The Cowboy's Curvy Pen Pal's Rain-Drenched Reunion Ride

The rain came down in sheets, the kind of Texas gully-washer that turned dirt roads into chocolate milk and made every romance novelist’s “stranded in the storm” fantasy feel a lot less sexy and a lot more like drowning in a lukewarm bath. Lila’s ancient rental car had given up with a pathetic cough and a hiss of steam, leaving her stranded on a lonely back road ten miles from nowhere. She sat behind the wheel in a soaked sundress that now clung to every abundant curve like a second, very unhappy skin, cursing her decision to wear white.

Headlights cut through the deluge. A big black pickup slowed, then stopped. The door opened and a tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped out, hat brim dripping, white T-shirt already plastered to a chest that looked illegally carved from Texas longhorn and stubborn pride.

Lila’s stomach flipped. She knew that silhouette. She’d been fantasizing about it for two solid years.

Jake sauntered up to her window, water streaming off the brim of his Stetson, and gave her the slowest, filthiest grin she’d ever seen in real life.

“Well, hell, darlin’. Looks like my favorite dirty-minded pen pal finally decided to deliver herself in a rainstorm. You gonna sit there lookin’ like a drowned cupcake, or you gonna let me rescue you proper?”