Devil in Texas (Rugged and Risque 1)

Liza stared at the front of the menu. “Well, let’s see…” Her options were—

Breakfast $3.95

Lunch $5.95

Dinner $7.95

“Lunch?” she ventured.

Ruby laughed. “Oh damn, Jack, she really is cute. Tell her about the food. I’ll be back.” She turned to go, but then shifted her wide body and added as an apparent afterthought, “Anyone ever tell you, you’ve got eyes that could stop a truck dead in its tracks?”

Liza stared up at her, dumbfounded. “I might’ve heard something along those lines.” Her gaze shifted to Jack. “Once.”

He snickered. Ruby waddled off.

Liza glared at him as he slid onto the seat next to her. He draped an arm around her shoulders and leaned in close to her. That he’d opted to sit on her side of the booth instead of across from her made her wonder how much more gossip they’d add to the obviously overactive Wilder rumor mill. But with his thigh pressed against hers, his heated gaze burning a hole in her chest and his fingers absently teasing the skin on her bare arm, she found that she didn’t really care.

“Sorry about that,” he said in his low, sexy voice. “I told her once that I wanted to meet a woman I could honestly say that to and here you are.”

Liza melted like a cube of sugar in the rain. “In that case, you’re forgiven.”

He grinned at her. His free hand rested on her bare thigh, making her this close to spontaneously combusting.

“Jack,” she whispered. “People are watching us.”

His gaze didn’t waver. “They can’t see a thing in this corner. And even if they could, it’s none of their business.” That he was so adamant about that—and comfortable with public displays of affection—made her relax a little. Except that her body was vibrating all over again.

While she muddled through the passion-induced haze that filled her brain, searching for something sexy to say, Ruby’s deadpan tone interrupted their romantic interlude.

“So, what’d you decide?” she asked.

Jack sighed. He reached for the menu and flipped it open. “There actually are choices,” he said. “What looks good to you?”

While Liza skimmed the vast selection, he continued on, speaking to Ruby. “I’ll have the special.”

“You don’t even know what the special is,” she countered in her thick southern drawl.

“Do I ever?”

“Humph,” she grumbled. “Fine. One special. By the way, your timing is impeccable today. Your aunt and uncle were in earlier.”

Liza’s ears perked up and she glanced over at Jack. Only to find him frowning as though Ruby had just set a brown-paper-wrapped package on the table with a ticking time-bomb inside it.

“He stopped by the cottage,” Jack said in a tight voice. “Always the first to stick his nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

Liza thought she might get more to the story—finding it extremely intriguing that the self-proclaimed sinner was related to the town crier spreading the Lord’s gospel. But Ruby cut the dialogue short, as though she knew Jack would discuss it no further.

“Running for City Council, I hear. Good for you.” Her attention shifted to Liza. “How about you, sweetheart? What’ll you have?”

She sighed. Damn it! Foiled by those in the know who know when to not push the envelope. Here she’d hoped to get a deeper look at Jack’s family tree. Clearly he wasn’t interested in talking about his relatives. An alternative source would have been helpful. But it was obvious Ruby was a staunch supporter of Jack. She wasn’t about to commit treason.

“Hmm,” Liza said, back to contemplating her lunch order. “Who am I to argue with a man who has his own table in the back? I’ll have the special too.”

Ruby grinned at her in a curious way. As though it surprised the older woman that she liked Liza. “Well, damn,” she muttered as she collected the menu. “They say there’s someone for everyone and good Lord, it just might be true. Surprising in Jack’s case, but God does work in mysterious ways.”

As she moved away from the table, the Devil next to Liza groaned.

“That was the equivalent of meeting your parents and having them show me your most humiliating baby pictures, wasn’t it?”