Special Excerpt From Texas Hearts (June 2005, Triskelion Publishing)

It was then that he realized that he wanted to kiss her, No, he did not just want to kiss her—he wanted to bring his mouth down onto that full pouty mouth, to slip his tongue inside of her warm mouth and dance a dance of passion. The realization made him start. Despite what some of the more risqué tabloids liked to say, he did not have this overwhelming need to have sex with every female that he met. Even more than that, he never had such an overwhelming desire to kiss a woman before.

“I didn’t bring them with me.” The excuse, while sudden, was delivered just a little too fast, fast enough to make him think she was scrambling for an excuse.

“Then we can stop by your place and get them.” His grin spread wider at her outraged expression. “Good thing that I happen to be the boss, I don’t have to be in at nine a.m.”

Jesse’s mouth opened and snapped shut.

The ride in the limo would have been excruciating for him, had she actually been sitting with him. However, out of a perverse adherence to the “rules”, she insisted on riding in the front with the driver, riding shotgun she had called it, as though he did not know what riding shotgun was. Regardless of how much money he may have, he was still a good ole’ Texas boy.

It was obvious that she had lost one argument, over the clothing of course and she intended on winning the fight over her seat, but he argued anyway. Not because he really wanted to have her sit beside him. No, correction, he did want her to sit next to him, but he would be more than a little distracted and he had work to do. He chuckled as he watched the stock numbers roll across the computer screen. That girl had a stubborn streak the size of the Grand Canyon. Man, was it appealing.

“Concentrate,” he berated himself. When she appeared in his office the previous day, the female Ranger had merely intrigued him, but now he could not seem to get his mind off her. Last night he had lain in his cold bed, a bed that he had never thought of as cold, even when it was empty of companionship. He had tossed and turned, unable to sleep, unable to stop thinking about her. Jesse Walker, Texas Ranger. Expelling a pent up breath, he shook the memory off, knowing what that line of thought would do to the cut of his suit. It would also be embarrassing to be caught in the limo at full staff. The slowing of the limo was a douse of cold water in his face.

Her home was a townhouse in a newly renovated area of Houston. It was like all the other townhouses in the row, with the same red brick, white stoop, and one-car garage under what was probably the living room. Unlike many of the other homes that had their own little homey touches such as a flower box, or a cheerful flag heralding the arrival of summer fluttering from a wooden flagpole by the doorway, the unit the limousine stopped in front of was devoid of any decoration except for a small planter with a cheery bloom of red posies.