The Trouble with Josh. Marilyn Pappano

by far preferred risking his life and limb against bulls ten times his size, he thought with a grin.

      He’d finished his first beer and was nursing his second and thinking about asking the pretty brunette at the bar to dance when Dudley Barnes hollered his name from the vicinity of the pool tables. “Rawlins, get your scrawny carcass over here and give me a chance to win back that forty bucks you stole from me last week.”

      Shooting pool with Dudley was about the easiest money Josh had ever come by. He could beat him blindfolded and with one hand tied behind his back. There was no challenge to it, but it was something to do. Besides, that pretty brunette taught at Theresa’s school, and Theresa might not take kindly to him paying her any attention.

      Crossing to the table, he laid a twenty-dollar bill next to the one already on the edge, then circled to take a cue stick from the rack on the wall. He chalked the tip while Dudley racked the balls, then bent over the table to break.

      “How ’bout you lose twenty to me and twenty to my friend?” Dudley suggested.

      “Aw, you don’t have any friends,” Josh replied. The cue ball hit with a clean cra-ack and the balls rolled in every direction. He moved to the end of the table and bent over, bracing his hand on the felt.

      “I’ve got one, and she’s the prettiest girl in the place. Talks real pretty, too, ’cause she’s from…where was it, honey?”

      “Atlanta.” The voice was feminine…and familiar, even though he’d never heard it before that morning and had confidently thought he would never hear it again.

      He made his shot, then slowly looked up. It was easy enough to overlook anyone standing beside Dudley. At six foot six and three hundred pounds, he was a big boy. But once Josh’s gaze connected with Candace Thompson, Dudley faded into the background.

      She’d changed clothes for slumming at the local honky-tonk, into jeans that clung the way they were meant to and a red button-front shirt. Her boots were brown, thick-soled work boots that hadn’t seen much, if any, work, and she wore a black cowboy hat that was way too big for her head. Seeing that it belonged to Dudley, it was probably too big for everybody’s head.

      “Buddy, this is Can—”

      Josh interrupted Dudley’s introductions. “We’ve met,” he said rudely, then turned his back on them to make the next two shots.

      She waited until he’d straightened again to speak. “Technically, we haven’t. I know your name is Josh because the waitress called you that, but—”

      He hit the next ball with more force than he’d intended, but it rolled into the intended pocket, anyway. Then he faced her impassively. “I’m Josh Rawlins. Tate Rawlins’s brother. Natalie Rawlins’s brother-in-law. And you’re Candace Thompson. And that’s all that needs to be said, isn’t it?”

      And you’re Candace Thompson. Candace hadn’t known it was possible for someone to put so much pure loathing in the four syllables of her name. No doubt he’d picked that up from Natalie, a fact that sent an ache through her, but she hid it. Instead she coolly watched as he methodically sank ball after ball.

      She’d talked herself out of coming here more than once through the afternoon and early evening, but somehow she’d found herself walking through the door, anyway. She’d figured Josh wouldn’t be there, on the chance that she would, but he was the first one she’d seen when she’d come in. Then Dudley had stepped between them, blocking Josh from sight, and she had gratefully accepted his invitation to join him for a drink—something she wouldn’t have done if she’d known he would soon invite Josh over, too.

      But she was here, and so was Josh, and what did it matter? Clearly he didn’t intend to talk to her, and she had nothing to say to him. Enlisting his help in gaining access to Natalie was out of the question. Not only would she not ask, but he would surely refuse if she did. And with Natalie between them, that pretty much ruled out anything else.

      He finished the game without Dudley even getting close to the table, scooped up the forty dollars and shoved them into his pocket and started away.

      “Hey, what about the next game?” Dudley said. “You afraid to play the lady?”

      Josh slowly turned and let his brown gaze slide over Candace as if he were taking inventory and coming up short. “What lady?”

      Dudley pushed away from the table with surprising speed for a man his size. “That was uncalled for,” he said flatly, his voice empty of good humor. “You owe her an apology.”

      “Like hell I do.”

      “You sure as hell do. You can give it on your own, or I can help you with it. It’s your choice.”

      Josh’s gaze narrowed and turned even colder. “You remember the last time you tried to make me do something I didn’t want to do?”

      “You broke my nose.” Dudley jutted out his jaw. “But that ain’t gonna happen this time.”

      Tired of the blustering, Candace stepped in front of Dudley and laid her hand on his arm. “You promised me a beer.”

      “Right after he gives you an apology.”

      “I don’t want an apology. Come on, a drink and a dance, then I have to go home.” She maneuvered him around until he broke eye contact with Josh and finally looked at her. Sweeping off his cowboy hat, she gave him a coaxing smile. “Come on. I haven’t danced in ages.”

      After a tense moment he let her pull him around tables to the dance floor, then grudgingly took her in his arms. With one last glare in Josh’s direction, he looked down at her and smiled.

      The music was country and slow, and she stumbled over her own feet and Dudley’s only a time or two. There had been a time when she’d danced as naturally as breathing—a time when a lot of things had come naturally to her. She’d taken a great deal for granted…but not anymore.

      She wasn’t counting on Dudley to remain silent, and sure enough, around the middle of the song, he asked, “What’s between you and Josh?”

      “Nothing.”

      “Oh, come on. He’s not usually like that.”

      “What’s he usually like?” she asked, though she’d seen a good example that morning, before he’d known who she was.

      Dudley was quiet for a moment, then he grinned. “His mother says the trouble with Josh is he likes women…a lot. Trouble for her, because he’s never gonna settle down and give her some more grandchildren. No trouble at all for the women around here. He’s been involved with every pretty woman in a hundred-mile radius. I should have expected that he’d already met you, too.”

      “And how many grandchildren does his mother have that she needs more?”

      “Two. Jordan’s twenty and the little one’s ’bout three.”

      Natalie mothering the three-year-old was an easy enough image to conjure, but a twenty-year-old? When she was only thirty-six herself? Of course, how much mothering did a twenty-year-old need? Candace had been on her own for two years before her twentieth birthday, and she’d done all right.

      She’d just been lonely. Alone. Ambitious. Driven. Afraid.

      “Have you settled down and given your mother grandchildren?” she asked to keep him from returning to Josh.

      His grin was remarkably boyish. “A time or two.”

      “For the settling-down or the grandkids?” she asked dryly.

      “Two marriages, two divorces, two grandkids. What about you?”

      “No marriages, no divorces, no kids.” And no mother around to nag her for babies to spoil.

      “You’ve never been married? The men in Atlanta must be blind.”

      To the contrary, she thought as the