.

room.

      Maybe she didn’t know he was in love with her.

      Maybe she’d never think of him as anything more than the old friend she’d grown up with.

      For damn sure, maybe she’d never realize that his offers to marry her were sincere.

      But if Winona were in trouble, Justin was going to be there for her—whether she wanted him there or not.

      Two

      Winona was in such trouble.

      She’d slept with the same dream two nights running, replaying the evening of the Texas Cattleman’s Club gala. She knew it was just another dream, because the same details kept getting embellished. In the dream, she was breathtakingly gorgeous—which was a lot of fun, but not remotely realistic. She’d been whirling and swirling on the dance floor, not tripping, being graceful—which was another reason she knew it was a dream. And she kept dancing with different men—man after man after man, all of them adorable, all of them charmed by every word that came out of her mouth, fighting to have another spin with her around the floor….

      Okay, okay, so these were pretty ridiculous dreams. But they were her dreams, and she was having a great time with them.

      Only in this particular night’s version, Justin pulled her into his arms. For “The Tennessee Waltz”—which had to be one of the schmaltziest songs of all time, a song doomed to bring out romantic feelings in even the toughest of women—such as herself—and suddenly she was naked. Whirling around the floor. Waltzing. Without a stitch on. Only being naked was okay, because there wasn’t a soul in the room who realized that she was naked. Except for herself.

      And Justin.

      Alarm bells started clanging in her ears, but Winona determinedly ignored them. Obviously this wasn’t real, and since this happened to be her personal, wicked dream, she didn’t want to let go of it until she had to.

      Justin couldn’t take his eyes off her. She whacked him upside the head—which was such a real, logical thing for her to do that for a second, Winona freaked that this wasn’t a dream—but he didn’t seem to mind, and the whack didn’t seem to stop him from looking, either…a long, slow look that began with her naked toes, dawdled past long slender legs (this was a dream, for sure), past hips without a single spare ounce of fat on them (and a damn good dream), up, his gaze a caress that took in waist and proud, trembling breasts and white throat, then up to her vulnerable, naked eyes.

      Yeah, she wanted him.

      She’d always wanted him.

      Another alarm bell clanged in her mind—but for Pete’s sake, in the privacy of a dream, a girl should be able to be honest with herself. Justin looked like a young Sam Elliot. Tall. Lanky. With a slow, lazy drawl and a lot for a girl to worry about in those sexy eyes. Cover those broad shoulders in a tux and a woman just wanted to sip him in—correction—sip him in and lap him up both.

      A vague memory surfaced in her dream. She’d been twelve. Until she’d been fostered with the Gerard family, she’d never had a bike, and she was new to the family, still waiting for someone to hit her, someone to scold her. It’d happen. She just didn’t know when yet, but she was wary this time, prepared to protect herself. She didn’t need anybody to watch out for her…it was just the bike. Oh man, oh man, she wanted to ride a bike so badly, and everybody assumed she knew how, at her age. But she didn’t. And the first time she took it out, it was almost dusk, because no one was on the street then, no strangers to see her.

      And Justin had been there when she’d crashed into a tree. Helped her up. Righted the bike. A gorgeous heartthrob of a seventeen-year-old—with a chivalrous streak—enough to make her tough, hard, mean, cold heart go hoboyhoboyhoboy. He’d touched her cheek. Made her laugh. Then she’d had to punch him for helping her, of course. What else could a twelve-year-old do?

      More alarm bells clanged in her mind. The same, annoying, insistent alarm bells.

      Winona’s eyes popped open on a pitch-black bedroom. She wasn’t twelve and falling into a sinking-deep, mortifying crush with Justin Webb. She wasn’t dancing naked with Justin at the Texas Cattleman’s Club, either. It was just her bedroom, and the telephone was ringing off the hook, at seven in the morning—according to the insane neon dials on the bedside clock.

      The instant she read the time, though, she snapped awake fast. There was only one reason for a telephone call at this crazy hour. Trouble. And although technically she was a nine-to-five cop, working with at-risk teens, reality was that kids never got in trouble at nice, convenient hours.

      She fumbled for the lamp switch, then hit the ground running, shagging a hand through her tousled hair as she grabbed the receiver.

      “Winona?”

      Not a kid. An adult’s voice. Her boss, from the precinct. “You know it’s me. What’s wrong, Wayne?”

      “You know the jet that was supposed to take off last night for Asterland? The hotsy totsy flight with all the royalty and dignitaries and all?”

      “Yes, of course.” So did the whole town.

      “Well, something went wrong. She lifted off, barely got in the air before they were radioing in some garbled, panicked message about a problem. Next thing, they’re making an emergency landing about fifteen miles out of town, middle of nowhere, flat as a pancake. Fire broke out—”

      She got the gist. The details didn’t matter. “Holy cow. How can I help?”

      “Truthfully, I don’t know.” Winona could well imagine Wayne squinting and rubbing the back of his head. He didn’t like trouble in his town. The way Wayne saw it, Royal belonged to him. Anyone took the crease out of those jeans ticked him off. “I’m calling from the scene. Everything’s a mess. This all just happened less than a half hour ago. First thing was getting everybody off the plane safely. Only a couple seem badly injured, the rest are just shaken. But what the hell happened, I don’t know. And I don’t want every Tom, Dick and curious Harry messing with my crime scene. It’s still dark. Only so much I can get done until daylight—”

      He was talking more to himself than to her. Winona knew how her boss’s mind worked. “So where could I be the most help? At the hospital? The plane site? The office?”

      “Here,” Wayne said bluntly. “You gonna kick me straight to Austin if I admit I just want a woman here?”

      “Probably.” Holding the phone clamped to her ear with one hand, she reached for the deodorant on the dresser and thumbed open the lid. Applying deodorant one-handed was tricky, but she’d done it before.

      “Well, then, you’re just going to have to kick me. To be honest, everything’s being handled that needs to be. It’s just, that ain’t good enough. Not for this. Dad blame it, we seem to have the makings of a major international incident. First, we have a plane that I’m told is top of the line, perfect, nothing can go wrong—but it still crash-landed. Then we have embassies calling. We have Washington calling. We’ve got fire trucks from Midland to Odessa joining in to help us. Then half the town—naturally—is starting to show up as the sun comes up, it’s like trying to stop an avalanche. Next thing the women’ll be bringing casseroles. It’s a madhouse. We got to find out what caused this plane crash and to do that, we have to get everybody out of here and get some kind of order. I just want my whole team here, that’s all. Even if—”

      “Wayne?”

      “What?”

      “Stop talking. Give me directions.” He did. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She hung up and started moving. Plucked white panties from the drawer, pulled them on, then hopped into low-rise, boot-cut jeans. She stood up, head scrambled. Not by Wayne’s call in itself. Maybe she was hired to work only with juveniles, but this wasn’t some big eastern city. This was Texas. People pitched in whenever there was a crisis, and no one gave a rat’s toenail over whether helping fit a job description.

      But