Taming a Texas Devil - Katie Lane Page 0,1

mask that left only her eyes and mouth uncovered, and her feet were propped up on the desk getting a coat of pretty coral nail polish. Luke had moved on from his speakers going boom-boom to knocking boots.

“Shoot!” Dixie said as she once again got polish on her toes. Coloring within the lines had never been her strong suit. She grabbed a tissue to wipe it off when a sharp rap sounded on the office door.

Dixie froze in stunned surprise. No one ever came to Sheriff Willaby’s office except for the mailman and the cleaning lady. But the mailman put the mail in the slot in the front door and left with only a wave, and the cleaning lady came on Friday nights. If someone in town needed the sheriff, they usually called. And even that was rare.

Sheriff Willaby was not a favorite with the townsfolk of Simple. Probably because he was an arrogant, misogynistic bully—something Dixie had figured out in their very first phone interview. But since she had no intentions of working for him longer than a few months, she’d figured she could handle him. Handling men was her forte. Within weeks, she’d wrapped the sheriff around her little finger. Although it was still hard to work for such a petty, small-minded man. She wasn’t the least upset when the governor had gotten so many complaints about the sheriff that he’d “asked” Willaby to take an extended leave of absence until there could be an investigation on his misconduct.

If she weren’t careful, the people of Simple would start complaining about her. A deputy was much easier to get rid of than an elected sheriff.

“Just a second!” she yelled as she scooped up Queenie and shoved her and the purple pillow into the cat carrier. After slipping the carrier under the desk, she quickly peeled off the mask and threw it into the trash before using the tissue she still had in her hand to wipe off her face as she wheeled the chair over to the filing cabinet and unplugged Alexa. Then she wheeled back and shoveled all her pedicure supplies into the top desk drawer. Once she slammed it shut, she pulled on her hat, pinned a smile on her face, and called in a breathy voice, “Come in.”

There was a long stretch of silence, and she thought that whoever it was had given up and left. But just as she was about to relax, the door opened. A man stood in the doorway. A big man. And Dixie was no wilting violet. She was usually as tall, if not taller, than most men. While all her pageant friends complained about being taller than men, Dixie had no problem with it. In fact, she kind of enjoyed looking down.

But even in her five-inch bathing suit competition heels, she wouldn’t be able to look down at this man. The crown of his cowboy hat was only inches from the top of the doorway. And height wasn’t the only thing oversized. He had shoulders as wide as the Dallas Cowboy linebacker Dixie had once dated.

His heavily starched shirt was snapped all the way to his thick neck where a black tie was perfectly knotted between the sharp points of the stiff cotton collar. Two belts encircled his fat-free waist. One looped through the waistband of his razor-edge pressed khaki pants and the other held the low-riding holster resting on his right hip. While lots of folks walked around with guns in Texas, usually only lawmen had them holstered on the hip.

Well, crap on a cracker. She could be in trouble.

But as her mama always said, “The bigger the man, the harder they fall.” And Dixie was an expert at getting men to fall.

She brightened her smile to the highest wattage as she rose to her feet. She would’ve loved to step out from behind the desk and sashay over to him. Her sashay had always been a showstopper. But she couldn’t leave the desk with smudged naked toes. “Well, good mornin’. What can I do for you?” She drew out the “you” into a nice long Texas “ye-e-ew.”

There was a slight hesitation before he spoke. “Who are you?” His “yew” sounded much more country than hers. And sexy. Extremely sexy in his rough baritone voice.

She rested her hands on the desk and tipped her head. “I believe that should be my question, seeing as how you are in my office.”

“Your office? This is Sheriff Willaby’s office.”

“True, but since the