Bare Essentials. Leslie Kelly

several days. Kate had found their high school diaries and the ridiculous lists they’d each made that fateful night in the tree house after their disastrous prom. Lists that included their childish wish for revenge on a town that had always spurned them. Cassie’s was inspired, if a bit immature, and she eyed the sheriff again, remembering what she’d written.

      1. Drive a fancy car, preferably sunshine-yellow because that’s a good color for me.

      2. Get the sheriff—somehow, some way, but make it good.

      3. Live in the biggest house on Lilac Hill.

      4. Open a porn shop—Kate’s idea, but it’s a good one.

      5. Become someone. Note: this should have been number one.

      Amusing. Childish. And damn tempting, given that she had already nailed number one. Maybe that’s all she’d ever accomplish, driving a fancy yellow car, but one thing she’d come to realize in her most interesting career, she had a zest for life.

      She wanted to live.

      But if anyone thought she wanted to live here, they needed to think again. She’d rather have an impacted wisdom tooth removed. Without drugs.

      She took off her sunglasses and immediately wished she hadn’t. The glare of the sun made her squint, and she hated to squint. She also felt…exposed. The way she hadn’t felt since her very first day of kindergarten, walking in with a big smile that slowly faded when all the other kids and their mean moms had stopped to whisper.

      Tremaine.

      White trash.

      Daughter of a tramp.

      Wild child.

      At age five, she’d had no idea what those whispered words meant. But even then she’d recognized the judgment, so she’d simply lifted her chin to take the verbal knocks. She did the same now. “I don’t have my license because it’s not in my purse,” she said, refusing to explain herself to anyone in this town. Including a cop. Especially a cop.

      “Hmm. I hadn’t realized Cassie Tremaine Montgomery was famous enough to not need ID.”

      “You know who I am.”

      His lips curved. “I’ve seen the catalogs. Interesting work you’ve gotten for yourself.”

      “Those catalogs are for women.”

      “With you in silk and lace on page after page?” He shook his head, that small smile looking quite at home on his very generous mouth. “Don’t fool yourself. Those catalogs are scoured from front to back by men all across the country.”

      “Is that why you pulled me over? You wanted to meet me in person?” Disdain came easily for any man with authority, especially this one. “Or is it because I’m driving an expensive and brightly colored sports car?”

      “Contrary to popular belief,” he said conversationally, “cops don’t necessarily have an attraction to all cars painted red or yellow. What we do have, however, is an attraction to speeding vehicles.”

      “And this has to do with me because…?”

      “Because you were speeding,” he said in that patient—and incredible—voice that told her he thought she was the village idiot, not the other way around. Then he straightened and waved his ticket book. “The question now is, were you going fast enough to warrant reckless driving.”

      Cassie never gaped, it went against the grain, but she did so now. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

      As he had before, he leaned in, resting his weight on his arm, which lay across her open window. It wasn’t a beefy arm, or a scrawny one, but somewhere in between, more on the side of tough and sinewy.

      Again, not that she was noticing. He was probably a jackass, as Richard Taggart had been. He was probably prejudiced against anything different from his small-town norm. He was probably mean-spirited and stupid, as well—most men that good-looking were. For the second time she considered going the batting-the-eyelashes route. It would work. She’d been rendering men stupid with her looks for a very long time now.

      In that spirit, she put her saucy smile in place to butter him up. His slate-blue eyes went as sharp as stone. He wasn’t going to fall for the saucy smile, damn it, so she let it fade. “Look, I wasn’t reckless driving. And you already know who I am so the license isn’t really necessary.”

      In front of them, an older couple started to cross the street. Cassie ignored them until they stopped and stared at her, then started whispering furiously to themselves. Recognition came sharply to Cassie—they’d run the drugstore years ago, where she’d done her best to prove to the town she was just as wild as they thought by purchasing condoms regularly. “Oh, forget it,” she said on a sigh. “Just do what you have to do.”

      “Which would be what, do you think?”

      Well, hopefully it wouldn’t be to make her get out of the car so he could try to feel her up. “You could let me go.”

      He smiled at that. A slow, wide smile that had her heart skipping a beat. “But you were speeding.”

      “Maybe I’m in a hurry to get out of here.”

      “Wouldn’t be the first time, so I hear.”

      Now what would he know about her fast exit after graduation? She took another long look at him, squinting through the bright sun to see his name. Taggart. Oh, my God. “You’re…”

      “Sheriff Sean Taggart. You can call me Tag, most do.”

      Suddenly she could hardly breathe. She couldn’t have managed a smile to save her life. Pulling back, she stared straight ahead out her windshield. “You’re Richard’s son.”

      “That would be correct.”

      It wasn’t bad enough she’d had to put her entire life on hold because some jerk had decided if he couldn’t have her, he’d terrorize her. Or that she had to be here while her life was on hold. No, she had to run into her old nightmares to boot. That, added to her current nightmares…God, she needed a cigarette.

      Too bad she’d quit smoking five years ago. “Just give me my ticket then.”

      He was silent for so long she broke her own code and turned to look at him. Silent—still, even—but not idle. His eyes reflected all sorts of interesting things, mostly curiosity. “You know my father.”

      No. Her mother had known him. Cassie had just hated and feared him. “The ticket?”

      “Now you’re in a hurry to get your ticket? What’s up, Cassie?”

      The sound of her first name in his incredibly sensuous voice seemed so…intimate. “Like I said, I’m in a hurry to get out of here.”

      “Are you on your way out then? Already?”

      She opened her mouth to remind him that was none of his business but her cell phone rang. It was Kate.

      “Did you get there yet?” came her worried voice across the line. “Are you okay? How is it? You run into anyone we know? Talk to me.”

      Cassie stared up at the tall, dark and intensely handsome sheriff. “Kate, your timing is something.”

      “Oh, honey. Who is it? That mean old Mrs. McIntyre? Mrs. Wilkens? Because if it is—”

      “As a matter of fact,” Cassie said, slowly smiling as her and Tag’s gazes locked. “It’s Sheriff Taggart.”

      “Is that old fart still sheriff?”

      “No, Tag here is Richard’s son.” When her gaze ran down the front of him, slowly, across his broad shoulders and what looked like a very promising chest and flat belly, over his trousers, which lovingly cupped powerful thighs and everything in between, then back up again, he lifted a daring brow, then gave her the same slow perusal.

      Good,