Call Me, Irresistible

by Jess Bryant

  Call Me, Irresistible

  A Fate, Texas Novel

  By

  Jess Bryant

  Impulsive. Irresponsible. Impossible.

  Lemon Kelly lives in a world that is fast, loud and a little bit crazy. She left her small hometown for the bright lights of Nashville and has been living her dream ever since. She's traveled the world and plays her music for crowds of adoring fans. She has everything she ever wanted. Only the wants of a 17 year old girl vary greatly from the needs of a grown woman. Is it selfish to want something more, something like the love she writes songs about?

  Can a girl have two dreams? Or will she have to give up one to get the other? And if so... which? Fame or a family of her own?

  Stable. Solid. Safe.

  Shane Lowry likes his quiet, controlled life. The always responsible small town deputy is a father to his three daughters first and foremost. Nothing comes before them. He had to grow up fast and early and he's long since stopped letting silly things like lust control his actions. He doesn't even date. So why does he find himself so drawn to the lively girl next door turned country music superstar that is the complete opposite of what he should want in a woman?

  If he lets her in, she'll shake up his entire world. He knows it. But is that a good thing or a very bad thing?

  The sparks between them are undeniable. The pull irresistible. And if they take a chance they just might find what they've both been missing.

  *Call Me, Irresistible is a standalone, full length, contemporary romance novel set in Fate, Texas with a guaranteed HEA. It is intended for audiences 18+ due to language and sexual situations. If you enjoy the quirky characters in this little town, try other releases by Jess Bryant set in Fate such as the West Brothers Series.*

  Call Me, Irresistible – A Fate, Texas Novel

  Copyright ©2017 by Jess Bryant.

  Cover Art: Jess Bryant of Indies Ink

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any mention of name brands means the author recognizes the trademarks associated.

  Chapter One

  Immature. Impulsive. Irresponsible. Impossible. Lemon Kelly had been called a lot of different things by a lot of different people over the years. Reckless. Selfish. Wild. She’d never given the criticisms much thought but since the voices in her head had been her only company for the past thousand or so miles she’d had time to face some hard truths about herself.

  She was impulsive. How else could she explain driving home to Texas on a whim? As if changing her location would change her mood, her attitude, her life. Maybe if it hadn’t worked out so well the last time she fled her old life for a new one she wouldn’t have considered doing it again but it had.

  She’d been impulsive and it had paid off.

  At seventeen years old, she’d taken a leap of faith and followed her dreams. She’d left her small hometown behind for the bright lights of music city. She’d gone to Nashville with a battered old suitcase, a beat up Bronco and an unbending belief that she was bound for stardom and she’d made it. She’d gotten a record deal and a hit album and a crowd of adoring fans.

  She had it all. Fame. Stardom. Money. Success. The ability to write her songs and sing her heart out for people that believed in her words and felt her music in their souls.

  She’d gotten everything she ever wanted. At least, she thought she had at the time. As it turned out, everything a teenage girl wanted left quite a few things on the table. Like a family, a home, someone to love her in all of her imperfect, impossible glory.

  It was a ridiculous thought. She knew that. Just like she knew it made her sound like a whiny crybaby. She had everything and she wanted more. She had everything and she was running away from it. She was running home like a child desperate for something familiar and comfortable in a world that expected her to be an adult.

  Reckless. Immature. Irresponsible.

  Lemon flipped the windshield wipers on the Range Rover to high as she passed the welcome sign the First Baptist Church had erected to greet newcomers to Fate, Texas. It was the same faded blue and green sign that she’d waved to over her shoulder all those years ago as she left town. She breathed a sigh of relief as the edge of town came into view and for the first time in what felt like forever, the weight on her shoulders felt a little more bearable.

  Yes coming home had been impulsive. It had been irresponsible to leave her band and her assistant and her manager and everyone else back in Nashville without so much as a word. But no matter how immature it might have been to run away from her responsibilities, she knew as soon as she’d seen that sign that she was doing the right thing.

  Fate was a small town. Her return wouldn’t go unnoticed. Someone would see her and the gossip would spread. She knew that. But she also knew that nobody here would track her around with cameras. Nobody in Fate would care if she wore sweatpants or brushed her hair. Okay, her friends and family would probably care and undoubtedly the women of the Ladies Guild would whisper about it, but there wouldn’t be anyone demanding more of her, another piece of her, when she wasn’t sure she had anything left to give.

  She’d be able to breathe here. Think here. Decide what it was she really wanted. Because she’d fulfilled all of seventeen year old Lemon’s dreams but adult Lemon knew there was still something missing.

  The rain was beating down on her so she tapped her breaks and squinted out the windshield to take in the changes, or lack thereof, all around her. Fate was still what people liked to call a one-stoplight town, though in truth there wasn’t a single one in city limits. The streets were lined with lampposts. The trees were neatly trimmed, the yards unfenced and the doors unlocked.

  Children still played in the streets and ran underneath the large oak trees, or they would have if it hadn’t been raining. In nicer weather she knew the townsfolk would have been sitting on the little benches and swings on their front porches, sipping their tea and wondering who was in the expensive, unfamiliar SUV that crawled down their streets.

  She was grateful for the extra anonymity, even if she knew it wouldn’t last long.

  She didn’t care if they talked about her. She never had. But she wanted to see her family first, talk to them before word got out. It wasn’t going to be much of a surprise if someone spotted her and heated up the phone lines before she even got home.

  Lemon made a turn into the residential side of town and smiled at the big, white house siting on the corner of Constitution Drive. There was still a tire swing tied to the old oak in the yard and remnants of plywood planks nailed to the trunk from a misguided attempt at a treehouse. It still looked as if children ruled the roost since toys were piled high on the porch and bikes littered the yard and she wondered which of the Lowry grandkids had left their stuff out in the rain.

  She’d spent many an afternoon in that house as a child herself. She’d won hide-and-seek games by cramming her small body into the space under the stairs. She’d broken her arm sneaking into the second story window near the lattice. She’d laughed and cried and grown up in that house because her best friend had lived there. Just thinking about all of those happy memories sent a flicker of loss through her that was hard to swallow.

  This was why she’d come back. Because she needed this place. She needed what it represented. Home. Safety. Stability. She’d come home to Texas. Home to Fate. Home to her parents and sister and family and friends. She’d come home because somewhere along the way she’d forgotten what home felt like and she wanted, needed, all of it right now.

  She hadn’t be
en back in years. Not really. She’d visited of course for holidays and birthday celebrations. She’d come home for her sister’s wedding and the births of her nephews. But all of those trips has been brief, get in and get out situations. She’d had a small contingent of people planning her every move and every moment, always reminding her that her time was precious and she needed to get back to her real life. She hadn’t taken time to enjoy the small town culture or traditions. And, if she was honest with herself, she hadn’t even enjoyed the trips because she couldn’t be herself with her assistant and her bodyguard looking over her shoulder.

  This time she was all alone and she could just be her. Lemon Kelly. A girl with a silly name. A girl that needed to remember her roots if she had any chance in hell of getting the future that seemed so far out of reach.

  Lemon pulled into the driveway with the big red mailbox and stared up at the house where she’d been raised. Slowly, steadily, or as steadily as she could with shaking hands, she unbuckled her seat belt and killed the engine on the SUV. She pulled open the door handle and purposefully put her feet on the ground, taking in a deep breath of the cool, rain-soaked air as she did.

  Her feet were on Texas soil. Her feet were on Kelly soil. She was finally home.

  The rain had lightened to a sheer mist and she pulled her baseball cap down to cover her hair but she hadn’t thought about bringing a jacket so her clothes were going to get wet. She dodged a puddle as she went to the trunk to drag out her suitcase. It was Louis Vuitton, a far cry from the sticker covered monstrosity she’d used when she packed up and left this place. She didn’t care about the label on it though. All she’d cared about when she hauled it out of her closet back in Nashville was that it was the biggest one she’d ever seen. In fact, she thought as she wrestled with the oversize luggage that someone else usually carried for her, it was probably too big. After a lot of effort, she managed to get it out without straining her back and with no thought to the puddles she popped the wheels and dragged it up the walkway towards the door.

  Lemon paused at the porch stairs with a groan. She’d need to be Supergirl to get that thing up those three tiny wooden steps. Clearly her personal trainer had been going easy on her because she was winded just dragging the thing behind her. She dismissed the idea of lifting it again and simply abandoned it at the foot of the stairs as she hopped up onto the porch.

  Her dad would bring it in for her if she asked nicely. He’d be shocked to see her. Both her parents would. But after they got over the shock of her impromptu visit, her dad would get the ridiculously overpriced and oversized luggage out of the rain.

  She pressed the doorbell and then tried to tidy her hair up a bit. The rain always made her blonde hair frizz so the baseball cap she’d used as camouflage when she fled Nashville was actually pretty helpful. She smoothed the ends of her hair as best she could as she waited and then frowned.

  She hit the doorbell again and listened to the familiar ding-ding-dong echo through the house. She strained, trying to hear what should have come next. Her father calling from somewhere, most likely his study, that there was someone at the door. Her mother yelling back that she wasn’t deaf. There should have been footsteps on the hardwoods as they both came to see who had disrupted their quiet evening but there wasn’t. Only silence greeted her and Lemon sensed the beginnings of a bad feeling skate down her spine.

  A glance back at the driveway confirmed neither of their cars were parked there but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. Her father always complained that a car left parked in the drive would leak gas or oil and stain the concrete. In fact once he got over his initial shock at seeing her he’d probably insist she move the Range Rover out onto the street. Since her parents always parked in the garage it hadn’t seemed odd not to see their cars but she had a sinking suspicion they weren’t home.

  With a sigh, she marched herself back out into the rain and over to the garage. There were three large rectangular windows up high on the big doors. Lemon tiptoed but could barely see a thing through the tinted glass. She flipped her ball-cap around backwards and squinted as she craned her head, trying to get a better look, but when she leaned in she groaned as the wet door soaked through her clothes.

  “Well, shit.” She cursed as she dropped back to her heels.

  A glance down confirmed that her white t-shirt was drenched. It stuck to her like a second skin and she tugged it from her stomach and breasts with a huff. She kept cursing as she turned in a circle, trying to figure out her next move as the rain continued to pour down on her.

  Her parents weren’t home. Neither of their cars were in the garage. Strange but plausible considering she hadn’t called to let them know she was coming. Her father had probably gotten stuck working late and it was anybody’s guess where her mother was off to if that were the case. Hosting a bake sale? Volunteering at the hospital? Playing bridge and gossiping with other tipsy housewives? Anything was possible.

  Impulsive to her core and this time, it hadn’t worked in her favor.

  “Welcome home, me.” She muttered to herself as she pulled at her wet clothes and moved over to the keypad on the side of the garage door to let herself inside.

  She punched in the entry code she knew by heart and frowned when it beeped at her in warning. Incorrect entry, it flashed. She gaped in surprise, certain she’d hit the numbers in the wrong order. She tapped out the six digit code again and again watched as it beeped and flashed at her.

  It took another second for the realization that they had changed the code to sink in. They’d changed it. They’d changed the garage door code and they hadn’t told her. The code that had been the same since she was fourteen. The code that was supposed to be her birthday!

  Lemon tried not to take offense. Tried and failed. Logically she knew that it wasn’t personal but she was sort of an emotional basketcase and having her place in her family questioned made those tears she’d sworn she had under control flare back to life. It was a silly, stupid garage door code that didn’t mean a thing and yet, at that moment, it simply felt like one more instance where she’d thought she knew something only to learn she’d been wrong.

  With a heavy sigh, she pulled her phone from her pocket and quickly dialed her mother’s cell phone number. All the while, she could feel the misting rain sliding along her skin and soaking into her clothes. She was getting drenched but at the moment she didn’t care. She could deal with a little water, it was really the least of her problems.

  When her mother’s cell phone went straight to voicemail, signaling it was dead, she cursed some more. That part wasn’t really even a shock. Some things never changed. Her mother never remembered to plug the thing in, would probably forget her head if it wasn’t attached. Lemon got some of her personality traits from the woman after all. Since she didn’t want to bother her father in case he was still at work, she tucked the phone back into her pocket and tried to think.

  She could call her sister and find out where she was. If Lydia was home then Lemon could get in her SUV and drive the couple of miles over to her house instead. If she wasn’t, odds were good her sister would know the code that would get her inside. But she wasn’t really up to dealing with that particular reunion, or the one with Lydia’s impossibly perfect husband and children, quite yet.

  “Hide-a-key!” She finally gave a victorious grin as the answer to her latest problem came to her.

  There was a hide-a-key around here somewhere. Her father was a stickler about security but he knew his wife was as forgetful as a goldfish. She was constantly misplacing her keys and locking herself out of the house. That was why her father had bought the small hide-a-key that looked like a normal rock and stuck it in the flowerbed next to the porch.

  Even if they’d changed the garage code, odds were good the key was still here so Lemon just needed to find it. With no thought to the rain that was still misting down around her, she jumped into the flower garden, carefully avoiding her mother’s beloved bulbs, and got to work. Unfortunate
ly, there were more rocks than she remembered. She went straight for the biggest ones first but came up empty. Turning her attention to the smaller rocks, she frowned when she realized she was getting dirt under her nails and tried to buff them off on her jeans. When she realized what she was doing she laughed out loud at herself.

  Maybe all those years in the big city, with employees to fetch whatever she needed and plan for every contingency had changed her but she wasn’t a city girl. Not really. She’d been born and raised right here in the middle of nowhere Texas. She’d spent many a summer day running barefoot and playing in the dirt. She’d spent a long time away but she’d written songs about taking the girl out of the country but not the country out of the girl and she truly believed that.

  She was a country girl at heart no matter how expensive her manicure.

  She laughed again. If only her assistant could see her now, soaking wet in the rain, ankle deep in mud with dirt under her nails. Millie wouldn’t know what to think. She’d be convinced Lemon had finally gone off the deep end, lost her mind and was in desperate need of a straight jacket, a padded room and a…

  “Excuse me miss but, what do you think you’re doing?”

  Lemon shrieked and jerked upright at the sound of a rough male voice behind her. She hadn’t heard anyone approach and was shocked to see someone had snuck up on her. The man in question was only a few feet away, hands on his hips, staring at her as if she were a fugitive or a lunatic escapee from an asylum.

  “I… uh…” She started to fumble for words but as her eyes took him in she lost all grasp of the English language.

  He was gorgeous, her brain supplied, but that word didn’t seem nearly enough as her eyes drank him in. Thick, dark brown hair, so dark it looked almost black in the rain. A sharp jaw with a dusting of equally dark stubble was tensed with something resembling annoyance. A big, hard body that was in no way camouflaged by the terrible brown pantsuit that marked him as a deputy with the Fate Police Department. She caught the name patch covering his chest and her eyes jumped up to his when familiarity joined awareness and skated down her spine.