Back in the Game Read online

  Breeanne turned back to Rowdy.

  “I’ve been watching you on TV. You did a pretty good job of taking Potts down. Kudos.” She gave him thumbs-up. She was trying not to get excited about him showing up, but she couldn’t help it. She was excited. He looked so good. Better than ever.

  “I would have called, but I felt the apology should be face-to-face. It was a whirlwind in Dallas. I’m still not finished with all the testifying.”

  “I imagine it’s going to take a while to clean up the damage.”

  “Turns out, my secret getting spilled was the best thing that could have happened. Once I was exposed and took the first hit, it was amazing how other people came clean. I guess deep down, we’re all longing for forgiveness.” His voice was wistful.

  “Even the Stephanies and Pottses of the world.”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Anyway, back to my apology . . .” He pulled her into his arms and she did not resist.

  She looked up into his eyes, and found home.

  “What I said was unkind. I feel terrible about it. I intend on spending the rest of my days making it up to you.”

  “Wh-wh-what do you mean?” she whispered.

  “Jackdaw wants an inside story on the Gunslingers scandal and your name came up.”

  “I haven’t finished writing the first book.”

  “We better get back to work then.”

  “Just like before?”

  “Well, things might be a little different this time.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The owner of the Gunslingers offered me a coaching job,” he said.

  She sucked in a deep breath. Put her palm to her mouth. “Are you going to take it?”

  “Well . . .” he drawled, and leveled her his best come-hither look. “That all depends.”

  “On what?”

  “He’s trying to ask you to marry him, doofus,” Suki hollered.

  In unison, she and Rowdy leaned over the balcony. “Mind your own business, Suki.”

  “Hmph,” Suki said. “I’m so underappreciated.”

  “Well, now that your sister let the cat out of the bag . . .” Rowdy went down on one knee.

  Her breath caught and her poor old pieced-together heart filled with so much love she didn’t know if it could contain it.

  “Breeanne Carlyle, would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

  She was trembling all over, her body going from hot to cold and back again. “Rowdy, are you sure? I mean you could have any woman in the world. Beautiful women chase after you. I’ve seen it.”

  “Hey, you’re the woman I want.”

  “But why me? I’m so ordinary.”

  “Why you? Other than you’re the most loving, generous person I’ve ever met.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Breeanne, here’s the deal. I’m a superstitious guy. I believe in hope chests that grant wishes, and cheetah scarves that feel scratchy to anyone who is not your soul mate.”

  She giggled.

  “I believe in Nolan Ryan, and he only sits on the feet of good people. I believe in Dairy Queen dipped cones, skinny-dipping in a magical pond, and I believe that my spaghetti carbonara is just this side of nirvana.”

  “It is.” She nodded.

  “I believe, like your family, that you should entertain often and invite the whole community. I believe in fair play, Dugan Potts’s disgrace, and the American way of life. I believe that a good screwball is trickier to pull off than a knuckleball, and that baseball should be played for the love of the game and not the almighty dollar. I believe in Fourth of July fireworks, the ‘Star-Spangled Banner,’ the seventh inning stretch, and dot races.”

  “Aren’t you getting a little far afield?”

  “Hang on, I’m getting there. Breezy, I believe that I was meant for you and that you . . .” He stumbled a little, his voice going thick. “. . . were meant for me.”

  “Rowdy.” She breathed.

  “Breeanne, I love you. I’ve never said that to another woman that I wasn’t related to. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  “Really?” She could hardly believe it was true. “Because I love you. I love you so much, Rowdy Blanton.”

  He got up and swung her into his arms, and kissed her with every ounce of love he had in him. All the love he’d been saving up, just for her. Breeanne melted into him, like dipped cone chocolate.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Suki called up the stairs. “Because you will get it.”

  “I guess we better not wish for you to go away then,” Breeanne called back. “While you are a pain in the butt, we kind of like having you around.”

  “You never did answer the man, Breeanne,” her mother spoke up. “After a speech like that, if you don’t say yes, I will.”

  “Hey!” Dad protested.

  “Your mother brings up a good point.” Rowdy lifted an eyebrow. “What do you say? Will you marry me?”

  “Yes, Rowdy Blanton, I’ll marry you,” she said, and pulled his head down for another long, soulful kiss that promised a lifetime of happiness.

  EPILOGUE

  I consider myself the luckiest man

  on the face of the earth.

  —LOU GEHRIG

  The day after Rowdy proposed, Breanne carried the hope chest into the boxcar that served as the front desk at Boxcars and Breakfast.

  Jodi looked up from the computer screen where she was working. “What’s this?”

  “All my dreams have come true,” Breeanne said. “I no longer have any need for the hope chest. I thought you could use it.”

  “Are you saying I’m hopeless?” Jodi bristled.

  “I’m saying it’s time you moved on,” Breeanne said staunchly. “Here’s hope.”

  “I have moved on.” Jodi folded her arms over her chest.

  “You haven’t had a date since Ryan left you at the altar.”

  Jodi’s mouth dove down. “What am I supposed to do with it? There’s no key to open the other locks.”

  “You’ll figure it out,” Breeanne said. “But be careful what you wish for because you will get it.”

  And then she winked and walked away.

  A stroke of the cheetah scarf.

  The erotically soft sensation punctuated Rowdy Blanton’s life. Permeated everything. Seeped into his dreams.

  From the fateful hope chest, to his fiancée’s slender neck, to the silken tie now manacling his hand to his headboard, a stroke of the cheetah scarf spelled freedom. Freedom from the empty life he’d once mindlessly chased, searching for something he hadn’t known where to find. Freedom from the sins he’d committed, absolved by forgiveness in her understanding eyes. Freedom from the loneliness that had dogged him from the wrong side of the tracks, until he’d found unconditional love in Breeanne’s arms.

  Freedom from pain.

  How on earth had he ever once believed that loving one woman for the rest of his life would bring him suffering? Valentine’s Day, their wedding day, couldn’t get here fast enough. Six months into their engagement and he’d enjoyed more hot sex and romantic spontaneity than he’d experienced in thirty-three years as a single guy. Why hadn’t anyone ever told him what he was missing?

  Um, your married friends tried, remember. He’d just been too pigheaded to listen.

  “Now,” she said with a wicked grin. “To fully celebrate turning in the book.”

  “What do you have in mind?” he asked. He was naked in their bed, held happy prisoner by the cheetah scarf, totally exposed. Open. Vulnerable.

  And he loved it.

  Breeanne, wearing his baseball jersey and a pair of cheetah panties, was straddling his waist. “Guess.”

  “Role playing? You’re the Gunslingers super-hot new female pitcher, and I’m your adoring groupie?”

  She giggled that adorable sound that never failed to arouse Mr. Johnson. “Nope.”

  “You didn’t buy ball gags, did you? Because I’m not sure I’m a fan of the idea—
”

  She shook her head, her wavy dark blond hair bobbing seductively around her shoulders, and reached for a paper bag on the other side of the bed.

  “Don’t tell me. You’ve dipped cone chocolate in there and you’re going to lick it off my body.”

  “No, but I like the way you think.”

  “All right. I give up. What sexy adventure do you have planned for us tonight?”

  She pulled a paperback from the bag. Love’s Throbbing Fury, and he started grinning.

  “What better way to celebrate finishing writing a book than by reading a book,” she said.

  “You’ll make a reader of me yet.”

  “Oh, just wait,” she said. “I’ll have you running to the bookstore every Tuesday when the new releases come out.”

  She opened the book and started reading. “ ‘Her mouth wrapped around his stiff cock and he could barely breathe, much less think. Around and around she swirled. Up and down. A tantalizing, mind-blowing blend of expert maneuvers that had him wondering how she knew so well the secrets of his body.’ ”

  Then Breeanne put down the book and proceeded to act out the paragraph she’d just read, leaving Rowdy gasping for air. He wanted to touch her, wanted to get her naked, wanted to feel her hot, damp skin flush against his, but he was tied to the headboard . . .

  And she had other plans.

  She read and then acted out each passage, blow by blow, until he was crazed with lust for her. She increased the intensity of her strokes, pushing him closer, ever closer to the edge. He lost all ability to think, to even move from his staked position on the bed. He felt the orgasm building and building and building, hard, hot, and unstoppable.

  He was lost. Gone. Adrift in ecstasy.

  She reached up and untied him.

  He grabbed her, pulled her to his chest, whispered, “Breezy, Breezy, Breezy.”

  She wriggled against him. Fierce. Tiny. Amazingly beautiful in his eyes. Dark blond hair. Bewitching green eyes. Bunny rabbit nose quivering. She sat up, stripped off his baseball jersey, flung it behind her. He spanned her waist, lifted her bottom to his face, and chewed the thin strap of her G-string panties in two.

  His lover wrapped the softest material on earth around her hand, rubbed that sweet hand over the hardest part of his body, and with each caress she whispered, “One soft touch identifies the other.”

  A stroke of the cheetah scarf.

  A sizzle of sex.

  And at long last, Rowdy Blanton was made whole.

  Find out how the next Carlyle sister finds love in

  New York Times best-selling author

  LORI WILDE’s

  second Stardust, Texas novel

  RULES OF THE GAME

  Coming June 2015 from Avon Books!

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  New York Times and USA Today bestselling author LORI WILDE has sold seventy-eight works of fiction to four major New York publishing houses. She holds a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Texas Christian University and a certificate in forensic nursing from Kaplan University. She is a member of the Internal Association of Forensic Nurses. Her first New York Times bestseller, the third book in her Twilight, Texas series, The First Love Cookie Club, has been optioned for a television movie. The town of Granbury, Texas, upon which her fictional town ofTwilight, Texas is loosely based, honors Lori with an annual Twilight, Texas weekend each Christmas.

  www.loriwilde.com

  www.twilighttexas.com

  www.avonromance.com

  www.facebook.com/avonromance

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  By Lori Wilde

  The Stardust, Texas Series

  BACK IN THE GAME

  The Cupid, Texas Series

  LOVE WITH A PERFECT COWBOY

  SOMEBODY TO LOVE

  ALL OUT OF LOVE

  LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

  The Jubilee, Texas Series

  A COWBOY FOR CHRISTMAS

  THE COWBOY AND THE PRINCESS

  THE COWBOY TAKES A BRIDE

  The Twilight, Texas Series

  THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE COLLECTION

  THE WELCOME HOME GARDEN CLUB

  THE FIRST LOVE COOKIE CLUB

  THE TRUE LOVE QUILTING CLUB

  THE SWEETHEARTS’ KNITTING CLUB

  Available from Avon Impulse

  ONE TRUE LOVE, a Cupid, Texas novella

  THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CHRONICLES, Twilight, Texas novellas

  Carrie; Raylene; Christine; Grace

  Now available in print as

  THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE COLLECTION

  COPYRIGHT

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BACK IN THE GAME. Copyright © 2015 by Laurie Vanzura. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  EPub Edition March 2015 ISBN: 9780062311276

  Print Edition ISBN: 9780062311269

  FIRST EDITION

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