His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1)

by Terri Osburn

  ALSO BY TERRI OSBURN

  Anchor Island novels

  Meant to Be

  Up to the Challenge

  Home to Stay

  More to Give

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Terri Osburn

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477828786

  ISBN-10: 1477828788

  Cover design by Anna Curtis

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957574

  For Nalini. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Preview: Our Now and Forever

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The Nashville heat hit Lorelei Pratchett like a wet blanket, smothering her will to live. Not that she had much of one to begin with. The dream of becoming the next Meryl Streep, which she’d chased for more than ten years, remained so out of reach she’d have to launch herself into outer space to even get close.

  And now she was back in Tennessee. The land of conservatives, camo, and country music. Freaking awesome.

  Granny had said she was sending someone to pick Lorelei up at the airport, but she’d danced around the details, leaving her granddaughter clueless as to whom or what she should be looking for. A taxi from the airport up to Ardent Springs, sixty-five miles northwest of Music City, would cost more than Lorelei could afford.

  To be fair, a cab ride to the end of the runway would cost more than Lorelei could afford.

  Dragging two suitcases, which contained all of her worldly possessions, she shuffled over to the closest bench to remove her knockoff Manolos and give her feet a rest. Her favorite suitcase, the black one with a smattering of cherries, fell over when a wheel popped off and rolled away.

  “And we have a runner,” she said to no one in particular. Lorelei didn’t blame the little spinner. She’d make a break for it, too, if she had the chance. Correction. If she had the choice.

  Before she could catch the wayward wheel, a handsome skycap snagged it off the sidewalk and returned it with a smile. “This one’s trying to get away,” he said, pearly whites gleaming, twang intact.

  “Good thing you caught him before he hopped into a cab.” If he thought she would tip him for retrieving that wheel, Mr. Skycap was sadly out of luck.

  The sarcasm seemed to go over his head. “Do you need help getting it back on? I have a screwdriver over here.”

  “No help needed,” she said, unzipping the front compartment of the suitcase and dropping the wheel inside. “But thanks for the offer. Don’t let me hold you up. I’m sure you have skycappy things to do.”

  His smile faded as the man nodded and returned to his post. She probably shouldn’t take her bad mood out on strangers, but her mouth had yet to get that memo.

  “Still a charmer, I see,” drawled a deep male voice from behind her.

  Lorelei closed her eyes before turning around. Granny wouldn’t be that mean. Maybe he was flying out, never to return.

  Ha. As if Spencer Boyd would ever leave his beloved Tennessee home.

  Turning slowly in her seat, Lorelei leaned back and looked up into her high school sweetheart’s face. She blocked the waning sun with one hand, but could still only see him in silhouette. He looked broader than she remembered, but the hat was the same. In twelve years the man couldn’t buy a new cowboy hat?

  “Hello, Spencer,” she said, employing every acting skill she’d ever learned to keep the surprise out of her voice.

  “Lorelei,” he responded with a nod. “This all your stuff?”

  A sarcastic retort tickled the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it down. “This is it. Please tell me you’re parked close by.”

  With a head tilt to the left, he said, “Short-term lot right across the street here.”

  Lorelei replaced the yellow high heels, then rose to her feet. The move put her at eye level with her chauffeur, which put him around six foot two, since she was five ten and wearing four-inch heels. Broader and taller, Spencer Boyd had grown up while she was gone.

  Not that he hadn’t been handsome in high school. Quite the opposite. Every girl at Ardent Springs High tried to catch Spencer Boyd, but he’d only ever had eyes for Lorelei. Until she’d refused to accept a lifetime sentence in their tiny town popping out a passel of rug rats with the last name Boyd.

  Back in the day, Spencer had been wiry and thin, with the potential for more, and he’d certainly fulfilled that potential. His broad shoulders were accompanied by a solid chest, narrow hips, and thighs that were made for denim. Lorelei had once known the body before her in the biblical sense, as Granny would say. Back when it was hard angles and so thin she could count his ribs.

  There would be no rib-counting now, but she felt safe in the guess that a six-pack lurked beneath the button-down.

  “You look good, too,” he said. One side of his mouth tilted up in a grin that lacked any of the distaste she expected to see. The brown eyes held her blue ones, as if daring her to deny where her thoughts had wandered.

  Lorelei pulled the yellow jacket tight across the front of her little black dress. “Shall we?” she asked, stepping to the edge of the curb, ignoring the suitcases at her feet.

  “Allow me,” Spencer said, a hefty dose of sarcasm dripping from each word. They’d always had that in common. “It’s the gray Dodge on the right, two rows back.”

  After checking for oncoming traffic, Lorelei stepped off the curb and followed his directions. She didn’t need the word pickup included with gray Dodge to know that’s what she was looking for. That was a given. Males—and many females—in Ardent Springs had always driven pickup trucks.

  Lorelei doubted that had changed in the last dozen years.

  But she had forgotten another characteristic of Ardent Springs residents. They loved their dogs.

  As she made the last step up to the passenger door, a large black beast hopped up in the truck bed and barked right next to her head. Lorelei jumped back, slamming her hip into the side mirror of the neighboring Honda.

  “Holy crap! That thing nearly gave me a heart attack!” Her hip hurt like hell, but her pride was the real injured party. “You brought a stupid dog all the way to the airport?”

  Spencer threw her suitcases into the truck bed, shoved his hat off h
is forehead, and shot her an angry look from the opposite side of the truck. “Champ here has a guaranteed ride home. You insult my dog again and you won’t be so lucky.”

  Lorelei rolled her eyes. “Granny is so going to pay for this,” she mumbled under her breath. Once Spencer unlocked the doors, she jerked hers open, but found climbing in wasn’t so easy. She tried several angles, working to make sure her dress didn’t slide up to her belly button, but nothing was working.

  In her concentration, she hadn’t noticed Spencer come around the back of the truck.

  “In you go,” he said, lifting her off her feet as easily as he’d tossed her suitcases through the air. Lorelei landed with an oomph on the bench seat, her dress high enough to reveal more than she was comfortable flashing her former boyfriend.

  Thankfully, he’d been traipsing back around the vehicle and hadn’t seen a thing. She hoped. Dress straightened and seat belt fastened, Lorelei checked her reflection in the side mirror, dabbing a bead of sweat off her forehead and straightening her hair.

  Spencer hauled himself into the cab using the steering wheel for leverage. Seat belt buckled, he opened the console and pulled out a dog biscuit.

  “A snack for the road?” she asked, shooting him her most insincere smile.

  The driver ignored her, slid the back window open, and waited. A large black head popped through the opening, took the biscuit, then popped back out.

  “You want one, too?” He pointed to the slot in the console where the treat had come from.

  With a curled lip, she answered, “I had six peanuts on the plane. I’m good.”

  “Suit yourself.” Spencer started the truck, slid on a pair of sunglasses, and put the wheels into motion.

  Lorelei noted the time on the radio and calculated how long the drive would take. If Nashville traffic was the same as it used to be at five thirty on a Friday, she had nearly two hours to enjoy the scintillating company of the cowboy beside her.

  Snatching a pair of sunglasses from her purse, she opted for the cowardly way to handle the situation. She’d take a nap. Spencer paid the parking attendant, then rolled the truck onto Donelson Pike. As they drove toward I-40, she watched the sunset to her left.

  Hard to believe less than twenty-four hours ago she’d watched that same sun set over the Pacific Ocean. A sigh escaped her lips, and she relaxed for the first time in weeks. Maybe months.

  Lorelei hadn’t expected this feeling of relief. As if she’d found her soft place to fall. Not even the scorching presence of the man beside her, the man whose ring she’d once worn, could dampen the feeling of home.

  She may not have wanted to come back to her hometown, to face the demons she’d left behind—not that the demons she’d accumulated in Los Angeles were any better—but now that she was here, maybe things wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe Granny was right—home was exactly what Lorelei needed.

  The unexpected contentment made her sigh again, and then she turned her head to steal a glance at Spencer. The question tapped at her brain. Ask him, it said. Ask him why he came to get you.

  The last time she’d seen him, a few days before she’d left for California, they’d reached an impasse. An obstacle too big for people their age to overcome with any kind of grace or tact. He’d refused to leave Ardent Springs. She’d refused to stay. Neither wanted a long-distance relationship since neither believed the other would change their mind.

  Spencer had made it crystal clear that if she didn’t love him enough to stay, then he never wanted to see her again. Unfortunately, he’d shared these feelings while they were strolling through the Main Street Festival, a summer celebration that rolled into the July Fourth festivities, with pretty much the whole town in attendance.

  In a fit of temper, Lorelei had lashed out, declaring to every local within hearing distance that Ardent Springs was nothing but a two-bit town filled with small-minded idiots. Then she’d thrown Spencer’s ring in his face and stormed off. The crying lasted three days, until the moment her plane landed at LAX.

  But once that plane touched down, Lorelei vowed never to cry over a man again. And she hadn’t. Until two months ago when she’d learned that the man she’d hoped to marry had reached the wife quota with the one he already had. The one Lorelei knew nothing about until Mrs. Maxwell Chapel had paid her a personal visit. A moment that set off a chain of events that threatened to land Lorelei homeless on the streets of Los Angeles.

  Hence, her inglorious return home.

  In twelve years, there had been no calls or letters from her high school sweetheart. Not even a hello passed through her grandmother. Nothing to make Lorelei believe Spencer’s feelings had changed over time.

  So she stuffed down the questions. They didn’t really matter anyway. Whatever the answers were, they wouldn’t change the past and would only bring more headaches for her present. Lorelei had enough of those already.

  He couldn’t believe she hadn’t asked. She had to be curious why he’d been the one to drive all the way to Nashville to get her, especially since Spencer knew Rosie hadn’t told her who the chauffeur would be. Not that he had much of an answer. The truth was, he went because Rosie had asked him to. And Spencer would do anything for Lorelei’s grandmother. Lacking any real family of his own, he’d found a lifeline in Rosie Pratchett at one of the darkest moments of his life. Picking her granddaughter up from the airport was the least he could do.

  But if he were honest, he’d admit he wanted to see her. He wasn’t the boy she’d left behind anymore. The idiot who’d thrown a tantrum when his feelings got hurt, then tossed away the best thing he’d ever had.

  Life went on. People changed. Except Lorelei.

  He should have known. God, she looked as beautiful as ever. The blonde hair slightly shorter. The body that of a woman, not a girl of eighteen. There had never been any doubt Lorelei Pratchett would be gorgeous, but when he spotted her sitting on that bench, it was like taking a charging bull horns-first to the chest.

  He’d hovered beside a column twenty feet down the sidewalk, buying time for his heart to settle back to a normal rhythm. He couldn’t face her looking like a lovesick calf. If she knew how he felt, she’d chew him up and spit him out without a second thought.

  Time may have passed, but he knew from experience that women possessed long memories. All women except his own mother, who couldn’t even remember the name of the man who’d sired him. The sperm donor had taken off long before Spencer took his first breath.

  “This is probably a stupid question,” Lorelei said, tugging Spencer out of his reverie, “but anything exciting happen in Ardent Springs while I was gone?”

  He couldn’t help but chuckle. Just like her to believe nothing would happen in twelve years.

  “Well,” he started, wrinkling his forehead in thought. “The old Miller Tavern got bought out. Now it’s Brubaker’s.”

  “As in Harvey Brubaker? The grocery store owner?”

  “As in.”

  “Huh,” Lorelei said, watching the road ahead of them. “Why would Harvey buy a bar?”

  “Because Mrs. Brubaker was spending a lot of time at Miller’s and coming home real late smelling like other men.” Spencer took the exit onto I-65 north. “Seems as good a reason as any.”

  “Oh.” She remained silent for nearly a minute, then asked, “They were old when I left. They’d have to be pushing seventy by now.”

  “Yep,” he agreed. “I do my best not to get a mental image on that one.”

  “Good idea.” Lorelei nodded. “Anything else? I don’t suppose there are any new shopping options? Something other than the Agri Co-op?”

  He couldn’t give her good news on that one. “Goodlettsville is still the only option for your kind of shopping. Nothing any closer. Yet.”

  “Lovely.”

  Silence loomed again. Spencer decided to fill it.

  “So, are we going to keep ignoring the elephant in the truck, or are you going to ask?”

  Lorelei turned around in he
r seat. “Elephant? Dude, that’s a dog.”

  “Nice try, but I know you’re not a dumb blonde, remember?”

  She righted herself, tugging down her dress as she did so. Spencer could still see enough thigh to make his mouth water. Lorelei always did have great legs.

  “I suppose that’s a compliment.” She sighed. “What question do you want me to ask? Why are you here? Do you still hate me? I don’t need to ask if you’re married. Granny kept me informed on that front.”

  Since she had yet to ask him anything, Spencer stayed quiet.

  “Sorry about the divorce,” she added. “Contrary to what you might think, I wasn’t happy to hear about that.”

  Was that sympathy coming from the passenger seat? A friendly comment without a trace of sarcasm? Maybe he’d picked up the wrong woman.

  “It wasn’t fun,” he said, gripping the steering wheel tighter than necessary. “Life goes on.”

  “Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” He wasn’t sure how to interpret that one. “You’re being nice to me, so I’m guessing hate isn’t the appropriate word anymore.”

  With complete honesty, he said, “I haven’t hated you since a week after you left.”

  Lorelei nodded. “Right. I wasn’t worth that kind of emotion.”

  Spencer shook his head in amazement. “You haven’t changed a bit, Lorelei.”

  “You’d be surprised,” she said. Her head leaned back on the headrest, and she shut her eyes. “As much as I’m enjoying all of this catching up we’re doing, I’d really like to take a nap. Do you mind?”

  “Nope.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Lorelei?”

  “What?” his passenger growled, eyes still shut.

  “I’ll still be here when you wake up. And we’re going to have to answer those questions sometime.”

  Her eyes were open now, glaring at him from beneath perfectly shaped brows. “I’ll check my calendar. Maybe there will be an opening next year.”

  Spencer knew when he’d pushed far enough. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  A loud sigh was her only response. A minute later, soft snoring accompanied the radio.