not pretty yet. But you just wait, Mitch Rafferty. I’ll show you.”
Without thinking, Taylor put her hands on his chest and shoved for all she was worth. He went backward into the pool, his cold expression changing to one of stunned surprise just before he went under. She turned but she knew he surfaced behind her. The spluttering was a big clue.
She walked away before he could see that the moisture on her cheeks had nothing to do with the splash his big body had made. With every step, she vowed she would show him if it was the last thing she ever did.
Chapter One
Ten years later…
Mitch Rafferty was back in town.
And she was going to see him any minute. Taylor Stevens looked out her living room window wondering if he would be on time. As the newly appointed commissioner of the high school rodeo association, it was his job to find a site for the state championships. It was an event she desperately wanted. When she’d found out Mitch was the man who held her future in his hands, she’d been stunned. Even now she wondered which of the gods she’d offended and how she could make amends.
She needed him to pick her—or rather her ranch, the Circle S. She had a lot riding on this. But if history repeated itself, she was in a lot of trouble.
The sound of a car engine drifted to her over the hum of the central air conditioning in the house. She cracked the shutter in the front room enough to peek out. The late-model, extended cab pickup crunching rocks and dirt as it came to a halt in her circular driveway was unfamiliar. Her stomach dropped; he was here.
Ever since finding out Mitch was back, she’d been as nervous as a small kitten up a big tree. And not only because he could impact her life. Over and over she’d repeated to herself that she didn’t care about him anymore. She was a big girl now and he couldn’t hurt her.
Tell that to her hammering heart.
She turned away and took a deep breath as she brushed her hands down her khaki slacks, then adjusted the belt, at the same time making sure her buttercup-yellow blouse was neatly tucked in. No point in meeting him wearing the dirty jeans and work shirt she’d worn to muck out stalls that morning. She might be country, but she cleaned up pretty good and wanted to put her best boot forward.
There was a knock on the door and she took a deep breath as she counted to ten. Heaven forbid she looked too anxious.
“Here goes nothing,” she said, opening the door wide.
Her heart nearly stopped. Mitch was a decade older, but he looked even better than she remembered. His eyes were still bad-boy blue and hinted of mischief. His hair was the same sandy-brown, and his well-formed nose crooked enough to keep him from being too perfect. The angular face and square jaw were somehow more rugged. Why did she find that so incredibly appealing?
Right there on her front porch stood Mitch Rafferty, the same man who had two-stepped on her tender, fourteen-year-old heart. Shock sanded ten years away. Feelings that were every bit as big and deep and painful as they’d been that night engulfed her again. She wished she didn’t remember, but she did. All too clearly.
The humiliation of their last encounter washed over her as it had countless times since. It had become the standard by which she judged all disasters. She’d said way too much. Followed by a kiss that even with a decade in between made her cheeks burn now. She couldn’t seem to form a coherent thought, let alone get a word past the Texas-size lump in her throat.
He looked at her for several moments before recognition jumped into his gaze. “Taylor?”
“Mitch. It’s been a long time.”
No kidding. It had taken him several moments to know her. But, she’d been a skinny kid the last time they’d seen each other. He’d told her she kissed like a little girl. If there was any cosmic justice, she would not blush at that thought. She was a grown woman now, not the kid who’d pushed him into the pool. The memory had dominated her recollections ever since learning he was the new commissioner.
Would he hold it against her? Even worse, would he recall how she’d bared her soul?
When her silence dragged on, he cleared his throat. “How have you been?”
“Fine. You?” she asked.
“Great.”
“Did you just get into town?” she asked.
He nodded. “I drove in from El Paso this morning.” He continued to stare at her. “You look great.”
“Skinny little me?” she asked, unable to resist the jab, testing the waters, so to speak. Then she smiled, hoping the nerves line-dancing in her stomach didn’t make her mouth quiver. “You don’t have to say that, Mitch.”
“I mean it. You’ve really changed,” he said grinning his good ol’ boy grin, the one that showed his even white teeth to perfection.
It was also the one that told her he said something equally flirtatious to all the girls. Although she’d tried to forget about him, over the years she hadn’t escaped reading about him in tabloid and magazine stories that had touted the sexy bull rider’s athletic and romantic conquests. Before dropping out of sight, he’d been linked to women she could never compete with. Why would he remember that they’d once been friends?
“You’ve grown up.”
“That happens in—” She paused for what she hoped was just the right thoughtful expression. “How long has it been? When did I last see you?”
Fiddle de dee, she wanted to say in her best Scarlett O’Hara voice. If God was her witness, Mitch would never know that she clearly remembered the last time she’d seen him he’d been going backward into the deep end of the pool.
“I can’t say. And I try not to think back too far.” For just a second, a frown chased away the mischief in his eyes. “Offhand I’d say it’s been a long time because I haven’t been back to Destiny for ten or eleven years.”
“That long?” she said with as much innocence as she could dredge up.
He nodded. “Give or take. These days I feel like I’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”
Just these days? He’d been wet the last time she’d seen him. But right this minute, she thought he looked awfully good. Better than good. In fact, better than he had ten years ago. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Wasn’t his hairline supposed to recede? Not only didn’t he have forty square miles of forehead, but his hair was thick and she couldn’t detect a single gray hair in the sandy color. It was cut conservatively short. She knew it would curl with a bit more length.
A man his age should have at least the beginnings of a beer gut. He had to be pushing thirty. Surely his belly had gone doughy. But one glance at his white shirt tucked into the waistband of his soft, worn Wranglers confirmed that his abdomen was washboard firm. And his long sleeves were rolled up to just below his elbows, right where she thought a man’s sleeves ought to be. It was a look that got her every time.
Okay. Get a grip. There was some good news. She was no longer a lovesick fourteen-year-old. She didn’t care about him anymore. They would probably touch on her embarrassing confession of ten years ago followed by that impulsive kiss, chalk it up to high school hormones, then forget about it.
“So you don’t remember the last time we saw each other?” she asked fishing to find out what, if anything, he recalled.
“Should I?” He looked thoughtful.
“I guess not.”
He didn’t remember. Wasn’t that good news? Then why was she flirting with annoyance that her all-around most humiliating moment wasn’t important enough for him to store in his memory?
He shook his head. “All I can say is you’ve really changed.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”