THE NIGHT IN CHICAGO

Pulled one of each off the shelf and placed them on top of the others Bobby patiently held. Everyone expected her to fail. Just because she had a short attention span or something like that. Never mind that she at least tried things, gave it a shot, went for the whole enchilada, as Bobby said once "I'm going to prove Aunt Roro wrong. I just know I can do this."

The young cowboy frowned at her, and one slim paperback called HOT AS HELL CHILI fell to the floor.

"Honey, you don't have to worry about all this stuff. I love you and you love me. That's all that matters, right?"

Francisca picked up the book and didn't bother to hide her frustration as she glanced at her fiancé. "You don't understand, Bobby." She fished her platinum credit card from her purse and headed toward the register. "Love doesn't have anything to do with this at all."

LOVE HAD NOTHING to do with that night in Chicago, but Rose couldn't stop remembering what had happened between them. Or what might happen again. She didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed when Andrew left her alone in the sparse bedroom. It's double bed and neatly folded bedding seemed like an invitation too hard to refuse, especially at sunset. Especially when they were alone.

It was especially hard since she knew what it felt like to take him inside of her, to make love with him several times in one long, memorable night. She sat cross-legged on the floor, an exquisitely stitched wedding ring quilt forgotten in her lap. Do we need a storm? Andrew had asked only moments ago.

Of course not. All they needed was a few seconds alone. Rose hadn't answered, afraid she would make love with him right there on the kitchen floor and knowing darn well that she had no business behaving that way, no matter what the weather. She was here in Texas to chaperone Francisca. She was here to plan a wedding she hoped wouldn't happen.

And she was in Andrew's future bedroom not because she loved looking at quilts but because she hadn't the sense to stay home and make to-do lists for the fourth of July wedding ceremony.

And why? Because she hadn't been able to resist being with him. And remembering that one night last winter.

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He'd kissed her, his hands on either side of her face. And she'd kissed him back, knowing full well that there would be no turning back. The sexual tension and laughing in the seclusion of the room. She didn't want to ask him to leave.

And she didn't know how to ask him to stay. She'd never made love to a stranger before. Her limited sexual experiences had been confined to one college boyfriend and a long-ago relationship with a co-worker. Nothing before had felt like this, a combination of passion and longing and thrust that made her loop her arms around the cowboy's neck and continue to kiss him until neither one of them could stand upright.

Somehow they managed to get their clothes off, which didn't take long. She tripped over one of the man's cowboy boots, and he chuckled and lifted her onto the bed before tenderly rubbing her stubbed toe.

"Better?" he asked, smiling at her.

Unable to talk, she nodded. And turned back the covers. He flicked off the bedside lamp to leave the room in semidarkness before joining her under the covers. For once in her life, Rose felt she was in the right place at exactly the right time, no matter how crazy it seemed. Or how out of character it was.

"I wonder if the storm has made us crazy," she whispered, turning on her side to face the cowboy. He was all male, with wide bare shoulders and taut chest. His head was propped up by his hand, and the other smoothed a tingling path along her arm and down, to the dip of her waist and the curve of her hip.

"It has," he agreed. "Though I've been in storms before and never done this."

"A blizzard usually means I have the day out of school," she managed to say, though his hand caressed the curve of her buttocks before moving higher once again.

"And what do you do then?" His fingers touched her breast, teasing the nipple with tiny feather-light touches.

"Grade..." his head dipped, his lips laving where his fingers had been "...papers," she whispered, before reaching

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