Chapter One

“You sent me roses.” A pause, then an unmistakable masculine sigh weighted by frustration. “Again.”

“You have something against flowers?”

The silence following her question had a small smile teasing the corners of her mouth. Candace had known Neal wouldn’t be thrilled with the flower delivery. Still she hadn’t expected him to come to her office and voice his disapproval.

“That’s not the point,” he said.

Moving the computer pointer and clicking the mouse button to save the spreadsheet she’d been working on, Candace was suddenly glad she’d resisted putting on glasses to relieve her strained eyes.

Candace Hart had been in love with Neal Barrows for half of her twenty-four years. She’d allowed her love to falter for a while, allowed others to convince her it was little more than a girlish infatuation rather than the deep respect and admiration that completed her basic lust for the man. It had taken a disastrous marriage and the destruction of her feminine confidence before she realized it was time to go after what—or in this case whom—she truly wanted.

“Candace,” Neal interrupted, strained patience in his voice.

Still she loved the way he said her name. Not with stern disapproval, the way her grandmother so often spoke to her, nor with the despised fluff nickname that both her brothers teased her by using. Candace indulged a moment of fantasy, imagining the time and place when Neal would say her name with desire. And love.

“This has got to stop.”

Oh no, she mentally corrected, not when I’ve just started. “At least this time I sent the roses to your house,” she said. “Rather than to the weight room.”

She’d made that mistake with the first delivery of roses, lovely pink ones. She should have known Neal would be embarrassed. He could take any manner of jesting from the high school boys he coached, but he took care to avoid being gossiped about. He’d had enough of that throughout his boyhood years.

“Why don’t you come in?” she suggested now. “Close the door behind you so we can have some privacy.”

“No.”

Neal all but took a step in retreat and glanced over his shoulder to the staff outside her office. He never allowed the two of them to be alone, something Candace had recently viewed in a positive light.

“Very well,” she agreed. “Then I guess the mountain will come to Mohammed.”

After slipping back into her shoes, she rose from the chair and circled around to the front of her desk. Since she’d been taught by her grandmother to keep the surface ruthlessly neat, there was no need to clear a spot on which to sit.

“You are, without a doubt, the most stubborn woman I’ve ever known.”

“Determined,” Candace corrected. Though she wore slacks today, his gaze quickly lowered to scan the length of her legs. She felt a delicious shiver run down her back.

“I’m courting you, Neal.”

His gaze jerked back to clash with hers. Candace would have paid good money to have a camera to catch that stunned look on his face. Another, harder, shiver trembled along her entire body.

Neal’s brown hair was shades darker than her own and cut close enough to eliminate any chance of a woman dreaming about running her fingers through the short waves. The emotion within his blue eyes was often defensive, occasionally vulnerable. Though he often tried to further the perception that he could be menacing, she believed it to be an act.

Anyone looking at him would know he’d once played football. And continued to stay in shape. His shoulders were broad, his biceps enhanced by the weight lifting he practiced with members of the high school football team he coached. His muscles weren’t overt or exaggerated, just defined enough to tempt a woman’s fingertips.

Candace skipped over the wide hands resting on narrow hips and sought the muscular thighs and calves showcased, as usual, by khaki shorts. God help her, Neal Thomas Barrows had the sexiest legs she’d ever seen on a man.

“That’s impossible,” he said, countering her claim.

“Not only is it possible, it’s inevitable.” Her chin rose, an unconscious habit anyone in her family, most of the newspaper staff, and practically everyone else in town would have recognized. “I never realized you were such a sexist.”

He hesitated, narrowing his eyes at her, as if not sure what her comment had to do with her stunning revelation. “I’m not.”

“Oh?” She crossed her legs. “Then you agree it’s all right for a woman to let a man know she’s interested in him?”

“You’re nothing more than a spoiled rich girl used to getting her way.”

She easily deflected the barb, joining others he’d aimed in her direction over the years. Only her suspicion, her faith, that he fired those gibes at her as a means of keeping his true feelings at bay made her skin thick enough to feel more amusement than pain.

Neal might not have expressed any deeper feelings for her, but she had hope they were there—under all the years of protective defense he’d built around his heart.

“Quite the contrary, Neal. More often than not I’ve done what was expected of me rather than what I wanted.”

To the extent that she’d married a man of her grandmother’s choosing rather than the man she truly loved. Candace braced against the guilt—along with its kissing cousin shame—she harbored whenever she thought about her marriage. And whenever she thought about how she’d ignored her own wishes and desires to do what had been expected of her. She’d gotten through that difficult time and had become a stronger person for it, so she believed. Needed to believe.

“How would your grandmother feel if she knew your intentions?” Neal asked.

Candace laughed and ran a steady hand through her hair. “Neal, I’m not in the habit of consulting with my grandmother whenever I decide on a lover.”

“Just a husband.”

That shot drew emotional blood. It was one thing for her to acknowledge a mistake; it was another altogether for him to throw it in her face.

“What if I told you I was involved with someone?” he asked.

That made her pause. Candace hadn’t seen him with anyone, but she knew very well how much he valued his privacy. Now that she thought about it she couldn’t recall ever hearing talk of Neal dating.

“Are you?” she asked.

The silence lasted no more than five seconds. Candace knew because her heart thundered with each second she endured.

“No,” he admitted.

Carefully she let a relieved breath slowly slide free. “If it makes you feel better, consider the roses as a thank-you,” Candace suggested. It wouldn’t change, in her heart, the reason for sending him the roses, but she was willing to give him a little leeway until he came around to her way of thinking. Not that she wouldn’t give him a shove every once in a while.

“A thank-you?” he questioned.

“For agreeing to join the committee working on the renovation of the youth center.”

“Did you send flowers to the other committee members?”

“Absolutely.” Or she would as soon as he left.

His broad shoulders shrugged. “I’m glad to have the chance to be a part of the committee.”

As a privately funded project, the youth center renovation had a small steering committee. Her business connections as advertising manager of the family-owned newspaper had aided her campaign for the chairperson’s position. She and Neal would be working together, more often than not in public, during the renovation of the center.

If she managed everything just right, there would also be some interesting private moments together.

“That center has needed work for years,” he went on. “It’s no wonder the kids don’t want to spend any time there.”

“I know.”

Her heart softened. He had so much love to give, to share with all the kids he taught and still have enough left over to make a woman feel special.

“Nobody understands those kids better than you.”

“I teach them,” he corrected. “I’m not sure anybody can understand a teenager.”

“I, for one, think they’d be easier to understand and teach if they had better taste in their music.”

That earned her a reluctant chuckle as he shoved his hands into his pockets, stretching the loose material of his shorts across his groin. Candace suffered a moment’s uncertainty and uncharacteristic fear at the force and strength of his masculinity. Images of that last brutal night with her husband had a shiver, this one unwelcome, running down her back. Which was unfair to Neal.

Rejecting her outright was the only way Neal could ever hurt her.

“I guess you prefer the classics,” he said.

“As long as it’s classic Motown.”

“Huh?”

“Classic Motown,” she repeated, then shook her head in mock dismay. “You’re hardly better than your students. Motown, Neal. You know, the Temptations, the Four Tops, Stevie Wonder, and the Supremes.”

“You’re kidding.”

“C’mon, Neal, you’ve known me long enough to know I never kid about music.”

She gestured over her shoulder to the stereo behind her desk. At the moment Diana and the Supremes were harmonizing that you can’t hurry love. Maybe not, Candace agreed, but there came a point when you had nothing to lose by giving it a nudge.

She was tired of waiting for Neal to see her as someone other than the baby sister of his best friend. She didn’t intend to sit by and silently wait any longer. Some, specifically her grandmother, would question her decision, and she would have to battle her own doubts. But for once in her life, she would know if someone wanted her simply for herself and not because of any family expectations or social connections.

“I admit I enjoy traditional classical music, especially during a special dinner or when I’m indulging in a candlelit bubble bath.” She paused and let that image soak into his thoughts for a moment. “How about you, Neal? What do you like?”

“I’ll tell you what I would like.”

With a frown darkening his blue eyes, he took two small steps into the office. Candace enjoyed the knowledge that she’d thrown him off balance with her announcement and comments, perhaps even had his mind going down a path he’d previously considered forbidden.

Her imagination was hot on his heels along that same path of secret desires and thrilling pleasures.

“I’d like for you to stop playing this game.”

“Sorry, Coach, that’s just not going to happen.”

“Nothing is going to happen,” he said with enough of a bite that Candace felt her confidence wilt a bit. “The sooner you get over this little girl dream of yours the better for both of us.”

She faltered a second longer. Then she looked into his eyes and saw what she recognized as panic, the kind of panic that was based on getting caught in a lie. More assured than ever that she was on the right path, she grinned.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a little girl anymore, Neal. I know the difference between dreams and what I want. I know how to get what I want.”

Candace slid off the desk and ignored the jump of nerves in her stomach as she boldly crossed the room to stand a few scant inches from him. Neal didn’t move, but she felt his muscles tense. In defense, she wondered, or as the means to keep from reaching for her?

“Why do I have the feeling that worries you?” she asked in the softest voice she could manage.

The muscles in his jaw tightened, and those in his throat worked a moment before he took a step in retreat and spoke.

“There’s that famous imagination of yours at work, Candace. What you want doesn’t concern me at all.”

****

He was a lying slug.

Neal sat in his truck and resisted the urge to bang his head on the steering wheel. Which would be nothing compared to the world of hurt he’d be in if his best friend, Ben, had any idea of the steamy images rolling through his mind about Ben’s little sister.

God, he ached in places he had no business aching.

How was a man supposed to ignore a woman who sent him roses, twice, and then looked him straight in the eye and announced she was courting him?

He had no right to think about Candace Marie Hart in any way other than the brotherly feelings he’d once felt for her. It was a damn shame—and all her fault—that those friendly feelings had been replaced by more basic yearnings several years earlier. Too often for his peace of mind he’d struggled against the urge to reach for her, hold her, as he wondered what a life with her could be like.

Even on those rare moments when he admitted he felt something more than temporary lust for Candace, Neal was practical enough to know he had no chance of ever having her. Even if she was under the delusion that she wanted him. He swiped a hand over his forehead and started the engine.

Progress had come in many ways and fashions to this small carpet mill town on the Georgia-Tennessee border. But many of the old ways of thinking remained.

Candace Hart would always hold the position of crown princess of the influential, powerful Hart family. And although his mother had been dead, murdered, for more than sixteen years, Neal would always be labeled as the bastard son of the town slut.

Just about every year that he took a team to the state championship game, some reporter dredged up the story of his past. Ben argued it showed how far Neal had come in his life. All Neal knew was he could never seem to escape the shadow of his past.

It had followed him through college and was one reason why he’d decided against a professional career. The other reason, the one he admitted only in the darkest recesses of his mind, was he didn’t believe he deserved success or happiness. His mother had died trying to find her version of happiness, and he’d always believed he’d contributed to that end with the way he’d spoken to her that last morning.

On the other hand, Candace had everything in the world going for her—a family that loved her, a respected position at the family-owned newspaper, looks. He stopped at a red light and winced as he shifted on the seat. The woman certainly had looks.

Her hair was the color of the sweet chocolate she favored. Summer often added streaks of golden honey. There was no question of curl. Her hair draped like a thick curtain over her shoulders, in much the way Neal heard so many of the teenage girls at school talk about with envy. Those big brown eyes of hers could look at you with soft understanding or defiant temper. He chuckled despite himself. More than once he’d been the target of that temper.

Her long legs made her near model tall, something he and Ben had teased her unmercifully about during an awkward adolescent growth spurt. Neal had sweated his way out of more than a few dreams when all that length took on some enticing curves. During her marriage, he’d had an easier time ignoring the temptation to grab beyond his reach.

Though the stoplight turned green, he saw red as he drove through the intersection.

He’d believed Candace was happy in her marriage, perhaps for no other reason than he’d needed to believe it. Yes, he’d noticed the weight loss, the nervous, though always polite smiles, and the long empty stares into space when she thought no one watched.

While he was careful to avoid being caught, Neal always watched Candace.

In hindsight he admitted he was no different from her family for standing by and doing nothing as the life slowly drained out of her. His only defense was the admission that she’d allowed it.

Then, suddenly, she and her husband separated. A small, discreet divorce announcement appeared in the newspaper that not quite two years before had reported every detail of her society wedding. That Candace had taken off to Italy was the only detail Ben gave him.

She returned five months ago looking more beautiful and confident than ever. And obviously fixated on the thought of becoming his lover.

“Hey, Coach.”

Neal’s shoulders jerked, and he realized that during his mental wanderings he’d driven to the youth center. He looked out the side window and saw Corey Watson.

The kid reminded Neal of the boy he’d once been. Raised by a single mother who spent more time, effort, and thought on her own wants and desires than on her son’s needs. A boy who used athletics to escape the loneliness of home.

“Want me to toss you a few?” Corey asked, sending the football in his hand spiraling high into the sky as he walked toward Neal’s pickup.

“You know I can’t.”

The state high school coaches’ association prohibited off-season contact in any activity related to the sport in which the coach and student were involved. Summer practice might be starting in less than a month, but Neal had no intention of stretching the rules. Once again he thought of how hard he worked to make sure his behavior remained above reproach.

He did, however, admit that some physical activity might be just what he needed to take his mind off Candace. He gestured toward the basketball among other sports equipment in a crate in the back of his pickup.

“How about a little one-on-one?”

“No, thanks. Round ball isn’t really my thing.” With another skyward toss of the football, Corey walked away.

“Corey,” Neal called out. “I still don’t have your physical card. You know you can’t start fall practice without it.”

“Yeah, I know.” The ball spiraled high once again. With his head turned up to watch the ball, Corey kept his face, and whatever emotion he felt, diverted. “My mom said she didn’t have the money for me to go to the doctor when there’s nothing wrong with me.”

It was common knowledge, around this neighborhood anyway, that Corey’s mother had a fondness for tequila. “There’s always the county health clinic.”

“Nope, we don’t qualify.”

Neal wanted to scream at the injustice of a system that claimed Corey’s mother earned too much income for assistance and yet didn’t pay her enough to ensure his well-being. Of course there was always the danger that the more money she earned, the more she would spend on herself. Neal knew that danger intimately.

“I can take you to my doctor if you want.”

Corey caught the ball and began tossing it back and forth between his hands as he glanced over his shoulder. “Why?”

“I need those hands throwing that ball on the field,” Neal said, knowing it was the only way around Corey’s self-respect. He noted, with a touch of pride, that the boy hadn’t juggled or dropped the ball once. “Can’t get to the state finals if you don’t have a health card. Getting to the state finals will bring the college scouts sniffing around.”

“I’ll let you know,” Corey said before walking away.

Neal sat a minute longer, then grabbed the basketball and headed for the court. It was in as sad a shape as most of the youth center. The painted lines of the court had faded into imagination on the cracked concrete. The rusted rim of the basket had long since lost its net, and the backboard had been decorated with phrases generally found on bathroom stalls.

This is what he’d come from, he thought, as he pushed his limits by shooting and chasing the ball that bounced away. This was the world he’d been born into, had lived through, escaped from. Only to return. It seemed that no matter what path or direction he took, the road circled back here. Sweat pooled on his lower back, his legs began to cramp from the exertion, and still he pushed harder, longer.

In many ways, he continued to do the same in the way he lived his life.

He’d often overheard whispered comments, questioning why he’d chosen to come back and work with kids so like the one he’d been. Yes, the town could accept him as long as he gave them a winning team to cheer. He had few illusions that acceptance extended beyond the playing field to the man determined to ignore the dreams he kept buried deep. On rare introspective times, he questioned if he’d foolishly thrown away chances to have more simply in order to prove a point.

Candace had no clue what it was to want, be it a material possession or emotional support. There was nothing Neal could give her that she didn’t already have or couldn’t buy.

It was this more than the seven-year age difference or his friendship with Ben that kept him from even considering the thought of having a chance with Candace. From as early as he could remember, he had watched his mother use men, or be used by them, in her effort to have what she thought would make her happy.

Standing in her office, her declaration about courting him still ringing in his ears, he’d had an uncomfortable moment about Candace having tagged him to work on the center renovation. It smacked too close to his mother’s manipulations. He didn’t want to believe her guilty of much the same kind of selfish behavior; however that questioning provided him with a reason to keep his distance from her.

With a scowl, he scooped up the ball and stared at the shadow of the basketball hoop falling over his arm.

Hopes and dreams could be like this, he thought, and didn’t feel foolish having the idea. Some dreams peeked out from beneath the shadows, beckoned you and promised beauty and contentment. The secret was in knowing which dreams were worth the effort to hold onto and which ones would forever remain hidden in the depths of hope.

Neal turned around and walked toward his truck. Sometimes it was better all around to stay in the sunshine where you had a clear view of reality. He didn’t know if he would ever break free of the long shadow of his mother’s poor reputation. He only knew he had too much respect for Candace, and her family, to risk any smear of his past being spread over them.

On the seat of his truck behind the steering wheel he found a package.

“Candace,” Neal murmured, annoyed that she’d come by without him noticing. “What have you done now?”

Once he tore off the paper and lifted the lid to the box, however, he knew without a doubt Candace had nothing to do with the framed picture being in his truck.

It was the newspaper shot that had accompanied the article outlining the efforts to renovate the youth center. Only this picture had been altered so that he and Candace were the only committee members shown. A computer-generated headline had been pasted along the top border.

You’re out of your league here.