He’s not giving up his family without a fight
James Calhoun has never been able to resist Mara Tyler, or her knack for mischief. Her reputation as a reckless teenager drove Mara from their hometown. So Slippery Rock is the last place James ever expected to see her, and Mara’s timing couldn’t be worse. With the upcoming election for sheriff, she threatens the squeaky-clean image James needs to win. Because Mara has brought with her the result of their steamy affair: his two-year-old son, Zeke. After the initial shock, James is determined to have both his family and career. He just needs to convince Mara that her home is where it’s always been. With him.
“It isn’t just—” James blew out a breath. “I’m angry, yes. And confused. And...this changes everything.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you. Zeke doesn’t have to change anything for you. You can still run for sheriff. I think you’d make a great one. You don’t have to worry about supporting us, not on a county sheriff’s salary, because I have a great job with good benefits—”
James shut off the engine and got out of the Jeep, slamming the door shut behind him. Mara took a few steps back.
He advanced on her, pointing his finger at her chest.
“I’m not going to walk away and pretend I don’t know I have a kid in this world.”
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to Slippery Rock! Although Rebel in a Small Town has both secret-baby and reunion-romance hooks, at its core the book is about accepting who we are, flaws and all. Mara and James both have preconceived notions about the other, and neither has been 100 percent honest. For baby Zeke, they’ll have to be honest, about what they want and about who they are.
Mara and James (and baby Zeke) stole my heart from the moment they appeared on my computer screen...and I hope they steal your heart, too.
I love hearing from readers. You can catch up with me through my website and newsletter at www.kristinaknightauthor.com or on Facebook, www.Facebook.com/kristinaknightromanceauthor, and if you’re a visual reader like me, follow my books on my Pinterest boards—you’ll get some behind-the-scenes information and lots of yummy pictures.
Happy reading!
Kristina
KRISTINA
KNIGHT
Rebel in a Small Town
Kristina Knight decided she wanted to be a writer, like her favorite soap-opera heroine, Felicia Gallant, one cold day when she was home sick from school. She took a detour into radio and television journalism but never forgot her first love of romance novels, or her favorite character from her favorite soap. In 2012 she got The Call from an editor who wanted to buy her book. Kristina lives in Ohio with her handsome husband, incredibly cute daughter and two dogs.
Books by Kristina Knight
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
The Daughter He Wanted
First Love Again
Protecting the Quarterback
A Slippery Rock Novel
Famous in a Small Town
Rebel in a Small Town
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For Shelby, Ace, Tyler, Josh and Kayla, you are my favorite little people in the whole world, and for Megan and Mandi, who were the first little people to steal my heart. Zeke is a little bit of all of you.
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EXCERPT FROM WELCOME HOME, KATIE GALLAGHER BY SEANA SHELBY
PROLOGUE
Two years ago
“TONIGHT WE ARE going to take this slow?”
Mara Tyler couldn’t find the words to answer, so she only smiled, letting her hands trail over the broad shoulders of James Calhoun—the very last man she should be having a clandestine affair with.
The very last man for whom she should be having feelings of anything but the physical variety. Yet here they were, in Nashville. It had been nearly a week since she logged her last speaking engagement at the securities conference. James was supposed to have returned to their hometown of Slippery Rock, Missouri, three days earlier. He kept making excuses for why he was staying, but to be honest, Mara didn’t care.
They stood at the window overlooking downtown Nashville. Neon signs twinkled in the darkness, and masses of people wandered from bar to bar and lounge to lounge. They’d been down there with the crowd until a half hour before, just like any other couple.
They weren’t any other couple, though. He had been voted most likely to succeed in their high school class, was now a sheriff’s deputy and was next in line to become the sheriff. She had been voted most likely to blow something up, and although she’d changed, no one in their hometown would believe the girl who had broken several laws as a teen was now a respected securities consultant. Or that one of her partners in crime had been the sheriff’s son.
None of that mattered. They were in Nashville, not Slippery Rock, and none of this was real. It was just for fun.
James cocked an eyebrow, the back of his hand teasing the side of her breast.
God, this was so much fun.
“No answer?” he asked. “Then we’ll see how long you can take slow.”
He lifted her in his arms and laid her gently on the bed. Slowly he unzipped one knee-high boot, letting it clatter to the floor, and then the next.
Her hands found his shoulders, urging him up, but James seemed perfectly content between her legs.
With one hand he pulled the zipper of her skirt down, down, and with the other he teased the bit of exposed flesh between her skirt and blouse. Mara’s muscles clenched and she fisted her hands against the soft, hotel room duvet. James pulled the skirt from her hips, tossing it over his shoulder. Her silk cami followed, and she was nearly naked before him. Only the green lace boy-briefs and matching bra covering her.
Mara was torn. She wanted the lace gone, too, but she liked that dangerous look in his gaze. The look that said this was going to last a long time.
She wouldn’t mind if it lasted forever. She could stay in this hotel room or even a desert island forever, just as long as James Calhoun was right there with her.
That thought was nearly as dangerous as the look in James’s eyes, though, because this thing between them wasn’t real. It wasn’t forever. This was a fling. It was hard to remember that when his heat was burning her to the ground.
Time to get this thing between them back on solid, nonthreatening ground.
“When you said slow, I didn’t think you meant glacial,” she said and used his tie to urge him up. James planted a hand on either side of her, grinning.
“You say glacial, I say leisurely,” he said. Then he covered her mouth with his, and his legs tangled with hers.
Mara wrapped her arms around his neck, wanting to hold him here, right here, for as long as she could.
They had done this a hundred times, and still she wasn’t tired of it
. Of him. Still, she wanted more of him. Wanted to feel the hardness of his chest against her, wanted the heat from his skin to warm her, wanted to lose herself in him until she forgot that no matter what happened in a hotel room in another city, it didn’t mean anything could ever happen between them in real life.
She didn’t want to go down that road quite yet, though, so she loosened his tie, pulling it from his neck, and then unbuttoned his shirt, letting her hands meander over the wide expanse of his chest for a few moments.
“I can go glacial, too,” she said, before pushing the shirt from his shoulders.
James reached for the buckle of his belt, but Mara put her hand over his and stopped him.
“Slow, remember?”
He lifted one eyebrow. “You were just complaining about the glacial pace.”
True, but now that she thought about it, glacial could be fun. As long as he was on the receiving end, just for a little while. She found the tie on the bed and held it up.
“Maybe you’ve convinced me that glacial has its interesting points.”
Mara pushed against his shoulders until James was flat on his back, and she dangled the tie from her fingertips.
“Hands up, Officer.”
James grinned, but he raised his hands above his head, grasping the spindles of the headboard in his hands.
“That’s ‘deputy,’ ma’am, not ‘officer.’”
“Deputy Calhoun, do you know why you’re being confined?” she asked mildly as she tied the tie loosely around his wrists.
“Speeding?”
Mara chuckled. “The speed limit in this room is ‘leisurely.’”
“And I was going glacially?”
“Something like that.” With his arms secured, Mara reached for the buckle of his belt. She slid the leather from the clasp, and then unsnapped his pants. She kissed his sternum, and couldn’t resist licking her way down his washboard abs.
“You going to—” he was grinning at her “—fine me, Deputy?”
Mara glanced up. His hands were clenched and his eyes were closed.
“Is this your way of asking for a ticket? You don’t want to plead your case?” Mara pushed his pants over his hips, and James kicked them to the floor. He wasn’t wearing boxers, and for a moment, Mara wasn’t sure what to do. She’d been expecting one more slow removal of clothing, and instead she saw him, thick and hard.
“I think I’ll just take the fine.”
Mara swallowed. The fine. The fine. She had no idea what to say next, how to keep this role-playing thing going when all she could think about was taking him in her hands. In her mouth.
Snap out of it, Mar, this is just fun and games.
She unsnapped the clasp of her bra, letting the lace fall to the floor, and then stepped out of her panties. Mara kneeled on the bed, putting her hands on either side of his head and straddling his hips before she took his mouth with hers. Screw the game, she only wanted James.
He pulled her body against his, the hairs on his chest tickling her breasts.
“Hey, I tied you up,” she said between kisses.
“You’d never survive in the wilderness with those knot tying skills. I’ll teach you a simple tie. For next time,” he said, pushing her to her back.
“Next time,” she said, and the words sounded dreamy to her ears.
Every time she met up with James, she told herself it would be the last time, but it never was. He was like that last bit of birthday cake—impossible to resist.
His mouth found her breast and Mara arched her back, wanting more.
“James,” she said, pressing her hips against him, urging him to hurry.
James reached into the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out a foil packet. He tore it open with his mouth, and rolled the thin covering over his length.
And then he was inside her. Mara wrapped her legs around his waist, loving the feel of his body against hers, inside hers. This was all she needed.
James Calhoun was everything she wanted, even if she could never be the woman that he needed.
* * *
MARA WATCHED JAMES sleeping soundly on the hotel room bed. The lights were off, but the glow of the neon on the street below was enough to illuminate the room dimly. His mouth was open slightly, his left hand over his heart and his legs tangled in the sheets. The tie draped over the pillow. A lock of hair fell over his eyes. She pushed it back.
This wasn’t just fun.
She swallowed. She wanted to slide under his arm and rest her head over his heart. Wanted to lie there for hours, listening to his heart beating.
God, what had she done?
They’d been meeting like this, in hotel rooms around the country every few months, for nearly three years. Every time it had just been about the sex. Good sex. Excellent sex.
Why did she have to go and let her heart ruin it? This was a great arrangement. He liked his small-town life, and she liked her on-the-road life. They met up for sex, they each went back to their lives, and no one expected anything more.
She took a deep breath. She shouldn’t want more, so why did she? It wasn’t fair. She should have been able to love him and leave him, the way she had every other time they’d met.
Mara pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. James rocked his head slowly to the side, but he didn’t wake.
“I don’t want to mess this up,” she whispered to the man on the bed. The man who had been her best friend for most of her life. The man she should never have fallen in love with. “This will lead to broken hearts and anger, so I’m ending it now without the anger and without breaking anything. It’s better this way.”
She slid off the bed, picked up her satchel and laptop, and quietly left the hotel room. She would arrange for the hotel to pack her things and ship them to her office in Tulsa, because if she waited for him to wake, she wouldn’t be able to leave. She would tell him how she felt about him.
He might tell her he felt the same, but it wouldn’t matter. She didn’t want his kind of life any more than he wanted hers.
More than that, he deserved better.
He deserved someone who wasn’t broken.
CHAPTER ONE
Present day
MARA PULLED INTO the parking lot of Mallard’s Grocery in Slippery Rock, Missouri. The lot with its cracked pavement sat at the corner of Main Street and Mariner, a few blocks north of Slippery Rock Lake. The grocery store still had the image of a duck on its sign, the paint dividing the parking spaces was still off-center from the cement blocks at the head of each space, and the same cracked glass was in the revolving door.
Despite the light breeze along the shore, it was oppressively hot in the town center. She had forgotten exactly how muggy and uncomfortable a southern Missouri summer could be. Since slipping out of town the night after her high school graduation, Mara had allowed herself only a handful of visits, all around the holidays, when the weather was significantly cooler.
She turned off the ignition and tossed her keys into the large tote she carried for work. Although the store stood several blocks from the waterfront, where a horrible tornado had leveled several buildings a few weeks before, she could hear the hammering and sawing going on in the downtown area.
This section of town had experienced a few uprooted trees, but most of the damage had been to roofs and windows. The grocery store still had one big plate-glass window boarded over, and one of the cart corrals looked as if a tree had landed on it. Maybe one had.
She hadn’t expected to feel sympathy for the town when she decided to come back, but sympathy was the only explanation she had for the tightening in her chest. Closing her eyes, she took a few deep, centering breaths. The tornado was an act of God. It wasn’t her fault. Not like so many other happenings that had befallen this town because of her. N
ow she was in a position to help this place that had saved her as a child.
And ideally, while she was helping the town at large, she could fix a couple of personal messes, too.
Mara activated the locks on the SUV as she exited. A few cars and trucks sat in the lot, and she decided to begin her security sweep here rather than checking in with the office first. She didn’t need a store manager distracting her from her job with talk of how little crime they’d experienced. If the stores she visited weren’t in need of a security upgrade, she would not have been dispatched to their area.
On a small notepad, she jotted the locations of several security cameras situated to capture the inbound and outbound foot traffic to the store, but as she crossed to the rear, near the row of Dumpsters and a big cardboard baler, she noted only one camera. It appeared to be slightly askew, and she wondered if it worked at all. Not a great setup despite the low crime rate in Slippery Rock. She made a notation in the notebook.
Air-conditioning blasted her as she pushed through the two-sided revolving door into the store, a nice relief from the heat of the blacktop parking lot. The clerk, a middle-aged woman with salt-and-pepper hair, ignored her as Mara passed through the automatic doors. The woman’s hair might have changed color since Mara left Slippery Rock ten years before, but that frown on her face was as familiar as the bored tap-tap-tapping of her fingernails against the counter. A teen with red-and-blue-striped hair—the high school colors—sat on the end of the check stand, chewing gum while he waited for a customer to come through the line. A few glass-domed cameras looked down over the front of the store, but again, in the back there was little security. She scribbled more notes. To test the system, she put a box of cookies in her bag along with a small carton of milk.
She waved to the clerk as she left the store. The clerk ignored her. No sirens sounded, and the teenage bagger remained at his perch at the end of the check stand.
Not good. No wonder the grocery store wanted an upgrade. They were probably losing a small fortune in junk food to kids who either didn’t have the money to buy it or simply didn’t want to pay. The fact that the beer aisle was one over from the cookies probably pushed their loss ceiling even higher. A man with only a couple of dollars in his bank account and a tremendous thirst for a Budweiser wouldn’t think twice about risking a run through the less-than-secure store.
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