Snickers and titters followed that pronouncement.
“Young man, curb your tongue!” Earl, who did a brisk side business as an auctioneer at local livestock shows and estate sales, knew how to take control of an iffy situation. He stared that cowboy down.
Muttering under his breath and shaking his head, the cowboy sank back to his seat.
“Now. Where was I?” Earl straightened his bolo tie. “Ahem. There will be no swimsuit competition.” That brought some serious booing. Earl waited for the yahoos to take a breath before shouting out, “The categories of competition are talent, evening wear, an interview centering around the contestants’ dreams and goals—and a platform for a social cause that has special meaning for each candidate.”
Van felt so proud. Her girls had done well. She beamed at the three across the table from her and turned to give a big thumbs-up to the five sitting on the grass.
And it was right then, as she shifted her focus to the girls on the blanket, that the moment of reckoning found her.
She spotted Jameson. He sat at a picnic table on the other side of the rows of folding chairs. At the table with him, she recognized his dad, his mom and his two younger brothers.
Her mouth went dry, and her face felt too hot. She couldn’t stop herself from drinking in the sight of him. He looked so good, all strong and broad and big and manly.
It seemed almost impossible that she’d actually seen him naked. But she had. And their night together had been beautiful. Perfect. Spectacular.
Yeah. All those things and then some.
But what she needed to remember, the most important thing now...
That night was Over. CapitalO.
Just one night, she reminded herself. One night, months ago. Little more than a blip on the radar of eternity. The mere sight of him shouldn’t affect her so strongly.
She was supposed to be over him—no. Wait. She had no need to get over him. There was nothing to get over. They’d had a good time and gone their separate ways.
Except, well...
For her, their one night had been the best night ever.
The sheer sexual excellence of it couldn’t quite be forgotten. Her body remembered and wanted more.
And that meant that her face had flushed with heat and her mind had gone blank as a fresh-washed chalkboard. All of a sudden, a hive full of bees seemed to buzz beneath the surface of her skin.
And he’d spotted her, too.
Their gazes collided—and locked. They stared at each other across the rows of spectators as Earl Tillson droned on up on the stage. Everyone else—Callie, Evan, Daphne, the girls—they all just faded away. Her brain had only one thing in it: a tall, broad-shouldered, blue-eyed, golden-haired cowboy.
He gave her that slow smile, and she felt summoned.
She had to actively resist the desire to rise from the picnic bench and go to him, take his hand, lead him away from the crowd to someplace private where they could get up close and very personal all over again.
Not that she would do any such thing.
Uh-uh. Van stayed right there at the picnic table next to Callie.
It was just, well, she’d daydreamed about him way too often—about him and The Night That Never Happened—so much so, in fact, that she’d come to think of that night simply by its initials: TNTNH.
Van shut her eyes. Closing out the very sight of him, she ordered the bees to stop buzzing and her face to stop burning. With a slow, deep breath, she made herself look at him again. With a dignified nod and a reserved little smile, she turned away.
“So you’ve met Jameson?” said a soft voice in her ear.
She turned to aim a bright smile at Callie, who was watching her much too closely. “I did grow up here,” she reminded her friend, who had no idea what Van had been up to last New Year’s Eve. She and Callie hadn’t been that close back then. And now, well, what did it matter? Yeah, she’d shared her hardest secrets with Callie, but Jameson?
He was agoodmemory, a happy secret. She didn’t need to cry on her friend’s shoulder over him. Plus, Jameson was one night and nothing more.
“Of course I’ve met him,” she said to Callie. “Everybody in town knows Jameson John.”
