Redneck Romeo: A Red Hot Valentine Story
Read Redneck Romeo: A Red Hot Valentine Story Online
Authors: Randi Alexander
Redneck Romeo: Red Hot Valentine
by
Randi
Alexander
“REDNECK ROMEO: RED HOT VALENTINE”
Copyright © 2014 Randi Alexander
*~*~*~*
Edited by E Felder
*~*~*~*
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used
fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book may be reproduced
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from the author.
“Perfect.” Genevieve Riley stepped back from the screen
door. Trapped in the O’Bannon ranch house kitchen by three huge black dogs that
barked at her from the porch. She’d snuck onto the ranch on a service road and
parked around the side of the house. The darn dogs must have heard her truck.
Or the squeaky screen door.
This was her reward for doing the right thing?
She glanced around the big room. It had been updated since
the last time she was here. Was that ten years ago? No, eleven. Stainless steel
appliances and dark granite countertops had replaced the all-white kitchen she
remembered. She hadn’t been anywhere but in this room, but she knew there was a
door somewhere on the other side of the house. If she could find it, sneak out,
and reach her truck before the hounds alerted anyone...
A whistle cut through the air. “Crap.” Too late to make her
escape, she’d been caught.
A man in a tan cowboy hat, dark T-shirt, jeans, and boots
walked toward the house from the direction of the barn, his long legs closed
the distance fast. Was it him? A bubble of panic swelled inside her.
She glanced out the side window at her little pickup truck
heating in the warm February sun.
So close.
She’d planned to get in and
out in seconds and be gone before anyone knew she’d been here. Especially him.
Eleven years ago, she hadn’t left under the best
circumstances, but she’d been only fifteen, and had no choice.
When he was still a few yards from the house, the cowboy
whistled again. The dogs stopped their ruckus and turned toward him. “Down.” He
pointed to the grass beside the porch steps. The dogs raced to the spot and sat
at attention.
He braced one foot on the bottom step and looked at her
through the screen door. “Can I help you, ma’am?” His Texas drawl rolled low
and sexy.
With the sun casting his face in shadow beneath his hat
brim, she couldn’t tell if it was Nick or not.
She gestured toward the small box on the kitchen counter
next to her. “I just wanted to drop off something for you.” She inched open the
screen door, ready to make her getaway.
The dogs growled. The cowboy took the steps two at a time
and stopped directly in front of her before she could step over the threshold.
“Hang on a minute.” Without touching her, he herded her back inside, followed
her in, and let the screen door shut. Taking off his hat, he hung it on a peg
next to the door.
Oh God, it was him. Nick O’Bannon. His deep green eyes had
stayed exactly the same, but now his face had become the face of a man. Tan,
with strong cheekbones, a square jaw, and firm, sensual lips, he was
outrageously handsome.
His body had matured, as well. His wide chest and big arms
filled out his shirt, and he’d gotten so tall. When he was fifteen, his short,
straight hair had been wild and red. It had turned a gorgeous dark auburn. His
brow lifted. “Ma’am?”
He didn’t recognize her.
She hadn’t expected him to, really, but it would have been
nice if he had. They’d spent every possible moment together that summer. Had
she changed so much since then? Her fingers threaded through the long strands
of her strawberry blonde hair as it rested on her breast.
His eyes followed the movement. When she’d been fifteen, her
hair had been shorter and almost white-blonde from spending her days in the
sun. Skinny, tall, and just starting to bloom, she couldn’t blame him for not
seeing that girl in the woman she was now.
He crossed his arms over his chest and his eyes narrowed.
“Why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here.”
He must think she’d rummaged through his house and stolen
something. Would she have to submit to a strip search? The image of his hands
on her skin sent a lovely shiver along her spine.
Genevieve laced her fingers behind her back. “Um…”
Great
start
. She’d practiced a speech, in case she couldn’t just drop off the box
and run. She struggled to remember the first line. “I…my father died five
months ago.”
He dropped his arms to his sides. “My condolences.” His
voice carried sympathy and his brows drew together. She had to be confusing
him.
“All his things were put into a storage locker. I just came
back to San Antonio to sort through everything.”
He nodded once and tipped his head slightly, as if to say, “
Get
on with it
.”
She gestured to the locked box she’d set on the counter. “I
found this among his things, and wanted to return it to you. To your family,”
she quickly amended. If he ever figured out who she was, she didn’t want him to
think she’d come here just for him. Although, seeing him again excited her more
than she’d expected.
Nick turned and looked at the box. “Thank you.” He picked up
the envelope that held the card she’d written, but hadn’t signed.
This would have been done anonymously if those damn hounds
hadn’t pinned her down and alerted their owner. While he stood in profile, she
let her gaze wander down to where his perfect ass filled out his jeans. All those
hours riding horses. “Mm.” It just slipped out.
He jerked his head and caught her staring at his butt.
She tugged at her hair again then dropped her hand. She
hadn’t been this nervous since her first day teaching last fall. “I put it in a
safety box, just in case you had kids in the house.”
He shook his head once. “No kids.”
“Wife?” She bit her tongue. Where the heck had that come
from?
He lifted a brow. “No wife. No girlfriend.” The corner of
his mouth curved up slightly. “Anything else you’d like to know about me?” He
didn’t wait for an answer, but tipped up the box and looked at the combination
lock.
She took a step toward him. “The code is your dad’s
birthday. I wrote that in the note too, instead of the numbers, just in case
your kids, you know. But since—”
He swung toward her, his brow furrowed. “How do you know my
father’s birthday?” The words snapped from his mouth as he set the box back on
the counter.
She took a breath. She could either lie and get out of here
clean—without giving him her name—or she could tell the truth and suffer the
embarrassment of Nick having proof of what her father had done eleven years
ago.
He waited silently but Genevieve could sense his keen
interest in her explanation.
Selfishly, she wanted him to remember her. Wanted him to
recall their first kiss down by the lake that hot July day. And the second,
third, and fourth kisses as they spent the summer falling in love as only
teenagers could. “My father worked here as the foreman.”
Nick’s body stiffened, his green eyes went wide as he looked
into her blue ones. She knew the moment he recognized her. His hands came
forward. “Jellybean?” He took her shoulders and looked down at her with
surprise in his gaze and a smile on his face. “Is it really you?”
A bubble of emotion slid up her throat and burned wet behind
her eyes. “You remember me?”
“How could I forget. Jellybean Riley.” He said his pet name
for her as if it were a prayer.
She covered the burst of sentimentality with laughter. “I go
by Genny now, but yes, it’s me.”
“Aw jeez.” He looked like he didn’t know what to do next.
Then he pulled her in for a crushing hug.
Her chest warmed as her heart thumped wildly. She wrapped
her arms around him and squeezed right back, as if the tightness could wipe
away the years she’d spent missing him. “Nick.”
He pulled back to look at her, brushed his knuckles across
her cheek, along her jaw, and rested it on her neck. “God, I missed you.” His
gaze moved over her features. “How did I not recognize you right away? You’re
right here.”
She touched the back of his hand as it rested on her neck.
“Eleven years older, six inches taller, about fifty pounds heavier.”
“Jeez, you look great.” His gaze traveled down her shirt,
slowing at her breasts, then moved to her hips and her legs below her shorts. “Really
great.”
“You do, too. She barely resisted checking out his wide
shoulders and narrow hips again. Then his words struck her. He’d missed her? “I
missed you too, Nick.” It felt so good to tell him.
“You didn’t even say goodbye. What exactly happened?”
The pain of that day knifed into her soul. “I thought you
knew.”
He shook his head. “My parents wouldn’t tell me. I went on a
rant when I came home that night and you were just gone. But they wouldn’t say
what happened.”
Her mouth went dry. This wouldn’t be easy. “Your father
caught my dad stealing.”
A wrinkle formed between Nick’s eyebrows and his jaw
tightened.
“He fired my dad on the spot and had the ranch hands clean
everything out of the foreman’s house.” She could see it happening as if it had
been yesterday. Too shocked to cry, she’d stood in the September sun watching
her life disintegrate. The third time in five years her father’s ‘problem’ had
forced them to move.
“I’m sorry, Genny. I didn’t know.”
She nodded and tamped down the grief that threatened to
overwhelm her. “Mom couldn’t take it anymore. This was the third job Dad had
been fired from, and she wanted out. She went to your father for help.”
Nick looked like he was having trouble assimilating all
this, but she forged on.
“Your father was very kind. He gave her a loan to help her
get a new start, gave her one of the old ranch trucks, had the hands pile our
things into it, everything except Dad’s clothes.” Her father hadn’t contested
the termination, hadn’t fought the eviction, but worse, hadn’t said a word as
her mother loaded Genevieve in the truck and drove them away. He’d just stood
there as if he’d been expecting it all to happen.
“Dad did all that?” His voice came out soft. “I wondered
where that truck disappeared to.”
Genevieve blinked to keep the tears from falling. “He was a
good man.” She smiled gently. “Still is, from what I heard in town.”
“He and Mom have a little place in Harlingen.” Nick shrugged
his eyebrows. “They threaten to stay there permanently unless Rory and I start
having grandkids for them.”
“Rory.” Nick’s little brother had been ten that summer. Nick
had found clever ways to ditch the boy so the two of them could be alone. A
smaller replica of Nick, he’d inherited their father’s black hair instead of
their mother’s red. “How is he?”
“Good. Still single. He built a house on the back forty and
we run the ranch together.” His hand slid to her shoulder. “But what happened
to you after you left here?”
She’d cried nonstop until they’d crossed the Texas border,
locked herself in the bathroom of the hotel they stopped at, and moped through
the state of Colorado. “I begged Mom to stay in the area so I could finish
school.” And be with Nick, but she hadn’t said that to her mother. “She wanted
away from Dad, so we went north to Colorado, to her family. We did well there.
She remarried, I have stepsisters, and…” A smile curved her lips. “I’m
teaching.”
“You are? Good for you. That was always your dream.” He took
a breath. Taking in her scent? “Still in Colorado?”
She caught his, too. Fresh air and pine. Her belly jittered
with awareness, twice as potent as it had been when she was fifteen. “Yes, I’m
at a two-year college.” She glanced out the screen door. “This is my first trip
back to Texas since we left.”
He paused. “The funeral?”
“He didn’t have one. He had no one, and I guess he liked it
that way.” A wash of sorrow for the way her dad had ignored her turned to pity
for the lonely way he’d lived. Yet, he’d chosen his solitude. She’d had her
father’s ashes shipped to her in Colorado, and she and her mother had buried
them in a small corner of a cemetery. “But he left everything to me when he
died.” She looked at the box on the counter.
“So what’s in it?” He tipped his head toward it.
She eased out of his arms and walked to the counter. When
Nick saw the contents, he might not be so anxious to renew their friendship.
“When I was cleaning out Dad’s stuff from the storage locker, I found a few
things that looked important enough for people to want returned.” She worked
the combination lock. “There’s this, and a half dozen other things in my truck
that I’m going to return to their rightful owners this week.” This return would
be relatively easy. She was not looking forward to the rest of the deliveries.
The lock clicked and she opened the box, stepping aside.
Nick touched the two-tone semi-automatic pistol. “This is
Dad’s.”
She nodded. The engraving on the silver slide included his
name as well as the date and shooting contest at which he’d won it. “I’m sorry,
Nick. Please apologize to your father for me. My dad had sticky fingers.”
Palming the gun, Nick held it and stared at the inscription.
“There’s no need for you to apologize for what your father did.” His voice came
out gruff. “The man made his choices. You aren’t responsible for his actions.”
It was sweet of him to absolve her, but she still felt the
sting of guilt. “I didn’t see him often; my dad, I mean. Once, maybe twice a
year. He wasn’t really interested in me much.” All the years of neglect still
hadn’t dulled the hurt.
Nick looked at her then set the gun back in its foam
packing. “Men can be fools.”
She shrugged it off as she’d done far too often. It was her
cue to leave, but she couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye. “Well…” That’s all
she could manage. She took a step toward the door.