Free Tex Appeal by Alison Kent Kimberly Raye Page B

still blazed inside To Dye For and she caught a glimpse of Nikki, who stood at the counter and counted out the day’s take. In the waiting area, her fiancé Jake McCann sprawled in a chair next to…Dillon?
    She slowed the Mustang and stared as the car crept past the salon. Sure enough, her brother sat next to Nikki’s hunky cowboy. Even more disturbing, her brother was a hunky cowboy. He wore faded jeans, a black T-shirt that read Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy, black boots and a black Resistol. His hair had grown out over the past few months and now brushed the back of his collar. He didn’t look brainwashed or sick with any of the number of things her mother had cooked up in her head. Rather, he looked relaxed and confident and happy.
    A pang of envy shot through her and she barely ignored the urge to haul the car around, go back and beg his secret.
    But she already knew.
    He’d chucked everything about his past and truly had changed. He wasn’t holding on to a box full of sappy cards or bemoaning a bunch of old cabinets or bitching about shoes that pinched his toes. He was embracing his new lifestyle. No regrets. No looking back. No holding back.
    Because he truly liked the man he’d become.
    Cheryl Anne couldn’t say the same. While there were some things she liked about her new lifestyle—the miniskirts and tank tops, her dog, her own place—there were some things she missed, as well. She missed her old comfortable sneakers and her favorite An Apple a Day Keeps the Doctor Away mug and the occasional dinner with her parents and Dayne.
    She missed snuggling with him on the sofa and playing Scrabble together, and watching television.
    Because she wasn’t a wild woman or a total scaredy cat. She was a little bit of both.
    The realization made her that much more miserable.
    Because Dayne wasn’t riding the fence when it came to the old and the new—he’d climbed completely over to the opposite side of the pasture. He’d morphed back into his old self and she could only pray that she managed to lure him back. While there were a lot of things in her life that she was still unsure about, there was one thing she knew with dead certainty—she wanted the night before and the morning after, and she wanted them with Dayne Branson.
    The trouble was, after seeing him walk away tonight, she wasn’t so sure he still wanted her.
    She tamped down her fears, ignored the lure of the Quick Stop and turned her Mustang around. There was only one way to find out.
     
    “I WAS WRONG ,” she blurted when he hauled open his front door a half hour later.
    His head emerged from the white towel he’d been rubbing his damp hair with. “Excuse me?”
    “You heard me.” She pushed past him and walked into his living room. “I was wrong.” The words tumbled out and kept coming. “Not about our relationship being stale, but about breaking up with you. I shouldn’t have called it quits, but I was so determined to change my life. I was stuck in a rut and I wanted out. I wanted to be different. But the thing is, nothing turned out to be quite what I expected. I wanted a more exciting job, but it’s really just a more embarrassing job that I’m not nearly qualified to do. Even Winona showed me up. I wanted a better wardrobe with my own collection of killer high heels, but it turns out there’s a reason they call them ‘killer’ and I wanted—”
    The words died in her throat as she turned. He’d been partially hidden behind the door when he’d first answered her knock. He was completely visible now. Visible and nearly naked, with only a towel slung low on his lean hips and one draped around his neck.
    He’d followed her back into the house and stood barely an arm’s length away, so close that she could feel the heat coming off him, smell the enticing aroma of clean soap and virile male that sent a bubble of excitement through her.
    “You’re naked.”
    “Most people are when they take a shower.”
    “Oh.” She took a deep