www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Kathleen O’Reilly wrote her first romance at the age of eleven, which to her undying embarrassment was read aloud to her class. After taking more than twenty years to recover from the profound distress, she is now proud to finally announce her career—romance author. Now she is an award-winning author of nearly twenty romances published in countries all over the world. Kathleen lives in New York with her husband and their two children, who outwit her daily.

      To Texans everywhere, near and far, because

       when you’re a Texan, you can always come home.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Prologue

      May 2001

      SHE’D BOUGHT THE DRESS six months ago. The perfect halter-tied prom dress in candlelight blue and silver. It had taken her four shopping trips to Midland to find it, but when she saw it, she knew. When she walked, the flounce billowed like a cloud. The sleek bodice accentuated her chest before sliding smooth as silk over her hips. There it clung just enough to show the entire senior class just what hours of exercise could do. Lovingly her fingers had glided over the material, imagining his face when he saw her. She loved the hungry way he looked at her sometimes, as if she was more than a mere mortal, as if she was a queen.

      By the ripe old age of seventeen, Gillian was accustomed to men taking a second glance, or whistling when she wore the extra short shorts, which she did on occasion because she liked the whistling, even though her Momma said it wasn’t exactly proper behavior. In West Texas, the girls weren’t supposed to be fast, like in Houston or Dallas, but boredom and hot nights were a fertile combination, and sometimes nature ruled. Nonetheless, Gillian had a strict code of conduct, which she’d never been tempted to break…

      …until now.

      The sun was long gone, the moon high in a starless night. During the summer, when the dust kicked up beyond the heavens, the whole Texas sky glowed pink. Like a dream. It was nights like this that Gillian felt she was living her dreams.

      He emerged from the horizon, his shoulders slumped low, until he saw her. Gillian leaned back on her elbows, breasts to the sky, posing like the pictorials in Playboy, even though she’d never admit to studying the sultry photos.

      When he saw her, she noticed his effort to act cool, but he picked up the pace. Anxious, she could tell. As he strode toward her, her heart skipped a beat, because there was no boy that was better looking, no boy that kicked up her pulse, no boy that made her ache between her thighs like he did—not even Jeffrey Campbell Maxwell III, who was the star quarterback of the Lions. Everybody expected Gillian to go to the senior prom with Jeff Junior—except for Gillian. Gillian’s heart was set in a different direction. His.

      He was long and rangy, not as bulked up as some of the jocks, but there was something different about him. His muscles were crafted from hard work instead of blocking linebackers. His hands were rough from metal rather than free weights.

      “What took you so long?” she asked, wondering if he noticed that she wasn’t wearing a bra under her shirt. In her mind, there might as well have been a big neon arrow pointing at her tight nipples.

      When he looked at her, his eyes landed somewhere between her shoulders and her belly, and she noticed the quick, nervous bob in his throat.

      Good.

      “Got held up at the garage,” he said.

      Gillian smiled and held out a hand in invitation. “I’m glad you’re here.”

      He sat down on the ground next to her, long legs outstretched in front of him. His once-white T-shirt was stained with dirt and grease from the shop, but there were men who were sexy even in grime, and apparently, he was one. And at least for tonight, he was hers.

      She shot him one hot look from beneath her lashes, and he wiped his palms on his jeans, once, twice, and then his mouth was on hers, devouring, and demanding a response. He never kissed her like the others, not like Jeff Junior, not like Roger, not like Sonny. Gillian had never truly appreciated the art of kissing until the first time she’d touched his lips with her own.

      It had been fire.

      After she finally caught her breath, his hot mouth tracked her slim neck, following the line of her collarbone, down to where the pulse was drumming at her throat. She wound their hands together, her rose-tipped nails in sharp contrast to the dirt beneath his. But she didn’t mind. She loved the way his big hands touched her, hesitantly, reverently like she were his altar. God would probably strike her dead for comparing the carnal arts—or nearly carnal arts, she corrected—to a place of holy worship, but Gillian knew her biology and if God didn’t want teenagers running amok, he wouldn’t have juiced them with roller-coaster hormones, like hers.

      Not willing to wait any longer, she pulled him on top of her, feeling the rangy strength, the tensile bunching of muscles that seemed poised like