“No, his wife or girlfriend did. Well, she threw it on him because she thought he was cheating on her again. And I was standing by him.”
She chuckled. “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, it pretty much was.”
She continued to look up at him. “I hope you explained.”
He nodded. “I did.”
She knocked a few more letters from his coat. Then she met his gaze. “I love you, too.”
He let go of a deep breath that he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. “Damn, for a minute there, I didn’t think you were going to say it.”
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. And she never flinched. Even when the kiss ended they stood there, holding on to each other.
“Oh.” With one hand, he reached for the bag he’d left on the table. The other he kept around her. It might be a while before he let her go.
“What is it?” She laughed when she pulled out the sweater she’d left at his office nearly two months ago. “I guess this means you want your leather jacket back.”
He smiled. “As long as I have you, you can keep it.”
A teasing glint lit her eyes. “What if I keep both you and the jacket and let you borrow it occasionally?”
“Excellent plan,” he said. “But I have to warn you. If you keep my jacket, I’ll be hanging around a long time. I’m talking commitments and official documents and all that stuff.”
She smiled. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
“No, I was planning on asking you that question with much more flare, a ring, some flowers.”
“Really?” she grinned.
“Yeah, but if I was asking would you—”
“Yes!” she said with enthusiasm. “I’d say yes.”
TURN THE PAGE for an exciting preview of the first book Christie Craig’s brand new Hotter in Texas series, Don’t Mess with Texas! Available from Forever in September 2012!!
**This chapter is printed by permission of Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved.**
Chapter One
“Why are you so sad, Tio?”
Tyler Lopez looked down at his six-year-old niece. Her brown eyes were so warm they could . . . They could persuade a grown man to make a complete idiot out of himself.
Pinching the red ball rubber-banded to his face, Tyler dropped his clown-suited ass on the picnic bench beside the birthday girl. When the real clown canceled late last night, his sister, Samantha had called him in desperation. Anna will be so disappointed. Tyler adored all his nieces and nephews, but there was something about Anna — quiet and a bookworm like himself — that made her his favorite. And that made the thought of disappointing her impossible.
“I’m a clown. Clowns aren’t sad.” He looked out at the twenty or so family members mingling together at the other picnic tables in his sister’s backyard. Two of his brothers were pointing and laughing at him. If Anna wasn’t sitting there, he’d have shot them the bird. The Texas humidity, still almost unbearable in September, made the clown suit cling to his arms and…
“Da…dang it!” he muttered and reached down and caught the little orange kitten who had mistaken his leg for a climbing post. Bringing the spirited, blood-drawing feline on top of the table, he knew he couldn’t complain too loudly or Anna’s mother would be over here to give him hell. Especially since, he’d given the kitten to his niece last month as an early birthday present. And according to his sister, the animal was a reincarnated demon. Hence the kitten’s name, Damian.
“Some clowns are sad,” Anna said. She closed the book she’d been reading and gave Damian a purr-inducing scratch behind the ear.
“Not this clown.” He told himself it wasn’t a lie. Tyler gave the cat an under-chin rub. That led to the kitten jumping into Tyler’s lap and curling up. No doubt the feline remembered who’d snatched him up from the middle of I-10 before he got smeared on the freeway. And he’d better remember it — Tyler had almost become an oil spot in the road himself in the process.
“You remember my friend, Austin?” Tyler asked Anna. “Well, this is his suit and he specifically told me it was a happy clown.” Austin, one of the partners at their private detective agency, had purchased the costume to do an undercover gig. As fate would have it, he hadn’t gotten around to tossing it out yet.
“But when you walked in, Mama told Tia Lola, ‘Here comes the sad man behind the clown face.’”
Tyler inwardly flinched, but continued to smile. It was something he’d gotten good at doing—putting up a front. A skill he’d mastered during his year and a half in prison.
“Do you believe everything your mama says?” he asked in a teasing voice to hide his frustration. He loved his seven siblings, but a big family came with a big price. Having them poke around in his personal business was part of that price.
“I do.” Anna’s dark brown pigtails, tied with bright red ribbons, bounced around her face as she bobbed her head up and down. “Mama doesn’t lie. She says it’s a sin.”