* * *
The woman speeding down Flint Road in the flashy red convertible
was definitely not from around here. So, of course, Jake postponed going
back to the station to turn around and follow her. The speed limit was
thirty, and she had to have been doing at least thirty-five. Being a small
town sheriff, little things like that mattered.
He flashed his siren and lights only for a moment before she pulled
over to the side of the paved road. He’d probably let her get away with a
warning, but if nothing else, at least he’d get to meet somebody new.
“Afternoon, Miss,” he said in his best Texas Sheriff drawl.
Damn! She was lovely, even behind those big sunglasses and that
headscarf.
She turned her face up to look at him. “Was I speeding?”
Those, big, pretty lips of hers caused him to subconsciously lick his
own. At first glance, he took her for a white woman, but up close he could
see that she was either real light-skinned, Latina, or biracial. Stylish was
the word that came to mind, right after beautiful. Everything about her
screamed money, and she shone in the light like a new penny.
Jake had heard things, especially since she was back. Dirty Diana. Not
white enough. Not black enough. She had a reputation for being loose,
for lack of a better term. Looking for love in all the wrong places because
she obviously wasn’t getting it from the one place she needed it most.
“You could always count on Dirty Diana for a good time.”
Good for who, though? Certainly not for a young girl who had
probably been taught from birth that she wasn’t good enough or wanted.
Guilt stuck in the back of his throat. If only he’d done something that
first time he and the sheriff had answered the call to her house that day,
maybe her life would’ve been different.
* * *
Jake wasn’t the type to get caught up like this. Women flirted. He
flirted back, but he’d always known where to draw the line when one
needed to be drawn for his sake, or for the sake of someone else. Level-
headed. That phrase might as well have been his middle name, because
it’s who he was, what he’d always been, to the point of being downright
boring. She’d captivated him, somehow.
Diana Rigby had put a spell on him that he couldn’t shake, and that
was fine with him.
J.D. Mason is the author of
more than twenty novels
including The Woman Trapped
in the Dark, Seducing Abby
Rhodes, The Real Mrs. Price.
A national bestselling and
award-winning author, her
work has been featured in
in USA Today, Essence, Pride
Magazine in the U.K., and
Today’s Black Woman.
www.jdmason.com