Single-Title Contemporary Romance

Tall Tales and Wedding Veils

Hot Wheels and High Heels

Light My Fire

Flirting With Disaster

Wild at Heart

I Got You, Babe


Harlequin Series Romance

One Night in Texas

When He Was Bad

Tall, Dark and Texan

Risky Business

One Hot Texan

Mood Swing

The Boys are Back in Town

The Matchmaker's Mistake

Stray Hearts

FALLING FOR YOU
from The Boys are Back in Town

EXCERPT

Amanda hummed along with a song on the radio as she surveyed the hideous green walls of her living room. Finally it struck her where she'd seen this color before--in a hospital psychiatric ward that had been built in the 1950s. If the people there hadn't already been insane, that color would have driven them to it.

She rolled the paint onto the wall, masking the green paint swipe by swipe, trying to put the day she'd had behind her. Actually, the day had been relatively normal, right up to the moment Kirk had shown up, acting so stubborn and bullheaded.

No. He can only make you crazy if you let him.

She jacked the radio up, then dipped the roller again and smacked it to the wall, swaying her hips back and forth to the music as she painted. Focus, she told herself. Listen to the music, roll on the paint, dance your ass off, and pretty soon you'll forget all about him.

She rocked and rolled her way through most of one wall, letting the music and thoughts of a livable house drown out everything else. Great music. Pretty walls. Kirk who?

Then she heard the song.

She froze, the roller still against the wall, squeezing her eyes closed in silent protest. Good Lord. Did they have to play that song right now?

She reached over to flip the station. When her fingers touched the button, though, she froze, listened to a few more bars, then slowly backed away.

Never Tear Us Apart.

Music was such an insidious thing, triggering memories she would have sworn she'd long forgotten. Finally she gave up trying to ignore them. She tossed the roller to the pan and sank to the floor beside it. Leaning against a section of unpainted wall, she pulled her knees up and rested her elbows on them, closing her eyes with a heavy sigh. For the next few minutes, she let herself drown in the music, remembering what she knew in her heart was best to forget.

Kirk had been one of those dark, mysterious boy who could lurk in shadows on a sun-filled day, the kind girls stared at on the sly and talked about in hushed whispers. But he'd never been content to stay in those shadows. He'd been all about confrontation, radiating the kind of "don't screw with me" attitude most girls had no idea how to deal with.

But Amanda hadn't been like most girls.

When he'd scoffed at her good-girl reputation and told her he'd be happy to help her lose it, she'd asked him why he thought she'd want to get laid by a future prison inmate. When he asked her how it felt to walk around with her panties in a knot, she told him it appeared that he had an unnatural attraction to women's underwear.

But while the surface confrontation was there for all to see, something else churned beneath it. She accused him of being a moron because his grades sucked, even though she could feel intelligence radiate from him like heat off a summer sidewalk. He told her prissy honor students were about as sexy as ninety-year-old nuns, then looked at her with a gaze so hot it made her sweat. But it was only because of a chance meeting on a deserted stretch of state highway their senior year that the sparks between them had finally caught fire. Her car had broken down, leaving her stranded at sunset miles from home.

Then Kirk had driven by.

When he saw her, he hit the brakes, then backed up his car until it sat in front of hers on the shoulder. He stepped out slowly, leaned against his car and surveyed the situation.

Oh God, she thought. Why him? Anybody but him.

"Well, now," he said with a smirk of amusement. "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"

She walked toward him, gravel crunching beneath her shoes. "My car's broken down. I'm pretty sure it's the transmission."

"Transmission, huh? Yeah, that can be a real problem."

Jerk. "So are you going to offer me a ride, or what?"

"No, I don't think I am."

"Why not?"

"Because if your father sees you getting out of my car, chances are I'll end up looking down the barrel of a shotgun."

"Not a problem. My father doesn't even own a shotgun."

"I was speaking metaphorically."

"Metaphorically?" She raised her eyebrows. "Hmm. Looks as if somebody's been listening in English class after all. What's next? Personification?"

"Yeah. I'm planning on becoming a poet. I hear that pays really well."

"Great. Personification it is. We can talk about it all the way home."

But he just stood there staring at her, his dark eyes taunting her, telling her just how much he enjoyed having the upper hand. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, which meant it would be dark soon, which meant he had no business giving her a hard time about this.

Unless he really was as rotten as people made him out to be.

"Look, I'd really rather not walk home in the dark," she said. "No telling what's roaming around out there."

"Whatever it is, I bet you could beat the hell out of it."

"Hey, if you're not going to give me a ride, tell me now. I need to start walking if I'm going to make it home sometime before midnight."

The next few moments dragged on endlessly, and she was afraid that he actually intended to leave her out there. Finally he shoved away from the car.

"Get in."

She circled around and got into the passenger seat. He jammed the car into gear and hit the gas.

"I live on the west side of town near--"

"I know where you live."

They drove in silence. She could feel the tension in the car even though neither of them said a word. She couldn't decide which was worse--fighting with him or listening to the silence.

He drove with one wrist draped over the steering wheel, resting his other elbow on the console between them. The darkness was complete now, with nothing but the dashboard lights to illuminate the car. Just being in a confined place with him made her heart beat faster, and soon she found herself wondering what really lay behind those dark, smoldering eyes, what magic he could work with those lips, what it would feel like to have those hands roaming over her body...

Cut it out. Let other girls ask those questions. The ones who don't have a clue what's good for them.

She was relieved when he finally pulled up to the curb in front of her house. As she reached for the door handle, he finally spoke.

"Why are you so uptight all the time?"

She slumped with a sigh of irritation, then glared at him over her shoulder. "Why do you ask? One last insult for the road?"

"You're avoiding the question."

"I'm not uptight."

"Sweetheart, you're so uptight you squeak when you walk. Do you ever have any fun?"

"Of course I do."

"How could you? You spend all your time studying."

"I have goals. And I'm doing what it takes to reach them. What's wrong with that?"

He made a scoffing noise.

"So what are you going to do with your life? Huh? Oh, wait. I forgot. You're going to be a poet."

"You're so damned self-righteous. God, that pisses me off."

"No, what pisses you off is that I refuse to take any crap from you." She moved around to face him directly. "What I want to know is why you have to be so confrontational about everything. Basically, you're just not very nice."

"Nice?" He laughed a little. "Is that what you're looking for? A guy who's nice?"

"I'm not looking for any guy."

"Sure you are. All women are. It's human nature."

"Human nature? Now you're into philosophy?"

"I'm into a lot of things. I'm not as dumb as you think."

"Oh, yeah? You always screwing off in class, or skipping class altogether. Sounds pretty dumb to me."

For a few seconds, the car was deathly silent. Slowly his gaze became sharp and penetrating, and for a moment she wondered whether she'd pushed one too many of his buttons.

"Maybe," he said, "I have other things on my mind."

A strange lilt had entered his voice, different from his usual tone. And why did he keep looking at her like that? Quietly, intently, as if he could see right inside her?

"Then you need to get those other things off your mind," she told him.

He leaned toward her, running his hand slowly and deliberately along the top of the passenger seat behind her. "There's not much chance of that."

Oh, God.

She should have been telling him to stay away, but instead she sat there motionless, strangely aware of every breath he took. He seemed to be searching her face. For what, she didn't know, until his gaze wandered to her mouth and locked onto it.

"See," he said, easing closer, "in spite of everything, I just can't help thinking about..."

"What?"

"What it would be like to kiss you."

Amanda's pulse pounded inside her head. But she held her gaze steady, even as thoughts of all things sexual clouded her mind.

"So you want to know what it would be like to kiss me?"

"Oh, yeah."

She waited one beat. Two. Then she came closer, her lips hovering over his.

"It would be spectacular."

She put her palm to his chest and pushed him away. As she turned to open the passenger door, though, he grabbed her by the wrist. She started to yank her arm away.

"Amanda."

Something about the way he said her name--quietly, almost tenderly--transfixed her, and suddenly she couldn't move. His grasp faded to a feather light touch she could easily have shaken off.

She didn't.

He turned her around slowly until she was facing him again, and for some unfathomable reason she let him do it. His cockiness had disappeared, replaced by an expression of pure desire.

"Spectacular, huh?" he whispered.

She swallowed hard, but her gaze held steady. "That's right."

"You let me be the judge of that."

With that, he pulled her to him and dropped his lips against hers, kissing her in a way that was exciting and forbidden and made her hot all over. But it wasn't just that he knew how to kiss. It was the fiery attraction behind the kiss that they'd tried to ignore but now neither one of them could deny.

Then suddenly she came to her senses, jerking herself away, breathing hard. "We can't do this."

"We can't not do this."

"You and me? Are you kidding?"

He leaned away, some of that cockiness edging its way back in. Slowly he released her. "Try to stay away. Just try it."

She opened the car door and got out, feeling hot and shaky and trying like hell not to show it. She swore she could feel his gaze boring into her all the way to her front door. And in the ensuing days, it turned out that Kirk had been right.

Staying away from him had been impossible.

Even now, years later, just thinking about what had happened between them in the months that followed that night sent her heart into overdrive. Even when her father forbade her to see him, for the first time in her life she defied her rigid upbringing and saw Kirk on the sly as often as she could. He had a way of making only one thing seem important, and that was being with him.

Then she thought about how it had ended. How the fantasy she'd lived with Kirk had been shattered in matter of seconds on a hot May night on that same dark, deserted road outside Prescott. She couldn't believe how foolish she'd been to think she could have anything lasting with an aimless, reactive, thrill-seeking boy who would never be anything else.

The music trailed off and she opened her eyes again, secure in the knowledge that her decision all those years ago never to see him again had been the right one.

Then she heard a knock at her door.

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