The Road to Rose Bend, Naima Simone [jenna bush book club .TXT] 📗

“So sad. Some people could do with a change—for the better,” Jenna jabbed with a sniff, before spinning on her platform heels and striding from the store, her lapdog right on her heels.

“No, what’s sad is she came in here with the sole purpose of dumping crap on you,” Leo raged. “And it’s even more pathetic that at her age she’s still a bully. Not a good look. She’s only halfway decent to me and Flo because she’s been panting after Cole like a dog in heat.” She sniffed. “I’d disown my brother if he ever even thought about dating her. Right after I put a beating on him.”

“And then castrate him,” Flo added with a snarl.

Sydney snickered, ignoring the nosedive her stomach took toward her feet at the mention of perfect, beautiful, non-pregnant Jenna with Cole.

“Meh.” She waved a hand toward the exit, pretending that the women’s barbs hadn’t struck deep. Pretending that in those moments, she hadn’t been hurled back to high school when she’d been the target of petty taunts and cruel words from Jenna and other students just like her.

Pivoting to face the other women, she shook her head, injecting a flippancy into her voice that veered so far from the truth, her pants should be on fire—if she were wearing any.

“My mother has a word for someone like her—mataray,” Cecille added. “And I’m not talking about her angelic disposition.”

“You really have to feel compassion for people like Jenna,” Sydney said with a shake of her head. “Bullies aren’t just born, they’re created. Can you imagine the misery, anger and pain a person must feel to always be so unhappy and mean? What must it have been like for her growing up in a household where perfection wasn’t just expected, but anything less wasn’t tolerated? The burden to live up to that impossible standard must be exhausting. I can see people taking their hurt and rage out on others. I get it.”

Leontyne, Cecille and Florence stared at her, wearing matching incredulous expressions.

“You really believe all that?” Leo blurted out.

“Maybe.” Sydney flip-flopped her hand back and forth. “But truthfully? She’s a bitch.”

Barks of laughter burst from the other three women, and Sydney grinned.

“Like I said, mataray,” Cecille announced, still chuckling. “Just for that, your next two ice cream cones are on the house.”

“Welcome home, Sydney,” Florence murmured, before scooping ice cream out of the tubs.

Leo wrapped an arm around Sydney’s shoulders, squeezing her close. She smiled her thanks to her friend for the silent show of support, but inside...

Inside, she ached.

Because the encounter with Jenna showed her in vivid Technicolor that some people in this town wouldn’t allow her to live down her past, to be the woman she’d matured into.

Moving back here...had she given her baby a fresh start or a life sentence?

CHAPTER EIGHT

“OOF.”

“No, no. Not the ice cream!”

Even before he heard the husky voice lamenting her dessert, Cole identified the person he’d bumped into, the person whose arms he currently grasped. The sultry scent of orchids—sweet chocolate and spicy citrus—teased him, soft but heady with a natural heat that he suspected emanated from smooth, beautiful skin. He smelled that scent in his sleep, woke up to it still in his nose. As impossible as it was, the sweat on his own skin captured its essence, coating him in that special fragrance. So yeah, he knew whose firm breasts pressed against his chest, whose thighs grazed his...whose rounded belly nudged his lower abdomen before he even looked down.

Cole ground his teeth together, and a dull ache bloomed along his jaw. But he forced himself to breathe past the first ripple of panic, the initial dissonant vibration of pain.

Not Tonia. Not Mateo inside her.

He silently chanted the mantra to himself for what seemed like hours but was only seconds. Still, by the time he lowered his head, the red-tipped emotional claws had gradually receded. Leaving bloody, ugly welts behind, but they’d receded.

Tight, dark brown curls grazed his throat and his chin. An almost too lush mouth tilted down at the corners. Espresso eyes narrowed on her outstretched arm and the hand that clutched a waffle cone with three scoops.

Whoa. Three scoops. Of different colors and flavors.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

The question caught them both off guard. Her head jerked back, her gaze locking with his. He hadn’t meant to ask, but that much ice cream? He recognized a DEFCON-3 situation when facing it.

“I have a mother and four sisters,” he explained. “I know emotional eating when I see it.”

A frown flirted with her eyebrows, but then she shrugged. “Fine,” she grumbled. “I’ll give you that one. Speaking of your sister, you just missed Leo. We had a dessert date.” Reeling the cone close, she gave the ice cream a long, self-indulgent lick.

Fuck.

Impossibly, he felt that lick straight up his dick. Felt that lustful moan vibrate down his flesh. If she’d been anyone else, he might’ve accused her of doing that on purpose. Of blasting fire through his veins and turning him into one massive, six-feet-plus, hungry ache.

Releasing his grip on her arms, he stepped back, interjecting much-needed space between them. He didn’t want to broadcast to Sydney the state of his rapidly hardening erection. Dammit, part of him wanted to snatch that offensive cone from her hand and hurl it across the street.

The other half demanded he reclaim the space he’d placed between them, curl one hand around the feminine flare of her hip and wrap the other around the fingers clutching the cone—and press it against her mouth, demanding she take another lascivious stroke. Put on a show for him.

Jesus.

He plowed a hand over his head, scrubbing his palm over his short hair. Where had that thought come from? Voyeurism had never been his kink, but damn if she couldn’t turn him onto that.

With ice cream.

This damn inconvenient and all wrong attraction to her was getting out of hand.

“I’m glad I bumped into you,” he said, dragging his filthy mind kicking and screaming from the edge