head.
“Maybe it’s a sign you should leave
California and move back here to Texas like we did, Kerri,” her father said,
his grin a little too mischievous for her peace of mind. “There’s plenty of
room at our house now that renovations are almost completed.”
Her parents had repurchased the house
they’d sold when they moved to California eleven years ago. She’d been fifteen,
nearly sixteen, and Jordan had been almost seventeen when their father had
gotten a promotion and moved his family to the west coast.
The place she now called home.
“No, dad. I love it out there,
especially since Jordan and I opened Comets two years ago.” Kerri swallowed.
She still couldn’t believe it was gone. All gone. The invisible vise gripping
her heart hadn’t eased since the explosion. The loss of their restaurant ran
deep. Cooking was her life.
After graduating from the New York
School of Culinary Arts, she’d been lucky to honeymoon and train a few weeks in
Paris before landing a good job, along with her former husband, in one of California’s premiere restaurants.
Life had been good…until she’d
caught Lance cheating with a coworker. That’s when her outlook on the world had
changed. Her confidence in her feminine-side had changed. She’d changed. No
longer seeing the world as a perfect soufflé, she left her job, and husband,
and opened Cometswith her recently widowed sister.
The restaurant had been a lifeline
for them both. Her heart squeezed tighter. Jordan no longer needed that
lifeline. She had Cole. But nothing had changed for Kerri. Other than life had
gotten worse. What would she do now?
“What about Texas? Don’t you like
it here?” Alex McCall asked, coming to stand in the middle of the room.
All eyes turned to Kerri. Her face
heated. Again.
“I-I love it here, too. Texas will always be special to me.” She smiled. Texas did hold a lot of found memories…and
a few embarrassing ones.
Like teenage Connor and Cole
dripping naked at the water hole when she and Jordan had stolen their clothes. Her
first glimpse of a full-monty male had been… holy wow .
“I guess it’s true what they say. You
can take the girl out of Texas, but you can’t take Texas out of the girl. ”
Mrs. McCall grinned.
“I guess not.” Kerri laughed,
wishing they’d change the subject. They should be celebrating her sister’s
engagement, not wasting time on her. She lifted her chin. “So, are we going to
toast the happy couple, or not?”
“You heard the little lady. Gather
around.” Mr. McCall handed out glasses of Dom Perignon. Her favorite. “Here’s
to Jordan and Cole. A marriage eleven years in the making.”
A chuckle went around the room
before everyone took a sip of the chilled liquid.
“I’d say it’s more like
twenty-eight years in the making,” Connor corrected. “Cole was smitten with her
right from the beginning.”
Kerri found herself standing across
from the cowboy and allowed her gaze to take a closer look, from under her
lashes, of course.
Being five years older, Connor always
appeared tall, and although she’d grown up and was by no means small at five-foot-eight-inches,
she still felt that way next to him. He towered a good eight inches over her
now, and his trim muscular frame had gotten broader and more defined, deliciously
stretching his red flannel shirt to its limits.
The bugger.
Finally allowing her gaze to move
to his face, Kerri’s insides fluttered. Holy cow . He cut his hair.
The brown locks the sun loved to
kiss with highlights in the summer and that would curl out from under his
Stetson showed little evidence of either. She couldn’t recall ever seeing him
wear it this short.
Following his hairline, the cut came
in front of his ears in a slight sideburn, giving him a more respectable look.
Her fluttering increased. The style gave depth to his dancing brown eyes and
emphasized a strong jaw sporting a five-o’clock shadow, which did nothing to
disguise the sexy
Diana Montané, Kathy Kelly