LITMIR.BIZ

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when the job had gotten a little too dangerous or her coworkers a little too condescending.

      It was a feeling she’d grown all too familiar with growing up with a mother who didn’t love her half as much as she loved her social life. All those nights alone had forced Shelly to step up and take care of her little sister when she’d been just a child herself. And while she’d done her best, she’d never managed to shake the uncertainty.

      Not that this guy knew that.

      She gathered her courage and met his glare head on. “I give the orders here.”

      “Sure you do, darlin’.” He winked. “The prisoner’s my responsibility.”

      “And you’re both my responsibility, at least while you’re in this Sheriff’s office.” She narrowed her gaze, making it clear she wasn’t backing down no matter how many times he called her darlin’ or sugar or sweetcheeks or whatever else his good ole boy mentality managed to cook up.

      Seconds ticked by before he shrugged and she gave herself a mental high five.

      “Get some fresh pastries in here before I choke to death,” he grumbled, waving the half-eaten goody at her. “This one’s as tough as shoe leather.” He walked over to the white bakery box sitting next to the coffeemaker and rummaged inside.

      Shelly shifted her attention back to the radio. “Finish up and get back here,” she told Bobby.

      “Yes, ma’am. Baby bear out.” The connection ended and Shelly turned toward her desk, her heart still beating double time.

      She blew out a deep, easy breath, careful not to let Truitt know that he’d gotten under her skin. She’d come up against his type too many times to count and she knew the worst thing to do was get visibly rattled. It was all about staying calm. In control. Fearless—

      The thought faded into the whooooooosh of the front door and the heavy thud of boots.

      “I’m looking for Shelly Lancaster,” came a deep, masculine voice.

       Here we go again.

      With Truitt eyeballing her from the coffeemaker, the last thing she needed was a potential suitor carrying another bottle of edible body paint. She had to set the record straight right here and now and put an end to all the nonsense.

      “It was a misprint” died a quick death on her tongue when she turned to face off with the man standing in the doorway.

      Her heart hitched and all she could do was stare for a long, breathless moment.

      He had cowboy written all over him with his straw Stetson and button-down denim shirt. The cuffs had been rolled up to reveal muscular forearms, the tails tucked in at his trim waist. Soft, faded jeans clung to his long legs. A rip in the material gave her a glimpse of one strong, hair-dusted thigh and her throat went dry.

      She eyed the scuffed toes of his brown boots before dragging her gaze back up, over his long legs, the hard, lean lines of his torso, the tanned column of his throat, to his face.

      Brown hair streaked with the faintest hint of gold brushed his broad shoulders and drew attention to his rugged features. A day’s growth of stubble darkened his jaw and outlined his sensuous lips. Blue eyes so pale and translucent they were almost gray collided with hers.

      No, it wasn’t the way he looked so much as the way he looked at her that sucked the air from her lungs.

      “Yes, um, that would be me. At your service,” she finally managed to say, her voice breathless and excited and downright giddy.

      She stiffened at the realization. No way, no how, would tough-as-nails Deputy Shelly Lancaster let a man—even one as good looking as this man—turn her into a pile of quivering Jell-O. She frowned and summoned her most no-nonsense voice. “Is there something I can do for you?”

      She had to give him credit. He wasn’t the least bit put-off by her tone. Rather, a slow, purposeful grin spread across his face and her stomach hollowed out. “I can certainly think of a few things.”

      The deep, seductive words echoed in her ears, slipping and sliding along her nerve endings and Shelly knew in an instant that this was it. This was what she’d been reading about. Dreaming of. Searching for.

      This was chemistry. Pure and simple.

      Potent.

      Real.

      She enjoyed the heat zinging between them all of five seconds before she gave herself a mental shake that kick-started her common sense. He couldn’t know that she’d really been the one who placed the ad. No one could. Which meant she’d better start explaining. And fast.

      That’s what she told herself, but for a long, heart-pounding moment, she couldn’t actually get the words out. There was just something about the way he looked at her, as if he saw every little secret, as if he liked what he saw, that stalled the explanation on her tongue.

      Instead, she breathed in, drinking in the delicious scent of raw leather and virile male. Electricity hummed through her body and sent tiny shock waves straight to her nipples. Her throat went dry.

      “I hate to break up this party,” Truitt said, shattering the spell and yanking her back to the here and now and the all-important fact that he’d just witnessed her momentary lapse into desperate female. “But some of us have work to do.” A smirk tugged at his mouth as he turned on his heel, coffee cup in hand, and disappeared into the backroom.

      She glared after the old man before turning the same look on Mr. Tall, Dark and Yummy. “I don’t know you,” she finally said, despite the strange inkling that she’d seen him somewhere before. She needed to get back on track. Focused. “And I know everybody in this town.”

      “The name’s Colton Braddock.”

      She arched an eyebrow. “Any relation to Cody Braddock?” Cody was an ex-bull rider who’d moved to town not long ago. He and his blushing bride were now living happily ever after on the outskirts of town.

      “He’s my brother.”

      “You’re late. The wedding was two weeks ago.”

      Something dangerously close to regret flickered in his gaze before fading into those pale, unnerving eyes. “I didn’t get the invite in time.” He stared at her, into her, and she felt the heat rising up from her feet, whispering through her body and igniting everything in its path. “I’ve got a cattle spread out in New Mexico. It’s a little off the beaten path and the mail isn’t what it should be.” He shrugged. “But it suits me just fine. I like my privacy.”

      The words echoed through her head and stirred a completely inappropriate vision of him, the moonlight bathing his naked body as he stood in the middle of a ripe green pasture. He wore the same grin that he was wearing right now and her heart skipped a few beats.

      “Privacy is good,” she heard herself murmur and his grin widened.

      “Oh, it’s better than good, sugar.” The words stirred another decadent vision and her body trembled. Trembled, of all things. It was a reaction straight out of a romance novel. The stuff of fantasies.

      But it was real, she reminded herself again.

      He was real. And he was here right now.

      Thanks to a disastrous misprint.

      “I didn’t advertise for sex,” she blurted, the denial tumbling out before her hormones could block the way.

      Surprise gleamed a split second before fading into the pale blue depths of his eyes. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “That’s good to know.”

      “The ad was for a girlfriend of mine,” she rushed on. “I placed it for her and the paper accidentally listed my e-mail instead of hers. But if you knew me, you’d know there was no way I would ever do something like that. I’m not the type.”

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