Always On My Mind
Page 1
Always on My Mind
A Jenny & Teague Novella
Nancy Naigle
Kelsey Browning
Crossroads Publishing House
Contents
Always On My Mind
Letter from the Authors
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 4 - Sweet
Chapter 4 - Heat
Remainder of Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 5 - Sweet
Chapter 5 - Heat
Remainder of Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 - Sweet
Chapter 10 - Heat
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Books in the Series
Come a Little Closer
Sweet Excerpt from Nancy Naigle’s Life After Perfect
Feel-the-heat excerpt from Kelsey Browning’s STAY WITH ME
About the Authors
Also by Kelsey Browning
Also by Nancy Naigle
Copyright
Always On My Mind
Sometimes secrets are meant to protect those we love the most…
Sheriff Teague Castro made a mistake ten years ago that cost him the love of his life. But a recent brush with online dating has made him realize Jenny Northcutt always has been and always will be his one perfect fit. He’s ready to do whatever it takes to win her back.
Jenny Northcutt is a divorcee with an eight-year-old son, and no time or energy for romance. But when her mom moves to the small Georgia community where Teague is sheriff, she’s forced to come face-to-face with the man who first stole her heart. Unfortunately, he’s also the man who destroyed her belief in happily ever after when he married another woman. Ten years later, Jenny still can’t deny the spark between them, but this time more than her heart is at risk.
Teague cooks up a plan to woo Jenny, but a local theft could cast doubt that Summer Shoals is a great place to live. He and Jenny join forces to solve the mystery that could ruin the Christmas holiday for everyone in town.
Now Teague must once again keep a secret from Jenny. This time, will the past repeat itself, or will they find true happiness?
For our romance readers, some who like it sweet and some who like it sexy. Because you pick the passion of Teague and Jenny’s love story.
Letter from the Authors
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the first PICK YOUR PASSION™ story.
What the heck is a PICK YOUR PASSION™ story? Well, as you know, we write the G Team Series together. Those capers are such a hoot to write and we love bringing those books to you, but we also write some great romances. And readers have told us y’all would like to hear more about Sheriff Teague Castro’s relationship with Jenny Cady. And we do love to give our readers what they want.
The only problem is, Nancy’s romances are sweet and Kelsey’s bring the heat, so when we decided to share Teague’s romance novellas with you we had to decide which way to write them.
Wanting to satisfy both sets of readers, we came up with the PICK YOUR PASSION™ concept. As you read this story, you’ll come to crossroads where you can pick SWEET or HEAT, choosing which passion level you’d like read.
PICK YOUR PASSION™
You’ll pick your path by following the page jumps for SWEET or HEAT.
All the HEAT scenes are prefaced with this flaming hot heart logo.
The SWEET scenes carry this logo with the little white bow.
We hope you enjoy the first of two novellas that will take you along Jenny and Teague’s romantic journey.
Be sure to sign up for G Team Series updates so you never miss a release, sale or special offer!
Big Pick Your Passion Hugs!
Nancy and Kelsey
Chapter 1
For half a second, Teague Castro took his eye off his target to glance at the woman in the firing lane on his right. Eye and ear protection snug against her face, Abby Ruth was intent on the outline of the zombie fifty-odd yards away. With a sound like a giant rubber band being popped, she emptied her Glock, hitting the walking dead in the heart with every shot.
If Teague could get his deputies to shoot half as well, he’d be a happy man. But Abby Ruth Cady was one of a kind. How many men could say their future mother-in-law could shoot a tick off a hound’s ass without disturbing a strand of fur? Very few.
Then again, she wasn’t truly his future mother-in-law. Yet. He still had to win Jenny back. Hard to do when the woman wouldn’t even answer his calls.
His grip suddenly unsteady, he released the magazine on his own 9mm and removed the remaining ammo. He sure had no business handling a firearm when he was shaking like a drunk coming off a five-day bender. Thinking about Jenny did that to him.
Abby Ruth reloaded, adjusted her long-legged stance, and proceeded to give the target a hole in the chest the size of a big man’s fist. With her trademark white shirt and slim jeans tucked into a pair of eye-blinding turquoise boots, she was lean and fit at sixty-one. Since she’d moved to Summer Shoals, Georgia a few months ago, the older men had sniffed around. In normal Aunt Bibi style, she’d tossed back a few beers with them at Earlene’s Drinkery, but that was the extent of it.
Finally, Abby Ruth pulled out her ear plugs and shoved her protective glasses to the top of her head, making her short gray hair stand up as though she’d been shocked by a wave of electricity. “I swear to Jesus, boy. If you thought any louder over there, I’d need better ear protection.” She released her clip, double-checked for any remaining bullets before wiping down her gun. “Your brain waves are so damned powerful, I’m pretty sure they sent my last shot off target.”
“That’ll be the day.” Teague chuckled and leaned over to press the switch to bring Abby Ruth’s target forward. Sure enough, one shot was about a millionth of a centimeter outside the main hole. “Yeah, I can see you were distracted.”
“That little bit can be the difference between the upper hand and the lower rung. You know that as well as I do.” Her eyebrows hit her hairline. “Now, why don’t you buy me something to drink and tell me why you invited me out to shoot today? I have a feeling it wasn’t because you wanted to remind yourself this old gal can outshoot you when she’s drunk, blindfolded and down in the back.”
As a former journalist, she was no one’s fool, that was for damn sure. Teague slung an arm around her shoulders and led her outside to an empty picnic table. The December day was bright and cool, but they’d both worked up a sweat shooting. “Orange soda?”
“I do love a man who remembers my preferences.”
His front pockets produced enough change for two drinks. The coins jingled into the chamber of the old style drink machine. The whole shooting range might be outdated with the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-replace-it mentality, but it was still functional. The cans rumbled to the opening one by one. He carried the cold drinks back to the table, popping the top of Abby Ruth’s before handing it to her. They sat and sipped in companionable silence for several minutes.
His win-back-Jenny agenda was stalled, but enlisting Abby Ruth’s help felt reckless right now. She was smart. She was shrewd. And she had a way of taking over a situation.
And that was something he couldn’t allow. But after seeing Jenny again a few weeks ago, he knew more than ever he wanted her in his life, here in Summer Shoals. How the heck he would convince her it was a good idea was a whole other story.
Abby Ruth set down her drink with a thunk. “Spill it, kiddo.”
“She won’t r
eturn my calls.”
Abby Ruth swung her legs up on the bench to face him and sighed, proving he didn’t need to specify who she was. “I could make excuses for her behavior. She’s always had a stubborn streak.”
“No idea where she got that,” he muttered, coaxing a laugh from Abby Ruth.
“She’s not real good at admitting when she’s made a mistake.”
“You sure she wasn’t adopted?” he teased.
She pointed a finger at him pistol-style. Good thing it was just her finger because the paper lying on the table between them proved he’d be stone cold dead otherwise. “I can admit when I’m wrong. Rarely happens is all. If you think you can win over a woman by insulting her, it’s no wonder she ran off without a word.”
He winced at the memory of Jenny and her son’s visit to Summer Shoals. What had started out as a nice birthday party for Abby Ruth had turned into a belly-ripper for him when he blurted out his feelings for Jenny, then kissed her. He’d hoped for fireworks. The explosive kind that resulted in professions of undying love.
But the fireworks had been more like a backfire. Before he knew what was happening, Jenny had taken off to Boston.
And he damned well knew it wasn’t because that kiss had been lame. He hadn’t kissed Jenny in over a decade, not since he screwed up so royally and she married that over-polished bag of ties in Boston not long after. But he still remembered what she felt like, tasted like. Like a Black Cat firecracker—hot, combustible, unpredictable. And like one of those red pepper suckers sold down at the drug store—sweet, spicy, addictive.
That candy always made Teague sweat, but he couldn’t resist it.
No more than he could resist Jenny.
“Look,” he said. “She’s divorced and I want her back. I let her go once because I was careless and stupid.”
“You were a boy. Y’all all start out that way.”
“Well, I’m not a boy now.” He leaned forward on the old picnic table. “Have you talked to her since she went back to Boston?”
“Yeah,” Abby Ruth admitted. “But you know us. We’re the five minutes on-and-off types. I Skype with Grayson a couple of times a week though.”
Jenny’s eight-year-old son was a disconcerting combination of Jenny’s dark-haired vibrating energy and her ex’s slick polish. Kid could probably put himself on the ballot for Summer Shoals’ mayor and win the race.
Teague tried like hell to ignore the ache in his chest insisting that Grayson should be his son. That he and Jenny should’ve figured things out long ago and made a family together. The time they’d wasted. It would make him sick, except that was just another waste of time.
“And if you’re wondering if she’s mentioned you since my birthday party,” Abby Ruth said, “the answer is no.”
Well, that was a rusty knife to the gut.
“But she’s never been one to kiss and tell,” Abby Ruth said. “So why haven’t you hauled your sorry butt up to Boston and knocked on her door?”
“Because I’ve been giving her some cooling-off space and trying to figure out how the hell to make Summer Shoals—” and himself, “—more attractive to her.”
“Yeah, you went off halfcocked when she was here, which isn’t like you. You got a plan this time?”
“Does she still take pictures like she used to?”
“No,” Abby Ruth said. “Being a single parent keeps her busy. Most of the shots she takes these days are of Grayson. But Lord knows, that girl has an eye. When Grayson was a toddler, she had him look through a paper towel roll and took his picture. Sounds kinda creepy, but those photos of his eye and part of his chubby little face are my favorites. Who else but Jenny would’ve thought to do that?”
“Not sure if you’ve heard, but Angelina Broussard is heading up a holiday art competition starting this week.”
Abby Ruth’s mouth turned down as if she taken a slug of three-month-old milk. “Is there anything in Summer Shoals that woman doesn’t have her bony little fingers in?”
He wasn’t touching that. No need to stir the pot of animosity always simmering between Abby Ruth and Angelina. It was no secret that Angelina wanted to be Summer Shoals’ queen bee, and there was nothing Abby Ruth liked better than to take a flyswatter after someone she thought was getting above her raising. “If Jenny were to enter and win, it could be good for all of us. The winner gets several thousand dollars in prize money and a yearlong stint as artist-in-residence at the high school.”
“You don’t say.” She tapped her chin with her soda can. “So why haven’t you called her to tell her about it?”
“Because, after my…”
“Colossal screwup, you’re too chickenshit to risk it?”
He laughed and shook his head. This woman. She was stubborn and outrageous and painfully honest. But neither she nor her daughter would ever be boring. And as much as Teague enjoyed living in a town where the excitement consisted of a new blue plate special at the Atlanta Highway Diner, he damn sure didn’t want to be bored for the rest of his life. “That about sums it up. But no risk, no reward. I’m planning to call her and break the ice by encouraging her to enter the art competition.”
“You may need to do more than encourage.” In an unusual show of affection, Abby Ruth grabbed Teague’s hand and squeezed. “Takes a strong man to keep up with the Cady women. And that pansy-ass Daniel Northcutt sure couldn’t make that cut. I don’t know what knocked you and Jenny sideways years ago, but I can tell you it hurt my heart then. And not a day has passed since that I haven’t wished things could’ve been different. But as wrong as I think Jenny’s marriage to old pasty-face was, without it I wouldn’t have Grayson. And you know he’s a pistol and a half.”
“Think she’d ever take him out of Boston?” That was the kicker.
A slow, sly smile crept across Abby Ruth’s face. “Well, she hasn’t said as much. But honestly, what’s keeping her tied up north now? If Grayson were to have a positive male role model down here, there’s nothing saying he couldn’t visit his daddy a few holidays and a couple weeks in the summer instead of every other weekend.”
That made the guilt roiling in Teague’s gut simmer down a little. “Okay, then it’s time for me to stop letting her call the shots.” He wrestled his cell phone from his pocket. “Bet I can get a flight from Atlanta to Boston today. I have to talk her into this art show fast, though, because there’s only one spot left and the entry deadline is tomorrow.”
“Sounds like the faster Angelina gets Jenny’s pictures, the better.” Abby Ruth put her hand on his phone. “I have plenty of her pictures to choose from. Maybe we enter them for her. Then she can’t refuse to come.”
Teague liked the idea. And hated it. Secrets were the reason he and Jenny were no longer a couple. “I don’t know—”
“Tell you what, I’ll claim it was all my idea. The better to keep you out of Jenny’s crosshairs if she pitches a hissy fit.” She pushed off the bench and tossed her drink into a recycling bin. “You go sweet-talk Angelina, and I’ll meet you there with some of Jenny’s work.”
Teague prayed like hell this didn’t backfire.
A half-hour later, Abby Ruth met him in front of Angelina’s cotton-candy painted house, with a big envelope under her arm. “Well, what did she say?”
“She wants to see the pictures before she’ll agree to take the entry form I filled out for Jenny.”
Abby Ruth snatched the paperwork out of his hand and marched up to Angelina’s door. “I’ll take it from here. The less this whole thing has your fingerprints on it, the better.”
The fifteen minutes he stood in Angelina’s yard felt like the retreat of an Ice Age. Finally, Abby Ruth sauntered outside. He watched her face for a sign she’d been successful, but there was no tell. That woman had one hell of a poker face. He waited, his gut like a daiquiri in a blender.
“We’re in,” Abby Ruth hiked one boot up onto his front bumper. “I knew these pictures would win her over. She was like putty in my hands.”
He sincerely doubted that, but his relief was so huge that he wasn’t about to call Abby Ruth on it.
She pulled out her phone and handed it to him. “She’s more likely to answer the phone if she sees it’s me calling. Let’s see if we can’t convince her to do this art show.”
Chapter 2
When Jenny’s phone rang, she was hauling four bags of groceries the last set of stairs to her third-floor walk-up. Grayson had changed her ring tones—again—and this one blared out “Gunpowder and Lead” by Miranda Lambert. Without looking, Jenny knew the caller was her mom because Grayson had a wicked sense of humor that way.
And her mom didn’t call without a reason, so Jenny juggled the bags, slinging one around her shoulder so she could dip her hand into her purse’s cell phone pocket. Long gone were the days where she dumped everything into a bottomless hobo bag. Being a single parent meant every minute, every tiny bit of effort counted. The more organized she was, the more quality time she could spend with Grayson.
She touched the green button, and said, “Hey, Mom, what’s up?”
Nothing from the other end. An accidental butt-dial?
“Mom, you there?”
“Jenny.” The voice coming through the line was at least two octaves deeper than Abby Ruth’s and sent streaks of awareness through every cell in Jenny’s body. “This isn’t your mom.”