Cowboy to the rescue Once upon a time, Sheriff Cash Hawkins left his simple life for something bigger---and came home with a broken heart. Now he has everything he needs right here in Oak Bluff, California---his job, his dog, and a quiet ranching town best explored on the back of a horse. Olivia Belle believes in fairy tales---just not for herself. So when her boyfriend drops to one knee at his sister's wedding with a proposal that is more business than romance, she hightails it out of San Francisco in search of the only evidence she knows that true love exists---her grandparents' lost love letters from fifty years ago. When Olivia speeds into his town like a modern-day Cinderella in her ball gown and glass slippers, Cash's careful existence is finally thrown for a loop. Maybe the answer Olivia's looking for is in Oak Bluff, but the life she ran from is more than 200 miles away. As for Cash . . . he knows a thing or two about being left on bended knee. Olivia Belle could be his happily ever after . . . if this runaway bridesmaid doesn't run off with his heart. "A fabulous storyteller who will keep you turning pages and wishing for just one more chapter at the end." -- Carolyn Brown, New York Times bestselling author, on Second Chance Cowboy "Cross my heart, this sexy, sweet romance gives a cowboy-at-heart lawyer a second chance at first love and readers a fantastic ride." -- New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ryan on Second Chance Cowboy
Release date:
August 7, 2018
Publisher:
Forever Yours
Print pages:
109
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Sheriff Cash Hawkins sat comfortably in his police-issue Chevy Tahoe. There was a beef brisket sandwich from BBQ on the Bluff cooling in the bag on the passenger seat. He’d just cued up a new audiobook on his phone and connected the Bluetooth. His German shepherd, Dixie, chewed on her rawhide in the back.
A pretty perfect Saturday night if he did say so himself. Well—except for the thick, calligraphied square envelope sticking out from the passenger seat visor. Still unopened.
He unrolled the top of the take-out bag and breathed in the savory aroma of homemade barbecue sauce and locally sourced beef.
“Damn, that Lily Green can cook. Can’t she, Dixie girl?” he called back to his companion. But then he remembered that Lily and Tucker Green—the husband and wife duo who’d opened the restaurant together—had just split, Tucker having bought out her portion of the business.
“Still her sauce recipe, right?” he asked aloud. “Tucker wouldn’t be fool enough to let the woman go without getting all her secret recipes.” And yes, he knew he was talking to the dog. He and Dixie had some of their best conversations on quiet Saturday nights doing traffic patrol. It was why he always insisted on taking the shift, even though as sheriff he sure as hell didn’t have to. He liked it. Not that he’d let any of the other officers at the station know.
First he set up the radar and positioned it in the direction of oncoming traffic, though he knew there’d be none. There never was. He pressed play on the audiobook, then started removing the foil wrapper from the sandwich, readying himself for that long anticipated first bite, when his teeth sank into the warm, toasted roll and all the good stuff in between.
Except something in the distance caught his eye—a car barreling down the opposite side of the street way too fast for comfort. He didn’t need an official readout to tell him it was well over the limit. Still, he sighed, laid the sandwich on top of the bag in the passenger seat, and readied his finger on the trigger of the radar gun.
“Speeding down my street when I’m about to eat some damn good barbecue,” he mumbled.
Dixie’s ears perked up.
“Sorry, girl,” he said. “No tasting the goods until I take care of Speed Racer out there.”
He nodded toward the windshield just as a canary yellow Volkswagen Bug zipped by.
“Seventy-two miles per hour?” he said, shaking his head. Then he flipped on the lights, pulled into the all but empty street, and sped off after it.
It didn’t take the car long to stop. In fact, as soon as the siren made its first wail, the driver hit the brakes, and he was pulling up behind the offender in a matter of seconds.
Dixie howled. She wasn’t used to this much police action on a Saturday night. In the three years since he’d been elected sheriff of Oak Bluff, Cash could count on one hand the number of traffic violations for which he’d written actual tickets, and none of them happened on his Saturday night watch. Not much happened in the way of criminal activity, period, and he was planning on keeping it that way.
He hopped out of the truck and strode toward the yellow Bug but stopped before reaching the window. His brows drew together. Half of some sort of ball gown was hanging out the driver’s side door. It was torn and tattered, like it had been dragged along at seventy-two miles per hour for the better part of the afternoon and early evening.
Cash shook his head and approached the window, which was still closed. He rapped on it with his knuckles.
It lowered.
Yep, that was a ball gown, all right. A purple one. And inside the gown was a knockout brunette with soft curls tumbling over her bare shoulders…A knockout brunette who’d just broken the law.
He lowered his aviators down the bridge of his nose.
She gasped. “Wow,” she said. “I thought that just happened in the movies.”
“Excuse me, ma’am?”
“That!” she said, grinning and nodding toward his glasses, her bright blue eyes glowing in the setting sun. “The whole shades-down-the-nose thing, the instant intimidation. It’s so amazingly small town. I love it!”
Cash cleared his throat, trying to ignore how her smile lit up her face or how soft her pink lips looked. He wasn’t having a ton of success. “Ma’am, do you have any idea how fast you were driving?”
Her smile fell. “Do I really look like a ‘ma’am’ to you? I know some people think ‘miss’ is a little degrading, but I’m all for it. Call me ‘miss’ till I’m gray and old—not that I’ll go gray gracefully.” She laughed.
“Ma’am,” Cash said with more force, and the laughing ceased. “You were going seventy-two in a fifty-mile-per-hour zone.”
She bit her lip. “That’s bad, right?”
He nodded. “It’s breaking the law, so yeah. I’d say it’s bad.”
She sighed, then held both her hands toward him, palms up. “Book me,” she said. “Lock me up and throw away the key—as long as I make it to Oak Bluff by ten. That’s when the B and B closes for the night.”
Cash scratched the back of his head. Then he glanced over at his car—the one that had OAK BLUFF SHERIFF painted on either side. He was a man of the law. Rules and regulations. This was all part of the job, which meant he should not let himself get distracted by her teeth grazing her full bottom lip—or the vulnerability he sensed beneath the brash exterior.
“License and insurance card, please, ma’am.”
She smiled again, but something in it seemed forced. It wasn’t as if he knew a thing about this strange woman, but he was trained to read people. Despite not flinching at being pulled over and possibly arrested, she radiated a nervous energy he couldn’t ignore. He’d venture a guess she was not as brazen as she’d have him believe, and something about that bothered him. Cash didn’t get pretense. He might have been a quiet man, but he was a man of meaning—meant what he said and meant what he did. Why couldn’t everyone else just do the same?
“Right,” she said. “I’ve got them both right…” She trailed off as she acted like she was rifling through a giant bag when all she’d done was click open what looked like a fancy as hell billfold.
She chuckled. “So…you’re going to love this, Officer”—she squinted to read his name badge—“Hawkins.”
“Sheriff Hawkins,” he corrected her.
Her cheeks flushed, and he had to remind himself that he was here to write this woman a ticket—not find her in any way attractive.
“Sheriff Hawkins. So—Sheriff. I wasn’t even supposed to be driving tonight. I left everything in the hotel room except for what I needed. That’s why I only put my lip gloss, the room key, and my phone in the clutch.”
“The what?”
“Clutch,” she said, starting to lift the wallet-type contraption.
“Ma’am, please keep your hands on the steering wheel if you’re not going to produce the items I’m asking for.”
She dropped the clutch, or whatever it was, and placed her hands at ten and two with a self-satisfied grin. “It’s a purse that you clutch in your hand. Only enough room for the essentials.”
He crossed his arms. “Something’s not adding up.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Look, you can try to find me guilty of speeding—”
“Seventy-two in a fifty.”
She rolled her eyes. “But I’m not a liar.”
He raised a brow. “The keys?”
“What?”
“The car keys, ma’am. If you only put the essentials in your clutch, where’d you get the car keys?”
Her mouth opened, then closed. Finally she blew out a breath. “I keep the key in this little magnet case and hide it behind the back wheel. Just in case.”
Good Lord, why did he even ask? He didn’t have time for this. Okay. Fine. He had all the time in the world. But all he’d wanted to do was eat his damned sandwich and watch the sunset. He and Dixie would listen to a few hours of a new book, and then they’d go home and have an off-duty beverage or two. Well, Cash would, at least. Dixie would get a fresh bowl of water with two ice cubes—her favorite. But instead his sandwich was getting cold, and he hadn’t even heard the opening remarks of the book, let alone gotten to chapter one.
“In case what?” he asked. Because how the hell long was it going to take to get to the end of this—this situation?
She shrugged. “In case I need to get the hell outta Dodge on a moment’s notice.”
He pressed a palm against the doorframe and leaned down to the window so they were eye level with each other. He could smell hints of her perfume—a light citrus that made him think of an orange grove.
“No license, no insurance, and twenty-two miles over the speed limit. Ms.…?”
“Belle,” she answered quickly. “Olivia Belle.”
“Please step out of the car, Ms. Belle.”
She scoffed. “You’re not serious, are you? I can pay the ticket. I. . .
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