Devil in Texas (Rugged and Risque 1)

“Wow!” Liza gasped. That one totally blew her away. “That’s just…crazy!”

“Yeah,” Jack said. “That’s what everyone thought. That he’d finally snapped. But that was just how he was. He didn’t let folks get away with things they shouldn’t be doing. Which, overall, created a lot of friction in this town.”

“Is that why he left?”

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, and he seemed to consider his next words. Finally, he said, “My mother divorced him, which—in the grand scheme of things—was for the best. She never was a happy, or nice, woman. But the scandal was more than either she or Bill could take, even after the divorce was final and they’d gotten married. She eventually left town. As for my father…”

Jack’s shoulders bunched. He clearly didn’t like the subject matter, but Liza didn’t cut him off. “He’d spent a hell of a lot of time helping the community and building his reputation. People liked him and he liked living here. But after the affair, he sort of lost his zest for life. His articles went downhill. He started to offend some people—more so than before, because it was for all the wrong reasons. It wasn’t long before the townsfolk were boycotting the paper and it folded. He left town. Left me the house and the cottage and moved to California. He writes books now. Horror novels. Sort of fitting, I guess.”

“Holy cow!” Liza exclaimed. “Samuel F. Wade? That’s your father? I’ve read his books!”

Jack nodded. “One and the same.”

“Wow, Jack! You’re right. He truly is brilliant.”

“And saner now, thank God.”

“I’m happy to hear that.” Though she suspected some of those violent, axe-murderer scenes he wrote might have a thing or two to do with Jack’s mother and Bill Bain.

“Anyway,” Jack concluded his story. “I had the house to myself, so I fixed this place up and offered it to Lydia so she’d have a nice place to raise her kid. Unfortunately, about five months into the pregnancy, she miscarried. It was devastating for her. That’s when she turned to God and Jonathan and…the rest is history.”

Liza’s head reeled. “I never would have guessed any of this…” she mumbled.

Jack stripped off the towel and reached for his clothes. When he was dressed, he pulled her into his arms and said, “I’m gonna head up the hill, darlin’. Give your body a rest.” He kissed her on the forehead, then released her. “You sleep tight.”

She watched him go, realizing all her prodding was a sexual buzz-kill. Liza gnawed her lower lip as dread settled in where sparks had once been.

Shit.

Had all her questions and stirring up memories of the past just nipped their romance in the bud?

Chapter Seventeen

“How to bring romance back to Wilder?” Liza mused as she closed the notebook she’d been scribbling ideas in for the event planning proposal she intended to present to Jess.

“It’d sure help business,” Jess said from her workbench.

“What about point-of-sale purchases?”

Jess lifted her gaze from a basket she was filling with flowers and asked, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I’ve been to one of the grocery stores in town as well as the drugstore down the street. Neither have a floral department.” She slid off her stool at the cashier’s desk and crossed to the tall commercial refrigerators that housed all of Jess’ recent arrangements. “We could stick one of these in the stores, with fresh, pre-made arrangements.”

Strolling over to Jess’ work area where she kept the blooms, Liza said, “And we could put some of these buckets at the checkout lanes, with wrapped bouquets in them. So a couple picking up a bottle of wine for a dinner party sees them and decides to take a nice arrangement to the hostess. A kid who’s buying a birthday card for his mom, but doesn’t know what kind of gift to give her, sees your flowers and solves his problem with a bouquet of lilies. A man stopping off for condoms before his hot date grabs a dozen red roses to ‘grease the wheels’,” she added with a wink.

Jess laughed. “I get your point. And it’s…brilliant. Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Maybe because you’re the one taking care of the bookkeeping, the ordering-taking, the designing, the delivering, the everything.”

“It has been a little overwhelming, wearing all those hats.”

“I can imagine.”

“Geez…I might need you full-time, especially if the event planning takes off.”

“Maybe you can hire Ginger when she’s out of business,” Liza said in a dour tone.

Jess looked up from her basket again. “Is she really in dire straits?”