Contents
Title page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Dear Reader
Lacy's Books
Mistletoe Cowboy
Lacy Williams
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Copyright 2014 by Lacy Williams. Cover design © Lacy Williams. Cover photograph (couple) © Syda_Productions | depositphotos.com. Cover photograph (background) appalachianview | depositphotos.com.
Chapter One
"Can I get you a cappuccino? Latte?"
The girl behind the drive-thru window of the Coffee Hut—a small shack in the superstore parking lot on the edge of town—smiled at him, and Justin Michaels had to bite back a goofy smile.
"Just coffee. Black."
Her shiny brown ponytail bobbed, and strands of inky dark hair clung to her neck as she turned to pick up a cardboard mug.
"You sure?" She shot him a coquettish look over her shoulder, a glimpse of her honey-brown eyes from beneath her eyelashes.
"Yep."
It was their usual routine.
Her name was Valri. He knew it because he'd seen her nametag the first time he'd come. He had a love affair with coffee and usually stopped by once a day. Or twice.
"Is that—are you flirting with her?"
Justin kept his eyes on the gravel parking lot out of the truck's front windshield and worked at not reacting to his sister-in-law's hissed words from the passenger seat. The bright October sunshine made him squint, made his head pound—or maybe it was Haley's shock.
He couldn't tell if she were appalled or excited.
With one wrist dangling over the top of the steering wheel, he let the other arm rest across the bench seat-back. Relaxed. Like he hadn't a care in the world.
Haley Michaels née Carston had been married to his brother for all of a month and made Maddox happier than Justin had ever seen his brother.
Justin was happy for Maddox. He just wanted Haley to quit trying to set him up. With her friends. A gal from church. And a random chick from the grocery store.
He was tired of it. He wasn't in any place to be dating right now.
Plus, he really didn't want Valri the coffee shop girl to hear Haley. Much as he tried not to notice these things, there was no way to overlook it—Valri was hot.
This coffee-thing, this was just their routine. A harmless one. Maybe they flirted when he visited the Coffee Hut. But he never did anything about it.
She didn't wear a wedding ring. He'd checked that the first time he'd driven through.
But she was young. With her hair pulled back in a long brown ponytail and no makeup hiding the adorable freckles across her nose, she could be anywhere from sixteen to twenty.
And although he was only twenty-seven, he felt much older.
Hobbling around like an old man and sometimes relying on a cane to work the kinks out in the morning did nothing to make a man feel young.
His doctors told him he was lucky to walk at all after his career-ending injury, but most days he didn't feel lucky.
Except for the ten minutes that he interacted with Valri-the-coffee-girl. When she smiled at him, he felt everything.
"Here you go," Valri said, extending his coffee through the hut's drive-thru window. And yep, her full-wattage smile made his stomach kick like one of the bulls he used to challenge in the arena.
This was why he had never pursued anything with her. That zing of attraction between them was strong. Maybe too strong.
He would be toxic for a girl like that, young and innocent. Between his ugly past and his present, daily struggles, there was no room for dating.
At least that's what he told himself.
#
Valri North handed the handsome cowboy his tall coffee, brushing his fingertips accidentally—or maybe not so accidentally. She loved the feeling of those sparks skittering up her arm and down her spine. No shot of espresso could replicate that.
He always paid in cash, or she would've looked at his debit card to learn his name.
Shameful, but a girl had to do what a girl had to do to feed her dreams. Those dreams had to get her through four years of med school and a residency. And a handsome cowboy in a battered truck—he was enough to fuel plenty of dreams. The hint of stubble at his jaw made him look slightly disreputable. Those brown curls poking out from beneath the brim of his Stetson… yeah, he'd do.
She'd given some thought to asking him out. She saw him almost every day at the Coffee Hut. One or two dates wouldn't be serious and would give her fodder for the G-rated fantasies that were her only escape. If only she could be like some of her classmates, who dated without regard to the consequences—to their hearts and their grades. She'd been labeled a nerd in second grade, and the older she got, the more she believed it.
She hadn't been on a date since her sixteenth birthday four years ago. And she was happy with that. Wasn't she? She had plans for her future. Big plans. Plans that mattered.
She looked back at the cowboy, who was watching with lifted eyebrows.
She shook off the errant thoughts and looked beyond the handsome cowboy to the woman sitting beside him. Another reason to keep her distance. "Are you sure your girlfriend doesn't want something?"
He choked, and the pretty woman with auburn hair in the passenger seat let out a peal of laughter. She clapped her hands in front of her, and Valri got a flash of a brilliant diamond on the woman's finger.
Fiancée?
The bottom dropped out of Valri's stomach.
"Don't tell your brother. He'll be furious with us both."
She could see the strain in his smile by the lines at the corner of his eyes. "My sister-in-law doesn't need any caffeine to feed her orneriness. But thanks."
He wasn't engaged. Or at least, he wasn't engaged to the woman in the truck.
The relief Valri felt was unexpected, and welcome.
His smile was powerful, the flash of white teeth under his tan, the lines around his mouth that eased into the expression.
Do you want to go out sometime? But the words stuck, just behind her teeth.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" she asked.
"You always do."
He gave a little wave before his big hand settled on the steering wheel, and then he was gone.
It was just as well. She was too busy and had too many plans to be distracted by a handsome cowboy. It was a pipe dream for her, wasn't it?
She had other things to focus on. Her nightmare started tonight at six-thirty. She had roughly two semesters left in her undergrad and had only now gotten up the guts to take the class she was most dreading.
Not Anatomy, complete with cadaver lab. That had been a breeze.
Comm 2. Speech class.
The eight-week, concentrated course had been the only one she could fit it into her course load. And tonight was the night.
No turning back.
She had to pull a B to keep up her GPA, but an A would be better. Med schools didn't accept slackers, and she wanted into the best school in the state.
The med school in Oklahoma City was close enough to home that she might be able to help out her parents on the weekends. She didn't want to move out of state, but if she had to, she would. She was prepared to do whatever it took to become a doctor. It was her calling.
She hoped her parents and younger siblings were ready as well.
She sighed as she let her eyes linger on the state road where the cowboy's truck
had disappeared in a plume of gravel dust.
It was better this way. She would enjoy the five minutes of dreaming that her schedule allowed, and focus on what mattered. Like she always did.
Chapter Two
Later that night, Justin slouched in the second-furthest seat on the last row of the university classroom. The small state university was a forty-minute drive from Redbud Trails, and he was working laboriously through several classes. This was all Haley's fault. She'd convinced him he needed direction in his life. Problem was, he still didn't have it, despite her hopes.
At least the classes had gotten him off his butt, out of his late dad's awful recliner, and back to real life.
Outside the window, the foliage on the trees planted next to the building had turned gold and orange, and the October breeze rustled the few remaining leaves as the setting sun spread pink fingers across the sky. He was most definitely a non-traditional student, coming back to school at his age, and the night classes fit into his part-time work schedule.
His legs stretched out in front of the desk that was too small. Most were, though, because of his six-foot-two inch stature, and also because of his injury—a broken pelvis—and the lingering discomfort he suffered.
The eighteen-year-old gal next to him had been trying to catch his eye since he'd sat down. The classroom was amphitheater-style, and he hadn't wanted to battle the stairs every class period, or he might've moved closer to the front—and away from the girl—before the prof had started talking.
The classroom was close to full. There were probably forty kids—kids to him, at least—listening attentively to the professor's first-night welcome. They were probably five minutes in when the door behind him opened with an audible squeak. There was an empty seat on Justin's left, and he felt the latecomer approach.
A backpack shielded the girl's face, but as she stepped over the guy to Justin's right, it slipped off her shoulder and almost clocked him in the head. Would have, if he hadn't ducked.
He leaned away from the girl and was about to glare at her when he saw it was Valri from the Coffee Hut.
Heat slipped up the back of his neck. He tried to get his feet out of her way, but she stepped at the same time and got tangled in his boots.
She let out a strangled "Eep!" and landed in the seat next to him with a grunt. Her backpack thunked against the desk. How many textbooks did she have in there?
He got a whiff of a sweet, flowery perfume and under that, a strong scent of coffee that had him breathing in deep.
"Sorry," he muttered.
And then he realized the professor had gone ominously silent. A glance at the front of the room showed the man staring sternly in their direction.
"Thank you for joining us, Miss…?"
"North. Valri North. I'm sorry I'm late, sir."
The prof smiled, but it looked more like a sneer. "I was just telling the class that three tardies will earn you an absence. Three absences and you will fail the class. I don't like my class being disrupted. It's disrespectful to me and to your fellow students."
She muttered something beneath her breath, then smiled tightly and said, "I apologize."
"Harsh," Justin said under his breath.
She had a hand inside her backpack and shot a glance at him. Her eyes were narrowed and her lips turned down in a frown, but when her eyes slid to his face, they widened, her frown lifted.
"Cowboy," she hissed in surprise.
"Hey, Coffee Shop."
Someone from her other side cleared his throat, and she blushed, turned that direction, and accepted a stack of syllabi. Their fingers brushed as she handed Justin the papers and, just like that morning at the Coffee Hut, he felt a tingle of attraction zip through him.
Just after he passed the syllabi to the blonde on his right, the last person in their row, a seating chart followed. He scribbled his name in the square that lined up with the chair he was sitting in and then swallowed hard when his eyes fell on the curly, feminine Valri North in the square next to his.
He was going to have to sit next to her for the entire eight weeks? Crap.
The stadium-style seating was a problem. To get to the front of the class, he would have to wrangle himself down the flight of stairs, which would be a challenge with his limited mobility.
He could always drop the class. But Haley had pushed him to not give up on himself. Was it giving up to try and avoid complete public humiliation?
#
This really sucked.
She was going to spend eight weeks next to the cowboy. Justin Michaels. She'd surreptitiously watched him scrawl his name on the seating chart. Maybe it wasn't polite but she'd waited so long to learn his name, she wasn't going to miss her chance.
Having the handsome cowboy in her class was going to be a nightmare. Of all the people to have to witness her humiliation, it had to be someone she found incredibly attractive.
And that on top of the professor's grumpy attitude. It wasn't her fault she'd been tardy. She hated being late.
But she hated being the center of attention more, and he'd focused every eye in the classroom to her.
This was why she had left this particular class until she was well into her undergrad degree. She hated the thought of speaking in front of anyone. She could deal with all kinds of blood and gore—and frequently did at the free clinic where she volunteered—but speaking in front of her peers? The thought of it was enough to make her vomit.
She flipped to the second page of the syllabus and used a red pen to circle the three dates she was dreading most on the schedule: the three oral presentations she would have to deliver.
And she was paying enough attention to hear the professor say, "…you will be graded solely on three oral examinations."
Her heart pulsed in her throat.
Someone raised a hand. "There's no written test? No final exam?"
"Your final speech is your final exam."
Was she imagining that unholy, gleeful gleam in the professor's eyes? Maybe it was the glare of the overhead lights on his glasses. Or maybe not.
Another hand went up and a tremulous voice asked, "What about extra credit?"
"I was getting to that."
Valri flipped to the last page of the syllabus and circled the paragraph under the heading EXTRA CREDIT with her red pen. If she were going to be graded only on her speaking ability, she was going to need all the help she could get.
Her GPA wouldn't handle anything less than a B in this class. She had to pass with a decent grade or risk not getting into her top choice for med school.
She was exhausted. She'd worked from five a.m. to lunchtime at the Coffee Hut, then rushed to the free clinic to work through her volunteer hours. Her mom had had to work a nursing shift at the hospital, leaving Valri to collect her younger siblings from school and make sure they'd gotten dinner. She'd rushed out of the house at the same time her dad had rushed in, exhausted from his job running the family hardware store.
Her stomach growled loudly, reminding her she'd forgotten the Tupperware containing her own supper. She'd been in a hurry to make it to the campus bookstore before it closed, because she hadn't had a spare moment to get up here and buy her book before now.
The cowboy's head tilted in her direction. Her cheeks flamed, and she kept her eyes on the paper on her desk.
Even though she was on high alert from sitting next to the cowboy of her daydreams, after long minutes of the professor's droning voice, she could barely keep her eyes open. It wasn't until he declared they would be doing an icebreaker exercise that she came back to herself with a start.
There were an odd number of students in their row, and the professor assigned her with Justin and the bleached-blonde next to him. They had to discover three interesting things about their partners and then reveal them to the rest of the class.
As the noise in the class ratcheted up, she turned in her seat, clenching her teeth in what she hoped was a semblance of a smile. She hated exercises like this.
It wasn't that she was shy—she wasn't—but she was in university for one reason: to get to med school. She didn't see why she had to stand up in front of the entire class to introduce someone when she was here simply to learn.
She looked up to see the cowboy's eyes on her. On his other side, the blonde had scooted her chair closer than was strictly necessary.
"Hi, I'm Brandi!"
The blonde hadn't spared one glance for Valri. Her entire focus was on the cowboy between them.
Something twisted inside Valri's stomach. Probably hunger pangs. It had to be.
"Justin Michaels." He glanced over at the blonde, and she lit up, squealing behind the hand she held over her mouth.
She clasped both hands beneath her chin. "Oh, I knew it was you the instant I saw you! I followed your career—well, my older brother did—and I've seen all your commercials. This is so exciting to be in class with someone famous!"
Was it her, or had the tips of the cowboy's ears turned red? He shrugged, his eyes focused on the desk in front of him.
"I'm not really famous," he muttered.
"Sure you are!" Brandi chirped.
"Famous for what?" Valri hadn't meant to speak aloud, but apparently she had, because both of their heads turned toward her.
The blonde wore an expression of horror mixed with irritation, while the cowboy met her gaze evenly. It was hard not to look down with the intensity of those ice-blue eyes focused right at her.
Brandi's pink-tipped nails curled over the cowboy's shoulder. "Justin is a bull rider," she said, her voice and manner almost proprietary.
"Was a bull rider."
#
Was a bull rider.
Justin hadn't meant his words to come out with such a final, bitter ring to them, but he couldn't help that now.
How unlucky could he be that the blonde had recognized him? And did she have to put so much emphasis on the older brother who had followed his career?
What little fame he'd garnered from his bull riding days had imploded two-and-a-half years ago when his career had tanked. Everyone in Redbud Trails knew who he was, and most were kind enough to not mention his rodeo career. Here at the university, it was the luck of the draw whether or not he would be recognized.
Mistletoe Cowboy: A Cowboy Inspirational Romance Page 1
