The Cowboy Who Got Away. Nancy Robards Thompson

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      He’d left so soon after the wedding there’d been no need to think about the feelings he’d stirred up in her. It wasn’t denial; it was self-preservation. It had been ten years since he’d been back to Celebration. For all she knew, it would be another ten before he passed through again.

      “You were home?” she said, emphasizing the operative word. “You breezed through so fast, I wasn’t even sure if it was really you. Are you home longer this time, Jude?”

      He cocked a brow. “Would you be happy if I said yes?”

      Juliette didn’t answer. She busied herself wrapping the purple shoe in the tissue paper it came in and putting it back into its box.

      “I am home longer this time than last.”

      Damn if her gaze didn’t find its way back to him. His eyes seemed to hold a mixture of bemusement and disappointment.

      He wasn’t that tall—just under six feet, which was still big for a bull rider. But he had those broad shoulders and that lean, muscled body to compensate for it. He also had those lethal, dark brown eyes and that lopsided smile that had always disarmed her.

      Even after everything that had happened, her former eighteen-year-old self whispered that she wouldn’t mind a bit if he kissed her hello, but the twenty-eight-year-old she was now, the one who knew better, overruled that foolishness with a simple blink of her eyes.

      This was the effect Jude Campbell had on every healthy, red-blooded woman he encountered.

      And that’s what she needed to remember.

      “I’d heard through the grapevine that you weren’t coming back for the ten-year reunion,” she said.

      “My plans have changed. Is it too late to change my RSVP?”

      Juliette shrugged. “You’ll have to call Marilyn Harding. She’s chairing the reunion committee.”

      Juliette silently cursed Tabatha again. If not for the ridiculously demanding woman, she wouldn’t have been at the Campbell Wedding Barn at the precise moment Jude had chosen to make his entrance. Juliette was a wedding planner, but Jude’s sister, Lucy, owned and operated the venue. She had inherited the property after her parents had died several years ago and had turned the old ramshackle barn into one of the South’s premier wedding barns.

      Since Juliette sent so much business Lucy’s way, she’d given Juliette a key to the place so that she could come and go as she needed. No sense in both of them being at the mercy of the gaggle of bridezillas who contracted Juliette to create the wedding of their dreams.

      Lately, it seemed like every single bride she worked with turned into a bridezilla.

      Juliette took a deep breath as she pondered the possibility that if every one of her brides seemed like a bridezilla, maybe they weren’t the problem; maybe she was the one who’d gone off the rails. Or something like that. Maybe she was mixing her metaphors. She was so burned-out lately, it was a wonder she could even think. It didn’t help that Jude was standing right there in front of her.

      “I thought the homecoming queen would’ve been in the middle of organizing the ten-year reunion,” he said.

      Juliette frowned and hitched up the garment bag onto her arm. “So, you think the homecoming queen should plan the party, and the homecoming king should just be able to show up? And until today you weren’t even sure if you could make it. Can you please explain the logic in that?”

      Jude was silent for a moment and it took everything in Juliette’s power not to fill the stillness, until finally, he spoke.

      “Was there ever any logic when it came to you and me, Juju?”

      Juliette’s stomach clenched.

      “If you are here to see Lucy, she’s not in right now. You might want to give her a call on her cell phone. There’s not an event tonight, so she and Zane were taking the day off.”

      “I’ve already talked to my sister. I stopped by because I saw your car out there.”

      She tried to ignore the satisfaction his confession brought her and almost asked him how he knew it was her car, but stopped short. He’d seen it when he was home for the wedding. Jude had taken a break from the professional bull riding circuit to come home for the wedding of his older brother, Ethan, to Chelsea Ashford Alden. Of course, that’s when he’d seen it. The wedding had been the first time that she’d seen Jude in the nearly ten years since the two of them had broken up before she’d gone to college and he’d gone off to try out his skills on the PBR circuit.

      He was fresh off a world championship win. A hometown hero. Of course he’d want to come home and bask in the glory.

      “How long are you home?” she asked.

      He shrugged. “Two or three weeks? A month? Depends.”

      All kinds of questions filled her head. It was the beginning of October. The PBR circuit usually ran through the end of the month. She wanted to ask him about work, but a sixth sense warned her that might be shaky territory. Really, it was none of her business. If he was still in the running for this year’s championship, he wouldn’t be hanging around Celebration right now. It stood to reason that she was better off not asking.

      “Where are you staying?” she asked instead.

      “At the cabin on the lower forty of my folks’ property—my property,” he corrected.

      Jude and his siblings had inherited the ninety acres that had been in the Campbell family for three generations. They’d subdivided the property into three equitable shares. Ethan and Lucy each had working businesses on their respective properties.

      “It’s been a long time since you’ve been out there,” Juliette said. “Are you comfortable there? Does the place even have electricity?”

      “I have no idea. I’ll be fine,” he said. “If it’s too bad, I can always crash at Lucy’s.”

      “I wasn’t offering you a place to stay,” she said. She meant to be funny, but it came out sounding defensive.

      “No? Too bad, because I just realized that Zane is probably crashing at my sister’s. Ethan and Chelsea are newlyweds. You were my last hope to save me from being a third wheel.”

      He winked at her and she wasn’t altogether convinced that he was kidding.

      “Yeah, well, I have two words for you—Celebration Inn. I’m sure they have a vacancy. But wait. Have you not even been to the cabin yet? Otherwise you’d know if the electricity was turned on.”

      “Just rolled into town and saw your car.”

      He smiled at her, holding her gaze for a few beats too long as she realized that he’d stopped to see her first, before his family, before getting settled in.

      “It’s good to see you, Juju.” He shifted from one foot to another. “If you’re free, want to go grab a beer?”

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