The whole situation was crazy,
Tate told himself. There could never be anything between him and lush, leggy reporter Natalie Grant.
She was a threat to his family. He felt nothing but disdain for her job. And he⦠Sweet hell, he was lying to her with every conversation, every look, every damned breath he took.
All excellent reasons to keep his distance and ignore his rampant attraction to the sweet Southern redhead.
But that might be easier said than done.
For one thing, in a ranch house normally filled with male voices and Okie twangs, Natalie sounded like a songbird among crows. Undeniably Southern, achingly feminine, her voice was made for whispering sweet, seductive invitations.
But not to Tate.
After all, he wasnât even the man she thought he was. He was an impostor, telling her sweet, loving liesâ¦.
brings impeccable credentials to her writing careerâa lifelong habit of gazing out windows, not paying attention in class, daydreaming and spinning tales for her own entertainment. The sale of her first book brought great relief to her family, proving that she wasnât crazy but was, instead, creative. Since then sheâs sold more than forty books to various publishers and even a film production company.
She writes in an office nestled among the oaks that surround her country home. In winter she stays inside with her husband and their four dogs, and in summer she spends her free time mowing the yard that never stops growing and daydreams about grass that never gets taller than two inches.
You can write to her at P.O. Box 643, Sapulpa, OK, 74067-0643.
The letter came in Tuesday morningâs mailâa pale-green envelope postmarked Alabama, addressed to J. T. Rawlins in a delicate script and lacking a return address. Alabama, the Heart of Dixie, home to a decent college football team, the venerable and newly retired U.S. senator, Boyd Chaney, and an incredibly determined, tenacious reporter by the name of Natalie Grant, who was writing said senatorâs biography.
The single sheet of stationery inside the envelope was also pale green, textured. The tone was polite, professional, but the letter was a warning all the same. It was enough to justify a gathering of all four members of the Rawlins family at a time when each of them needed to be someplace else.
Tate Rawlins sat in his usual seat, to the left of his mother, Lucinda, who claimed the head of the dining table. His sixteen-year-old son, Jordan, sat on her right, and Tateâs half brother, Josh, was beside him. Tateâs and Joshâs fathers had never been part of the family. Ditto for Jordanâs mother. As families went, they were small, and not exactly traditional, but they were close.
Everyone wore the same somber expression, except Lucinda, who also looked guilty, worried and ashamed. So far she hadnât said a word, hadnât even hinted at what she wanted, except for this whole mess to go away.
But Natalie Grant wasnât going to go away. In fact, according to the letter lying in the middle of the table, she would be appearing on their doorstep first thing in the morning, and she wasnât leaving until, one way or another, sheâd gotten the information she wanted. That was a fact, sheâd written in the last line of the letter.
A threat, to Tateâs way of thinking.
âWell?â Josh prodded.
Tate felt three pairs of brown eyes, identical to his own, turn his way. While theyâd waited for him to come in from the pasture, theyâd hatched a plan for dealing with the reporter. No, correct thatâa plan for Tate to deal with the reporter. Josh and their mother had already made arrangements, before the letterâs arrival, to spend the next few weeks at her parentsâ ranch down in southern Oklahoma, and they wantedâneededâto go ahead. Grandpop had broken his leg two days before, and while Gran was convinced she could look after the place just fine by herself, the rest of the family wasnât about to let her prove it.
Let me help Grandpop, Tate had suggested, and Josh could handle Ms. Alabama. After all, though they shared the same initials, Josh was the J. T. Rawlins she wanted.
Even Jordan had winced at the idea. Josh wasnât the most cautious or even-tempered person around. Lucinda excused his behavior as impulsive. Grandpop said he let his mouth run without engaging his brain first. In his twenty-nine years, heâd sometimes talked his way into more trouble than Tate could get him out of. Heâd gotten the two of them suspended from school, thrown out of bars and, on a few occasions, thrown into jail. There was no telling what kind of trouble he could stir up with a nosy reporterâespecially one who was bound and determined to uncover every last detail in all the Rawlinsesâ lives.
All because of a stupid affair Lucinda had had thirty years ago.