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that there column of yours. You and Jimmy working on the next Fun Fact—”
“We are not doing research.”
“Not yet,” Jimmy murmured, his voice for her ears only. Then he turned a smile, bright enough to melt Iceland, on the shop owner. “I got lost.”
“Lost? In here?”
“Sure enough. You’ve expanded the place since I got fitted for my last tux. You remember that?”
A smile chased the suspicion from Laverne’s expression. “Your high school prom. You and Tack Brandon liked to turn my hair gray making me comb half the state looking for neon purple cummerbunds. You were every bit as sassy back then as you are now.”
“And you were every bit as pretty. Harold’s a lucky man.”
Laverne blushed a shade bright enough to match her dyed hair. “That’s what I keep telling him, but he listens about as well as he washes dishes.”
Deb would have laughed at how easy the woman was taken in by a little masculine charm, except that her own heart was still pounding ninety to nothing.
“Anyhow,” Jimmy went on, “I was trying to find my way to the men’s dressing room when I heard Deb, here. She needed help with her dress, and I’ve never been one to resist a damsel in distress.”
“The, um, buttons stuck,” Deb added. Oh, God. Was that her trembling voice? No way. Her voice didn’t tremble, not on account of some man.
She stiffened and snatched up the forgotten pink dress. “Come to think of it,” she snapped, “this thing has way too many buttons. Do you have anything with a zipper?”
Laverne glanced at the pile in her arms and fished a dress free. “Try this.” She handed over a buttercup yellow shift with a side zipper before turning to Jimmy. “You come on with me, sugar, and I’ll give you a personal escort back to the men’s dressing room.”
“I’d be mighty obliged.”
“By the way,” Laverne asked as she hooked her arm through Jimmy’s. “Did I ever introduce you to my niece, Lurline? Why, she’s the prettiest girl in the county and she knows her chicken feed from her horse grain, let me tell you. You two would hit it off perfectly and I just happened to mention that you were getting fitted today. She’s right outside….”
“We’ll settle this later,” he told Deb as the shop owner led him from the room.
Later, as in he was giving Deb more time to think.
To worry.
To fantasize. And now after their too close encounter a few moments ago, she had even more fuel for those fantasies.
Forget it.
“Yes,” she blurted and he stopped, the motion jerking Laverne back a step.
His gaze caught hers. “Yes to what?”
“The two weeks.” She took a deep breath and tried to slow the blood zinging through her veins. “I’ll do it.”
His grin was slow and heartstopping. “You mean, we’ll do it.” Then he winked, and did the last thing Deb expected.
He walked away.
3
HE’D WALKED AWAY.
That all-important fact replayed in Deb’s head later that day as she sat at her desk at the In Touch, the three-room newspaper office located right above Pancake World.
But he hadn’t walked. He’d sauntered, swayed, in that long-legged, sexy-as-hell gait that made an entire bridal shop full of women—most of them Laverne’s single cousins and nieces and even her great aunt who’d just happened to stop by—drop their jaws and visibly salivate.
And not just on account of his looks. Sure, Jimmy had it all put together right, but it was the entire package that made him the hottest catch in four counties. He was the green-eyed, blond-haired, handsome white knight every girl dreamed of. The charming, honest, loyal son-in-law mamas prayed for. The successful, salt-of-the-earth rancher every daddy wanted to see hitched to his little girl.
It was strictly Darwin’s theory at work. Society looked to the strongest, most appealing for procreating. While the dreaded P word was the last thing Deb had in mind, she wasn’t immune to Jimmy’s appeal.
In fact, his appeal had had her this close to wrapping her arms around him and begging for more of what he’d started with his warm hands and purposeful fingers.
By walking away, he’d dashed that impulse.
“Why are you frowning?” Wally, Deb’s devoted copyboy, had glanced up from his computer and was eyeing her.
“I’m not frowning.” She busied herself taking a sip of black coffee from the latest acquisition of her collection of designer Bitch mugs: I’ve Got The Itch To Bitch.
“You’re definitely frowning. Isn’t she frowning?” he asked the seventy-something woman who sat at a nearby table.
Dolores Guiness had eyes and ears as big as Texas, which was exactly why Deb had hired her on for a few hours a day to write the About Town section, aka the gossip column for the In Touch. The old woman made it her business to know everything about everyone.
She eyed Deb over a pair of black-rimmed bifocals as if she were a coyote sizing up a good rib eye. “Why are you frowning, dear? You can tell old Dolores.”
“I’m not frowning.”
“You sure are,” Wally persisted. “Isn’t she?” This time he turned to the petite redhead who sat at what had once been Annie’s desk. She wore an oversize white T-shirt that swallowed her small frame and a pair of blue-jean overalls.
“I, um, I guess so.”
“It’s okay to speak your mind,” Wally said. “She won’t bite you.”
“I definitely bite,” Deb told the timid Paige.
“Rumor has it she definitely has biting potential,” Dolores informed them. “But since said biter signs my paycheck, I’m keeping my opinion to myself.”
“Good girl,” Deb told her.
“She likes everybody to think she bites,” Wally went on, “but she doesn’t.”
“I bite, dammit.” Deb took another sip, slammed her mug down on her desk and glared at Wally. “And don’t you go telling anybody otherwise.”
“I don’t have to tell anyone anything. You already did it yourself when you led the fundraiser for those foster kids over at the church. And when you organized that bake sale to help Mr. and Mrs. Cootie pay funeral expenses for their uncle. Stuff like that speaks for itself. You’re definitely a nonbiter.”
“I’m the editor of the town newspaper. I like to stay in the thick of things. My reasons are purely self-motivated.”
“And we’re expecting a blizzard to blow through central Texas tomorrow. She’s like one of those Eskimo pies,” he told Paige. “Hard shell, soft filling.”
Deb glared. “Don’t you have work to do?”
“That depends.”
She pasted on her most intimidating frown. “On whether or not I’m firing you for insubordination?”
“On whether or not you really meant it when you said I could take over Annie’s duties.”
“Of course I meant it. You get Annie’s job. Paige gets your job. Dolores gets to dish dirt part-time.”
“Okay—” he rubbed his hands together “—if I’m now officially a full-fledged reporter, photographer—”
“—part-time