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  Blame it on Texas

  Copyright © 2012 by Allie Standifer

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-396-9

  Cover art by Nicole Austin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

  Look for us online at:

  www.decadentpublishing.com

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  Say Yes by Regina Carlysle

  Spank ‘em Cowboy by Samantha Cayto

  More Than You Know by Cerise DeLand

  Overnight Sensation by Desiree Holt

  Blame it on Texas by Allie Standifer

  When a Lady Meets a King by Brenna Zinn

  Also by Allie Standifer

  Lickity Split

  Blame it on Texas

  Naughty Sleepover

  By

  Allie Standifer

  ~DEDICATION~

  To Kate & Val, who not only put up with the seven of us, but actually seem to enjoy themselves while they do it! You ladies rock!!

  Chapter One

  Don’t notice me, Serena Morgan silently whispered. Damn it, of all the bars in all the cities, Kale Winters had to walk into the one she picked. She didn’t have anything against him. He seemed a nice enough guy for the twenty minutes they’d met. Her palms had gone damp, her throat drier than a west Texas summer simply from standing near him, but she’d blamed her reaction on jetlag, not the hot hunk cowboy. Besides having a real conversation while on a national TV talk show hadn’t been an option at the time. Trying to stay one step ahead of the smarmy, bigheaded host had taken up most of her attention.

  Kale Winters, America’s golden boy, country music’s number one star and the man capable of making any female’s panties soaking wet. Hers included.

  And now was so not the time to be thinking of him and her underwear in the same sentence. She wanted to slip out of The Menger Bar and back to her hotel room, but she had a meeting with Delia, her agent. The other woman was twenty minutes late, which in Delia-world, meant running right on time. Which meant Serena wasn’t going anywhere no matter how badly she wanted to disappear.

  Normally, she laughed at her agent’s lack of time management, anticipated teasing the petite red-haired female, but with Kale in the bar, nothing felt normal right then.

  To avoid being noticed by fans and the general public, she’d pulled her thick hair back in a tight ponytail, her clothes baggy and unassuming. She’d even gone so far as to wear colored contacts to disguise her trademark light violet eyes.

  Looking like every other harassed vacationing female in the hotel had been her goal. She succeeded wonderfully since not one person spared her a glance from the moment she’d walked into the bar.

  Irritated with herself and the whole situation, she swallowed a bubble of laughter. Really, what woman in her right mind would think Kale Winters would notice her? Especially when she wore a pair of baggy khakis, a T-shirt imprinted with the logo of a local gun range, pink platform flip-flops and no make-up.

  She smirked inwardly. Let’s not forget the Diet Coke and mustard stains from our gallant but clumsy waiter. Oh yeah, do I know how to rock the condiment couture or what?

  Still, her vanity demanded she leave the quiet bar before her luck turned completely sour. Next thing she knew, there’d be a keg of beer over her head and French fries tucked between her toes. Nope, time to make a break for it.

  She briefly debated putting her sunglasses on, but the intimate bar with its polished oak was lowly lit wall lamps and candles. Great for a romantic drink, but not so hot when trying to escape America’s number one hottie.

  Sucking in a deep breath for courage, she pushed back her chair, cringing at the shrill scrape against the planked floors. Grabbing enough cash out of her purse to cover her soda, the meal and a healthy tip, she kept her movements casual but determined—though it was the height of stupidity for a six-foot tall woman to try and sneak anywhere. What had stood her in good stead in her modeling career was the very thing she cursed now.

  Almost past his table. The glow from the candle on the scarred surface highlighted the golden strands of his hair. She itched to reach out and tunnel her fingers through the long, spiked length. Instead, she fisted her hands and deliberately turned her head away from temptation. The man had his own magnetic pull or so it seemed. Kind of like he was his own planet and everything else revolved around him. If she didn’t get away from him soon, she could all too easily picture herself straddling his lap, her lips meshed against his while she slid her hands straight to the gates of paradise.

  One more step and she’d be out of the danger zone and away from all that luscious male appeal. Away from the sinfully sexy grin that curled her toes, the bedroom green eyes, and not to mention dimples she wanted to trace with her tongue.

  The air whooshed from her lungs as she made it past his table. About to scurry to the street exit, she winced as all her stealthy hard work swirled down the drain.

  “Serena! Hey, Serena! Over here, doll!” Delia’s New York accent cut through the room like a knife through warm honey. The jig, as someone once said, was up. If she walked out the door as planned, her agent would only follow, screaming her name like a banshee. Kale certainly couldn’t help but notice her then.

  I’m firing her just as soon as I can, she vowed before turning her back on the door and the temptation of sweet freedom. With a martyr’s spirit, she plastered a fake smile on her face and crossed the room to press air kisses to Delia’s powdered cheeks.

  “Get that look off your face before you wrinkle my product,” Delia teased. “Besides I know exactly what you’re thinking and you can’t fire me or kill me. Too many people know where I am, and it’d cost too much to break our contract.” The older woman grinned with confidence as she sat down at the nearest table and signaled the waiter.

  “I’ll have your top shelf scotch on the rocks and my friend will have a Diet Coke easy on the ice.” Order given, her attention turned back to her irritated client. “So, doll, wanna tell me why you resemble a reject from Project Runway and Survivor rolled into one?”

  Serena could argue with her since the woman was in her employ, but it would do no good. Delia might resemble a fairy sprite come to life with her short cap of red curls, whiskey-colored eyes and petite frame, however her personality resembled more of a pit bull than an animated cartoon character.

  But after years of being together, Serena grew tired of bashing her head against the same brick wall over and over with the same results. Nothing she said or did changed Delia’s mind once it was made up.

  Giving in with a sigh that was part resignation and part sheer weariness, she told her agent exactly why she’d dressed the way she had, and who she’d been trying to avoid when she saw him walk unexpectedly into the bar. Instead of hopping up from the ta
ble and hustling her favorite and most billable client out the door, Delia’s gamine face took on an unexpected gleam of pure mischief. Her eyes danced with pleasure.

  “No way in hell are you leaving this bar without talking to that lickable, eat-crackers-in-my-bed anytime, probe-me-at-will hottie,” she said in a firm, no-nonsense tone. “If I had known you’d dress like a bag lady’s reject, I would have said something sooner, but he wanted it to be a surprise.”

  Confusion, resignation and a sense of growing paranoia hit Serena all at once. The crafty gleam in her companion’s eyes never led to lollipops, rainbows and happy endings. “Shit,” she muttered and dropped her forehead into her palm.

  A small feminine hand patted Serena’s hair right above the tight band of elastic holding her thick ponytail.

  “There there, my poor village virgin,” Delia said, false sympathy dripping from her accented voice. “You’re such a good, pious sacrificial victim to open your thighs and surrender your life for the good of the townspeople and parish.”

  The words had the desired effect on Serena. She jerked up, glared at Delia and snatched her drink from the table, not even aware of the waiter’s arrival or departure.

  “Are you trying to tell me I’m being a little dramatic?”

  Finely arched brows rose in mock innocence. “Moi?” She lifted a delicate pale palm to cover her heart. “I’m your agent, honey. As far as I’m concerned, you shit roses, you fart rainbows and sneeze out unicorns instead of snot.”

  Wrinkling her nose at the vivid description, Serena backed away from her way too descriptive agent. “A simple yes would have been fine,” she grumbled before taking a long sip of her soda.

  “I could have, yes,” Delia agreed, leaning back and picking up her drink. “But what fun would it have been then?”

  “You know, most agents would bend over backward and then some to please their clients.” She couldn’t help but pull the tiger’s tail. It was so much fun to watch Delia get riled up, so long as it wasn’t directed her way.

  “Most agents are too busy sniffing their profits up their noses or shooting into their veins to care what their clients do.” The petite agent lifted her chin in disdain. “Besides we met when I was nothing but a glorified coffee girl and you were puking in toilets.”

  The image Delia’s words invoked brought a pang to her heart. Not for herself, but for the young, naïve innocent girl she’d once been. Listening to the bored know-it-all voices of top New York agents had led her down a dark path. One she might never have left if Delia hadn’t shoved common sense and some food at her. Serena had existed on vegetables, water, and four hours a day of gym time. Exhaustion beat her down with every step she took until she would gorge herself sick with all the rich foods she’d been missing.

  The day Delia walked in the agency’s private bathroom and found her, sick from overeating and her life in general, she’d taken Serena under her wing and the ‘determined pair ‘had left the elite agency and started on their own. The following years had been lean, with both women working several jobs to pay for their rent and other expenses. Finally, thanks to Delia’s never-say-die attitude and her healthier lifestyle, they’d landed the Diva Designs account.

  Diva Designs led the way for women’s fashion. Thanks to their open-minded founder, the clothes catered from the vibrancy of youth all the way to the mature flare of the older, yet still stylish matron, and for women all sizes and shapes. So once she became the face of Diva Designs, the rest of the world stood up and took notice.

  The money, job offers, and social requests came rolling in, but both women knew how fleeting fame could be and chose to focus their time and ambition on building her career and their bank portfolios. Neither female expected to still be on the wild celebrity ride over ten years later, but that’s where they found themselves.

  Swallowing back the gratitude and love she felt for her stubborn, sassy, ball-busting friend, Serena shot her a catty smirk. “Better to puke in toilets than to sport a perm straight from the seventies.”

  Delia’s cheeks pinkened before she spoke again. “I rocked that perm.”

  “If that’s what gets you to sleep at night, fine.”

  Delia opened her mouth to retort, but closed her lips at the last minute. Instead, she tapped an elegantly heeled shoe against the table, and demurely sipped her drink before speaking. “No, sugar, what helps me get to sleep at night, besides counting my forty percent of your income, is the thought of what that heavenly slice of Texas man is going to do to you once you’re alone.”

  She heard the words, really she did. She heard and understood them, but the meaning zipped right out of her brain.

  Kale Winters and alone.

  The words bounced around her brain like a feather caught in a tornado. Nothing settled, nothing sunk in, only those two words pinging from one end of her hollowed-out head to another.

  “Cat got your tongue?” Delia quipped before taking another long slow sip of her scotch. “Thought you might need a second or two for sanity’s sake, but you’d best be getting over it. Mr. Tall, Dark and Drop Dead Gorgeous is headed your way.” The slow cadence of her Georgia drawl infused the words, a sure sign of her excitement. Delia firmly believed anyone hearing her Southern roots would never take her seriously. She kept the pretense up even in the company of trusted friends until her emotions got the better of her.

  “What the hell.” She made a move to turn around and glimpse, but her friend caught her before she so much as shifted position.

  “Ah ah ah, don’t go acting too eager, Serene. I worked too damn hard to make you seem hard to get.”

  “But why?”

  She gave a negligible shrug of her silk clad shoulders. “Because you want out,” she stated, her voice back to the cultured, boring tone. “I’ve seen it coming for years. I’ve also seen the way you always turn red when a certain country music master is mentioned. Why do you think I all but shoved you on that late night show? It sure as hell wasn’t so that joke of a TV host could pinch both our asses.”

  Taking another drink of her chilled soda, Serena swallowed before lowering the sweaty glass. “So you’ve what?” She waved a hand aimlessly in the air. “Been throwing us together without…you know…throwing us together.”

  Another shrug. “Something like that, but I don’t know why that gets your thong in a twist. You’ve been half in love with the man for years. Now you’ve got the power and celebrity to back it, go for it. Face it, honey, he melts your gummy bears faster than a dog chases a cat.”

  “Go for what?” Serena almost choked on the words, but she couldn’t keep quiet, not when Delia was clearly in attack mode. “Gummy bears? Really?”

  “Jeez, it’s like you want me to mock you, and the gummy thing was brilliant.” Delia shook her head sadly. “Doll, he’s an attractive, single, non-STD-carrying male. You are a bright, funny, sexy, beautiful, successful, almost re-virginized woman. You do the math!”

  “I noticed I got more adjectives than he did,” she quipped instead of dealing with the thousand man-eating butterflies dive-bombing her stomach.

  “He’s a man. All he’s got going for him is his face, his penis, and nice big thick wallet. Other than that—” Delia rolled her eyes, “the ego wouldn’t be worth it.”

  “Yeah, so maybe it would be better to leave the Texan as my go-to fantasy. No reason to ruin a perfectly good dream, right?”

  Reaching over to cover Serena’s hand with her own tiny palm, Delia gave her a serious look. “Fantasy is all well and good…in its place. However, you’ve never moved past it like any other red-blooded woman. It’s time you let go and grabbed another piece of eye candy to play naughty, big-girl games with.”

  “And what,” she demanded in a low voice, “does that mean?”

  Delia leaned closer, her curls sliding over her forehead until she brushed them back with a practiced but impatient hand. “It means, Serene, that you need to meet this guy in person without a camera crew or live audience. See
if he’s as wonderful as your fantasies. If he’s not then you move on to a real man, someone you can connect with outside your libido. Finally, this thing with Kale will end a natural death and you can find a real man to love you.”

  Heart thumping madly, she couldn’t stop herself from responding, “And if he is…everything I imagined?”

  Delia rolled her eyes, pulled her hand back and poured the rest of the scotch down her throat before bothering to speak again. “In some alternate universe where men are men and all hung like horses, not ponies, and chocolate actually helps you lose weight, then okay, Kale Winters is exactly as he appears. Mild, unassuming, honest and more interested in his family’s ranch than hanging out with the Hollywood elite and batting for our team.”

  Huh, when Delia put it like that, what were the chances that the man she’d been having “I touch myself” fantasies about really existed?

  “When you put it like that I guess stressing over the man is pretty stupid.” Still feeling self-conscious, she reached back and smoothed a hand down her ponytail. “Shit, D, I’m not exactly at my best here.” She mentally catalogued the entire contents of her suitcase. Even though this trip was more about pleasure than business, past experience taught her to pack for every social situation. Yeah, a small grin curved the corners of her mouth as she thought of the perfect casual chic outfit currently hanging in her hotel closet.

  “I have to get out of here. No way am I meeting Kale Winters resembling a worn out car-pool mom.”

  Instead of plotting and planning to help Serena make her great escape, Delia gripped Serena’s hand. “Doll, you’ve met the guy before. Why is everything suddenly freaking you out? He’s just another man, nothing you can’t handle with your eyes closed and one hand tied behind your back.”