Deb, heart racing, hormones chanting, body wanting, did the only thing she could. She traded her money for a stash of balls, aimed for the target and let the first ball rip.
Marriage-minded Jimmy Mission had husband written all over him and the last thing, the very last thing Deb Strickland wanted was a husband. She’d come too close to making that mistake once before.
Never again.
No matter how good he kissed.
1
One year later
JIMMY MISSION wasn’t sure what bothered him most about Deb Strickland.
The fact that she was pleading her innocence to the judge, even though the entire lunch rush at Pancake World had seen her back into the front end of his Bronco.
Or the fact that with every deep breath she took, her low-cut silk blouse shifted and a heart-shaped tattoo played a wicked game of peek-a-boo with him.
“Four thousand dollars? For a little dent? Why, with a hammer and five bucks worth of spray paint, I could fix the blasted thing myself!”
“Six hundred is for the dent.” Skeeter Baines, the oldest judge in Inspiration and an ex-fishing buddy of Jimmy’s late father, pointed a bony finger at her. “The rest is for poor Jimmy’s pain and suffering. Maybe you’ll think twice before you go ramming that fancy sports car of yours into an innocent man’s truck.”
“Innocent? Judge, it was his bumper that was sticking over the line into my spot. I couldn’t help but tap him.”
“Three times?” the judge asked.
“It was twice.”
“Aha! So you did ram him.”
“Tapped him, and my insurance will cover the damages. As for the pain and suffering—”
“I’ve made my decision. Now take your seat.” The judge slammed his hammer down and Deb blew out an exasperated sigh.
The tattoo flashed Jimmy in full, heart-shaped splendor—a vivid red against a backdrop of pale, satin-looking skin—and his mouth went dry.
“This is a terrible miscarriage of justice,” she declared, pivoting to face the handful of people clustered in the tiny courtroom—the bailiff, the court reporter, the police officer who’d responded to the accident call and three nosy file clerks. “Grossly unfair.” Another deep sigh, a quick flash of red, and Jimmy’s groin tightened.
The only thing unfair was Jimmy’s reaction to the brunette stomping around the defendant’s table in three-inch heels, a tight red skirt and a clingy white blouse.
This was Deb Strickland, he reminded himself. Ten percent soft, warm, female, ninety percent ballsy attitude, and the woman responsible for causing him so much grief. He rued the day he’d had the misfortune to lay down good money for an all-too-brief kiss that had started out their renewed acquaintance with such sweet promise. After she’d dunked and damned near drowned him that same fateful day, things between them had only gone downhill.
“What is unfair, Miss Strickland,” Judge Baines snapped, “is that you purposely damaged Mr. Mission’s property.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. Jimmy Mission has been hounding me for an entire year. Every time I turn around, there he is.”
“This is a small town, Miss Strickland.”
“I’m fully aware of that, but he’s not only there, he’s doing things—like parking in my spot every time he comes into town, sitting in my seat at my table during the YMCA charity barbecue last month, signing up to be my partner during the wheelbarrow race at the Senior Citizen Olympics.”
“Attended that barbecue, myself. Sounds like Jimmy was just being charitable and looking out for his own, which is more than I can say for present company.”
“This is about Cletus Wallaby, isn’t it?” When the judge’s expression hardened, Deb added, “You can’t hold that against me, Judge. Cletus Wallaby was a crooked councilman and the people of this town deserved to know it. It was my journalistic duty to expose him.”
“Cletus was born and raised here. Spent his whole life struggling to make the town better when you were just a gleam in your rich father’s eye.”
“Homegrown or not, he stole money from taxpayers and that makes him crooked.”
“He may have fudged on his expense sheets for the town, but he’s a damn good family man and a helluva fisherman, little missy, and you’d do well to remember that some folks don’t take too kindly to outsiders spreading rumors.”
“Every one of my facts was documented and proven. That’s why he was fired last year. Fact, not rumor.”
“And the fact here,” the judge snapped, obviously set in his opinion despite the proof, “is that you damaged Jimmy’s property.”
“But he was taking up half my space—”
“Try two inches,” Jimmy called out, adding fuel to the already out-of-control fire that blazed between them. “I was barely two inches beyond the line, Judge.”
She turned blazing blue eyes on him and what he’d discovered to be her most intimidating glare.
Only Jimmy wasn’t easily intimidated or put off. He could handle women, even an ornery one.
He gave her the slowest, laziest grin he could manage with just a hint of a wink, an expression he’d become notorious for since he’d first used it to con Mary Sue Grimes into the bed of his daddy’s pickup when he’d been fifteen. Jimmy didn’t really understand the effect of “The Grin” on women, just that it never failed to turn the tide his way.
She glared. “Two inches is about the size of things, from what I hear.”
“Now, Slick.” His grin widened when her gaze narrowed. “I didn’t think you listened to hearsay. If you want to check your facts, I’d be mighty happy to show you and set the record straight.”
“I just bet you would,” she snapped.
Deb Strickland didn’t, wouldn’t respond to “The Grin.” Aside from the moment they’d kissed, she hadn’t responded in any positive way to him since he’d come home to Inspiration over a year ago and found her running the town newspaper in place of her granny Lily.
He’d been surprised. Not because Deb had taken the old woman’s place at the In Touch, but because she’d grown from the scrawny young city gal who used to keep her granny company a few weeks every summer into one fine-looking woman who, folks said, kept company with every eligible man in town.
Every man, that is, except for him.
It puzzled the hell out of Jimmy, not only because of her initial response to him, but because women, all women, just plain liked him. It was a fact of life, like the sun rising and setting, his mother baking her famous Christmas cookies, his Black Angus bull walking away with first prize at the Austin County livestock show. Jimmy smiled and women smiled back. He flirted and they flirted back.
And some did more, he thought, eyeing the platter of petit fours sitting in front of him, courtesy of the court reporter, Justine something or other, and Daring Deb’s Fun Girl Fact for the week—Go get ’im with gourmet goodies! He thought about the drawer full of silk underwear—not his own—he had at home due to last week’s Seduce him with silk! He pictured his cabinet overflowing with everything from biscotti to croissants, smoked oysters to sardines, all surefire aphrodisiacs according to Loosen him up with love potions!
He glanced down at the folded newspaper and today’s words of wisdom. Nothing says come and get me like pineapple-flavored body glaze!
This was a small Texas