ROMEO and JUDY ANNE

Chapter 1

By the time most people reach the eve of their thirtieth birthday, they've developed a philosophy of life, shaped by the experience of living. Judy Anne Palmer was no exception. She had a philosophy shaped by life's hard lessons and honed by the last six years to a stark two-word declaration.

Life sucks.

Of course, she'd never say that back home in Clayton's Bend. If someone in that small south Texas town asked what her philosophy of life was, she, as the so very proper principal of the local high school, would say something nauseatingly wise and profound. The ability to rattle off something that sounded so good and meant so little made her feel even more like a fraud.

Back home, day after endless day, in a town that boasted five traffic lights, eleven churches, and no social life, she faked it. No one saw her as anything but the dutiful daughter her mother depended on and the guardian for her two nieces. She was more than a pillar of the community. She sometimes felt as if she were the entire bedrock foundation upon which the small town was built. Everyone in Clayton's Bend considered her the embodiment of propriety.

Judy Anne's lips twisted in an ironic smile. If they only knew what she planned to do.

Tonight, she wasn't in Clayton's Bend. She was hundreds of miles away in Dallas. She didn't have to be prim little Judy Anne Palmer with all her inhibitions and obligations. Tonight she could pretend she was someone else.

Someone with a life.

Judy Anne had never set out to be the embodiment of anything. She was tired of being up on that pedestal of propriety. Completely alone and isolated. If truth be told, she was just plain tired of everything. She felt so suffocated by her job and the never-ending responsibilities at work and at home that sometimes she couldn't even breathe.

She was especially tired of being a veritable monument to respectability. How had she become the town's most proper lady? Lady? Ha! What a joke. She was an anachronism. She was a joke. What else would you call a woman her age who was still a virgin? Other than pathetic? Recently, she'd heard herself described as a professional virgin by her cousin Susannah Quinn.

Judy Anne paused and swallowed hard. No, her cousin was now Susannah Hogan. As much as her cousin had distrusted men, it was still a shock to think of her as married. It had been more of a shock to hear herself described that way. Susannah had seen her slinking away and had hurried after her, apologizing. Judy Anne hadn't been hurt so much as embarrassed. Did everyone think of her as some dried up old maid with her legs locked at the knees?

She might as well have L for loser tattooed on her forehead. In today's world, you couldn't even find an over the hill virgin in the pages of the most cliched romance novel. No one would believe it. Virgins were supposed to be as extinct as dinosaurs.

So how the hell had she ended up being one at the ripe old age of twenty-nine?

A long sigh escaped her. She didn't even believe it. She was so tired of waiting for her life to begin. She'd been a good girl who'd followed all the rules and never, ever, entertained a rebellious thought. And look where it had got her.

Well, she intended to change that. Tonight, she'd say life was a sucky bitch if she wanted to. And tonight, before midnight ushered in her thirtieth year, she'd no longer be the oldest living virgin north of the Rio Grande.

The orchestra launched into a familiar song and put an end to her rebellious musing. The radiant bride and the groom--the groom who should have been hers--stepped onto the dance floor. Judy Anne took one look at them, and felt all her bravado vanish. The sight of the happy couple as they swayed to the Italian love song was the last straw.

Her lower lip quivered as Josh Groban sang about the urgency of love. The desperation of needing the lover's touch. Not that Josh himself was in the hotel ballroom. And not that she understood a single word of Italian. But she had more than a speaking acquaintance with desperation. Tonight, she felt it in every cell of her body.

With a frozen smile on her face, she swallowed the knot of emotion in her throat and endured the usual wedding reception routine. When the best man's toast to the happy couple ended, she slammed the flute of champagne as if it were a tumbler of water. The wine tasted sour in her mouth and made her empty stomach lurch. Without a second thought, she beckoned to a white-jacketed waiter and swapped her empty glass for a full one. She drank it down without stopping. The bubbles tickled her nose, but she didn't laugh.

Starkly, she realized that she was who she was. An expensive makeover in a Dallas salon couldn't change her into a hot chick who went out and got what she wanted. She'd been a fool to think it could, and no amount of champagne would give her the Dutch courage to try. Her shoulders slumped. Enough was enough. She felt the pressure of hot tears when she closed her eyes. She couldn't take any more. She had to get out of there.

* * *

Roman Carlisle followed the woman he'd watched for the past hour. She hadn't been at the church for the wedding. He'd have noticed her. She was frantic to get away, but the celebrating crowd impeded her progress. She bumped into other guests but didn't stop. If anything, she moved faster. She stumbled. Quickly, Roman reached forward and grasped her arms, bracing her to keep her from falling. He didn't release her but steered her to the door. Her chilled flesh wasn't what he expected. Somehow he'd expected her skin to feel hot. Like he'd felt from the moment he'd first noticed her.

She looked up. Roman doubted she could even see him through the blur of tears in her startlingly green eyes. In a flash, his smile faded. "Are you all right?"

Without pausing, Judy Anne pulled away from him. "I'm fine." She cursed the heat that warmed her face. Being a frizzy-haired strawberry blonde with skin the color of milk had been the first of life's many jests. "Sorry," she whispered brokenly and ran.
The four-inch heels attached to her feet by tiny straps of clear plastic made running an exercise in futility. Something else she knew way too much about. But she gave it her all.

Groban's deliciously deep voice floated above the happy crowd as she finally pushed through the heavy double doors and stumbled into the corridor. The mahogany doors wheezed shut behind her. She stood there, feeling lost. Her legs trembled, whether from the wine, the emotions, or tiredness, she didn't know.

Judy Anne felt dazed. She didn't know what to do. For someone always in control of every situation, this proved more unsettling than she could handle at the moment so she just started walking. She heard the doors behind her open. She cringed at the laughter and music. More melodic haunting words in Italian spilled out. She'd been a fool to come here. She go back to her room and pack. She'd go home tonight.
Back to Clayton's Bend where she could grow old and fade away, which, judging by the way she felt, wouldn't take that long. She'd been such a fool to think she could follow through on an insane plan hatched with her best friend over a pitcher of frozen margaritas.

Tonight had been such a mistake. She hadn't even made her presence known to her old college sweetheart because she knew she couldn't pull off the scene she'd envisioned. She should never have listened to Heather. This was all her idea--the shoes, the dress, the makeup. So, apparently, were the two condoms Judy Anne had found tucked away in her gold-beaded evening bag with a note that said, "Better late than never."

Judy Anne knew her best friend meant well, but she wished there were some things that Heather didn't know. But that was just something else on her long list of things that couldn't be changed. She swallowed hard, trying to push down the aching, burning knot lodged in her throat.

Despite the shoes, she put distance between herself and the ballroom. She'd hoped the second glass of champagne would have erased the image branded on her retinas of the radiant bride in the arms of the groom for their first dance. A shudder rippled through her. She should have been the bride. Would have been the bride. She blinked rapidly. If only life hadn't changed six years ago.

Six years! Judy Anne clenched her hands so tightly the fake nails bit into her palms. Six years of living a life she'd never planned. Things had turned out so wrong. So very wrong. And there was no way to make them right. No way to undo the weeks that had turned into months and the months into years. No way to undo the decisions that had shaped her life.

Her life? What a joke! Except Judy Anne didn't laugh. There was nothing funny about being cheated of everything you'd wanted. At midnight, she would turn thirty. She'd be thirty years old and alone with nothing but her anger and her guilt to keep her warm. It hadn't been heartbreak that had sent her fleeing from the wedding reception. She didn't delude herself that she loved Jeremy. Maybe she had once, but she'd let him drift away long ago. Whatever she'd felt for him in college had faded. But the wedding had been a wake up call, a rude slap in the face saying, "Wake up, dummy. Life hasn't just passed you by. It leapfrogged over you!"

Judy Anne rushed past topiaries festooned with white tulle and pink roses. She was twenty-nine and ticking, filled with so much anger she felt like a bomb looking for a place to detonate. She blinked her eyes furiously to dispel the tears. She'd be damned if she washed away the fifty-dollar makeup job she'd had for what was billed as Dallas's social event of the summer.

She was passing the small cocktail lounge when the soft sounds within intruded into her thoughts. The quiet murmur of voices, the subdued clink of crystal, and the near-darkness appealed to her raw senses. Especially the darkness. She'd never been to a bar by herself before. She could just imagine what the ladies in town would say if they knew. And that decided it for her. She squared her shoulders. Maybe another drink was just what she needed to erase the image of the happy couple. Another after that, and she'd dull the pain of looking at the long road of life that stretched before her, a one-way lane to nowhere.

Four drinks in an evening equaled four more than she'd had all of last year. If she didn't count that pitcher of margaritas that had started this craziness. What a boring life she led when she knew exactly how many alcoholic beverages she'd had in a year's time.
Feeling rebellious, and liking it, she walked between a pair of massive ficus trees flanking the entrance. There was a first time for everything, and it was high time she had a little liquor-fueled adventure.

Judy Anne marched straight to the bar and seated herself in a tall black leather chair. Given the darkness of the room and the champagne on an empty stomach, she congratulated herself on that accomplishment as she lay the gold evening bag, with its mocking little gift from Heather, onto the gleaming mahogany bar. The soft jazz playing in the background washed over her.

The bartender smiled at her and set a crystal bowl of nuts and pretzels in front of her. "What can I get for you, ma'am?"
In deference to her detour from the straight and narrow, Judy Anne said, "I want something strong, but I don't want it to taste like kerosene."

Something brushed against her arm. A man's cologne, subtle yet compelling, teased her senses. Whether it was the whisper of his touch or his scent, she didn't know, but something about him seemed familiar.

From the corner of her eye, she saw him slide onto the chair next to hers. She liked the way he smelled. It was nice. Really nice. And she usually didn't go around noticing the way men smelled. Not that life in Clayton's Bend presented much opportunity for appreciating something like that. Most of the men she encountered smelled like a hard day in the outdoors or like the aftershave sold at any supermarket.

"Miss?" the bartender interrupted. "Did you decide what you want?"

Judy Anne felt heat flood her face. "Sorry." She'd been lost in musing about the way the man next to her smelled. Common sense would suggest that maybe she'd already had her limit with the champagne. But she wasn't going to let mere common sense stop her. She'd get drunk, she suddenly decided. Sure. Why not? She was hours away from being thirty and had never tied one on. Ever. Another first. Her spirits rallied. In a low voice, she told the bartender, "Just bring me anything that won't make me sick. Something I can sip without scrunching up my face."

"Bring the lady Glenfiddich on the rocks," the man who'd taken the seat next to her ordered.

His voice was quiet, with a husky timbre that seemed as familiar as his scent. The sound of his voice had that same weird effect as his aftershave. It made the tiny hairs on her arms tingle even as his presumptuous command to the bartender irritated her. That wasn't a first. Lately, all the men she knew irritated her.

"I'll have the same," he added.

"Wait just a minute," Judy Anne began, but the bartender had already walked away. Her brows snapped together in a frown. "Look, I'll order my own drinks, thank you." She turned toward him, to reiterate what she'd said. Her eyes widened in surprise. He really was familiar. He was the man who'd caught her when she'd almost fallen in the ballroom. As she stared, she realized he was quite possibly the most handsome man she'd ever seen. Except handsome was too mundane a word to describe his dark good looks.

What had to be a hand-tailored suit cut to fit his wide shoulders--Judy Anne glanced down--and powerful thighs probably cost more than she made in several months. Her eyes rose to his tanned face. She'd never seen anyone before who had such perfect masculine features. Or they would be perfect except for the frown that snapped his dark brows together as he sat through her inspection.

Thick black hair fell forward on his forehead in a careless style that probably defied even the best styling gel. His lips were full, sculpted. As she watched, his mouth twisted in a lopsided grin. But it was his eyes that captured her attention and held it. His eyes were as dark as a moonless night. And they were filled with concern as he gazed at her.

Judy Anne hoped it was dark enough in the bar that he didn't recognize her from the wedding reception. And that he didn't notice the crimson stain that burned her cheeks. "I'll pay for my drink, thank you." She turned away and prayed he'd just ignore her the way men usually did.

"Fine. You can pay for mine too if you want." He leaned close and shoved the bowl of salted nuts closer to her. "In the meantime, eat some of these."

Her stomach rolled. "I'm not hungry."

"Unless I miss my guess, you haven't had anything to eat except that cube of cheese at the reception."

So much for hoping he hadn't recognized her. Apparently, he'd noticed her before she'd stampeded from the reception. Why had he followed her? Pity? Pride stiffened her spine. "I'm on a diet."

"Trust me, you don't need to diet."

He treated her to the same visual inspection she'd subjected him to. She felt his eyes as if they were hands on her skin, sliding from the tiny straps holding up the low-cut, tight gold dress to the length of leg exposed by the short skirt, and ending with an examination of the ridiculous high heels--designed to look like glass slippers, or so Heather had said.

She'd never had a man give her the once-over so thoroughly. Of course, she'd never dressed like this before. The goose flesh rose on her body as if he'd touched her ever so softly. Oddly enough, the way he looked at her made her feel a pleasant warmth invade her body. A small whisper of sanity told her to be outraged.

But tonight was no time for sanity.

Thinking about his hands on her body made her feel peculiar--almost drowsy. As if all her physical energy needed to be conserved for something she felt but couldn't articulate. It took enormous strength to raise her eyelids to his face. When she succeeded, she saw his gaze rested on her breasts.

For years, she hadn't thought about her breasts as anything other than an annoying part of her anatomy. They were too large for her slender frame, and she usually did everything she could to camouflage that fact. But the way he looked at her made her breasts swell and her nipples harden. Her pulse increased. Judy Anne found it oddly difficult to breathe. If she'd been at home and caught some man staring at her breasts, she'd probably have, well, she didn't know what she'd have done because no man in her hometown would ever think to look at her like a sex object.

No, she reminded herself. She wasn't at home. Tonight there were no rules. She took a deep breath and the teasing words of a flirt seemed to tumble out of her mouth of their own volition. "They're just breasts. Every woman usually has two."

His amused gaze met her challenging green eyes. "Yes, but not every woman has such a beautiful set."

Surprised, Judy Anne laughed. The way he'd said it was so matter of fact--as if he were making an observation about a pair of candlesticks. Some of her tension drained away.

"Why don't you eat something?" He picked up the bowl of salty nuts and held them out in front of her. "We can talk about your magnificent breasts later."

The way he said it invited her to share his amusement. She didn't even try to repress her grin. So much for being a femme fatale. She relaxed. "No, I think we've exhausted that subject."

She picked up a few nuts and cupped them in one hand, slowly eating them one by one as she stared at him. Although she didn't have money, she could recognize those who did. He was completely out of her league. Even if he had been interested in her, which he apparently wasn't, or he'd have flirted instead of making jokes.

With his expensive suit and a wristwatch that looked as if it may have cost more than the Chevy she drove, he was a man who didn't even inhabit the same planet she did. They were two strangers having a drink together in a strange place far from home. She'd never see him again, and that thought made her feel oddly free. Though she didn't understand it, she felt comfortable with him. Maybe because he was a stranger she'd never see again. Where she came from, everyone knew everyone. If she sneezed, someone across town would say, "God bless you." Then they'd call her mother to report that Judy Anne had a cold.

Here in the dimly-lit bar she was unknown. No one would call around town to report what she'd said or done. How liberating. She could flirt with him. She could say anything. She could do anything.

"What's your name?" he asked.

Judy Anne didn't answer. If she told him, they'd no longer be strangers. She didn't want to give up the freedom of anonymity. "Why don't you guess?"

He cocked his head to the side. "Guess? Will you tell me if I guess correctly?"

"Of course," she lied, as the bartender served their drinks and walked away.

"Hmmm. I don't know why, but I don't think I trust you."
Judy Anne lifted the heavy glass and took a sip. "Hey! In vino veritas."

"In wine, yes, there is truth. You speak Latin?"

Judy Anne grimaced. "No! Most emphatically no." She was sorry she'd quoted the common Latin phrase. She didn't need any reminders of her latest problem at work. "Please, forget I said that. Let's leave the dead languages in the cemetery. Speak any language you want, as long as it's not Latin."

His grin drew a smile from her despite herself. "Latin isn't necessarily dead. It's enjoying quite a resurgence in the last few years thanks to Angel and Buffy and the Scooby gang and all the other literate vampires in pop culture."

At her frown, he said, "I take it you're not a fan of the paranormal. Okay, how about Italian then for the wine quotation? In vino, ci e la verita."

Though the Italian words he spoke made her think of the song that had chased her from the reception, Judy Anne liked the sound of the words he spoke. Or maybe it was just the husky timbre of his voice. She figured she was like most American women--a total sucker for a man speaking Italian or French or having any kind of accent for that matter. In fact, she thought his English held a faint British accent.

He lifted his glass and drank. "This, my beautiful nameless woman, is twenty-five-year old Scotch, not wine. And, if we were in Italy, I'd say, "In whisky scozzese, ci e stanza per l'immaginazione."

"And what exactly does that mean?" Judy Anne traced the rim of her glass with the tip of her index finger.

"In Scotch whisky, there is room for imagination."

Delighted, she laughed and picked up the chunky glass of amber liquid. "Imagination? Is that a polite way of saying you can lie if you drink Scotch?"

He shrugged, but there was nothing nonchalant about his dark gaze as he studied her. "I don't know. Why don't we test it? Let's set the Scotch aside and order a glass of wine. Then I'll ask your name again."

"Oh, but I'm liking the Scotch."

"So it tastes a tad better than kerosene?"

Judy Anne smiled. Tad? There was that odd inflection again. A crispness--not quite an English accent--but almost. She wondered if he'd been educated in England. Oops. Wrong idea, she mentally scolded herself. No wondering allowed. "The Scotch tastes different. Kind of like well water with a lot of minerals."

"Well water?"

When he laughed, she felt her pulse quicken. She didn't understand the pleasurable stir of emotions. Something inside her seemed to swell. Her breasts felt oddly heavy. Achy. And there was a peculiar sensation low and deep inside--like a subdued drumbeat--slow, steady. Persistent. Suddenly, Judy Anne realized what she was feeling. Heat. Rising, spreading heat. It had been so long that she'd nearly forgotten the slow stir of desire.

Startled, but trying not to show it, she sipped the potent Scotch. She lifted her eyes to his. Did he know how he made her feel? Heat slid through her veins, slipping along her nerve pathways.
"I've never heard Scotch described as well water, but that's as good a description as any." He lifted his glass, saluted her, and drank. "I gather you're not going to tell me your name?"

In that instant, Judy Anne decided. She wanted him to be the one. The man. She wanted him. At least for tonight. All she had to do was get him to want her. She cleared her throat. "I've got a better idea. Why don't we give each other a name we feel is appropriate?"

"I'd rather tell you my real name, but I get the feeling that would end this game we're playing."

When he set his glass down and looked deeply into her eyes, she frowned. His gaze was too perceptive. His eyes too knowing. She didn't want that. She wanted fantasy, not reality. She'd had enough reality to last her a lifetime.

His eyes held hers as he asked, "Tell me. What name would you saddle me with?"

"Oh, Romeo, Romeo." She smiled softly. "Wherefore art thou, Romeo?"

His eyes closed in mock dismay as he shook his head. "Is it the Italian? Or do I seem like a hopeless, hapless lover prone to suicide?"

"None of the above. Well, maybe the Italian, but most of all," she shrugged and answered honestly, "you just look like the perfect Romeo. Tall, dark, handsome."

She noticed he shifted uncomfortably as she described him. "You do know you're handsome, don't you?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I've been told that once or twice, but I want to be more than just a pretty face." He held the bowl of nuts out to her again and didn't lower it until she'd taken a small handful.

"I guess if I'm Romeo," he paused. His eyes gazed at her with quiet intensity. "That makes you--?" He broke off, lifting his dark brows in question.

"Juliet?" Why not? The desire to escape her identity was intoxicating. To slip into the skin of someone else. What could be wrong with one night of freedom? Tomorrow, reality would return soon enough. She'd be back in Clayton's Bend, and once again she'd be Principal Judy Anne Palmer, twenty-nine-year-old. No, thirty-years-old. And a spinster, a word still used in her hometown. But tonight? Tonight she could be different. Tonight she could let herself be seduced by this handsome, exciting, oddly compassionate man.

"Uh oh. There you go looking sad again."

Startled, she glanced away and tried to regain the flip, flirtatious attitude she'd projected.

"Why don't you talk about it, Juliet? Tell me why you were crying at the reception."

Damn. Romeo might have bedroom eyes, but they were also eyes that didn't miss a detail. "Weddings make me cry."

"Really? I thought maybe your heart was broken because you were in love with groom.

How could she explain the thousand reasons that had reduced her to tears?

"Did the groom break your heart?" he persisted.

She tensed. "I didn't say I was a friend of the groom's. I crashed the reception. I wasn't really invited."

He arched a dark brow and offered her the bowl of mixed nuts again. She realized she'd eaten the ones she'd held so she took some just so she'd have an excuse not to talk. But he didn't talk either, just stared at her with those eyes that seemed to look inside her.
Oddly, the quiet between them wasn't unsettling. Even odder was the fact she felt relaxed and wired all at the same time. "Enough with the salted nuts. Why are you trying to force-feed me?"

"I could say because you need something to absorb the champagne and the whisky. You don't look like a woman who's used to getting drunk on Saturday night."

She recoiled as if he'd slapped her. Judy Anne had worked hard to look sexy in the tight, short dress. She'd wanted to look exactly like a woman who partied on Saturday nights. Obviously, the ton of makeup and the tousled up-do hairstyle that looked as if she'd just crawled out of bed hadn't changed her from frizzy-haired, freckle-faced Judy Anne Palmer to the sexy image she'd wanted so badly to project. Not because she still loved Jeremy and wanted to steal him away but because she wanted him to see what he'd passed up. That she was a desirable woman, not a dried-up stick of an old maid.

In that moment, she realized it wasn't Jeremy she'd wanted to convince of her desirability. It was herself. The truth hurt--as truth usually did. Her lower lip quivered. Tears stung her eyes, and this time she couldn't keep them in. A solitary tear slid down her cheek. Romeo might as well have said she really was the woman she feared she was condemned to become.

"Hey, don't cry." He looked stricken as he caught the errant tear on the tip of his index finger. He leaned close and pulled her into his arms.

Judy Anne forgot the flirtatious game she'd been playing. He held her so gently it made her want to let loose the emotion that choked her. Her chest hurt with the pressure of the sobs she suppressed. The soft shushing sounds he made reached deep into her heart and melted some of the pain there.

She couldn't remember the last time someone had tried to comfort her. Had she even felt a man's arms in the last few years? Tenderness unraveled her tangled emotions. She pressed her face against his throat, forgetting that they weren't alone. She tasted the salt of her own tears and marveled at the luxury of such a release. She'd never have lost control at home. But this wasn't home. To her surprise, she felt no embarrassment.

Romeo's scent filled her. His skin smelled intoxicating and was warm next to her face. She felt the flutter of his pulse against her cheek. Without thinking, she turned her head and pressed her mouth to that soft beat.

And the world stopped spinning for an instant.

When the moment passed, reality had changed. As if it had hit a bump and shifted. His pulse no longer fluttered. It beat like a drum against her lips. Judy Anne pulled away from his embrace. Feeling shy for the first time, her eyes met his dark gaze then flitted away. She didn't know what to say. Should she apologize? She fumbled with her bag and opened it to get a tissue. Her fingers brushed against the condoms. She jerked as if the foil packets had stung her skin.

Heat flashed through her body. Hotter than before. Her heart beat painfully as her eyes rose to his face. Embarrassed, she couldn't quite meet his gaze.

Romeo tipped her chin up. "Look at me."

The softly-spoken command, raw with need, made her eyes seek his. Ah. Judy Anne felt something soften inside her. The heat wasn't one-sided. She saw it in his dark eyes. Desire smoldered.

Almost as if he spoke to himself, Romeo said, "I don't do one-night stands."

"Neither do I." She slid off the bar chair and reached her hand out.

"Ah, sweet Juliet. I was afraid of that. So where do we go from here?"

"Upstairs to your room," Judy Anne whispered.