Stef Ann Holm, Lucy Back [paper ebook reader .TXT] 📗

to do that now. She wanted him in her bed. She wanted to please him, make him love her again the way he used to.

Damn him.

Jacquie hated when she got like this. No man had ever made her lose her self-dignity, but Drew shook her up. Any woman in her right mind would have moved on to warmer sheets when she realized hers were only warm on her cue. When she thought about it, she’d been the one making passes at him lately. He no longer elicited sex from her. That irked and upset her.

She didn’t think he was sleeping with anyone else. Then again, at night when she had insomnia, her mind ran wild. A few times, she’d thrown the covers off, gotten in her Jaguar and driven by Drew’s house just to see if the Hummer was in the circular drive. It always was and that appeased her, but only for a short time.

The reality was, she was losing him.

And like a bad habit that a person’s hung on to for so long, the very idea was like giving up her best friend.

Drew understood her. With him, she could be vulnerable and show him sides of her she’d never show in town or with others. To have to give up that comfort, to start over with someone else and to learn a new man’s body and teach him how to do what she liked in an intimate situation…well, the effort was too great and she just didn’t want to go there.

She liked the man she had now.

Opal brought over the coffee, topped off Jacquie’s cup and poured one for Drew.

“Drew, you know anything about a backed-up sink?” Opal asked.

Jacquie gritted her teeth. Opal Harvey had to be a dozen years older than Drew, with Olive Oyl legs and peroxide-blond hair. A cigarette always dangled out of the corner of her mouth when she was in the fry kitchen, and she had learned to bark orders around it without a single cherry falling onto the grill. Why the owner had to always come out and wait on Drew personally agitated Jacquie no end. Holy Mary Mother of God. Didn’t any woman in Red Duck or Timberline not find her boyfriend the best thing under the Christmas tree?

And what in the hell would Drew know about plumbing, anyway?

“No, sugar, I wouldn’t know about a backed-up sink,” Drew replied, pouring a healthy amount of cream into his coffee. “I’d call a plumber.”

“I’ll just do that. Good advice.”

Rolling her eyes, her fingers rubbing together, craving a smoke between them, Jacquie decided Opal was a twit.

Good advice? Who wouldn’t have said to call a plumber? Good Lord.

“Opal, I’m in a rush today.” Jacquie piped up, tapping her shoe beneath the table before nudging the pointed tip up the leg of Drew’s athletic pants. “Bring me a toasted bagel.”

“What can I get for you, Drew?” Opal asked, her light blue eyes trained on him.

“Uh, let’s see.” He made a show of looking at the menu in the metal holder on the table. The menu’s vinyl-coated surface had splatters of ketchup and sticky spots of syrup on it. Colorfully photographed meals on white plates appeared on the front and back, including breakfasts, which were served all day long. Little jelly tins and gooey bottles of flavored syrups sat in a rack by the menus, along with salt and pepper and Tabasco sauce.

“I’ll go with a steak today along with the usual.”

“Coming right up.”

Opal practically ran to the kitchen to shake a leg.

Momentarily forgetting to watch her posture, which Jacquie usually made a habit of so her boobs wouldn’t look smaller than they were, she plopped her chin on her hand and stared at Drew. He shrugged as if he didn’t know shit.

He knew exactly how it was.

Everybody in town loved Drew Tolman. He was a star athlete, the man men looked up to and woman threw themselves at. It didn’t matter that he’d left baseball in the middle of a season. Nobody, not even Jacquie, knew the real truth as to why. It had something to do with a big steroid scandal and him supposedly pumping up on the stuff, but whenever she’d got remotely close to prying, he switched the subject.

He leaned into the burgundy booth, put an arm over the back of it and stretched out real comfortable-like. Jacquie knew that beneath that old shirt was a smooth chest that just begged for a woman’s palms to explore it. In the right light, every slab of sinew and muscle looked twice as defined. He had six-pack abs, a narrow waist and lean thighs that she just loved to straddle.

“So how’s your day going?” he asked, leaning forward to clink a dishwasher-bent metal spoon in the chipped coffee cup.

Straightening, Jacquie thrust out her chest and smiled. “Great, thanks. What about yours?”

“Just starting. So far, so good. I’m heading over to the Little League field when I’m done here. Park and Rec said we were getting in some new equipment today and I want to check it out.”

Drew lived for baseball. While he didn’t play professionally anymore, he lived and breathed it, and, while she hated to admit it, she admired him for that. He had a passion. She understood that. She felt the same way about selling real estate. She got to go into homes she’d never see, list them for obscene prices, then watch the investment buyers line up and the money pour in. Not bad for a girl who started out her life in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

“When’s the new season start?” she asked, not really caring, but wanting to be pleasant. She was hoping to get through this breakfast real quick, then take a spin over to her house for a ride on her bed.

“Next Wednesday.”

“That’s my birthday.” She blurted out the reminder, then bit her tongue. Dammit, she wasn’t going to mention it. A lady never dangled something like that in front of her man. He should know. It should be branded