up that new strip club is heading into town, right here to this very store!”

The words hung in the sunny, late-afternoon air of the Joyful Grocery Store. Johnny thought even the dust motes stopped swirling at the announcement made by the teen who’d burst in off the street, his face red, eyes wide with excitement. The kids buying penny—now dime—candy, dropped their loot and froze. The cashiers at the two front checkout lanes, who’d been exchanging man-tales and smacking bubblegum as they rang up the purchases of the handful of customers in the store, also paused.

Then, as if they were all puppets on the same string, they turned and gawked out the huge front window of the store. Eighty-year-old Tom Terry, who used to own the town’s only barbershop, hitched his pants up and tucked his shirttail in.

The expectant silence, as charged as the air in the bingo parlor before each ball was drawn, was suddenly interrupted by a demanding voice. As demanding as only the voice of a three-or or four-year-old little girl could be. “I spilled my juice, Mama!”

Johnny cast a quick glance at the child, whose lower lip was stuck out in a belligerent pout. She tugged on her mother’s dress. The mother—Claire Deveaux, former newspaper reporter turned chubby housewife—ignored the kid. Claire was just as focused on the front door as everyone else in the place.

“Mama…”

“Not now, Eve,” Claire whispered with a shushing motion. “Somebody important’s coming, baby.”

Somebody important. Miss Fanny Tail? Miss Venus Triple-D’Milo? He almost snickered. Why in God’s name would a porn star be opening up a club here in Nowhereville, Georgia? And why was he the only one who seemed surprised by this news?

Johnny shook his head. Apparently he’d once again been completely oblivious to some juicy bit of fodder on the town from Joyful’s infamous grapevine. That’s the way he preferred it. Growing up in a family that was usually the target of such gossip had left a sour taste in his mouth, and he generally shut down his ears when people were whispering nearby.

This time he’d apparently missed some very serious gossip, which had probably started thirty seconds after the billboard had gone up this morning. He almost wished he’d detoured past it to read it for himself.

Porn stars and strip clubs. Joyful was becoming downright wicked.

Not that he believed Joe Crocker knew a porn star from an opera singer—the man thought any female blessed with an abundance of northern curves liked to be leered at and drooled over. So did ninety percent of the rest of Joyful’s male population. Almost made him feel sorry for the mystery woman. She could be anybody from a college professor to a congresswoman. And sure as hell, some man here in this very store would likely ask her to autograph his butt with a red felt-tip marker as soon as she arrived.

He grinned, picturing her response if she was simply a wayward traveler or a harried housewife doing some shopping. It was almost worth sticking around to see if anybody got slapped in the face. Or kicked in the…

“I had me a porn star once,” Tom Terry muttered to no one in particular.

Johnny couldn’t resist glancing at the old-timer, who stared into the air wearing a look of reminiscence.

“Kep’ her in a box under my bed. ’Bout broke my heart when Buddy, my best hunting dog, found her and bit right into her. Great big holes, right in her leg.”

Johnny could only shake his head. It wouldn’t do any good to try to change the subject. Old Tom was as predictable about his dirty stories as he was about spitting on the sidewalk whenever his archenemy Joe-Bob Melton was approaching.

“Tried to use some packing tape t’fix her up,” the old man continued, not even looking around to see if anyone was listening to his tale of woe. “But it didn’t work. Dern near took m’head clean off when she popped and started flyin’ around the room.” And then, as if he hadn’t painted a good enough picture, he added, “Just imagine one’a them Thanksgiving parade balloons hittin’ a light pole and flyin’ all over the city folk, flashin’ her glory-be-ta-Jesus parts in front a’ the kiddies waitin’ fer Sandy Claus. That’s what she looked like all right.”

Johnny closed his eyes and thought about work, his car. Anything except the image Mr. Terry had put into his head.

“She scared poor Buddy right outta the house and under the porch,” old Tom continued, apparently not noticing that everyone within earshot had edged away. “Whizzed ’round the livin’ room like a balloon pricked with a pin.” He gave a wheezy, dirty-old-man snicker. “Pricked.” Then he puffed his scrawny chest out. “Now, I’m not pin-sized, mindya.”

“Mr. Terry, please,” a nearby woman hissed as she tried, unsuccessfully, to cover the ears of her wide-eyed little boy.

Yeah. This was how rumors got started in Joyful. Pretty soon, the story of Tom’s relations with a plastic sex doll would turn into one of the greatest love stories in the state of Georgia. Tom Terry and Plastic Polly would rank right up there with Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter. Or Newt Gingrich and himself.

As much as he disliked admitting it, Joyful’s gossips might not always have the whole story, but there was often at least a kernel of truth in the rumors, way down there amidst the dirt. So, it wasn’t entirely impossible that he was about to see some buxom goddess of stag films and late-night cable movies.

“Which porn star?”

No one answered Johnny’s question. Now that Tom had shut up, they’d resumed their wait. They stared, slack-jawed, wide-eyed, as a sporty red convertible whipped too fast around old Tom’s pickup and zipped into a spot directly out front.

“Mama, my top,” the little girl voice of sugarcoated iron wailed. This time, the pitch was high enough to irritate the ears. All except the child’s mother’s ears—Claire didn’t even seem to hear. She was too busy watching the action unfolding on the movie screen created by the flat surface of the front windows.

Even Johnny watched, interested in spite of himself, more by the reaction of the townspeople in the store than anything else. At least, until he spotted the blonde at the wheel.

Then he heard a low wolf whistle. It took a moment before he realized it had come out of his own mouth.

He couldn’t see her features yet, just the bright blond mass of curls, short, framing her face which was shadowed by an outrageous pair of tortoiseshell, cat’s-eye sunglasses. While he—well, everyone—watched, she reached to the passenger side of her car, bending out of sight. She came back up with a filmy, pink scarf, which she wound tight. Running one hand through her hair, she tied the scarf around her curls like a headband.

The anticipation rose in the store as the blonde leaned close to her rearview mirror to apply some lipstick. Johnny could tell even from here that it was pink—to match the scarf. Her car was parked so close that he could see her purse her lips to check her makeup.

The rush of heat descending from his brain to his gut astounded him. Johnny knew plenty of attractive women—there were a dozen he could call right now if he was in need of female companionship that merely seeing a woman put on lipstick did such interesting things to his lower half. This one, though…well, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Somewhere in the near distance he heard, “Gotta clean my top, Mama. It’s my fave-o-rite!” He recognized the increasingly desperate sounding Deveaux kid. But he couldn’t truly focus on anything except the stranger.

She wore a flouncy-looking white blouse that hung just at the edge of her shoulders. Noting the expanse of bare skin on her neck and chest, he swallowed another wolf whistle. She had to be a northerner. Women from around here wouldn’t dream of exposing so much pale flesh to the hot afternoon sun, particularly while riding around in a convertible.

Plus, of course, not one woman in Joyful had that outrageous platinum-blond hairdo or those cat’s-eye sunglasses.

When she stepped out of the car, he nearly echoed old Tom’s groan of appreciation. “She’s got some legs,” the old man said.

A favorite old ZZ Top song started playing in his mind. Because he’d bet the blonde knew how to use them.

She paused beside the car, and somehow managed to avoid tipping over in the strappy high-heeled sandals that barely covered her feet. A sudden flash of gold told him she was wearing a flirty ankle bracelet. Johnny took a deep breath. He’d had a thing for ankle bracelets ever since he’d first seen one on his brother’s teenage girlfriend, years ago.

The woman’s legs went from the ground clear up to heaven, and were shown off not only by the heels but also by the short, flimsy pink miniskirt she wore. It wisped around her thighs. With a strong gust of wind, it might well have flown even higher.

“Wind’s died down. Too bad,” old Tom muttered with a wheezy, heartfelt sigh, audible from several feet away. Johnny, who’d been thinking much the same thing, couldn’t say a word.

When she turned and bent over the closed door, reaching through the open convertible roof for her purse, Johnny held his breath, along with everyone else in the place. She apparently wasn’t a complete exhibitionist, though. She kept the flat of her hand against the skirt, just below the curve of her backside, to keep from showing the world whether or not her favorite color extended to her underclothes.

Having retrieved her bag, she turned and walked toward the sidewalk. Johnny noticed her wobbling a bit on her heels and wondered if she was going to trip on the curb. No one else appeared to notice the moment of unsteadiness. But he knew he was right when he saw her cast a quick guilty look side to side, as if to see if anyone had observed her narrowly avoided fall. For some reason a smile crossed his lips at that one tiny chink in her filmy pink armor.

“Don’t stand here gawkin,” one of the cashiers said as the blonde reached the store entrance.

With a flurry of motion, a dozen pair of hands found something meaningless to do. Shaken out of his daze by the moment of uncertainty displayed by the bombshell…er, porn star…or whatever she was, Johnny walked toward the checkout counter, still carrying his spaghetti sauce. He swallowed a laugh as he watched Tom nervously grab for something, and then blanch when he realized he held a box of tampons. The man dropped the box to the floor, kicking it under the nearest shelf where it would probably remain until next Christmas when the aisles were rearranged for the holiday goods. Some lucky lady would find a dusty box of feminine products in the half-off basket come New Year’s.

He’d just stepped past Claire, who didn’t even notice him to nod hello, when he heard the young mother shriek. “Oh, no, Evie, what did you do? I have to wash it in the washing machine!” The woman swooped the child up and carried her toward the back of the store, beelining for the bathroom.

Johnny didn’t even have time to wonder what had happened before the stranger from the convertible entered the Joyful Grocery Store. She almost barreled right into him.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, and her voice startled him. He’d expected breathy, sultry or honey-sweet tones. Hers sounded controlled, clipped, evenly modulated, with maybe even a hint of a British accent.

“No harm no foul,” Johnny replied with a shrug.

For some reason, the woman sucked in a sudden gasp of air and jerked away from him. Though she still hadn’t removed her ridiculous glasses, Johnny peered at her, trying to see why she seemed so startled. He couldn’t see her eyes, but did notice that the nose on which her glasses rested was lightly dusted with freckles. Aside from the bright pink lipstick, her face was bare of makeup, and a few more freckles dotted the high cheekbones. Not exactly how he’d picture a porn star. Then again, he’d never met one up close. So maybe freckles weren’t so unusual, even if they were damn near adorable.

“You…you…” she said.

Johnny had to wonder about that. A freckled porn star who stuttered?

She wobbled again on her heels, and Johnny instinctively reached out to steady her. He grabbed for her arm but connected with her shoulder instead. The loose cottony fabric of her blouse slid beneath his hand until his palm touched her bare skin. She was soft, pale against his dark fingers.

This time he was the one who pulled back, or, rather, he thought he did. His brain reacted, sent the message, but he had to wonder if his hand had become disconnected somehow, because his fingers were still there. On her. Sliding across the soft flesh of her nape to brush across her collarbone.

Hearing a bark of laughter, Johnny realized every set of eyes in the store was fixed on them. His hand finally remembered who was boss and obeyed his brain’s command to let her go. He took a step back, seeing the faint pink outline his touch had left on her skin, then let his gaze travel down the rest of her.

The first thing he noticed was that she was not built like a brick…well, she wasn’t stacked. He hadn’t seen many porn flicks in his life—never needed to, if truth be told—but one thing he remembered: the females starring in them appeared to be a plastic surgeon’s best friend. Not this one.

While average height, her ridiculously high heels put her at just a few inches shorter than he was. Not hippy. She was nicely curved—had some particularly fine northern curves—but was certainly nowhere near as well-endowed as he’d expect from an X-rated movie queen. So she definitely wasn’t the downright bovine creature pictured on the billboard.

But the legs. Oh, boy, the legs and that thin little strip of gold dangling above her left ankle nearly had him gasping for breath. This woman could probably have any man she wanted at her high-heel clad feet.

“Have a foot fetish?”

A rueful grin spread across his lips as he raised his eyes to meet hers, which were still hidden behind the glasses. Her enigmatic, close-lipped smile told him he’d been caught staring.

“Something like that.” When she made no move to remove her sunglasses, he leaned closer. “What about you? Doing the Jack Nicholson thing?”

She looked confused.

“Traveling incognito?” he asked, gesturing toward her sunglasses.

She shrugged. “Is it working? Am I blending right in?”

He choked out a laugh. “Yeah. Like an ant in a sugar bowl.”

“Are you saying I’m sweet, or are you comparing me to an insect?”

“Oh, I’m certain you’re sweet, darlin’. I doubt this town has seen so much cotton-candy sweetness in one package in a very long time.” He waited for her response, wondering why he enjoyed baiting a complete stranger.

“Do you like cotton candy?”

“Love it,” he replied, narrowing his eyes and shooting her a dangerous look he hadn’t used on too many women recently. “Melts on the tongue and tastes so good.”

She swallowed. Once. Then leveled her gaze on him from behind the dark lenses. “Liar.”

“Am I?”

“Cotton candy makes you throw up and you know it.”

Her voice held a note of certainty and Johnny suddenly realized she wasn’t flirting. She was speaking fact. This time, when his eyes narrowed, it wasn’t flirtatiously, but in concentration. “How do you know that?”

“Same way I know about your appreciation for nice legs.”

He didn’t say a word.

“Not to mention your thing for ankle bracelets.”

This time it was Johnny who nearly gasped. Who the hell is she? He felt like he should know. There was something familiar, something that was nagging at him about her voice. He couldn’t really know her, could he?

“Lucky guesses,” he said, testing her.

She shook her head. “Nope.”

She lifted her hand and raised one index finger, straight up, then crooked it at him, beckoning him closer. Johnny couldn’t resist. Sliding one foot forward, he leaned as near to her as he could get without actually touching her. He nearly felt everyone else in the store shifting forward, too, but ignored them.

“How do you know?” he asked when he was close enough that the tip of his shoes came within a hairsbreadth of her bare toes. Her deep, even breaths reached his cheek.

She leaned up, almost on tiptoes, and Johnny bent closer. Her perfume, light and flowery, wafted from her warm, creamy skin. It called out to him, something in his brain recognizing the scent and making his whole body grow tense and aware, before his brain could analyze why.

His lips were mere inches from her temple, and he focused hard, trying to figure out the strange feeling of anticipation gripping him.

Then she whispered, “Because you told me. Right before you stole my favorite gold butterfly ankle bracelet right off my ankle.”

And suddenly he knew. Even before she stepped back and pushed her silly sunglasses onto the top of her head with the tip of her index finger, revealing her golden-brown eyes, he knew.

“Emma Jean.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE WORLD certainly kept spinning, and the clock probably kept ticking and the sun likely kept shining and the town of Joyful definitely kept whispering. But right here, right now, for Johnny Walker, time stopped. A decade disappeared. Ten years fell away. And he looked into a set of eyes he’d never thought to see again, though he’d seen them in his brain nearly every day since.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Hello to you, too, Johnny,” she said with a tight smile.

He didn’t return the greeting. “So,” he murmured, knowing she’d be able to hear the edge in his voice. “Emma Jean Frasier has done what she swore she’d never do—return to the pits of hell disguised as the hills of Georgia.”

“And what do I find, but the devil waiting here to greet me,” she said, her expression not nearly as jaunty as her tone.

He tsked. “Still sassy.”

She cast a disparaging glance at the spaghetti sauce can in his hand. “And you’re still a big spender. Don’t tell me—you have a hot date tonight? My, you always did entertain with style.”

He instantly remembered their one date. As her eyes shifted away from him, he knew she was kicking herself for bringing up such a loaded subject.

“Guess I should hurry right out to that field over by the Nelson place to pick a bouquet of wildflowers.”

Her quickly indrawn breath told him his jab had hit home. And suddenly, seeing a flash of hurt in her eyes, he regretted the comment. Coming back to Joyful couldn’t have been easy for Emma Jean. Not with the way she’d left. Correction…the way she’d run away.

The thought helped him thrust off the moment of remorse.

“I have to go,” she insisted, trying to push past him. The brush of her arm against his sent a jolt of hot awareness rushing through him again. As they froze, face-to-face, breath to breath, he mentally tripped again into the world of Emma Jean Frasier’s sweet, caramel-eyed stare. Without warning, his senses went on overload, filled with a sudden, quick stream of memories.

Hot summer days when it almost hurt to draw the thick air into his lungs—particularly as he watched her walk down the road in her tight shorts and tighter tops. The way the sunshine caught the sparkle of gold in her long, honey-colored hair every time she walked by.

And that one incredible night. The cicadas taking up a nighttime chorus as they sat and talked for hours. The moisture of her tears against his neck as he’d held her in his lap while she’d cried over his no-good idiot of a brother. Then the return of her good mood, the way he’d teased her into giving him one of those joyous, dimpled smiles that had stopped his teenage heart.

He almost heard the soft strains of Garth Brooks from his truck radio as they danced in the moonlight. Almost smelled the scent of her hair—lemons and tangerines, sweet and tangy, just like Emma Jean had always been. Almost tasted the sugary, slick taste of her strawberry lip gloss.

His brain tripped one step farther, into truly dangerous territory. Right here and now, in the brightly lit store surrounded by people, he heard the echo of the forbidden, sultry whoosh her satiny dress had made as it fell to the ground. And the way she’d whispered his name over and over again when he’d been buried deep inside her body, certain he’d died and landed straight in the arms of an angel.

“Johnny?”

He flinched as she spoke, losing his grip on the can of sauce in the process. They both looked toward the floor at the sound of the loud clunk. Watching the spaghetti sauce roll away, Emma stepped to the side to avoid getting her toes crunched. Johnny took the moment to get a major grip on himself.

By the time Emma looked up again, he felt much more in control. He’d thrust the mirage of memories back to the depths of his subconscious where they belonged, along with all those other stupid, dangerous teenage memories—like hot-wiring cars, putting firecrackers in mailboxes and making out with girls underneath the bleachers after cutting class. Kid stuff. Just like his feelings for Emma Jean Frasier.

If he told himself that often enough, he might actually start to believe it was true.

“Seeya, Emma Jean,” he managed to mutter, pretty damn sure he sounded almost normal. Almost sane. Almost not crazy with wanting to reach out and either pull her into his arms and kiss the hell out of her, or shake her for leaving. And for coming back. At this moment, he couldn’t say which angered him more.

She nodded and stepped away, gingerly avoiding the sauce he’d dropped. Unfortunately, however, stepping over one can didn’t help Emma save her own. Because two seconds after she moved, she slipped on something, causing her feet to fly out from under her.

Then she hit the floor, falling on her butt like a big old sack of rocks.

IF SOMEONE had told her that within her first several minutes in Joyful she’d be lying flat on the floor, with her legs askew and Johnny Walker crouched between them, Emma would have laughed in that person’s face. Particularly if also told that half the slack-jawed, gaping town would be looking on.

What’d they call this? Déjà vu all over again? Because this was, pretty much, the same position she’d been in on her last night in this town, ten years ago.

Fate, she decided, was a mean-spirited bitch with a really long memory and a twisted sense of humor.

“Em, are you all right?” Johnny asked from where he’d hunkered down between her ankles to see if she was okay.

“No, I’m not all right,” she managed to bite out.

She’d slipped in some unseen puddle on the floor, paying such close attention to avoiding the can—and the man who’d dropped it—that she hadn’t even seen the other danger. Now her ankle and foot felt like they’d been twisted into a pretzel shape. For that matter, so did her stomach.

Not to mention her heart.

She scrunched her eyes shut, waiting for the initial rush of pain to subside. Maybe then she could deal with the fact that the first familiar person she’d seen in Joyful was the one she’d hoped to avoid altogether. And that he looked so damned good.

Johnny as a teenager had been heartthrob material. Pure wicked, honey-tongued, hunk-a-licious male. The baddest of the bad boys. The motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smoking, heartbreaking guy who’d been featured in every teen movie ever made and in every good girl’s most secret fantasies.

Time hadn’t been kind enough to tug frown lines on his lean, handsome face, put circles beneath his stunning blue eyes or gray streaks in his thick, walnut-brown hair. Gravity hadn’t sucked down that flat, muscle-striped chest and stomach. He definitely didn’t have the poochy belly and man boobs she’d occasionally—when in a vengeful mood—wished on him. He wasn’t saggy, pasty and pale. Devil take the man.

No, Johnny Walker was nothing like she’d sometimes hoped he’d be. Of course, the other times, she’d been vacillating between wanting him maimed, dead or imprisoned.

Liar. What she’d really wanted was him pining.

But, huh-uh, just her luck, he looked better than he had ten years ago. Bigger. Harder. Fully masculine in his adult body, with little remaining of the whipcord-lean youth she’d known. Definitely he had not wasted away having spent the past decade mourning the loss of the best thing he’d ever had. Her.

Nope, he was all hunky, smiling, flirty man. The jeans and leather jacket might be gone, as were the chains and silver stud earring he used to wear. But the “Yeah, I really can deliver what my eyes are promising” look was all, one hundred percent Johnny.

“Let me help you,” he insisted. “Hell, Emma Jean, I didn’t imagine you’d drop away in shock at the sight of me.”

She narrowed her eyes.

“Because I have to admit, seeing you was a definite surprise, but I don’t think I’d go swooning over it.”

His surprise certainly couldn’t match hers. She’d been so sure Johnny would be long gone. Instead, here he was, crouched between her calves, trying to ease her foot out of her sandal, as if they’d seen each other in the flesh every day for the past decade…instead of only in each other’s nightmares.

“I didn’t swoon,” she muttered. “I slipped in something.”

He just shrugged, continuing to try to unbuckle her shoe.

Emma took a moment to remember the look on his face when he’d first recognized her. She had to admit it—that expression had almost made the subsequent pain of twisting her ankle worthwhile. Surprise didn’t cut it. He’d been shocked. Stunned. And for one quick, nearly unseen instant, he’d been very, very glad.

Emma didn’t care so much about the shock. The glad, however, had almost been worth the sixteen-hour car ride which had ended with her falling on her fanny with her legs askew and the hottest guy she’d ever known in her life crouched between them. In front of the gawking shoppers in the Joyful Grocery Store, no less.

Who were all still gawking.

She sighed. Quite an entrance after ten years away. She supposed it was a vain hope to think no one here would remember her being caught in pretty much this same position on prom night.

Oh, well, at least she wasn’t stark naked this time.

As she ruthlessly shoved the hint of pleasure that Johnny was glad to see her out of her brain, she acknowledged the other parts of her body that were also sparking in reaction. My, oh my, those hard, lean hips of his were between her legs and she was looking at his thick, dark head of hair, remembering tangling her fingers in it. Suddenly she was feeling damp—down low—and it had nothing to do with whatever spilled liquid she’d fallen in.

Closing her eyes, Emma took a deep breath, trying to work up the courage to deal with her current predicament. Hmm…she was flat on her butt in public, lusting for a guy she should hate, wishing her panties weren’t so tight and her skirt wasn’t so short and her sex life hadn’t been so miserable lately that her own body would betray her in spite of the pain in her ankle. And in her heart.

Today was going onto her top ten list of bad days.

“I’m sorry, Emma Jean, your foot’s already swelling.”

Sorry for causing her to slip on some unseen wet spot? Or for breaking her heart? Not that she’d give him the satisfaction of voicing that question. No, Johnny Walker had no idea he’d broken her heart…because he’d never known it was his to break.

“Nobody calls me Emma Jean anymore,” she said, wincing as he gingerly touched her heel with the tip of his finger.

He visibly stiffened and met her stare, his deep blue eyes still incredibly dramatic against the dark brown hair. “Do you go by another name? A screen name?”

Not sure why on earth he’d care about her Internet name, she frowned and leaned over to gingerly unbuckle her sandal. “I mean, I go by just Emma now.”

“As in just Cher? Or Madonna?” he asked, his voice thick with something she couldn’t identify. She put it down to embarrassment—he couldn’t be feeling any better about the situation in which they’d suddenly found themselves than she did, particularly with the wide-eyed onlookers all around them.

“No,” she explained her patience growing thinner as her embarrassment increased. “As in just Emma Frasier. No Jean. Now, if we’ve straightened out my name to your satisfaction, would you mind leaving me alone so I can stagger to the nearest emergency room for X-rays and a cast?”

He muttered under his breath and she’d swear she caught the word “sassy” again. “I’ll take you over to the clinic,” he finally said when he saw her staring at him.

“Forget it,” she muttered. “I can get up.” She glanced around the floor. “What did I slip in?”

They both spotted a big, smeary blue puddle of sticky goo at the same instant. “Did two Smurfs battle to the death in here or something?” she said with a disbelieving groan.

Johnny tsked. “Laundry detergent. Or fabric softener. I think a little girl was trying to get some spilled juice out of her clothes.”

“Great. Welcome home, Emma, enjoy your fall,” she said.

He shrugged. “You always did know how to make an entrance.” Then his eyes narrowed. “And an exit.”

She shot him a glare, not appreciating his humor—nor his reminder of the last time they’d been together—one teeny bit.

“You’re sure it was a little girl? Maybe it was you who had to suddenly clean up his clothes…though I never figured you for a man who’d wet his pants at having to look me in the eye again.”

The insult skimmed right off his gorgeous hide. “Aww, honey, I hate to disappoint you, but you didn’t have me shaking in my shoes.” He lowered his voice. “Or needing to get out of my pants in a hurry.” His grin was positively evil. “For a change.”

Zing. Another dangerous recollection. Johnny sure hadn’t needed much urging to get out of his pants the last time they’d been together. The dog.

Before she could give into her first impulse, which was to laugh in spite of herself, or her second, which was to smack him, he continued. “It was the Deveaux kid. I don’t think she’s quite mastered the whole sippie cup thing yet.”

“So then what?” Emma asked, raising her voice and looking around the store. “Was there a run on mops or something today? Blue light special on paper towels?”

The two young cashiers, as blatantly nosy and fascinated as their customers, exchanged a look. She read it easily. Both silently ordered the other to take care of the mess. Then they each refused. She could almost predict how this one was going to end—with a game of rock, paper, scissors, loser gets the floor duty. In Joyful, some things never changed.

“Doggone, I sure wish I had a camera to get a picture for the paper,” the old man said with a snort. “I can see the headline. Star slips…”

“Enough, Tom,” Johnny muttered, giving him a warning look.

Star? Before she could even ask what on earth the old-as-dirt guy was talking about, one of the cashiers reached around her register and grabbed a disposable camera.

That was enough for Emma. Without another word, she yanked two fistfuls of Johnny’s shirt between her fingers. Using his shoulders for leverage, she pushed herself up into a half-standing, half-leaning position. She ignored the sudden rush of heat in her belly. It was almost certainly caused by embarrassment and not the warmth of his exhaled breaths against her stomach as she leaned over him.

Not his breaths. Not his lips. Not his mouth.

Definitely not.

Another giggle from the crowd made her straighten her back. Her ankle screamed in protest, but she turned and hobbled toward the door, anyway. She just couldn’t do this right now. Not after the night she’d had. Not after the month she’d had!

Emma had no problem laughing at herself when she deserved it. But this was too much. She was stressed, jobless, exhausted from driving. Oh, yeah, and penniless. Then, she’d come face-to-face with the guy who’d stolen her virginity and broken her heart.

And finally, the cherry on this particular hot-fudge sundae of her life, she ended up flat on her butt next to a big puddle of sticky blue goo in front of half the town.

Dammit, some days it didn’t pay to get out of bed. Then she remembered: she hadn’t been able to afford springing for a cheap hotel room along I-95 last night. So she’d actually been out of bed for more than twenty-four hours.

No wonder she was on the verge of tears. Not because of pain or humiliation. Not even because of the ache in her heart, and the other one between her legs at seeing Johnny Walker again. It was merely fatigue making her eyes sting and her lids flutter to keep any suspicious moisture from flowing down her cheeks.

This didn’t go into the top ten worst days, it was in the top five.

She was almost to the door when she realized Johnny had followed. He stepped around her, blocking her exit. “Where do you think you’re going? You can barely walk.”

“Away. From. Here.” She punctuated each word with a harshly snarled breath.

“Running away. Your M.O, isn’t it? You get embarrassed and hit the road.” He shook his head in disgust. “Typical Emma Jean Frasier.”

She clenched her back teeth so hard her jaw hurt. But she’d already given the town gossips quite enough to chew over tonight on the gossip lines, thank-you-very-much. She was not about to get into a screaming tizzy of an argument with Johnny over who’d run out on whom. “Please leave me alone.”

She tried to walk around him, finally giving up on the stupid shoe, which made the ache in her ankle even worse. She bent over and yanked it off, letting it dangle by the strap from the tip of her finger. Then she marched toward the door, with her head held high. Or, at least as high as it could be, considering she descended a good three inches each time she went from her good foot—still in the high-heeled sandal—to the bad one, which was completely bare. The bad one also made her cringe with pain every time she put her weight on it.

Johnny, however, wasn’t going to let her make her grand exit. Emma could barely suck in a shocked breath when she felt him scoop her up from behind. “Stubborn woman.”

He held her easily, bracing her behind the shoulders and beneath the knees. She might have been a stuffed doll for all the effort it took him. Emma had just enough time to clutch at her dangling shoe before it fell out of her fingers as the grocery store door opened before them with a swish, letting in a thick blast of stale summer air.

Before they could exit, however, a titter and a few whispers reached her ears. Emma groaned. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d fallen, but now she was being swept out of here like some romance heroine…by the guy who’d given her her first adult taste of heartbreak as a teenager.

She leaned close to his ear to avoid being overheard. Forcing her nose to stop working so she wouldn’t smell the familiar earthy scent of his skin, and her eyes to stop noticing the cute way his hair still curled behind his ear, she whispered, “Put me down right now or I swear I’ll kick you.”

He raised an amused brow. “With a broken foot?”

“My other foot’s not broken.”

“It will be if you kick me. Those shoes of yours are pretty useless, aren’t they?”

“Johnny, please don’t do this.”

“I already did. Now shut up, Emma Jean, and let’s get you X-rayed.”

Over his shoulder, she saw a cluster of shoppers inching closer. They made no bones about trying to hear every word she and Johnny exchanged. Surely nothing this exciting had happened in Joyful since, oh, say, ten years ago. That would have been the night this bastard had seduced her in public, then roared away, leaving her to explain to a bunch of gawking onlookers while trying to fasten two-dozen tiny, silk-covered buttons up the back of her pink prom dress.

Before they could escape the store altogether, however, a female voice said, “Hey, Johnny, what about your sauce?”

Emma glanced at the cashier who’d spoken, a young woman with teased up bright red hair and a serious case of acne. The woman watched them with eyes as big as dinner plates, and a definite pout on her heavily glossed lips.

“I’ll be back for it,” Johnny informed her.

“You have to buy it. You bent it all up when you dropped it,” the belligerent cashier exclaimed.

“Yeah, and your date’s gonna be real disappointed if you don’t make her a gourmet meal,” Emma muttered.

The woman’s voice rose in pitch. “My boss’ll make me pay for it if you don’t.”

Right. As if her boss wouldn’t have heard the whole sordid story within six-point-five minutes on the infamous Joyful grapevine. Every person in the store was practically shifting on their feet, itching for Johnny and Emma to get gone so they could spread the news to the four corners of the Joyful kingdom.

Emma tried to wriggle out of Johnny’s arms. “Go pay for your sauce and I’ll go out and get back in my car. I can drive myself to the clinic.” Then, giving him a slightly malicious smile, she whispered, “You damaged the can. I wouldn’t want you to get falsely accused of vandalism…again.”

Direct hit. His eyes widened at the insult, and his lips thinned. He obviously remembered when he’d told her about being accused of vandalizing the town fountain as a kid. Another memory from prom night—during their hours of talking, he’d told her what it was like growing up a member of the trashiest family in town.

Not too unlike what it had meant growing up a rich kid in boarding school.

Lonely.

“Damn, you got bitchy while you were away, didn’t you?”

The camera-hungry old man, whose pants were hitched up almost to his nipples, snorted with laughter. Yes, he probably approved of the caveman tactics. Emma shot him a glare and he quickly turned away, pretending to carefully examine a sign advertising a weekly special on toilet paper.

Over near a breakfast display, a harried-looking mother shoved a box of marshmallows and sugar masquerading as breakfast cereal into her toddler’s hands to get him to stop crying. Heaven forbid she miss a word of Emma and Johnny’s confrontation.

“And you got hard of hearing,” Emma finally retorted, making no effort to keep her voice down. She didn’t much care if everyone in the store heard and took notes. “I said put me down.”

“Uh, okay, that’d be a big no.”

Without another word to anyone, he strode out the automatic door, still holding her securely in his arms. Emma watched over his shoulder as the cashier, her co-worker and every shopper in the place rushed to the front window. They might as well have pressed their noses against the glass for a better look.

He didn’t even pause as he passed by her convertible. When he reached a black SUV, he lowered her to the ground, effectively trapping her against the car with his long, firm body. Another flood of memories invaded her brain. She remembered what it had been like to dance with him, both vertically at the prom, and later, horizontally under the misty, moonlit sky.

“Don’t you understand the meaning of the word ‘no’?” she asked, wondering why she sounded so darned weak all of a sudden. “Or has it been so long since a woman said it to you that you’ve simply forgotten what it sounds like?”

He raised a brow. “Jealous?”

“Oh, puh-lease.”

“Emma, answer me one question. That little car you squealed in here on. Manual or automatic?”

Flustered by the change of subject, not to mention his, umh…closeness…she admitted, “Manual.”

He nodded, unsurprised. “Of course. You would never buy a car you couldn’t drive like a screaming bat out of hell. Your poor gears are probably already ground down to nothing.”

She couldn’t deny it. An automatic transmission had seemed almost sacrilege in an eight-cylinder car meant to go from zero to ninety in the length of time it took to touch up her lipstick in the rearview mirror.

“Which ankle did you twist?”

She followed his pointed stare toward her left foot, already looking swollen and tender. Then she knew where he was heading. The clutch would be a killer. “Oh.”

“Right.”

He opened the door, and lifted her, putting her in the passenger seat.

“My car…”

“Will be fine here,” he insisted.

His tone allowed for no more arguing. It was time to admit the truth. To her eternal mortification, she really did have to accept the help of the one man on earth she’d hoped never to see again.

Correction. This day was going to her top three list of bad days. Maybe even top two.

“All right,” she finally conceded, hearing the dismay she couldn’t keep from her voice. “Let’s go.”

DANEEN BRADY WALKER buttoned her blouse and smoothed her skirt in the tiny bathroom off the reception area of Boyd Realty, wishing yet again that they had a shower on hand. Paper towel cleanups just didn’t cut it after quickies on the boss’s desk.

“You swore there’d be no more quickies,” she told her reflection, angry at her lack of willpower when it came to Jimbo Boyd, her full-time boss and her often-times lover.

He’d had her in the palm of his hand for years. Whenever she tried to back away, knowing he’d never give her what she wanted—a real commitment—he always managed to seduce her back into their long-standing affair. This latest time, she’d managed to resist for a month. Long enough to start looking beyond him, beyond the fruitless dreams of him leaving his wife for her. She’d begun thinking she could live without him, though he’d been a major presence in her life since she’d been young and dumb, wowed by the attention of a handsome, much-older man.

He was still handsome and she was still dumb, as evidenced by today’s naked wrestling session on his desk.

He’d sounded so unhappy last night, that’s what had done her in. He’d called her at home, telling her how terrible his life was without her. That she believed. Jimbo was the most put-upon man she’d ever known, controlled by his rich wife. The mayor would never admit it, but Joyful knew exactly who was in charge, at work, at home and at city hall. First Lady Hannah Boyd.

Jimbo might cheat on her, but he wouldn’t leave Hannah. Daneen had thought the realization would give her the strength to stand firm when he started begging her to come back to him.

Uhh…wrong.

“Idiot,” she called herself, then left the powder room.

She’d known this morning that Jimbo would lay on the charm today, wanting an after-hours dick—yuck, yuck, hardy-har-har, emphasis on the dick—tation session. Nope, no surprise there. Not after last night’s teary phone call, and the loud argument Jimbo’d had with Hannah this morning. Fighting with Hannah always made Jimbo want to have sex…with someone else. Not that Hannah suspected that Daneen was the someone else these days.

Since it was after five-thirty, she began to gather her things to leave. Maybe she’d beat Johnny to the house and he’d never hear her phone message. She’d told him she was working late and he should heat up some leftovers in the microwave for supper.

Grabbing her purse and keys, Daneen knocked lightly on the closed door of Jimbo’s office. When she didn’t receive an answer, she pushed it open and saw him at his desk, talking on the phone.

“I told you it wouldn’t matter,” he said. “The paperwork is perfect. There’s nothing she can do.”

She waited, wondering who he’d called, knowing the phone hadn’t rung. Five minutes ago, they’d been panting and naked on his desk. He must’ve reached for the handset before he’d zipped up his fly. Well, didn’t that make her feel special.

“The tracks are covered. Nobody can do a thing. Do you think I don’t know this town? Stop worrying.”

“Jimbo?” she whispered.

He looked up and saw her standing there, then impatiently waved her out with his hand, not saying a word. Daneen stiffened, hot moisture rising in her eyes, to her absolute mortification.

God, it killed her that she loved the son of a bitch. At least, she usually loved him…on the days she didn’t hate his faithless guts.

Backing out of the office, she blinked rapidly, righteous anger drying her tears. She turned on her heel and walked to the exit, prepared to give the door a good slam as she left. But as she reached it, she saw someone standing outside.

“Came to get paid,” Cora Dillon said as soon as Daneen unlocked the front door, which Jimbo had locked shortly before their five-minute interlude in his office. The woman tried to push inside. “I did some cleaning for Mr. Boyd today.”

Cora, one of Daneen’s late mother’s friends, was known far and wide as the nosiest busybody north of Atlanta. She’d just love to come inside and catch a hint of scandal, perhaps something as damning as Daneen’s lipstick on Jimbo’s chin. Not to mention the unmistakable aroma of illicit sex.

“Sorry, we’re closed.” Daneen stepped out and tried to pull the door shut behind her. “You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

The steely-eyed old bat had the gall to stick her foot in the door and shoulder it back open. “Mister Boyd said I could get my money today. I know he’s here, so I’ll wait inside for him.”

Daneen gritted her teeth, wishing she’d left earlier, or at least sprayed down Jimbo’s office with some air freshener. Busybodies had the noses of bloodhounds. Since their eyes were almost as deadly keen, she didn’t even dare to glance down at her blouse to make sure she hadn’t missed a button.

That’d be the last thing she needed—for her father—or worse, Johnny, to hear rumors about her and Jimbo. He’d be devastated. Humiliated. And Daneen would die before hurting him.

“You’re wasting your time,” she said to Cora, trying to sound unconcerned. “It’ll be a very long wait. He’s been in on that phone all afternoon, I barely got a minute with him today.”

God, it was hard to stay steady and meet the other woman’s eyes. She did it, though, because Cora Dillon collected gossip the way some old ladies collected ceramic pigs or antique dolls: with single-minded precision.

Daneen didn’t want anyone to know about her secret affair with Jimbo. Not Hannah Boyd. Not Cora Dillon.

And especially not Johnny.

CHAPTER THREE

TRYING TO ESCAPE the view of the onlookers still pressed against the front window of the Joyful Grocery Store, Emma sank into the passenger seat of Johnny’s SUV. Through half-lowered lashes, she watched him go around to get into the driver’s side.

Of all people in the world she hated to be indebted to, it was Johnny Walker. Well, him, and the bank that held her car loan. She’d have to figure out how to pay them after she figured out how she was going to buy her next meal.

But right up there in a close tie was Johnny Walker, the man she’d never been able to forget. Or forgive.

Getting in on the other side, he jerked the door closed, his every movement taut and tense. He obviously disliked the situation as much as she did. His jaw remained stiff as he yanked his seat belt across his lap and fastened it.

She watched, her eyes going where they had no business going before she managed to scrunch them shut. Johnny’s lap was no man’s land. No woman’s land, at least. Not this woman, anyway.

Probably plenty of others, though. She imagined with his looks and smile and those wicked blue eyes he’d probably had a lot of women in his lap over the years. “Bastard.”

He turned his head and quirked a brow. “Excuse me?”

“Hurts like a bastard,” she mumbled.

He stared, practically daring her not to blink at the lie. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. And she didn’t. Not even when her eyes began to feel like they were full of sawdust.

When he finally looked away to start up the car, she almost cried with relief. She did not want him to know she had any feelings for him one way or the other. Sadness would tell him how much he’d once hurt her. Anger implied he meant something to her.

Complete indifference was definitely the best way to go.

“’Cause, you know, I felt pretty sure you couldn’t be talking to me,” he said as he backed out of the parking space. “The guy who just carried your ass out of not only a painful situation but a damned embarrassing one.”

“Which wasn’t entirely my fault.”

“Wasn’t mine, either,” he countered. “In case, you know, you were, uh, cursing more than the pain in your ankle.”

Darn. She hadn’t fooled him at all with the brief staring contest. He was still too intuitive for her own good.

But he was also correct. “You’re right,” she admitted, the words dragged out of her throat almost against her own will. “Thank you. That wasn’t quite the way I’d expected to renew my acquaintance with the residents of Joyful.”

“How’d you expect to do that?” he asked with a frown. “On a stage wearing nothing but a big smile?”

She sucked in a shocked breath, then barked out a laugh. “Good grief, hasn’t this town seen me naked enough?”

This time, she surprised a laugh right back out of him. He glanced over at her, good humor making those irresistible dimples of his deepen in his lean cheeks. “Is that a trick question?”

She raised a brow.

“Is there such a thing as seeing enough of a naked woman?”

Deadpan, she replied, “I suppose it depends on the woman. Are we talking Lady Godiva naked here? Or the old lady from the Shoebox greeting cards naked?”

“How about porn star naked?” he asked, his eyes narrowing.

Then she snorted. Porn star, indeed. “Is that how you’re getting your kicks these days? Was the can of spaghetti sauce you dropped really supposed to be a dinner for two—you—and a two-dimensional date on your big-screen TV?”

He chuckled again, shaking his head. Johnny always could get her to say the most outrageous things, when other people generally thought of her as the sweetest spoken, most ladylike girl around. Once upon a time she’d liked him for that.

With Johnny, she hadn’t had to be an angel. And lordy had he tempted her to be a devil. On one night in particular.

“You haven’t changed much,” he finally said.

“You have.”

“You’re still a smart-ass.”

“You’re still a bossy, arrogant so-and-so.”

He snorted. “You obviously still know how to be the center of attention.”

“You obviously still have a hero complex,” she responded.

They fell silent for a moment, then, she heard him say one more thing. “I’ve thought about you.”

The absurd fluttering his softly spoken words caused in her stomach made her retort airily, “I haven’t spared you one minute.”

That shut him up. And officially upped her time in purgatory for lying. Big huge fat liar, that was Emma Jean’s new title.

But it served its purpose and was worth a few more years of penance. Because it got him to quit being cute and teasing and playful and sexier than any man had a right to be.

Johnny angry she could handle. Johnny flirtatious and cute she definitely could not. No sane, reasonable, breathing woman could. It was bad enough that she was half-crippled and helpless, she hated to be emotionally helpless on top of it. As emotionally helpless as only Johnny Walker had ever been able to make her.

Helplessness had never agreed with her, emotionally or physically. Nor, she realized as she thought about him taking her to a clinic with pricey X-rays, had poverty. An Ace bandage from the clinic would probably cost more than a bag of groceries. And right now, a little pain seemed preferable to starvation.

Having sprained her ankle enough as a kid, she recognized the symptoms. All she needed was a good soak, a strong bandage—which her grandmother had always kept on hand—and some aspirin. Or a belt of something strong to numb the pain in her ankle and the confusion in her brain.

She doubted her grandmother had ever stocked anything strong enough to numb the abject humiliation of the scene in the store.

“I don’t need to go to the clinic,” she said.

He just shook his head. “Don’t start that again.”

Knowing he probably figured she was arguing for argument’s sake, Emma turned in her seat. She placed her hand on his arm, just below the rolled up sleeve of his dress shirt, to try to convince him she was serious. Bad move. Waaaaay bad. It was impossible to ignore the sudden blast of heat shooting through her fingertips at the feel of his smooth skin against hers. General Electric could have learned something about stoves from this guy’s skin.

Hot. Fevered. Powerful.

She gulped away the momentary insanity. “I mean it,” she finally said when she felt capable of speech. “I’ve sprained and twisted my ankle enough times to know what it feels like. This one’s not bad.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded thin and unconvincing. Not surprising. She could barely focus on anything but the knowledge that she was really here, breathing the same air, actually touching him after all these years.

Though behind the wheel, he seemed unable to tear his gaze away from her hand, starkly pale against his own deeply tanned skin. She finally pulled it away, wondering why her fingertips still tingled even after she’d clenched her fists in her lap.

Then, noting where her fists had landed, she jerked her hands lower toward the knee part of her lap. Away from the, umh…upper thigh part. That territory was too alert already. It had been ever since she’d seen him in the grocery store.

Emma, you are one pathetic, sex-starved woman.

Yeah. She definitely was. Which was why she needed to get away from the six-foot tall walking pile of solid sin.

“My grandmother had a well-stocked medicine cabinet at the house,” she mumbled, knowing the house wasn’t too far away. “I can bandage it myself. I’ve had lots of experience. Can you just give me a ride to her place?”

He cleared his throat, gave one nod and turned at the next corner. They rode in silence for a few moments, but finally, as they pulled out onto Main Street, Johnny glanced at her again. “I’m sorry about your grandma. She’s sorely missed. Most of the town turned up at her funeral.”

She heard an unspoken question in his voice. “I was in the hospital after a car accident.”

He cast her a quick look that might have been concern but was more likely curiosity.

“I’m fine now,” she quickly explained. “But I was laid up for a few weeks.” She glanced out the window, unable to hide the regret in her voice. “My parents didn’t even tell me she’d died until two days after the funeral. They knew I’d have tried to get here.”

“I’m sorry, Em.”

“Me too,” she whispered, then she cleared her throat. “But at least I got to see her right before she died. She came to visit me in New York while I was in the hospital.”

“What happened? Were you in traction? Broken legs?” he asked, glancing at her thighs, exposed to an almost indecently high level due to her short skirt. Then he quickly glanced away and a funny tick started in his temple.

Johnny always had been a leg man.

She thrust the thought—and the flash of unmistakable heat it caused—out of her head. Swallowing hard, she forced a note of nonchalance in her voice. “Nope, not legs. Broken head.”

He gaped. “Are you kidding?”

“Minor swelling on the brain knocked me out but good for a few days. I woke up after surgery bald as a cue ball, a little confused about who I was and wondering whether Brad Pitt really had been painting my toenails while I slept.”

This time, he hit his brakes, coming to a stop in the middle of the street. Darn good thing they weren’t being tailgated, or he would have been rear-ended for sure. “You’re serious?”

“Yeah,” she said with a rueful sigh. “Unfortunately, Brad hadn’t been visiting me during my unconscious state. That part was just a dream. Did you know they take off your nail polish when you have surgery? I didn’t know until I woke up and peeked at my toes. They were dreadfully bare, so that’s how I knew Brad hadn’t come around.”

He shot her a glare. “Would you shut up about your nail polish and get back to the bald part? Jesus, Emma Jean, did you have brain surgery?”

“The swelling had to be relieved.” She fingered a short curl beside her cheek, twisting it around her finger. “Ah, well, I’d always wanted to do something drastic with my hair.”

“Baldness is pretty drastic.”

“So are scars on your head. Believe me, this hairdo is positively lush in comparison.”

He stared at her hair, at the curl wound around her index finger. At her face.

Emma’s heart skipped a beat in her chest as she took stock of the moment. God, of all the things she’d envisioned about her homecoming, there’d never been anything close to this.

Alone with Johnny. And him looking at her with the same old combination of interest, frustration and aloofness that had always driven her crazy. She wondered what he could be thinking to make his eyes sparkle such a brilliant blue, a vivid color she’d only ever before seen in the waters of the Caribbean.

Behind them, someone laid on a horn, and Johnny jerked his attention back to the road. Emma took the moment to order her heart to get back to doing its job, regular and even. And she reminded herself to breathe.

In. Out. Slower. Deeper. Calm. Relax.

Hitting the gas, Johnny took off down the street, shaking his head and muttering something beneath his breath.

“Ahem, if you’re going to speak to me, could you do it louder? I didn’t quite hear you.”

He mumbled again, then glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She grinned.

“A lush hairdo? You always were one to see the silver lining, weren’t you?” he finally said.

Not always. Not on prom night, anyway. Not until he’d shown her the silver lining. And a lot more.

“So you don’t like my hair?” Emma wasn’t particularly vain, but she’d thought the Marilyn Monroe look suited her. And at least, it got people to stop seeing her only as the sweet, long-haired golden girl.

The hairdo had inspired other changes, including a wardrobe renovation. Not to mention her cute sporty car. Within weeks, Emma Jean had transformed into a slightly bad girl. That was one positive thing to come out of her accident, anyway.

“I like your hair Emma Jean,” he admitted. “But I meant the other silver lining. I guess you bless your accident a bit, since you got to see your grandmother one last time.”

Definitely. “Yes. I’m very thankful I got to see her again.”

It hurt to think of their last visit, fourteen months before, and not just because it had been the last time they’d been together. A very concerned Grandma Emmajean had said she was thinking of making some changes. She’d talked about leaving Georgia. Someone was interested in buying her land, and she’d thought to sell the house, too, and buy a small place in New York to be near her family. Namely her.

Those words had shocked Emma. Joyful was her grandmother’s life. The house and the grove had been in her family for decades. It had been heartbreakingly clear how lonely Grandma Emmajean had become, and how selfish Emma had been to stay away just because of some embarrassment she’d suffered as a teenager.

She’d asked Grandma Emmajean not to do it, and had promised to come for a long visit once she was well enough. Nothing would have stopped Emma from keeping her promise. Nothing…except the twist of fate that caused her much-loved grandmother’s tired heart to stop beating in her sleep the following week.

“You must have been pretty upset with your parents for not telling you,” he said. “They’re still trying to keep their princess safe, huh? Bet that one was hard to forgive.”

He understood. Instantly. Unlike anyone else, Johnny could sympathize with her anger at her parents. They’d been so worried, they’d denied her the chance to grieve the most important person in her life. Like always, they’d protected her. “Yes. It was.”

“They ever find out why you left Joyful before graduation?”

She listened for an edge in his voice, but didn’t hear it. “No. Grandma Emmajean kept them from hearing everything.”

He gave a dry chuckle. “Good thing. I remember how much they fought against you staying with her and going to Joyful High for a year.”

She vividly remembered the conversation when she’d told Johnny about her life. It had been eleven summers ago. Spotting him tinkering under the hood of his truck on the side of a country road near her grandmother’s pecan orchard, she’d stopped to give him a lift. Her heart had pounded wildly, sweat making her hands slick on the steering wheel.

It had been dangerous. Exciting. Thrilling to finally be alone with the baddest of the bad-boy Walkers.

During their brief ride, when he’d teased her about picking up strange guys, she’d told him how happy she was to live like a normal teenager. With her parents busy getting on with their jet-setting lives on the other side of the globe, they couldn’t constantly protect their “little girl” from danger.

At seventeen, being alone in a small car with the object of her most torrid virgin fantasies had ranked pretty high on Emma’s danger meter. Considering the tense, aware atmosphere between them now, she suspected things hadn’t changed much.

Not even thinking about it, Emma moved her hand to her face as she stared out the window. Another memory filled her mind…of the teasing kiss Johnny had given her that day to thank her for the ride. It had been on her cheek, but not high up, not chaste and friendly. Not at all. He’d kissed her close to her mouth, as if wanting to taste the tiny dimple in her cheek. Then he’d shifted to brush his lips against the corner of hers. Even more amazing, he’d stolen a wicked taste of her lip gloss with a heart-stopping flick of his tongue.

Right before he’d gotten out of the car, that sexy hunk who’d already had her shaking in her seat had moved his mouth to her ear, nibbling on the lobe as he whispered, “I have such a thing for ankle bracelets.” Reaching down, he’d caressed her calf, then stolen her anklet right off her leg. She hadn’t even had the strength to protest as he’d put it in his pocket.

His wicked expression had told her he’d taken it as a souvenir.

The pounding in her heart had said, let him.

That had been the last time she’d been alone with Johnny for a while. Because the next time she saw him—when he was home from college for Thanksgiving weekend—she’d been wearing another guy’s jacket. So she could never tell him that from the first time she’d laid eyes on him, she’d fallen headfirst into the most intense infatuation of her life. She couldn’t have owned up to her many erotic dreams after their one, much-too-brief kiss.

No. Those were not exactly the kinds of things a girl could tell her boyfriend’s older brother. Especially not one as rebellious—and hot—as Johnny Walker. Because she would never have been able to tell what he might do with such information.

Or how she might react to it.

He interrupted her musings. “Tell me more about this car accident you had.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, “it wasn’t that serious.”

“You never could lie worth a damn.”

Smiling, she elaborated. “I got T-boned by an uninsured, unlicensed driver. It took a while, but I’m fully recovered. Though I don’t know if my insurance company is.”

“I figured it had to have been bad, Emma Jean, because I know even a bald head wouldn’t have stopped you from being here if you could.”

“Just Emma,” she murmured, surprised by the concern lacing his tone. Not to mention his certainty that she would have been in Joyful if she’d been able. She’d figured other people would notice her absence at the funeral and make some negative assumptions. Not Johnny.

His unexpected confidence in her was a strong reminder of one thing she’d tried to forget in her years away from this place. Though he hadn’t known her long, Johnny Walker had known her better than anyone else. She’d spilled her most secret heart to him in the few short hours they’d shared together.

The acknowledgement almost hurt, making her flinch.

He glanced over. “You okay? In pain? Emma?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“We’re almost to the house. If you want to give me your keys, I’ll get somebody to bring your car over later.”

Keys. The keys! She looked at him sheepishly. “I’m so sorry, Johnny, I forgot. I don’t have keys to the house. I have to go by and pick them up from the Realtor.”

He stiffened.

“I really hate to be such a bother.”

“It’s not a bother,” he insisted. “But, knowing there’s only one realty office in town, can I assume you mean Jimbo Boyd’s place?”

At her nod, she heard him give an audible sigh. Then he looked at his watch. “It’s twenty till six.” He lowered his voice, almost as if speaking to himself. “The office should be closed by now. I’m sure she’s…the secretary’s…left.”

She shrugged. “Probably. But I told Mr. Boyd I’d be getting in around dinnertime. He said he’d be working late on some paperwork and that I should just knock if the front door was locked.”

The tenseness in his shoulders appeared to ease a bit. “Okay, no problem,” he said with a nod as he pulled over to turn the SUV around. “Let’s go to Mr. Boyd’s office.”

THOUGH SHE’D RAISED her voice and refused to budge out of the way, Daneen Walker had finally realized that nothing short of the miraculous landing of a spaceship in the middle of the street—or possibly a blue-light special on support hose—was going to prevent Cora Dillon from barreling into the Boyd Realty office. The woman was as relentless about her money as she was about her gossiping, and she wanted to get paid now.

She didn’t see a spaceship, and the closest K-Mart was miles away, but Daneen got a miracle, anyway. The rumble of an engine pulling up along the front curb made Cora take a step back and turn around so Daneen could come all the way outside.

“Isn’t that Johnny?” Cora asked. She moved one work-worn hand up to shield her eyes from the late-afternoon sun shining directly onto the front of the building.

Daneen nodded, recognizing the SUV. Her heart sank and her stomach tightened. As if Cora wasn’t bad enough, now she had to try to act naturally in front of Johnny? This was bad. Johnny Walker knew her better than just about anyone. He usually saw through her lies whenever she tried to tell one. He had that prosecutor thing down pat, as Daneen had learned more than once in the years since she’d been related to the man.

She should’ve hung up on Jimbo as soon as she’d heard his voice last night. Or never answered the phone to begin with, since she had caller ID. Then she might not have been such a pushover this afternoon and wouldn’t have been caught unaware by the biggest busybody in town…and by Johnny.

Since Cora was no more able to turn her eyes away from the hunkiest, most talked-about man in Joyful than any other female, Daneen took advantage of her distraction and risked a quick button-check of her blouse and skirt. All clear.

“Who’s that with him?” Cora continued.

Daneen hadn’t even noticed the other occupant of the car. Like Cora, she shielded her eyes, tightening her jaw as she spied a woman’s blond head inside the vehicle. “I have no idea.”

Then Johnny was out of the car, walking around to the passenger’s side. He looked up and saw them, but instead of returning Daneen’s friendly wave, he froze, as if surprised to see her. Why he’d be surprised to see her standing outside her own place of employment, she couldn’t say.

Nor could Daneen say much of anything else when the other door of his SUV opened and a long, slim female leg slid out. The day suddenly seemed to get a little cloudier, and the mouthful of air she’d just inhaled turned stale in her lungs.

Daneen tensed, watching Johnny square up those big, broad shoulders of his, then help the woman out. They exchanged a few words as he easily lifted her down.

The blonde leaned into him, hobbling a bit as they approached the front of the building. Daneen rolled her eyes…typical woman’s trick, she’d used it herself. A twisted ankle was a good way to get chest to chest with any hunky male with a hero complex. Straight Vixen-101 stuff.

The question remained—who was the blond-haired bimbo trying women’s tricks on Johnny Walker, the man Daneen had grown used to thinking of as her personal property?

IF JOHNNY hadn’t already gotten out of the truck by the time he spotted Daneen standing outside Jimbo’s office, he would have come up with some lame excuse and driven away. The last thing he wanted was to bring the two women face-to-face within the first hour of Emma Jean’s arrival back in town.

Too late now. Emma wanted her key, and Daneen would be even more angry if she realized they’d tried to avoid her. Nor would Emma consider staying in the truck. She wanted to speak to Mr. Boyd and no twisted ankle was going to stop her. Besides, she insisted she was already feeling better—an outright lie if he’d ever heard one, given the way her lips trembled and her eyes teared up when she tried to stand up unaided.

“’Evening,” Johnny said with a nod as they approached the front door. Emma was leaning into his side, his arm supporting her around her waist as comfortable and easy as could be. Only a cardiologist would have been able to tell his heart was beating hard enough to bust out of his chest. He told himself it was merely the thought of having to deal with Emma and Daneen together. But somewhere, deep inside his gut, he knew it was more likely because of the way Emma felt pressed against his side.

Just about perfect.

“Mrs. Dillon,” he said, easily recognizing the dour-faced woman standing beside Daneen.

Cora Dillon had once worked as a lunch lady at the Joyful Primary School and now did cleaning work wherever she could get it. He half expected her to rap his knuckles with a wooden spoon, the way she would way back in second grade when he’d try to sneak an extra piece of fruit from the lunch line. “Reduced price lunch for poor folks means one apple, Mr. Walker,” she’d say, loud enough for every kid in the cafeteria to hear. “And no cookie!”

That pretty much summed up his childhood. One apple and no cookie. Some steely-eyed adult like Mrs. Dillon always seemed to be around to make sure no trashy Walker kid tried to snitch anything more than his charitable due.

He half wished the old woman would get charged with jaywalking, or lifting a piece of candy out of the Brach’s sampler display at the grocery store without paying for it.

There was one case he’d sure as hell prosecute.

Mrs. Dillon gave what for her probably passed as a friendly smile. “Mr. Walker,” she said in greeting.

Johnny kept his hands well out of spoon range, just in case, even though he knew she couldn’t very well rap the knuckles of the county prosecutor. Particularly not when one of her own rowdy grandsons was a recent beneficiary of Johnny’s goodwill toward the high-spirited youth of Joyful.

“Nice to see you, ma’am,” he replied, every bit as evenly.

Then the woman turned her attention on Emma Jean, studying her like someone might study a particularly difficult crossword puzzle or riddle.

“This is Emma Jean Frasier. I’m sure you knew her grandmother,” he explained.

“It’s just Emma,” his companion murmured under her breath.

Her words were lost under Daneen’s surprised gasp, which Cora Dillon echoed. Daneen’s reaction he could have predicted. Mrs. Dillon, though, was probably annoyed at being caught not knowing the name, marital status and credit history of a new arrival to Joyful. Maybe Cora was losing her touch—she wasn’t often caught unaware when it came to gossip-worthy newcomers.

“Hello, Daneen,” Emma said when neither of the other women made any effort to speak. Johnny had to wonder how she hid her tension beneath that smooth, cultured voice. Her whole body was tight enough to snap in half.

Little wonder. Daneen had, after all, stolen Emma’s man away once upon a time.

“Emma Jean,” Daneen whispered, sounding the tiniest bit unsure of herself. Very unusual for this particular woman, who hardly ever let anyone see her weaknesses.

A variety of expressions crossed Daneen’s face, ranging from dismay, to dislike, and perhaps even a bit of embarrassment. With reason, of course, as they all well knew.

But Daneen quickly did her thing, tossing her head and ignoring whatever guilt she might still be feeling about what had happened back in high school. “Well, I had no idea you were coming back to Joyful.” Daneen’s tone sounded forced as she straightened her shoulders in a failed attempt at indifference.

“Never can tell where one of us bad pennies is going to turn up,” Emma said with a too-bright laugh. “How…nice…it is to see you, too.”

That sounded about as sincere as a televangelist asking for forgiveness for screwing over his flock, but Johnny figured Emma Jean had a right to be spiteful. Daneen had done her dirty, all right. In front of the whole town, to boot.

“Johnny, wherever did you find her?” Daneen asked. “I didn’t even know you two were…acquainted.”

He frowned slightly at the blatant lie. There was no way Daneen hadn’t heard about prom night, even though she hadn’t been there to witness it firsthand. She’d run off, leaving Joyful in a tizzy that same day. Still, she’d come back soon enough afterward to hear the story. It had been whispered over and over, just like all the other scandalous tidbits of local folklore.

The prom night interlude between rebel Johnny Walker and golden girl Emma Jean Frasier was probably repeated almost as often as the tale of how Joyful had gotten its name. Frankly, Johnny had always found the name story a lot more interesting. Reportedly two hundred or so years ago, one of the town’s founders had stopped at the tiny two-road crossing and pronounced, “This place is about as joyful as a fi’ty cent whore with a toothache.” And Joyful had been christened.

How could a couple of teenagers caught bare-ass naked at the gazebo by most of the members of the senior class of Joyful High compare with that?

Unfortunately, he appeared to be the only person in Joyful who believed it couldn’t.

“Emma and I ran into each other at the grocery store,” he finally said. “She needed some help. I’m going to drop her off at her grandmother’s place, but we need the key.”

Cora, who they’d nearly forgotten about, reached into her pocket and dug out a small key ring. “Here you go,” she murmured, still staring with avid interest at Emma. “I cleaned it up for you this morning. I was dropping the key back off to Mr. Boyd.”

“Thank you very much, Mrs. Dillon,” Emma said, sounding as refined and genteel as her late grandmother, who’d been every inch a lady. Had Emma sounded as dignified when asking him to make love to her? He couldn’t really remember.

Liar. He remembered everything about that night. And no, she hadn’t sounded proper and refined at all. She’d sounded sweet and hungry. Enticing, alluring and innocent. A lot more innocent than he’d ever expected, to his utter shock.

Which made it difficult, if not downright impossible, to believe the rumors that she’d been off making dirty movies since she’d left here ten years ago. He hadn’t had time to wrap his mind around the whole gossipy rumor, but his first instinct was to suspect the Joyful grapevine had this particular story totally screwed up, particularly given the way she’d joked about porn movies during their drive.

“I haven’t been inside the house in a very long time and I do appreciate your efforts,” Emma continued.

Mrs. Dillon looked as if she didn’t know whether to take Emma’s words as a compliment or not, so she just grunted and turned toward the door. “I’ll wait for Mr. Boyd inside,” she told Daneen, who still appeared too shocked to protest. Then Cora entered the building, leaving the three of them alone.

“So, why are you back, Emma Jean?” Daneen asked. “I thought we’d seen the last of you.”

Emma, apparently not as easily cowed, or, at least, as polite, as she’d been in high school, raised a brow. “Funny. Seems to me you were the one who skipped out of town first, Daneen. Speaking of which, how is Nick?”

Nick. Nick Walker. His younger brother, and once upon a time the object of affection of a number of teenage girls in the township of Joyful, Georgia. He’d have to include Emma Jean Frasier and Daneen Brady in that list.

Daneen Brady—now Walker. His former sister-in-law.

“Emma, maybe we should leave now,” Johnny said, trying to turn her back toward the car. The last thing he wanted was to get Daneen started on the subject of his brother.

Too late.

“Probably burning in hell, for all I care,” Daneen said, her voice hard, as it always was when Nick’s name came up. “Wherever he is, he’s certainly not here, so if Nick’s the reason you came back to Joyful, you might just as well turn around and go back up north.” Her tone turned sugary sweet, though her green eyes remained cool and assessing. “Gracious, it’s been ten years, Emma Jean. Haven’t you gotten over Nick yet?”

Yep. Daneen was sharpening up her claws. When she got around to remembering the rumors of what had happened between him and Emma Jean on prom night, they’d become even more cutting. Though there had never been any romantic involvement between him and his ex-sister-in-law—and never would be—she did seem to think her family status gave her the right to tell him how to run his life. The only reason he gave her a tiny bit of leeway on that was because she was, truly, family. Once a Walker, always a Walker, no matter how much Daneen hated to claim the name.

“Let’s go, Emma.”

Emma wouldn’t be moved. Instead, smiling as she tapped the tips of her perfectly manicured pink nails on her collarbone, she stared at Daneen. “Oh, you sweet thing, to be worried about me,” she said, lacing her voice with a sugary hint of Southern cordiality. “But, no, Nick was only a boy. A sweet, innocent teenage crush. Obviously our relationship wasn’t anything like yours—since you were the one he had to run away with and marry so your daddy wouldn’t kill him and all.”

Johnny lowered his head so his ex-sister-in-law wouldn’t see his grin. Not too many women could pull off that perfect blend of sweetness and cutting sarcasm. Emma’s grandmother had had it down to an art form. Emma had apparently learned one or two things during her time in the South.

He had no idea where she could have learned anything about the adult film business.

As steam almost began rolling out of Daneen’s ears, Emma gave a little smile and leaned heavier against Johnny’s side. “I am really hurting now. You will help me back to the car, won’t you? I’ll speak to Mr. Boyd tomorrow.” She gave him a wide-eyed, limpid look which, he supposed, probably appeared helpless and intimate to Daneen, as Emma had likely intended.

For an instant, he was tempted to let her fall on her ass again, leaving her lying on the ground outside Boyd Realty. She deserved it. Damned if he was going to let Emma Jean Frasier use him to salve her ego or bolster her pride one more time. Been there, done that. Pick another sucker, lady. Once in a lifetime was enough for anyone.

But there was something else in those golden-brown eyes of hers, something beyond flirtation or teasing. Her lashes flickered as she blinked rapidly, appearing on the verge of tears.

She seemed tired and hurting. In pain, both emotionally and physically. His heart twisted in his chest at the sleepless circles under her eyes and the paleness of her skin accentuated by a light dusting of freckles.

“Please, Johnny?” she whispered, this time not sounding cajoling but instead nearly desperate.

He sighed. Just like old times. The town had always known him as a rebel, but those closest to him had always realized he was a soft touch, always stupid and sappy enough to step in and take care of people who needed help. Which she did.

Besides which, to his eternal consternation, he never could resist Emma Jean Frasier when she said please.

EMMA DIDN’T MEAN to use Johnny out of spite by asking him to help her to the truck. In fact, when she saw his hesitation, she regretted having to rely on him at all. But she did. She needed to get away and he was the only one who could help her do it.

“What’s the matter with her?” Daneen asked, sounding falsely solicitous. “Shouldn’t she come inside and sit for a while?”

Before Emma could nix that idea, Johnny hurried to thank Daneen and refuse her offer. He went on to briefly tell the other woman what had happened at the store.

Emma barely listened, wondering why she’d let Daneen get to her. Heavens, she was no longer the new kid in school being baited by the most popular girl, like she’d been during her senior year at Joyful High.

God, it seemed another lifetime. Who cared what had happened back then? Teenage dramas had nothing on Emma’s adult life. High school certainly hadn’t prepared her for men like her former boss, Wes Sharpton. Or for women like her former best friend in accounting, Lydia Bailey.

She idly wondered if Wes and Lydia were enjoying their South American honeymoon. And if the last remnants of the money they’d embezzled from the firm—which had put dozens of people out of work and landed them in the middle of an SEC investigation—was all spent yet.

Their money couldn’t have disappeared any faster than Emma’s life savings. Since her last few paychecks had bounced, and her mutual fund investments with the firm had become worthless, her balances had hit zero dollars and zero cents before she and the rest of the staff even knew what had happened.

Her checking account had gone even lower. The resounding boing of the checks she’d bounced all over Manhattan still rang in her ears at night. It was almost as loud as she imagined the metallic clang of the cell doors would have been if she hadn’t immediately covered those checks through the sale of her furniture and jewelry back in the city.

She’d never imagined when she finally settled into brokering and finance—thinking she’d finally found her niche after she’d sampled so many other interesting creative outlets—that she’d end up losing all her money because of her job!

She’d have been better off sticking to archeology. Or art—the show she’d helped fund for an erotic artist a few years ago sure had been fun, though it’d shocked Grandma Emmajean when she’d sent her one of the brochures.

Grandma Emmajean. Her savior. Because coming to Joyful hadn’t been a mere pleasure trip to lick her wounds and wait out the controversy. It’d been a downright necessity, if she wanted a roof over her head…without having to go to her parents for help. It still might come to that. But it hadn’t yet, thank heaven.

“Well?” Johnny asked, interrupting her thoughts. “Are you ready to go, Emma?”

“Absolutely. It was so nice to see you,” she told Daneen over her shoulder as Johnny helped her down the sidewalk. She leaned against him, almost not even noticing the steadiness of his hand on her arm, the steely strength of his chest against her side and the warm, musky scent of his cologne.

Well, that was a bald-faced lie. She could no more fail to notice those things than a person could pretend not to notice the color of the sky or the metallic way the air tasted right before a wicked thunderstorm. Some things were so elemental they simply couldn’t be ignored. Like him.

Emma suddenly wondered if she’d made a big mistake. Maybe bickering with Daneen would have been a better way to spend her evening. Because after only an hour back in his company, she began to wonder if she would have the strength of will to resist those crazy old feelings she’d always had for Johnny Walker.

Somehow, she feared she wouldn’t.

CHAPTER FOUR

CORA HADN’T HESITATED a moment once she’d gotten inside the waiting room of Boyd Realty. She’d turned right around, made herself a nice peeky-hole between two slats of the miniblinds—which were shamefully dusty, no surprise there—and watched what was going on outside.

The trio continued their chit-chatty conversation for a few minutes. It didn’t take an expert in body language, however, to know there was no friendliness between the two younger women. They were like two cats in a box, trying to stay away from one another until it was safe to swipe, drawing first blood.

She smirked. Daneen Walker was way too uppity, to Cora’s mind, and always had been. It hadn’t helped that her daddy, Sheriff Brady, had spoiled the girl to bits when her mother had passed on fifteen years ago. Lately, she’d been darn near impossible with her claims. She’d been hinting that since Johnny was single, and she was kin, she was gonna serve as his first lady when he got elected mayor after Jimbo Boyd retired.

“Maybe cows’ll fly down Market Street one of these days, too,” she whispered sourly. Because that’d be just about the day any of those white trash Walkers got elected mayor of Joyful.

Prosecuting attorney was bad enough. But since there weren’t lawyers lining up for the low-paying job, she supposed he was the best they could do. She knew it darn near killed Sheriff Brady to have to work with the brother of his ex-son-in-law. Especially with Johnny’s reputation for going easy on the criminal element.

Cora gulped down a bit of guilt. As much as she hated to admit it, Johnny had done a good turn by her grandson, Matthew. The sheriff probably would have seen the boy sent up to juvie hall for tipping over one of the Port-o-lets at the county fair last fall. It might not have been such a fuss and bother if Deputy Willis hadn’t been inside the doggone thing at the time. Johnny Walker had worked things out with the public defender, so the boy had done some community service, but no time in jail.

Anyway, it wasn’t like the portable piss-pot had been damaged. Much. And the township should have paid little Matty and his buddies for the spectacle. Deputy Fred had put on quite an entertaining—if a bit smelly—screaming performance once he’d been rescued. It had been a darn sight more exciting than the sideshows, like the two-headed chicken—obviously a rubber toy with an extra beak super-glued to its butt. Or the hootchie-cootchie girls wagging their saggy fannies all over the midway.

“Mealy-mouthed Fred Willis probably liked getting the attention, anyway,” she muttered, remembering how quiet and whiny he’d been as a child.

Outside, she saw Daneen’s body was stiff with indignation. The snooty Frasier girl with the tattered reputation had a confident look on her face as she and Johnny turned away. Looked like the blond chippie had won this round. Cora had no love for city girls who sold dirty pictures, but it did a body good to see Daneen Walker set back on her round heels once in a while.

Sensing the scene out front was almost over, Cora let go of the blinds. She took a moment to examine the office, even peeking into the small bathroom. When she saw a telltale red wrapper floating in the toilet, she smirked.

Just as she’d suspected…Jimbo Boyd was sticking more than For Sale signs into some of the cheap real estate in Joyful. She sure didn’t suppose Daneen had been filling up rubbers and using them for water balloons.

Filing the information away into the back of her brain for future use, she stepped over to the closed door of Jimbo’s office. She heard his voice, but no one else’s, and assumed he was on the phone, arguing with someone.

Cora smiled. Lucky for her, when Mayor Jimbo argued he did so the same way he did everything else. Loudly. If she’d showed up a half hour earlier, she might of heard the mayor calling out for the lord while his fake-pearls-wearing secretary told him to be a good boy or else mama’d have to spank his bottom.

She snickered, then leaned closer to the door, listening. Catching a few words, she wondered who the mayor was talking to. And why he seemed so interested in that new strip club being advertised on the highway billboard…Joyful Interludes.

EMMA SHOULD have known better than to think Daneen would let her get away without one more shot at ruining her day.

“Wait,” the other woman called before they could step off the curb onto the street.

She gritted her teeth as Johnny paused.

Daneen sauntered down the sidewalk, like a woman who knew she looked good in her silky blouse and tight skirt, and grabbed Johnny’s arm. Tilting her head back, she gave him a welcoming smile. “Are you coming over to dinner tonight?”

Johnny appeared confused. “Was I supposed to?”

“Well, it’s Friday.”

Johnny raised a brow. “So?”

“You know. Little Johnny’s pizza and movie night.”

Little Johnny? Emma tensed. There was a little Johnny somewhere? Good grief, had she been so bloody distracted seeing her first lover in the flesh—and such fine flesh it was—that she’d never even cast a quick, surreptitious glance toward his left-hand ring finger? Emma Jean Frasier, usually a connoisseur of eligible bachelors, had slipped up big time.

She looked now. No ring. The rush of relief surprised her. She shouldn’t have been glad. After all, she hated the bastard, she really did. But something that felt suspiciously like happiness did ooze through her before she could stop it.

“Why do you call him that?” Johnny asked, shaking his head in obvious annoyance. “You know he hates it. The kid’s been called Jack for nine years. Why all of a sudden you’ve started calling him Johnny is beyond me.”

Daneen cast a glance at Emma. “What boy wouldn’t want to be called the same thing as the man he considers his daddy?”

Growing visibly tense, Johnny didn’t answer right away. He stared directly at Daneen. The woman finally stopped giving Emma sly looks, and focused on Johnny’s unsmiling face.

“Jack is my nephew and I love him,” Johnny said, his tone tight. “But I’m not his father, I’m his uncle. He knows it. You know it. Everyone in town knows it. Changing his name isn’t going to do anything but make him resent you, Daneen.”

Emma at last understood. Little Johnny…Jack…had to be the baby Daneen had been pregnant with back in high school. The baby she’d conceived with Emma’s boyfriend, Nick Walker. The baby the whole town had been whispering about on the day of the senior prom, when word got out that the king—Nick—had deserted his queen—Emma—because he’d knocked up the daughter of the sheriff.

And that the sheriff was cleaning his gun.

Daneen didn’t say another word as Johnny helped Emma to the SUV and held her arm while she got in. Once he joined her, taking his place in the driver’s seat, she couldn’t help rolling down her window to face Daneen. Somehow, her face didn’t even crack as she forced a pleasant expression. “Nice seeing you, Daneen. I never got a chance to say goodbye all those years ago.” She managed a completely unconcerned laugh, still having enough of that old dumped-high-school-girl pride to act as if she didn’t care what had happened. “You sure missed one wild prom night.”

Daneen began to frown, then her mouth dropped open, as if she’d just remembered something. She looked ready to grab the door handle when Johnny revved the engine to life.

“Now you did it,” Johnny muttered as he pulled away from the curb, leaving a slack-jawed Daneen behind them.

“What’d I do?”

He shot her a frankly disbelieving look out the corner of his eye. “Wild prom night? Did you really have to remind her about what happened between you and me?”

It took her a second to process the accusation. He thought she’d intentionally set out to bait Daneen by making her jealous of her and Johnny? “Back up, big guy,” she said with a frown. “For your information, I was trying to blow off what happened between your jerk of a brother and that—person—back in high school. Why would she care…” Then she remembered the whole Daddy nonsense and groaned. “Oh, God, don’t tell me you’re following in Nick’s footsteps. You’re involved with Daneen?” She shuddered, not feigning her complete dismay. “Ewww. Two brothers. I didn’t think bad taste ran in families.”

He glanced over and raised a brow. “As opposed to what…good taste?”

She had to think for a moment before she caught his meaning. Then she got it. He and Nick had both gotten involved with her, hadn’t they? She almost punched his arm for putting her in the same category with Daneen, who’d been about as big a bitch as Emma had ever encountered during their high school days. But she didn’t want to cause an accident.

“Anyway,” he continued, “no, we’re not involved. Never have been, never will be.”

Emma blew out an impatient breath. Men. Such simple creatures. “Have you told her that?”

He gave her a pointed look as they stopped at a red light. “Yeah, I have. Nine years ago, right after she came back to Joyful, she made a play. I shot her down.”

The thought of Daneen trying anything with Johnny made Emma feel a sudden stab of annoyance she had no business feeling. She swallowed it away, asking, “Is she in love with you?”

Johnny shook his head. “Hell, no. She knows me too well.”

That was an interesting comment, considering how loveable he was. Correction. Had once been. “Oh?”

“She knows it’d be a waste of time since I don’t want anything to do with love, marriage or any of that garbage. Walker men just aren’t cut out for it. At least not the ones from my branch of the family tree.” He shrugged, probably realizing how heavy that had sounded. “Daneen and I are friends, that’s all.”

Emma remained silent for a moment, hearing a hint of resignation—though not bitterness—in Johnny’s voice. He obviously believed what he said about commitment. Little wonder, considering his background…his father. And apparently Nick. The only surprising thing was how his words had affected her—with a sudden flare of something almost painful in her belly.

“If you say so. But Daneen sure looked territorial.”

“There’s nothing else between us, and there never will be,” he added. “Daneen knows it as well as I do.”

He apparently believed that. Gullible as well as simple. “So what’s with the Daddy stuff?”

Turning the car onto Peach Grove Lane, he headed toward her grandmother’s neighborhood. “Jack doesn’t really have one. Nick bailed on her and joined the Marines before Jack was even born.” Johnny frowned, looking disgusted.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I’ve only seen him once since.”

That surprised her, knowing how close Johnny and Nick had been. But the tightness in his jaw warned her not to push.

He continued. “Daneen moved back here when Jack was a month old. My mom and I do what we can to help.” Rolling his eyes, he added, “Daneen has realized I’m never going to get married and have kids, so she pictures Jack as my heir or something—as if I’ve got a ton of money. Which I don’t.”

Never marry. Never have kids. Again that stab of something hit her in the stomach. Hunger. It’s just hunger from a long day of driving with no food. But deep in her heart, she knew she was lying to herself.

“She seems to think her status as my ‘sister’ gives her the right to interfere in my personal life,” he said. “Look, can we talk about something else?”

“Like?”

“How about we discuss how wild prom night was?”

The louse. She really couldn’t believe he wanted to have this conversation while she was trapped, practically crippled, and at his mercy. “Let’s not. Ever.”

“Still feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Still mad at the world?” she snapped right back.

“Nope.” He shot her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Just you.”

She sagged back into the seat. He was mad at her? What a laugh, considering he was the one who’d gotten into his truck and taken off after they’d been caught at the gazebo.

The mention of their prom night brought up lots of emotions. Humiliation, of course. Embarrassment. Sadness at the white-hot anger that had made them both say some pretty ugly things.

Enough.

“Let’s not talk at all,” she said, fighting for emotional distance from Johnny, in spite of their close proximity.

“Suits me fine,” he muttered as he fell silent.

Closing her eyes, she battled to think of something else. But the thought of their final confrontation reminded her of everything else that happened that night.

Prom. Ten years ago. It should have been a disaster. The town had spent the day whispering about Nick and Daneen’s elopement. Emma had spent the day crying about having no date for the most important event in high school.

Then Johnny had been there. He’d knocked on her grandma’s door, wearing the tux Nick had rented. It was a little tight across the shoulders and the sleeves were a bit short, but he’d still been heart-stoppingly handsome. Smiling that wicked Walker smile of his, he’d handed her a bouquet of freshly picked wildflowers. Ordering her to dry her tears and put on her dress, he’d informed her he was taking her to the dance. Whether she liked it or not.

She’d liked it. As a matter of fact, considering she was already crazy for him—and had been since the day the previous summer when he’d kissed her in her car—she’d loved it.

And for a few hours, she’d truly loved him.

“You’re thinking of that night,” he said softly.

His whisper didn’t startle her out of her reverie, and she could only nod, her wisp of a smile probably telling him she was recalling the early part of the evening. The nice part. “Remember the look on their faces when we walked in?”

He chuckled, obviously picturing—as she was—the gaping upperclassmen gathered beneath the twinkling lights and clumps of fresh magnolias decorating the VFW hall. “They expected you to stay home crying and instead you came in on the arm of the wickedest of the Walker boys.”

The scent of magnolia always took her back to that place. Always made her feel the heady thrill she’d felt when she’d walked in with him. Not because of how her classmates had reacted, but because of the way his hand had felt on the small of her back. His fingers had dipped low on her spine, touching her with a kind of intimate possession his brother had known better than to even try.

For all his talk and swagger, Nick Walker had been a boy, contained by the boundaries she set.

Not Johnny. He’d already been a man. A man who’d completely intoxicated her, physically, and emotionally. A man to whom boundaries meant absolutely nothing.

“You said something sweet to make me smile for the picture,” she murmured.

“I told you I had your ankle bracelet hanging on my bedpost in my dorm room.”

Yes, that was it. She idly wondered what had ever happened to the anklet but didn’t have the nerve to ask.

“We danced every dance,” she added, still looking out the window, not at him. She didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to know if this unexpected stroll down memory lane was as confusing for Johnny as it was for her. She’d been angry about how the night had ended for so long, she’d almost allowed herself to forget how magical most of it had really been.

They’d stayed in each other’s arms, swaying to the music—even the rock songs—for ages. He’d flirted with her shamelessly. He’d acted as if he had eyes for no one else. Then he’d whisked her out the door. But not before giving her a bone-meltingly romantic kiss under the slowly spinning mirror ball, right in the middle of Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”

Then they’d gone to the gazebo. And the night had become truly amazing.

Did he remember the way she’d cried as she tried to thank him for showing up at her door? Did he ever realize she hadn’t been crying over his stupid brother, but over his own kindness?

Probably not. He’d probably never again thought of how they’d slow-danced in a darkness lit only by the stars and some watery moonlight. Dry leaves had snapped beneath their feet and the breeze had made a faint whistle as it swept through the gazebo, but she’d never felt cold.

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips as she thought of how they’d talked and laughed. Laughter had been followed by long, deep kisses that had gone on forever. Sweet touches giving way to more intimate ones. Tenderness turning to passion. The first real arousal of her life. And the amazing feel of his body on top of hers…inside hers….

“Stop,” she whispered, wondering how on earth she’d allowed her thoughts to completely overwhelm her. She wriggled in her seat as a memory-induced tide of heat slid through her blood, settling with insistence between her legs.

“What? Are you okay? Hurting?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, taking a few deep breaths.

If he’d realized what she’d been thinking about—and the way her body had reacted—she’d just have to die. Right here and now. Dammit, what kind of woman got turned-on remembering her first sexual experience which, considering many females first had sex with teenage boys, usually sucked?

Hers hadn’t. She had to admit it, if only to herself…it had been the best of her whole entire life. Not necessarily the intercourse part, which had been slightly uncomfortable at first. But the emotion. The tenderness. And, oh, yeah, the orgasms.

Nineteen years old or not, Johnny had known exactly what he was doing. With his hands. With his mouth. With every bit of his big, firm body.

“You’re sure you don’t need the doctor?” he said, obviously not believing her and taking her silence for discomfort.

Well, she was uncomfortable, but not in the ankle area. No, the throbbing sensation was now much higher. As in, right between her thighs. And no doctor could make her feel better.

“Quite sure,” she mumbled, drawing in a few deep breaths to try to focus. “My, it’s already awfully hot for early June.”

He shrugged, either not impressed with her conversational skills, or realizing she wanted to leave the subject of prom night behind. She was saved from having to make any further effort by his nod. “Here we are.”

She hadn’t even noticed how quickly the ride had flown by, since she’d been a little…er…distracted. Now, however, she froze as she stared out the windshield of his SUV at the gently familiar tree-lined street onto which they’d turned.

“Miss Ellen’s house,” she murmured, spying the huge elm tree in front of what had once been a white bungalow. “Her piano students used to wake me up every Saturday with their scales.”

The house was green now. A tricycle and a scooter in the driveway, plus a bat and ball lying in the grass, gave evidence that old Miss Ellen had moved on, in one way or another.

Next came the white picket fence surrounding the immaculate lawn maintained by Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby, her grandmother’s next-door neighbors. And then…

“There it is,” she whispered. The lemon-yellow, two-story house that she pictured whenever she closed her eyes and thought of home. Of happy times and warmth. Of sweet hugs and the papery smoothness of her grandmother’s strong hands. Of endless summer days being allowed to climb trees and get dirty.

She’d expected tears to fill her eyes when she saw it again. But somehow, after everything she’d been through, she didn’t feel sad at all. As a matter of fact, staring at the house—so warm and bright, and best of all, entirely hers—she began to smile.

This was Emmajean’s house, Emmajean’s world, Emmajean’s town. Her grandmother wouldn’t be here to welcome her, but all the warmth and hospitality she’d epitomized lived on right here in Joyful. She could lose herself in that warmth and hospitality, let it salve her wounds and heal her spirit while she figured out what she was going to do with the rest of her life.

In spite of the dull pain in her foot, the fatigue in her shoulders and her pitifully empty wallet, she truly felt good. For the first time in a long time, Emma Frasier began to believe everything really would be okay.

Because she was home.

JOHNNY DIDN’T stick around once they got to Emma’s grandmother’s house. He helped her inside, then made sure the electricity was on and the place secure. Though he wanted nothing more than to get out, to put a mile of physical distance between them—immediately if not sooner—he also made sure to find her an Ace bandage in her grandmother’s medicine kit.

By the time he left, she was soaking her foot in an old washtub in the kitchen. She was also nibbling on a piece of fruit from a Welcome Home basket Jimbo Boyd had left on the counter. Good old Jimbo. Never one to pass up an opportunity to kiss the ass of a voter—or a campaign contributor.

She’d thanked Johnny sincerely, accepted his offer to have someone bring her car over to the house and agreed he should let himself out. She might as well have been a fare he’d picked up in a taxi for all the intimacy between them.

It wasn’t too surprising that Emma had tried to put up walls. Just the faint beginnings of a discussion about what had happened between them had made her go silent and distracted.

“The little coward.”

If Deputy Fred Willis had been around, Johnny would have earned himself a hundred dollar fine as he blasted out of her driveway. Even if he’d seen the dusty old patrol car, he didn’t know if he could have lifted his foot off the gas pedal.

He needed space. Distance. Needed to get away from those golden-brown eyes of hers and her soft voice. The longer he spent in Emma’s company, the more likely he’d have been to shake the hell out of her and ask her why she’d done what she did.

First, why she’d used him as a physical substitute for his brother when it came to something as important as sex. Then, why she’d run away the very next day…when that sex had been so damn good! And finally, how in the name of God she could have gone on to have sex for money in the name of movie-making.

Sex, sex and sex again. That’s what it all came down to. If he’d stayed in that house another minute, the subject would have come up. And sex was one thing he could not talk about with Emma Jean Frasier. At least not without being sorely tempted to find the nearest flat surface and fully explore the meaning of the word with her in every position known to man. Plus a dozen yet to be invented.

He shook his head in disgust. He obviously needed to get laid. Preferably by someone who didn’t list her proficiency with various coital positions on her résumé.

Then he snorted. “It’s bullshit. If she’s a porn star, I’ll prance up Market Street in those spike-heeled shoes of hers.”

No, there had to be another explanation for the stories flying around town. Had to be. And once he got a firm grip on his libido again, he’d find out what it was.

In the meantime, there was her car to deal with. Grabbing his cell phone, he hit one of the speed dial buttons. “Virg, can you meet me down in the parking lot of the grocery store?” he asked when a familiar voice answered.

“Sure,” his cousin said. “Can I finish my hot dog first?”

“Hot dog. Minnie working tonight?”

“Uh-huh. Third weekend in a row.” Virg tsked in disgust. “That skunk boss of hers tells her if she wants to be head cook on Sundays, when the regular guy’s off, she has to bounce at the door every Friday and Saturday night.”

Minnie had recently moved up from bouncer to cook’s assistant at the Junctionville Tavern. After she and Virg got married, she’d put her foot down saying it wasn’t seemly for a bride to be physically tossin’ drunks out of bars. Her boss had apparently found a way to finagle her back where he wanted her.

“If she didn’t have her heart set on getting a job as head cook somewhere, I’d make her quit,” Virgil continued.

He’d make her quit. Yeah. Right. Virgil Walker would be able to make his two hundred and fifty-pound wife, Minnie, do something on the same day Johnny made snow fall in July. Still, he might be able to sweet-talk her into it. They were disgustingly cooey with each other.

“Okay, meet me by the red convertible parked right in front of the store in about a half hour,” Johnny said.

Virg audibly chewed a mouthful of his dinner. Johnny knew without asking that the hot dog was smothered with onions and mayonnaise. A disgusting combination if ever there was one, but that’d been Virgil’s favorite meal since childhood.

“Red convertible,” Virg finally said. “You mean the porn star’s car?”

Johnny winced. “She’s not…just meet me there, Virg.”

He cut the connection before his cousin could answer, then headed back downtown. When he arrived at the store, he pulled into the parking lot next to Emma’s car. Before cutting the engine, he opened the window. Johnny sat back, watching the last of the evening shoppers pushing their carts inside. It’d be closing soon, right around the time the town of Joyful rolled up its sidewalks for the night.

“Hey, Johnny,” he heard from outside. Glancing up, he saw Claire Deveaux, the harried woman whose little girl’s spill had caused such a fuss earlier. Claire was walking toward the store, a frown on her pretty brow.

“Hiya, Claire. Didn’t finish your shopping earlier, huh?”

She grimaced. “I tried to clean Eve up in the bathroom, but she was a mess. I had to leave an entire cart full of groceries behind and take her home. I bet those twits didn’t even have the sense to put the ice cream back in the freezer case.”

He snorted. “Better hope they did. Otherwise they’ll want you to pay for it. Where’s the baby?”

“Home with her daddy. Probably telling him for the tenth time about how mama wasn’t paying close enough attention so she spilled her juice on her fave-o-rite top.” She sighed, sounding amused, yet weary. “Daddies and their little girls.”

He wasn’t much of an expert on either one, not being a daddy, and ever having had one to speak of. At least not one he wanted to acknowledge.

“So, I hear you scooped up the porn star and carried her out after she fell.” Claire nibbled the corner of her lip. Johnny couldn’t tell whether she was embarrassed, amused or disappointed because she’d missed the spectacle.

“She’s not a…look, Claire, it was Emma Jean who fell.”

Claire’s mouth fell open far enough for him to count the fillings in her teeth. “Emma Jean Frasier? Good lord, why didn’t she call me and tell me she was coming?” She peeked into the car as if expecting to find Emma inside. “Where is she?”

Johnny now remembered that Claire and Emma had been close friends in high school. “I dropped her off at her grandmother’s house. She twisted her ankle, but she’ll be okay.”

“Emma Jean,” Claire murmured again, and a soft smile crossed her lips. “I haven’t seen her in…oh…ten years.”

Johnny nodded and murmured, “Prom night.”

A soft flush rose in Claire’s cheeks, and her eyes widened. She stared at Johnny, obviously remembering. “Oh, my goodness, that’s right.” Then she began to smile. “And just think, you were here to save her this afternoon. Again. You do always seem to be in the right place at the right time to take care of Emma Jean, don’t you, Johnny?”

Yeah, but, she’d better not get used to it. He was done taking care of Emma Jean. He had enough people to take care of in his life. The last thing he wanted was to be needed by a woman he’d once wanted with every ounce of his body.

From now on, she was on her own.

“Well, I’d better run,” Claire said as she glanced toward her watch. “Store closes soon, and I’ve got to get home and feed my family. I don’t guess you or Emma Jean got to finish your shopping either?” She looked down, sheepishly. “I still feel awful about that. If you see Em, tell her I’ll come by soon to apologize and catch up on old times, okay?”

He wouldn’t be seeing her. No doubt about it. But he merely shrugged, then bid Claire goodbye.

True to his word, Virgil came strolling up Market Street right on time. Virgil, two years younger than Johnny, was one of the Bransom-Walkers. Meaning, his mother, a rather well-liked member of the Bransom family, had married a no-account Walker thirty-odd years ago. Their offspring were marginally more respectable than the plain old Smith-Walkers, such as Johnny and Nick. Their own mother hadn’t been much higher on the socioeconomic scale than their father, though Johnny was the first to admit she was pretty much a saint in their eyes.

Virgil didn’t mind the Walker prejudice. He’d never aspired to do much more than tinker with his junkyard-bound hot rod, work as a handyman doing odd jobs and have a happy marriage with his wife, Minnie. Since he came from another side of the Walker family—one that seemed to have escaped the bad-marriage curse that had affected Johnny’s—he might actually have a shot at achieving his dreams.

Virg didn’t much look like a Walker, except for his dark blue eyes. He stood a good six inches shorter than Johnny and weighed forty pounds more. Still, Johnny had always considered Virgil as much of a brother as Nick.

“This the porn star’s car?” Virgil asked.

Getting out of his car, Johnny shot Virg the kind of quelling look that had been known to make even Sheriff Brady watch his mouth. “She’s not a porn star. The car belongs to Emma Frasier. I told her I’d get somebody to bring it over to her grandma’s house because she hurt herself and couldn’t drive.”

Virgil whistled. “So, Emma Jean Frasier’s the porn star? The woman in the thong underwear who slipped in All-Tempa-Cheer and fell in the store today is Miss Emmajean’s granddaughter?”

“Thong underwear?” Johnny bit out.

Virg nodded. “Black and tan. Jungle pattern. Leopard spots.”

Johnny rolled his eyes even as he gulped at the sudden visual of Emma Jean’s underclothes. “Nobody saw her underwear, Virg. Spots, jungle or anything else.”

“Tom Terry said…”

“Tom Terry is a nasty old reprobate who plays pocket hockey looking at the mannequins in the window of the dress shop. You gonna believe him? Or me, your flesh-and-blood relative, who was standin’ closer to her than anyone when she fell?”

Virgil looked disappointed.

“And she’s not a porn star.”

Virgil’s disappointed expression grew more sad. “You sure?”

He nodded. “You remember her, Virg. Do you seriously think she could have left Joyful and gone off to make adult movies?”

Virgil glanced into the distance, smiling like a man reminiscing over a particularly fine meal or a good cigar. “Oh, yeah, she coulda.”

Virgil was saved Johnny’s fist in his gut by virtue of their blood kinship. “I don’t mean physically,” Johnny snapped. “Do you think the hoity-toity daughter of some rich people who live overseas would star in stag films?”

“They’re not all stag films,” Virgil argued. “Some are really art. Sleepless With A Paddle shoulda won an Oscar.”

Johnny didn’t even ask.

“Virg, will you just drive the damn car over to the Frasier house? I’ll follow you and give you a ride home.”

Virgil looked like he wanted to argue about it, but shrugged and got into the convertible instead. “She’s got long legs,” he said as he bent down to adjust the driver’s seat forward. “Porn stars always have long legs.”

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