Catch Me a Cowboy (39 page)

“Okay. Just who the hell are you?”

Her gaze flashed up to his just as Cindy Lynn came out the door.

“Hey, Hope. I was wonderin’ if you could come to the homecomin’ decoratin’ committee meetin’ on Monday afternoon. I know decorations ain’t your thing, but everybody would love to hear about Hollywood. Have you met Matthew McConaughey yet? One of my cousins on my father’s side went to college with him in Austin and—”

“Hey, Cindy.” Slate pushed the annoyance down and grinned at the woman who, on more than one occasion, had trouble remembering she was married. “I know you’re probably just busting at the seams to talk with Hope about all them movie stars, but I was wondering if you could do that later, seeing as how me and Hope have got some catching up to do.”

“I’m sure you do.” She smirked as she turned and wiggled back inside.

Realizing Cindy Lynn would be only one of many interruptions, Slate slapped his hat on his head and took the woman’s hand. “Come on. We’re taking a ride.”

She allowed him to pull her along until they reached the truck parked by the door. “This is your truck?”

Slate whirled around and stared at the woman who sounded exactly like Hope—except with a really weird accent. He watched as those blue eyes widened right before her hand flew up to cover her mouth.

The hard evidence of her betrayal caused the temper—he worked so hard at controlling—to rear its ugly head,
and he dropped her hand and jerked open the door of the truck. “Get in.”

She swallowed hard and shook her head. “I’d rather not.”

“So I guess you’d rather stay here and find out how upset these folks get when I inform them that you’ve been playing them for fools.”

She cast a fearful glance back over her shoulder. “I’m not playing anyone for a fool. I just wanted some answers.”

“Good. Because that’s exactly what I want.” Slate pointed to the long bench seat of the truck. “Get in.”

The sun had slipped close to the horizon, the last rays turning the sky—and the streaks in her hair—a deep red. She looked small standing so close to the large truck. Small and vulnerable. The image did what the Mexican daydreams couldn’t.

He released his breath. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you, but I’m not going to let you leave without finding out why you’re impersonating a close friend of mine. So you can either tell me, or Sheriff Winslow.”

It was a lame threat. The only thing Sheriff Winslow was any good at was bringing his patrol car to the games and turning on his siren and flashing lights when the Bulldogs scored a touchdown. But this woman didn’t know that. Still, she didn’t seem to be in any hurry to follow his orders either.

“My car is parked over there,” she said, pointing. “I’ll meet you somewhere.”

“Not a chance. I wouldn’t trust you as far as little Dusty Ray can spit.”

She crossed her arms. “Well, I’m not going any place with a complete stranger.”

“Funny, but that didn’t stop you from almost giving me a tonsillectomy,” he said. A blush darkened her pale skin. The shy behavior was so unlike Hope that he almost smiled. Almost. She still needed to do some explaining. “So since we’ve established that we’re well past the stranger stage, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to take a ride with me.”

“I’m sorry, but I really couldn’t go—”

Kenny charged out the door with the rest of the town hot on his heels.

“Hey.” He held out a purse, if that’s what you could call the huge brown leather bag. “Hope forgot her purse.”

Slate’s gaze ran over the crowd that circled around. “And I guess everyone needed to come with you to give… Hope her purse.”

“We just wanted to see how things were goin’.” Tyler Jones, who owned the gas station, stepped up.

“And say goodbye to Hope,” Miguel, the postmaster, piped in.

There was a chorus of goodbyes along with a multitude of invitations to supper.

Then someone finally yelled what everyone else wanted to. “So what are you gonna do with Hope now, Coach?”

What he wanted to do was climb up in the truck and haul ass out of there. To go home and watch game film—or better yet pop in a Kenny Chesney CD and peruse the internet for pictures of Mexican hot spots. Anything to forget he’d ever met the woman, or tasted her skin, or kissed her soft lips, or stared into her blue eyes. Blue eyes that turned misty as she looked at the smiling faces surrounding them.

It was that watery, needy look that was the deciding factor.

“Well, I guess I’m going to do what I should’ve done years ago.” He leaned down and hefted her over one shoulder. She squealed and struggled as the crowd swarmed around them. Then he flipped her up in the seat and climbed in after her.

“What’s that?” Ms. Murphy, the librarian, asked as she handed him a red high heel through the open window.

After tossing it to the floor, Slate started the engine. It rumbled so loudly, he had to yell to be heard.

“Take her to bed.”

The woman next to him released a gasp while poor Ms. Murphy looked like she was about to pass out. Normally, he would’ve apologized for his bad behavior. But normally he didn’t have a beautiful imposter sitting next to him who made him angrier than losing a football game.

He popped the truck into reverse and backed out, trying his damnedest to pull up mental pictures of waving palm trees, brown skinned beauties, and strong tequila. But they kept being erased by soft white skin, eyes as blue as a late September sky, and the smell of sun-ripened peaches.

The town of Bramble, Texas watched as the truck rumbled over the curb and then took off down the street with the stars and stripes, the lone star flag, and Buster’s ears flapping in the wind.

“Isn’t that the sweetest thang?” Twyla pressed a hand to her chest. “Slate and Hope—high school sweethearts together again.”

“It sure is,” Kenny Gene said. “’Course, there’s no tellin’ how long Hope will stay.”

“Yep.” Rye Pickett spit out a long stream of tobacco juice. “That Hollywood sure has brainwashed her. Hell, she couldn’t even remember how to drink.”

“Poor Slate,” Ms. Murphy tisked. “He’ll have his hands full convincing her to stay and settle down.”

There were murmurs of agreement before Harley Sutter, the mayor, spoke up. “’Course, we could help him out with that.”

Rossie Owens pushed back his cowboy hat. “Well, we sure could.”

“Just a little help,” Darla piped up. “Just enough to show Hope that all her dreams can be fulfilled right here in Bramble.”

“Just enough to let love prevail,” Sue Ellen agreed.

“Just enough for weddin’ bells to ring.” Twyla sighed.

“Yep.” Harley nodded as he hitched up his pants. “Just enough.”

I
T WAS A DREAM
. It had to be. Where else but in a dream could you be an observer at your own wedding? A silent spectator who watched as you stood in the front of a church filled to the rafters with all your family and friends and whispered your vows to a handsome cowboy you’ve loved for most of your life. A cowboy who kissed you as if his life depended on it, before he hurried you down the aisle and off to the reception, where he fed you champagne from his glass and cake from his fingers, before taking you in his strong arms and waltzing you toward happily-ever-after.

It was a dream.

Her dream.

“Hog, you gonna eat that piece of cake?”

And just like that the dream shattered into a nightmare.

Hope Marie Scroggs pulled her gaze from the dance floor and looked over at Kenny Gene, who was staring down at the half-eaten slice of wedding cake on her plate.

“Because if you ain’t,” he said. “I sure hate to see it go to waste.” Without waiting for an answer, he speared the
cake and crammed a forkful into his mouth, continuing to talk between chews. “That Josephine sure outdid herself this time. Who would’ve thought that raspberry jam would go so good with yeller cake?”

The fork came back toward her plate. But before he could stab another piece, his girlfriend, Twyla, slapped his hand, and the plastic fork sailed through the air, bounced off one of the ceramic pig centerpieces, and disappeared beneath the table.

“Kenny Gene, don’t you be eatin’ Hope’s food! She needs all them noot-tur-ents!”

Hope didn’t have a clue what Twyla was talking about, and she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was recapture the dream. But it was too late. Too late to ignore the fact that she wasn’t the one who whirled around on the dance floor in the arms of Slate Calhoun—the handsomest cowboy in West Texas.

But it should’ve been.

It should’ve been her dressed in her mama’s three-tiered lace wedding dress. Her who sipped from his clear plastic Solo cup. Her who licked Josephine’s Raspberry Jamboree Cake from those strong quarterback fingertips. Her arms looped over that lean cowboy frame. And her face tucked under that sexy black Stetson, awaiting a kiss from those sweet smiling lips.

Her.

Her.

Her.

Certainly not some damned Yankee who had come to Bramble, Texas, looking for her long-lost, twin sister only to steal that same sister’s identity like a peach pie set out to cool. It wasn’t fair, and it wasn’t right. Not when Hope
was the one who had done all the prep work. The one who suffered through all the cheerleading practices and homecoming parades and hog-calling contests all to make her family and the townsfolk proud.

And then some citified wimp with ugly hair shows up, and their loyalties switched like Buford Floyd’s gender, and she was expected to grin and bear it? To pretend that everything was just fine and dandy? To act like she didn’t give a hoot that her life had just been spit out like a stream of tobacco juice to a sidewalk?

Her anger burned from the injustice of it all, and all she wanted to do was drop to the ground and throw a fit like she had as a child. And if she’d thought it would work, she would have. But it was too late for that. The vows had been spoken; the marriage license signed.

Besides, she was Hope Marie Scroggs, the most popular girl in West Texas, and she wasn’t about to let anyone know just how devastated she was that the dreams of her wedding day were being lived out by someone else.

Someone who, at that moment, looked over at her and smiled a bright, cheerful smile with white, even teeth that reflected the lights shooting off the huge disco ball hanging from the ceiling. How could some sugary sweet Disney princess have lived in the same womb with her for nine months? It made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Nor could she figure out why she smiled back—though it might have been more of a baring of teeth because Faith’s smile fizzled before Slate whirled her away.

“Your fangs are showin’, honey.” Her best friend, Shirlene, slipped into the folding chair next to her with a soft rustle of gold satin.

Since her daydream was already stomped to smithereens,
Hope turned to Shirlene and lifted a brow at the mounds of flesh swelling over the top of her bridesmaid’s dress.

“Better than havin’ my boobs showin’.”

Shirlene didn’t even attempt to tug up the strapless confection that put Hope’s grotesque purple maid-of-honor’s dress to shame. “Admit it. You’ve always been jealous of ‘the girls’.” She flashed a bright smile at Kenny and Twyla as they got up and headed for the dance floor.

“The girls?” Hope’s eyes widened. “Those aren’t girls, Shirl. Broads, maybe, but not girls.”

Shirlene laughed. “Okay, so you’ve always been jealous of ‘the broads’.”

Hope shrugged. “If you had my teacups, you’d be jealous too.”

“I don’t know about that. I get pretty tired of lugging these suckers around.”

“I’m sure Lyle doesn’t mind helping out with that.” She glanced around for Shirlene’s husband. “Where is Lyle, anyway?”

“He’s got a meetin’ in the morning, so he wanted to get to bed early.”

“A meetin’ on a Sunday?”

For just a brief second, Shirlene’s pretty green eyes turned sad before she looked away to fiddle with the purple ribbon tied around the fat ceramic pig. One of the same pigs that had been pulled out for every town celebration since they were made for Hope’s fifteenth birthday. “That’s the problem with marrying a wealthy man. They’re so busy making money; they don’t have time to make babies.”

“Are you still trying?”

Shirlene shrugged as she retied the ribbon in a perfect bow. “Lyle thinks it’s God’s will.”

“You could adopt, you know.”

“I know, but maybe Lyle’s right. Maybe this West Texas girl is a little too wild to be a good mama.” Releasing her breath, she flopped back in the chair, causing her broads to jiggle like Aunt Mae’s Jell-o mold. “Geez, we make a pathetic pair, don’t we, Hog? Me a lonely, childless housewife and you a jilted woman.”

Hope looked around before hissing under her breath. “I was not jilted, Shirl.”