Page 7 of Wrangling a Texas Hometown Hero

After that night, he had sworn off alcohol.

Which was too bad. Because when Hallie Holiday stepped into the hayloft in the short bridesmaid’s dress that hugged her petite curves like shiny red wrapping paper, he could have used a stiff drink.

He pushed down the sudden rush of desire and stepped out of the shadows. “We need to stop meeting like this, Teeny Weeny.”

She stepped closer and he caught her scent. A scent like no woman he’d ever known. “What are you doing here?”

“Hiding out from the townsfolk. If I had to relive one more high school football play, I was going to go crazy.”

Her eyes narrowed in annoyance. “No. What are you doing here? In Wilder? At Belle’s and Liberty’s wedding? You told me that you never planned to set foot in Wilder again.”

He didn’t remember saying that. Of course, he didn’t remember much from that night. He vaguely remembered sitting at the bar drinking and laughing with Hallie. Everything else was a blur . . . until he woke up in the wee hours of the morning. He couldn’t seem to forget a second of what happened next. It had plagued him day and night for the last couple weeks. He hoped that once he manned up and took responsibility for his actions, he could put it behind him.

Far behind him.

“I’m here to apologize,” he said. “There’s no excuse for what I did.”

She blinked. “What you did?”

He had been with a lot of women and had openly talked about sex with all of them. But with Hallie it was different. He felt like an adult man talking to an underage girl. Which was ridiculous. The person standing before him was no girl. She was a mature woman who filled out the short-as-hell bridesmaid’s dress in a way that had all the men at the wedding goose-necking as their eyes followed her down the aisle.

Jace’s gaze had followed her too.

But with guilt.

A whole hell of a lot of guilt.

He cleared his throat. “I’m talking about what happened that morning when we woke up at your apartment.”

They were standing in shadow, well away from the orange-and-red spill of the setting sun. But that didn’t stop him from reading the amusement in her green eyes.

“You mean when we had sex?”

He flinched and she tipped back her head and laughed. Not just a soft chuckle, but uncontrollable laughter that had her clutching her sides. He went from feeling guilty to feeling annoyed.

“You want to let me in on the joke?”

She sobered. “I just find it amusing that men always think they’re the ones in control of sex. Which is ironic when they’re usually the ones who are so out of control where sex is concerned. If I remember correctly, I was the one who initiated sex. So what happened is more what I did.”

Images popped into his head. Images he had spent the last couple weeks trying to erase. Mainly, because the hot aggressive woman didn’t go well with the other images he carried in his brain of a cute little pigtailed girl.

He closed his eyes and tried to block both images out. “Okay, but I shouldn’t have let things go as far as they did.”

“Neither one of us should have. You were Sweetie’s boyfriend. And I took an oath a long time ago to never poach on one of my sister’s boyfriends—past or present.”

He opened his eyes. “An oath?”

She shrugged. “It’s a long story that I’m sure you don’t want to hear. What it sounds like you do want to hear is that you’re not some horrible person who molested his ex-girlfriend’s kid sister.”

He cringed. Damn, her bluntness was harsh. “Something like that.”

“Well, put your mind at ease, Jace the Ace. I’m not blaming you for what happened. I’m blaming myself.” She turned and moved over to the open hatch. The sun reflected off her hair, turning the soft curls that hung around her slumped shoulders into an ocean of shimmering orange and red waves. “Some sister I am.”

He should leave. Hallie didn’t seem to need his apology and staying any longer at the wedding would be sheer torture—and not only because of the townsfolk hero worship. But he couldn’t leave Hallie feeling guilty over something he was partially responsible for.

He moved up behind her and looked out at the sunset. “You aren’t a bad sister. You have always cared for your family. Whether it was punching Casey Remington for picking on Noelle or getting after me for forgetting Sweetie’s birthday. And I’ve given what happened a little thought.” A blatant lie. He’d given it way too much thought. “I think we were just feeling down and needing a little comfort from someone we knew and trusted. I was upset about having to quit football and you were upset about . . . umm . . .”

She snorted. “Way to make a girl feel like you were really listening.”

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