Still the One
From the very beginning, there had been some intangible bond, something that drew Zack to Katie.
It was as if her heart were transparent and he could see right into it and it was a safe place. She made him feel things he’d
never felt with anyone else—understood and accepted and whole.
His hands landed on her waist.
A hot shock ricocheted through him; his groin was against her bottom, his nose in her hair. She smelled like herbal shampoo
and Katie—a scent that smelled like summer and desire and a nameless longing—a scent that made him so hard, so fast, that
he could have been seventeen again.
Neither one of them moved for long seconds. And then his fingers tightened around her waist as if they had a will of their
own. His mouth moved against her hair.
She inhaled sharply, then gave a little moan. He dipped his head and kissed her neck, right where her pulse beat, right on
the little brown birthmark. He felt her pulse flutter under his lips.
“Turn around, Katie,” he whispered. “Turn around and kiss me.”
Praise for Robin Wells
“4 Stars! A delightful romance [and] wonderful tale.”
—RT Book Reviews
on
How to Score
How to Score
“Wells’s contemporary romance… hits the mark.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Sweet… and absolutely perfect!”
“Sexy and enjoyable.”
“[A] character-driven romance full of wonderful subplots… Perfect.”
—Daily Advertiser
(Lafayette, LA)
“A good way to spend a summer afternoon.”
Between the Sheets
“Warm, romantic, sexy.”
—Midwest Book Review
“A fascinating contemporary romance.”
“Exceptional storytelling, writing, and characterization make this a page-turning read.”
“A refreshing, tender love story.”
A
LSO BY
R
OBIN
W
ELLS
Between the Sheets
How to Score
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Robin Wells
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced,
distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
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Forever is an imprint of Grand Central Publishing.
The Forever name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: May 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56969-9
Contents
To Ken, who will always be Still the One!
Special thanks to the world’s best parents, Roscoe and Charlie Lou Rouse; the world’s best daughters, Taylor and Arden; the
world’s best cowboy lawyer brother, Dick Rouse; and the world’s—make that the universe’s—best husband, Ken.
I’d also like to thank my dear friend Lisa Bourgeois for helping with the many family health issues that occurred during the
writing of this book. Lisa, you are beyond a jewel; you are the Hope Diamond of friends!
Last but not least, I want to thank my amazing editor, Selina McLemore, for her insight, wisdom, and guidance. Selina, you
are the greatest!
HAPTER ONE
“What are you doing Saturday night?” Lulu’s protuberant green eyes, magnified by her round horn-rimmed eyeglasses, met Katie
Charmaine’s light brown ones in the salon mirror.
The question set off Katie’s internal cupid alarm. Lulu had promised to quit playing matchmaker, but that was three fix-ups
ago. “I’m not sure,” Katie hedged as she towel-dried Lulu’s red curls. “Why?”
“Well, I was wondering if you want to come over for dinner.”
Katie blotted Lulu’s hair, aware that the four other women in her kitschy pink-and-black beauty shop were actively listening
over the drum of rain on the salon’s slanted roof. Not that they could help it; the Acadian-style Curl Up ’N Dye beauty salon
was only slightly larger than the space shuttle. The two stylist’s chairs, the manicure station, and the window-seat waiting
area were within such close proximity that all conversations were public property.
But then, most conversations in Chartreuse were like that, anyway. The close-knit nature of the community was both the blessing
and the curse of living in the small Louisiana town.
Katie put down the towel, picked up a wide-toothed comb, and eyed Lulu sternly in the mirror—or, at least, as sternly as she
could manage. Katie’s late husband used to say that her face was half angel, half pixie, and that she couldn’t muster a stern
look if her life depended on it. “When we have kids, they’re going to walk all over you,” Paul used to tease.
The fact he’d died before she’d been able to prove him wrong was the tragedy of Katie’s life. Pushing aside the thought, Katie
slid the comb into Lulu’s hair. “You’re not trying to fix me up again, are you, Lulu?”
“Oh, no!” Lulu’s eyes rounded in faux innocence.
Bev, the tall, angular stylist dabbing a shade called Brown Sugar onto the retired librarian’s gray roots in the next chair,
let out a disbelieving snort. One of Katie’s closest friends, the forty-something blonde winked at Katie in the mirror. “Lulu
would never do that. How could you even think such a thing?”
Katie opted to ignore Bev’s sarcasm. “So it would just be dinner with you and your family?” Katie pressed.
“Well…” Lulu fiddled with the edge of the pink-and-black polka-dotted styling cape draped around her like a giant bib. “Not
exactly.”
Just as Katie suspected. She worked the comb through Lulu’s short curls. “So who else,
exactly
, will be there?”
“Well…” Lulu blinked earnestly. “My Robby just put porcelain veneers on a new patient from Hammond.”
“A male patient?” Rachel the manicurist looked up from Josie Pringle’s hangnail, her straight black bob swinging.
Lulu nodded, nearly jerking the comb out of Katie’s hand. “He’s single and he’s really nice and now he has a beautiful smile,
so I thought I’d invite him over, too.”
“And you don’t call that a fix-up?” Katie demanded.
“Oh, no!” Lulu said. “The thought never occurred to me.”
Bev snorted again.
“You’re a terrible liar, Lulu,” Rachel said.
“Not to mention incorrigible,” Katie added.
“I don’t know what you mean.” Lulu turned up her palms and attempted to look baffled. Since it wasn’t far from her usual expression,
it wasn’t much of a stretch. “I’m just inviting a couple of friends to dinner.”
“A couple of friends you happen to be fixing up on a blind date,” Bev said.
Rachel giggled.
“Nice try, Lulu,” called Josie, an attractive thirty-nine-year-old brunette who was rocking her sleeping eight-month-old daughter’s
stroller with her foot as she got her nails done.
“I think you should go, Katie,” said Mrs. Street, the elderly librarian.
“Yeah,” called Josie. “It never hurts to meet new people.”
Katie stifled a sigh. She knew her friends meant well, she really did, but she wished they’d quit trying to meddle in her
life. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“He’s got beautiful teeth now,” Lulu said earnestly. “You know what good work my Robby does.” She flashed her own shockingly
white veneers, which slanted out like a row of venetian blinds. Robby really should have sent Lulu for some orthodontic work
before slapping those puppies on her overbite, Katie thought for the umpteenth time.
She ran the comb down Lulu’s scalp, sectioning off the front from the back. “I really appreciate the thought, Lulu, but I’m
not interested.”
“Still?”
“Still.”
And probably not ever
, she thought, tackling a snarl in Lulu’s hair.
“Katie, honey,” Mrs. Street said gently from the next chair, “it’s been two years.”
Two years, six months, and four days, to be exact—and if she turned and looked at the clock, she could pinpoint exactly how
many hours and minutes had gone by as well. Her life was divided into before and after 6:10 that fateful Tuesday morning.
That was the time glowing on her bedside alarm clock when she’d awakened from a dream of Paul—a dream so real, she’d thought
the pillow against her back was her husband spooning her—to realize the doorbell was ringing. She’d gotten up and padded to
the door, the dream still wrapped around her like a blanket, expecting to see the UPS delivery man with the new chair she’d
ordered as a welcome-home surprise for Paul.
Instead, she’d peered out the sidelight window and seen two Marines in full-dress uniform standing on her porch. A scream
had started in her soul, pumped through her veins, and burst out her throat. She remembered covering her ears—from her screams?
From the doorbell? From reality? She still didn’t know—and running into the kitchen. She would probably still be there, rocking
back and forth on the floor, her fingers plugged in her ears, chanting,
No! No! No!
if Sue Greenley across the street hadn’t seen the military van parked at the curb. Guessing the awful reason, she’d come
over, let herself in with the key Katie kept under the potted fern by the back door, and sat beside her on the kitchen floor
while the Marines delivered the awful news.
“It’s time you got back out there, Katie,” Josie was saying now.
What was the point? A man like Paul didn’t come along twice in a lifetime. For most women, he didn’t even come along once.
Paul had been The One. Everyone else was destined to be second-rate, second-choice, second-best.
She was relieved to have the conversation interrupted by the jangle of the bells on the beveled-glass door. She looked up
to see Eula, the local real-estate agent, step inside, bringing the scent of rain and a blast of humid July air with her.
Eula thought ladybugs brought good luck and always wore at least one ladybug accessory. Today’s ensemble featured a blue ladybug-emblazoned
scarf tied amid the wattles of her chinless neck.
“Hi, Eula,” Katie called, glad for the distraction. “Any news on who’s moving into the Ashton house?”