Sweetheart Mae Holiday, or Sweetie as everyone called her, was running on empty.

            Literally and figuratively.

            The fuel gage on the Mustang GT her daddy had bought her for her sixteenth birthday was sitting below the empty mark and had been for the last fifty miles. She’d tried to get gas in the last town, but her credit card had been declined. She wasn’t surprised. A busted car radiator, a trip to the dentist for an aching tooth, and a moment of madness while browsing the Lucchese boot website had pushed her already high credit card debt to the limit. She was tanked out on money, tanked out on gas . . . and tanked out on hope. Her mama’s phone call had been the straw that broke the stubborn mule’s back.

            A heart attack?

            Sweetie still couldn’t believe it. She had always thought of her daddy as being invincible. Hank Holiday could lift fifty-pound hay bales and toss them off the bed of a trailer using just one hand, walk twenty miles back to the house after his horse went lame and still put in a full day of ranching, get gored by a longhorn bull and stitch himself up without anesthesia . . . or saying a word to anyone.

But what he couldn’t do was give his six daughters any say in their lives when they’d been living under his roof. Which was why they had all moved out as soon as they’d turned eighteen. Daddy was just too darn stubborn for his own good.

Of course, Sweetie was stubborn too. Which was why she hadn’t been home in twelve years. She’d been waiting for her daddy to see the error of his ways. He’d been waiting for her to do the same. Now, egos didn’t matter. All that mattered was her daddy getting better.

Tears welled into her eyes at just the thought of her larger-than-life daddy falling from his horse, then lying there for who knew how long before one of the sons of the neighboring rancher had found him. He was lucky he wasn’t dead. His daddy had died of a heart attack around the same age. The image of her daddy being buried beneath the old oak, alongside her grandfather, made her push harder on the accelerator.

Through the blur of her tears, she saw a road sign up ahead.

Wilder 9

The name of her hometown caused a flood of memories to wash over her. Memories of Friday night football games, Fourth of July parades, harvest festivals, and all the celebrations of a small town. But her daddy’s stubbornness wasn’t the only reason she hadn’t been home in twelve long years. Pissing off every man, woman, and child in Wilder was the other one. She didn’t doubt for a second that they were still pissed off.

Texans were a friendly lot, but there was a reason Don’t Mess with Texas was the state motto. If you stomped on one of their sacred traditions, they didn’t forget and forgive easily. And she had done some major stomping. Which was why she had no intention of setting foot in town while she was there. In fact, nothing short of divine intervention would get her to face the townsfolk.

A sharp blast of a siren had her glancing at the rearview mirror. A sheriff’s SUV was gaining on her with lights flashing. She quickly let up on the gas and hoped the patrol car would drive right on by. Instead, it hugged her bumper and blasted its siren again.

“Dagnabbit!” She used her Grandma Mimi’s favorite swear word as she pulled over to the shoulder of the two-lane highway. She turned off the engine so as not to use any more gas and waited for the officer to get out. He took his good sweet time. In the side mirror, she could see him sitting behind the wheel with his tan cowboy hat pulled low and his aviator sunglasses reflecting the midmorning sun.

There was something about the way he was just sitting there that made her wonder if he recognized her car. She wouldn’t be surprised. Even though Mustang Sally was fourteen years old and looked a little worse for wear, everyone in town had known Sweetheart Holiday’s candy apple-red muscle car. Especially the law enforcement officers. Sweetie had gotten more tickets in high school than she could count. Not that she’d ever had to pay one. Her daddy’s friend, Judge Hanover, had taken care of that. The law enforcement in the county had finally just given up pulling her over.

But that had been Sheriff Dauber. The man who climbed out of the vehicle wasn’t short with a potbelly and man boobs. One brown, high-polished cowboy boot hit the ground first and another followed before a tall man unfolded like a 3D image any red-blooded woman would love to have as a screensaver.

Sweetie sucked in her breath. Lord have mercy. She had forgotten just how well Texas made men.

His well-worn, soft-as-butter jeans fit him just right—snug in the lean hips and muscled thighs and loose around his boot shanks. The long sleeves of his khaki sheriff’s shirt were cuffed, revealing strong forearms dusted with dark hair. Sweetie had always had a thing for masculine forearms. There was something about the tight collection of muscles and thick veins that made her stomach feel like her Grandma Mimi’s famous Jell-O Surprise.

With the hat and sunglasses, she couldn’t see much of his face. Just a prominent jaw and serious mouth—a prominent jaw and serious mouth that, thankfully, she didn’t recognize. Which meant she had a chance of talking her way out of a ticket. All she needed to decrease her bank account even further was a ticket and increased insurance premiums.

As he headed toward her, she quickly took her hair out of the bun and fluffed it before rolling down the window and pinning on a smile. She had to look wa-a-ay up. Past a sexy leather holster riding nice hips. Past a flat stomach and a well-defined chest. Past the open collar of his shirt that displayed just a hint of dark chest hair. Past a prominent chin with a covering of dark stubble and serious lips. To the dark lenses that she saw her reflection in.

“Good mornin’!” she said brightly. “You want to tell me why a good-lookin’ lawman like yourself has stopped me on this beautiful Texas day, Officer—” She glanced at the gold nameplate attached to the left side of his chest, but before she could read it, he flipped up the flap of his pocket and covered it. He pulled out a citation pad and a pen, then spoke in the kind of low, husky voice that was perfect for talking dirty in the dark.

“I need to see your driver’s license and registration.”

With that sexy voice, he could have asked for just about anything and she would have given it to him. She reached for her purse in the seat next to her and pulled out her driver’s license. The car registration was a little harder to locate. When she did finally find it beneath the pile of unpaid bills she’d stuffed in her glove box, she realized it was expired by seven months. Something she hoped he wouldn’t notice.

He noticed.

As soon as he looked at it, he started filling out the citation.

Her smile faded. “You aren’t gonna give me a ticket, are you? I promise I’ll get my car registered first thing. And I was only goin’ a little over the speed limit.”

“Eighty-two in a seventy-mile-an-hour zone isn’t a little over the speed limit.” He continued to write.

Pinning on another smile, she reached out the window and placed a hand on his forearm right above his wrist. The warmth of his bare skin and the flex of his muscles had her stomach taking a dip. He slowly lifted his head. She couldn’t see his eyes behind the dark lenses, but she could feel his anger in the fisting of his hand. Not one man had ever gotten angry with her for touching him. In fact, her ex-boyfriend had broken up with her because she hadn’t touched him enough. But this angry man, she wanted to touch . . . A LOT.

Her strong physical attraction to the man set off a warning in her brain. Get a grip, Sweetie. She was not here to start something up with a complete stranger. She was here to see her daddy and help out her mama. Her life was in Nashville. Not in Wilder, Texas.

She removed her hand and tried to ignore her tinkling fingers.

“Look, I’m sorry. You’re right. I was going well over the speed limit. But I had a good reason. You see my daddy had a heart attack. You might know him. Hank Holiday. He runs the Holiday Ranch. Anyway, as you can imagine, I’m pretty upset and I was in such a hurry to get home that I wasn’t even paying attention to how fast I was going. As for the registration, I’m sure other folks have forgotten to get their car registered and you let them off with just a warning. So if you could just give me a break this time, I would really appreciate it.”

Men didn’t always give her what she wanted. Her failure in the country music business was a perfect example. But they had never refused her with as much hostility as this man did. The snort that came out of his mouth was filled with pure contempt. He finished filling out the citation and tore it from the pad in one rip. Instead of handing it to her, he dropped it and her license and registration onto her lap as if he couldn’t stand the thought of accidentally touching her. Then he turned and strode back to his SUV while Sweetie sat there in stunned shock.

She glanced in her rearview mirror and watched as Mr. Badass Lawman got back in his car. She raised her hand and gave him the one-finger salute in the mirror.

“Asshole,” she grumbled as she started her car.

Or tried to. Mustang Sally immediately sputtered and then died. Sweetie tried again and again, but the car had finally run out of gas. She wanted to bang her fists on the steering wheel and let out a frustrated squeal, but she refused to give the arrogant lawman the satisfaction. Nor would she give him the satisfaction of asking for help.

After rolling up the window and stuffing the ticket and registration into the glove box, she grabbed her purse and got out. Her parents’ house was a good six miles away, but if she cut across a few fields, it would be closer to four. Hooking her purse over her shoulder, she started walking. She wasn’t surprised when the patrol car pulled up next to her and the side window rolled down.

“Get in. I’ll take you home and call you a tow truck.”

She kept walking, refusing to even spare him a glance. “No thanks.”

He swerved in front of her so fast, she had to stop or run right into the bumper of the sheriff’s car. Badass Lawman jumped out. He didn’t look stern now. He looked pissed. Which was fine with her. She was feeling a little pissed herself.

“What?” She held up her hands. “Are you going to give me a ticket for running out of gas, Officer . . .?” She glanced down. His pocket flap was buttoned back in place and she had no trouble reading the name engraved on the shiny gold plate.

Sheriff Decker Carson.

She might not recognize the face behind the dark sunglasses, but she knew the name. Her gaze lifted as she tried to find any sign of the boy she remembered. But nothing about this stern, well-built lawman reminded her of the eleven-year-old boy who had shown up in Wilder to live with his grandparents after his parents had died in a car accident.

Back then, he’d been a shy city boy who was scared of horses and cows and bees . . . and Sweetie. She’d been fourteen at the time and he’d stammered and blushed every time she looked in his direction.

He wasn’t blushing now as he held open the passenger-side door of his patrol car and waited for her to get in. As much as she wanted to ignore his silent order, her curiosity got the better of her and she got in. Once he was in the car, she studied his profile as he pulled out onto the highway. From this angle, she could see a glimpse of the boy he’d once been. How old had he been when she’d left? Fifteen? He’d been almost as tall as he was now, but not nearly as muscular. How old was he now? She did some mental calculation.

“Twenty-seven is pretty young to be a sheriff, isn’t it?”

“Thirty is pretty old to still be driving your high school car.”

“What can I say? When I love something, I love it for life.”

His jaw flexed. “I think Jace would disagree.”

At the mention of his cousin, Sweetie looked away and stared out the side window. The last person she wanted to talk about was Jace. She now knew why Decker had refused to let her off with just a warning. He had idolized his cousin and with good reason. Jace had taken Decker under his wing after Decker’s parents had died. They were as close as brothers.

She changed the subject. “So why law enforcement? And why here in Wilder? I thought you were a big city boy.”

“Just because you come from a big city doesn’t mean you want to go back.” He glanced over at her. “And just because you come from a small town doesn’t mean you want to stay.”

Sweetie hadn’t wanted to stay. She’d wanted to shake the dust of Wilder off her boots as soon as she’d graduated and never look back. She had. Or, at least, she’d tried. But small-town dust is hard to get rid of.

“So how goes your quest to become the next Dolly Parton?” he asked.

A lot of replies popped into her head: exhausting, frustrating . . . a true nightmare of disappointment. But she’d lie naked in a bed of hot coals before she’d admit that to anyone in Wilder, Texas.

“Exciting.”

He glanced over. Even though she couldn’t see his eyes, she knew he didn’t believe her.

Thankfully, before he questioned her more, they came to the turnoff for her family’s ranch. The sight of the entrance to the Holiday Ranch had a swell of emotion rising up in her that completely took her by surprise.

As Sweetie took in the Austin stone arched entryway with Holiday Ranch spelled out in weathered steel letters, the American and Texas flags that waved proudly in the stiff January wind, and the plaque with the date her great-great-grandfather had first purchased the land, one word popped into her head. A word that had been missing from her vocabulary since she’d moved to Nashville.

Home. (Wrangling a Texas Sweetheart excerpt by Katie Lane)