Chapter 2
Jesse Cates had never been one to gamble on something that wasn’t a sure bet. He hated to lose money almost as much as he hated to lose a challenge. Not that he didn’t occasionally go with his gut. But most decisions he made were well calculated and thoroughly thought through. From the moment he had figured out who he was dealing with, he should have backed off and left Cooper Springs. This wasn’t the time or the place to have a run-in with one of the Holidays . . . that would come later.
But for some reason, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave. And now he was issuing a silly bet. All because there was something about Hallie Holiday that intrigued him.
It had nothing to do with her looks. As much as he had teased her about seeing her naked, he hadn’t seen much. It wasn’t until she was this close that he’d seen her beauty. She was a beauty. Even in the dark, he could tell she was the type of woman who would turn men’s heads.
He just wasn’t the type of man who had his head turned easily. And a lot of beautiful women had tried. But not one of those women had him taking a second look. External beauty had never mattered to him. He had learned the hard way that physical beauty could hide all kinds of ugliness.
So, no, it wasn’t Hallie’s looks that attracted him.
It was her moxie.
Most women would have screamed and run for the hills when they’d discovered they were completely alone in a secluded spot with a complete stranger. Hallie had demanded he get off her property. There hadn’t been one speck of fear in her voice. Not one. While that was stupid—he was a complete stranger, after all—it was also damn brave.
And she wasn’t only brave and sassy. She was competitive.
She had hated him getting ahead of her. Each time he had, she’d pulled back in the lead. Even though his muscles and lungs had been burning like hell, he couldn’t help prodding her on. Not because he wanted to win—he cared nothing about winning at any sport and never had—but because he had enjoyed the game.
Was still enjoying it.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed something that didn’t have to do with making money. Making money had always been his main thrill in life. Even with an overflowing bank account, he still loved a good deal.
A chance at a kiss from Hallie Holiday for the loss of a measly hundred was a damn good deal.
But he had to get her to agree first. And she didn’t look like a woman who was about to acquiesce. She looked a little pissed that he would even make the offer. He couldn’t blame her. A stranger trying to steal a kiss wasn’t very chivalrous. If Shirlene or Billy were there, they’d give him a good ear boxing. But it was just one kiss. He didn’t intend to let it go any further—even if his body was prodding him otherwise and had been since she had popped up so close he could see the soft swells of her breasts.
“Just a simple kiss,” he said. “And after we’re both fully dressed.” She continued to remain silent. He knew she was weighing her odds. It made him like her even more. She wasn’t one to make rushed decisions. He gave her a moment to consider before he went in for the kill. “Unless you’re worried about losing.”
He couldn’t see the color of her eyes, but he could read the hard glint of determination. He knew as well as he’d known that Texas real estate was going to go down this year that she would accept his offer. Her need to win was stronger than her hesitation at kissing a stranger.
“Fine,” she said. “But if you lose, you leave and never set foot on Holiday land again. And I get the hundred.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “You think quite a lot of your kisses, Hallie Holiday.”
“They’re worth quite a lot.” A smirk tilted her full lips. “Not that you’ll be finding out. Ready, set, go!” She dove under the water and took off across the springs before he even had a chance to blink.
He tried to catch up, but she had too large a lead and was too good of a swimmer. She reached the rock long before he did, and then kept right on swimming until she got to the shore. By the time he arrived, she had already collected her clothes and was heading through the trees.
He thought about going after her, but his clothes and truck were on the opposite side of the springs and he figured she really would call her sheriff brother-in-law if he busted out of the trees as naked as the day he was born. Besides, it was probably for the best.
He had a job to do. It sure as hell wasn’t kissing the Holidays.
* * *
But that didn’t stop him from dreaming about a defiant, naked woodland nymph that night and waking up with a major hard-on. He had just slipped his hand under the sheet to take care of the problem when needle-sharp claws sliced through the cotton material and into his hand. He sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, shielding his man parts from further attack.
“Taylor Swift, you daughter of Satan!”
His assailant crouched low at the foot of the bed with her devil blue eyes blazing and her back arched in warning. Before he could prepare himself, she launched another attack, her orange-striped body sailing through the air and attaching itself to his thigh.
He howled in pain. “You little witch!”
He wanted to grab the little fur ball by the scruff of the neck and toss her right out the open trailer window. But Corbin would kill him if he hurt his treasured pet. So instead, he gritted his teeth and one by one carefully detached her tiny claws from his leg.
Once he was free, he lifted the kitten and glared into her evil eyes. “I’m warning you, Tay-Tay. I don’t care how much my brother loves you. If you sink your claws into me again—or bite me with those razor-sharp teeth, or sleep in my Stetson and cover it with hair, or use my boots for scratching posts—I swear I’m going to drown you in the nearest creek.”
The kitten didn’t seem at all upset by the threat. In fact, she growled a low demon growl that sent a shiver down Jesse’s spine. The cat really was the daughter of Satan, and no matter how many cat toys he brought her or how many treats he gave her, she had it out for him.
Something he wasn’t used to. Females usually loved him.
Again, his mind brought up Hallie. She had been just as prickly as Tay-Tay and he couldn’t help worrying that maybe he was losing his touch.
Carefully, he held the kitten away from him as he got out of bed. Not that anyone would call the saggy double mattress on the floor a bed. But Jesse had slept on worse. Or not slept. Sleep had never come easily to him. His mind didn’t have a shut-off valve. He was constantly thinking about the next moneymaking deal. So it didn’t much matter where he laid his head at night—his fancy high-rise apartment in Houston, his family’s huge mission-style ranch house in Bramble, or this beat-up trailer here in Wilder.
And the trailer was beat up. The roof leaked, the windows had cracks, and the exterior was covered in rust.
Jesse felt right at home.
Some of his happiest childhood memories were living in a trailer similar to this one. Except that trailer had a yard filled with junk. Junk that had kept four runaway foster kids from going hungry. It was where Jesse had developed his bargaining skills. At nine years old, he had sold the townsfolk of Bramble everything from washing machines to rare Harley motorcycles. He was proud of the fact that he had helped feed his sisters and brother. Not that Mia, Addie, and Brody had been his actual sisters and brother at the time. It was only later, once Shirlene and Billy had adopted them, that they became a family.
The best family a man could ask for.
But that hadn’t stopped Jesse from trying to find his blood family—his beautiful mama with her volatile temper and his degenerate daddy who had shown up on only rare occasions and didn’t seem to care that his son was being physically abused. But Jesse’s second-grade teacher had. She’d called social services and Jesse had suddenly found himself in foster care.
He hadn’t been happy about it. Even though his mama was abusive, he’d loved the hell out of her. Once he was an adult, he’d gone in search of her. He’d hoped she would have gained some kind of remorse and as soon as she saw him start crying and begging his forgiveness. Instead, she’d just stared at him with disgust and said, “You always were the spitting image of your no-good daddy.”
His no-good daddy had been just as happy to see him when he’d showed up at his door—no doubt because he had a wife. But one good thing had come out of his visit with his daddy. He’d found out he had a half brother and sister.
Because Corbin and Sunny had been pawned off on different family members all their life, it had taken Jesse a while to find them. While he hadn’t met Sunny, who was studying art in Paris, he had spent the last few years getting to know Corbin. He discovered that blood was thicker than water. He and Corbin were two peas in a pod. They both loved to make money and were good at it. And they both were dealing with the pain of abusive childhoods. But unlike Jesse, Corbin hadn’t found the perfect family to ease that pain. He was still trying to run from the neglect he’d suffered from his mama and daddy.
When he and Corbin first met, Jesse couldn’t blame him for not trusting him. Jesse had had to work hard to earn his trust. He’d started out giving Corbin sound business advice that made him millions and then helped him get started in his own business: Oleander Investments. Corbin had slowly started to trust Jesse. First, with business decisions, and then, with personal ones. Which was how Jesse had ended up watching Corbin’s new adopted kitten while he went to Paris to visit Sunny. And why Jesse was meeting with Hank Holiday this morning.
Being born and raised in Texas, Jesse knew talking with a tough Texas rancher about foreclosing on his ranch was going to be as much fun as cat-sitting Tay-Tay. But business was business and the conditions of the loans had been spelled out in detail. Hank Holiday knew the consequences of missing payments when he’d signed the contract and used his ranch for collateral.
After making sure Tay-Tay was fed and safely closed off in the spare room, Jesse showered—or tried to in the low water pressure—got dressed, and headed into town.
Wilder, Texas, reminded him a lot of his hometown of Bramble. The main street was a block long and only contained the most essential businesses: a gas station, hardware store, feedstore, bank, general store that sold everything from horse liniment to frozen pizza, barber shop and hair salon, bar that served damn good barbecue and had a dance floor half the size of a football field, and a café that he’d heard sold the best damn muffins in Texas.
He was about to find out.
But on the way to the café, he passed a large For Sale sign on the side of the road. Jesse had never been able to ignore a sale. He turned around and followed the arrow off the main road and along a tree-lined drive. At the end of the drive was an old antebellum mansion with huge columns and a balcony on the second floor. The house looked like it had been vacant for a long time. Most of the windows were broken and vines and foliage had taken over the lower level and grand entryway.
Still, it was a cool house.
He tried the doors, but they were locked so he walked around the property as his mind conjured up a picture of what the house had once been . . . and could be again with a lot of work and money. But even if he were willing to spend the time and money to restore the old mansion and carriage house that sat behind it, what would he do with an antebellum house in Wilder, Texas?
He shook his head and went back to his truck.
He could more than afford a brand-new truck with all the bells and whistles. But while money meant a lot to him, material things didn’t . . . unless they had sentimental value. The old, jacked-up monster truck he drove had that in spades.
It had been Billy’s—or Bubba’s, as the townsfolk of Bramble called him—ever since Jesse had known him. When Jesse got back from the marines, Billy had given it to him. He hadn’t owned another truck since and he never would. The truck meant too much to him. And people seemed to get a real kick out of seeing the lifted truck coming down the street with its big mud tires eating up the asphalt and the American and Texas flags waving from the poles attached to either side of the cab.
It made him a little famous wherever he went.
Including Wilder.
“That’s one badass truck,” a big-bellied guy said as soon as Jesse stepped in the door of Nothin’ But Muffins. “I bet you could roll over fifty Kias with them tires.”
Jesse grinned. “More like a hun-nerd.”
“Shiiit,” the man said. “I’d like to see that.”
An old woman with bright red hair and a ratty-looking fur coat sat at the window table. “Who cares about how many cars a truck can roll over? What you should be wantin’ to see, Coach Denny, is our high school football team winning another state championship. They flat-out sucked last season.”
“Now, Ms. Stokes, it’s not my fault the kids today just don’t have the same talent as they used to.”
“Don’t blame it on the kids, Denny!” the woman behind the counter snapped. She was a big gal with a long black braid and full bosom that stretched out the words Check out my muffins printed across her pink T-shirt. “If a team loses, there’s no one to blame but the coach.”
Coach Denny’s face turned bright red. “I’ve won two state championships!”
“That had nothing to do with you and everything to do with Jace Carson,” Mrs. Stokes said before she started coughing like she was going to cough up a fur ball . . . or a lung.
Jesse moved closer. “You okay, ma’am?”
“Give her a minute.” Coach Denny waited until the woman had finished coughing before he spoke. “Lord, I miss Jace.”
“He’ll be back,” Mrs. Stokes said. “He was too much a part of this town to leave it forever.”
“Let’s hope so,” the woman behind the counter said before she turned her attention to Jesse. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I heard this place makes the best muffins in Texas.”
She beamed. “Then you heard right.” She spread her arms over the display case. “Just pick your poison. I bake them fresh every mornin’.”
He looked at the wide array of muffins from Cinnamon Monkey Swirl to Pea-Nutty Buddy. From Sour Lemon Poppy to Everything but the Kitchen Sink. It was a little overwhelming. “Any suggestions?”
The woman studied him intently. “You look like a Cocoa Java Junkie if ever I saw one.”
He grinned. “You read my mind, darlin’.”
Five minutes later, he was sitting at a table sipping the best cup of coffee he’d ever tasted and munching on a dark chocolate and coffee muffin that dreams were made of. Everyone in the café seemed to be watching him. He knew they were curious, but they didn’t bombard him with questions. Instead, they just watched.
He finished off the muffin and wiped his mouth. “That was the best darn muffin I’ve ever had in my life.”
Everyone grinned with pride as if they were the ones responsible.
“Damn straight,” Coach Denny said. “No muffins beat Sheryl Ann’s.”
“You’ll get no argument from me.” Jesse got up and threw away his napkin and handed his coffee mug back to Sheryl Ann. “Thank you, Sheryl Ann. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try that Red Velvet Valentine.”
“Tomorrow?” Mrs. Stokes said. “So you’re staying around here?”
He knew she wanted details, but he’d heard the gossip around town about the evil Corbin Whitlock taking the Holidays’ ranch and he figured it would be best for everyone if he kept his answers vague.
“Yes, ma’am.” He tipped his hat and walked out the door. As he headed down the street to the bank where he was supposed to meet with Hank Holiday, he couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulder. Everyone in the café was crowded in the window watching him. He smiled and waved.
God, he loved small towns.
Since he was a good fifteen minutes early, he figured he’d be the first one to arrive for the meeting. But when he stepped into the bank, the receptionist informed him that Mr. Holiday was waiting in the conference room.
At least that’s what he’d thought she’d said. But when he got to the conference room, he didn’t find a mean-looking rancher who had a bone to pick. He found a stunningly beautiful woman with long ebony hair and eyes the exact color of the dew-drenched meadows he’d seen in Ireland.
Jesse knew instantly that this was the woman he’d skinny-dipped with the night before. He didn’t know how he knew it. He just did. He was struck speechless by her beauty and he had never been struck speechless in his life. While he stood there staring like an idiot, the receptionist made the introductions.
Two words snapped him out of his stunned daze.
Liberty Holiday.