by Isabel North
If he was hanging around thirteen years from now when Kate headed off to college as a well-adjusted, secure, and happy young woman, then Jenny would revisit the question.
Until then?
“No to Derek.” Jenny had to raise her voice to be heard. The bar had filled up and was getting noisy. They’d arrived when it was still early, but by now the after-work crowd was looking to blow off steam from the long hard week.
“You may be the only woman under ninety in Emerson who would say no to Derek Tate,” Lila said.
“What can I tell you?” Jenny shrugged. “I don’t get the appeal.”
Lila threw back her head and laughed.
“I don’t!” Jenny giggled, then squinted at her margarita. It was her third, and should definitely be her last if she was giggling. Or maybe it was the thought of Derek that made her giggly. She scowled.
“Be honest,” Lila said. “Circle back to that naked-on-a-platter scenario. Derek Tate, naked before you. Seriously, you’d say, ‘No, thanks,’ to that?”
At the thought of Derek naked, Jenny’s heart tripped and her cheeks heated with a heavy, sudden throb.
“You realize,” Kurt said as he passed, “if I heard two guys discussing either of you like this, I wouldn’t take kindly to it?”
“Aww,” Jenny and Lila said in unison.
“Objectify me all you like,” Kurt said, “I have no problem with it. Can’t speak for Tate, though. How d’you think he’d feel, if he was standing behind you right now, listening to you talking about him naked?”
“Lila,” Jenny said, “I’m not sure, but I think the bartender just scolded us.”
Kurt gave her a dangerous smile. “Jenny Finley, if I ever get lucky enough to be the man who scolds you, trust me, you won’t be in any doubt. And I won’t be using words to do it.”
“He makes me want to be really naughty,” Lila said as Kurt moved off.
“He makes me consider it,” Jenny said. Big lie. Kurt intimidated the shit out of her. “Back to Derek.”
Lila dragged her attention from the crowded room behind Jenny to focus on her face. “Yes, indeed,” she said loudly. “Back to Derek.”
“I’m going to put this to rest once and for all. Are you ready? Here we go. I absolutely, categorically, do not see Derek Tate in a sexual way.”
Lila cocked her head to one side, her smile growing. “You want to know what I see when I look at Derek?”
“Not really.”
“I see six feet—” her eyelids flickered as she broke off, then continued, “—make that six feet and one inch of a body to die for, with eyes like a dark summer lake and a smile so dirty, you know he’s going to do something awful to you. Better yet, he’s gonna make you beg for it. And those dimples! I want to stick a finger in each of his dimples and my tongue in his mouth.”
“Hey, Derek,” Jenny said brightly, waving at a spot over Lila’s shoulder.
Lila didn’t even blink. “I’m not falling for that stupid he’s behind me prank. Enlighten me. I have to know. What do you see, if you don’t see what the rest of us do?”
“Honestly?”
“Honesty would be nice. But from you, when it comes to men and relationships and feelings, honesty would also be novel.”
Jenny pulled a face at Lila, took a sip of her drink, set it on the bar and said, “I see snot-bubble kid.”
“What?” Lila managed to choke out between laughs.
“Snot-bubble kid. When we were in elementary school, don’t you remember, he always had this little snot bubble. All the time. Like he had a cold, every day, and no one ever taught him how to blow his nose.”
“Wow. That’s…quite the image.”
“It’s what I see.” It was what she tried to see every time she ran into Derek which, in the last few months since he’d helped a friend of his repossess her furniture, was a lot.
“Quite the memory, too,” Lila said. “He was a year ahead of us. When did you keep seeing him and his snot bubble?”
“Mrs. Tate was one of Elle’s best clients, used to get Elle to babysit Derek all the time. You know how Elle always had to take me along on jobs with her. When she didn’t dump me with you and your mom, that is. I adored Mrs. Tate.”
“Jenny—” Lila said, mildly uncomfortable.
“I used to pretend she was my mother, did you know that? Yeah. Derek was definitely my favorite of Elle’s babysitting gigs.”
Lila clapped her hands. “Back to sex!”
Jenny eyed her. “Do you have a hormone problem?”
“I can see how you’d think that, but it’s just because I have hormones and you don’t seem to.”
Hah. Showed what Lila knew. Jenny could lust with the best of them. She just couldn’t act on it. “Can we change the conversation topic entirely please? How about we get back to my dirt and my big plans for moving dirt around in aesthetically pleasing ways?”
“I will allow a topic change. But only if you admit it, once and for all. Tell me, here and now, that you don’t see snot-bubble kid, you see the same gorgeous dream guy as I do when I look at Derek.”
“Fine. Yes.”
Lila opened her eyes wide, as if she hadn’t expected Jenny to ever admit it. “Yes?”
“Yes. Of course, yes. I see the same as you, I feel the same as you. Except for the fingering his dimples thing. That’s weird.”
Lila shrugged. “I like it weird. So, you admit you find Derek attractive?”
“Yes. I find Derek Tate incredibly attractive. He gives me butterflies in my stomach and X-rated feelings in other significant body parts.”
“See?” Lila leaned an elbow on the bar. “I told you she did.”
Jenny frowned. “What?”
“Not talking to you,” Lila said. “Talking to him. Hey, Derek.”
“I already played that prank, and you expect me to fall—” Jenny began.
At the same time, a deep voice with a familiar husky edge said behind her, “Evening, Lila.”
Jenny went rigid, and forgot to breathe.
A muscled forearm slid around her waist and pulled her back against a hard chest. She stared ahead, frozen, until a warm hand came beneath her chin and tilted her head up and back. She gazed into Derek’s amused face. “Jenny,” he said.
CHAPTER TWO
I am going to kill Lila. This time for real.
Jenny had grabbed Derek’s arm with both hands and was holding him against her rather than pushing him away. Shit. She tugged. Derek let her go at once. He released her chin before she got a chance to order him to, and stepped around her stool so she could see him without having to crane her neck.
Derek Tate, the man her heart and those other significant body parts wanted with a fierce, untamed longing. He also happened to be the man her head and every ounce of her hard-earned self-preservation instructed her to shoot down as hard as she could.
Derek was tall, with wide shoulders and lean hips, and long, powerful legs. He’d recently downgraded his usual biker beard to sexy scruff, which Jenny was secretly pleased about because she could see his dimples again. He’d also cut his unruly dark blond hair. It was still long enough to tie back if he felt the urge, and managed to find a hair tie robust enough to contain it. She was on the fence as to whether or not she approved.
“I suppose you heard all that,” Jenny said.
“I did.”
Fabulous. She knocked back the dregs of her margarita. “Ah, well. Don’t feel bad. You seem to have conquered the snot.”
“I was more interested in the fact that, despite all your statements to the contrary, you think I’m hot.”
Time to brazen it out. Jenny swiveled on the stool and leaned her back against the bar. She ran her eyes over him in an exaggerated, lingering assessment. “Course I do. What’s not to like?”
Derek’s lips hitched in an almost-smile. “You done? Or d’you want me to do a little twirl?”
“Would you?”
Damn it, he did, showing off a broad
back and a fantastic ass in worn denim. She cut a look at Lila, who fanned herself. Jenny felt a giggle rising in her chest, and squashed it ruthlessly.
Facing them again, Derek hooked his thumbs in his back pockets. “Verdict?”
“Someone’s been doing his squats and lunges. Or is it yoga? Pilates?”
“I lift weights, Jen, as you know—”
Jenny widened her eyes and shook her head at him, but it was too late.
“—since you saw me at the gym,” he said, dropping her in it.
“Wait, what?” Lila’s attention snapped to Jenny. “You went to the gym?”
“Just once.”
“Without me?”
“It was a one-time thing, Lila, I swear.”
“You said we’d go together!”
“Thanks a lot, Tate,” Jenny said. She turned to Lila. “I walked in the door, and I walked right back out. That’s it. I was there five minutes. Ten, tops. It doesn’t count. I bailed before I even touched any equipment. I didn’t even change!”
No. She’d dug deep, dredged up the courage to march through the doors and ask for an application form. She’d sat on a chair in the reception area, clicked the top of the complimentary pen, looked with casual interest through the enormous glass window into one of the workout rooms, and locked eyes with Derek.
He’d been doing bench presses at one of the weight stations. He sat up and wiped the sweat off his face with a small towel. He was straddling the weight bench, his T-shirt was plastered to his chest, and the tattoos on his arms gleamed under the bright lights.
He’d seemed surprised to see her there on the other side of the glass. At first. Then he smiled, as Derek always did when he saw her, but that smile had held enough raw heat and danger that Jenny dropped the pen and the clipboard, and she ran.
God, she’d felt like an idiot.
What had she been thinking, anyway? She hated gyms. Hated them.
Unlike Lila, who went every day, sometimes twice, and deserved the fantastic athlete’s body she had worked on for years.
Oh, right. She’d been thinking about Derek.
She’d been thinking about how his recent friendliness had tipped over into flirting, and how his flirting had been growing more and more serious. At the same time, her comebacks were either losing their power to keep him at arm’s length, or Jenny had stopped trying hard enough. She’d looked at her out-of-shape body in the bathroom mirror one morning, gone lightheaded at the idea of Derek seeing her like that, and decided that it was time to kick off the post-divorce makeover.
Then she’d seen Derek in the gym radiating strength and vitality, thought, Hell no, I’m never getting naked in front of that man, and ran.
“I cannot believe you went to the gym without me,” Lila was muttering.
“It was a mistake. A moment of insanity. I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again. Me and gyms are over. I do not belong there.”
Derek was watching her with a contemplative expression.
Trying to distract Lila, Jenny said, “Weren’t we talking about how sexy Derek is?”
He gave a rumbling laugh. “I’m sexy now? All your secrets are coming out tonight, Finley.”
“Kurt!” Jenny called. “I need another drink!”
Derek laughed again. “Nice to see you both. Jenny, thanks for the ego stroke. Lila, go easy on her.” Derek gave Lila’s shoulder a light squeeze. “Exercise isn’t for everyone.”
“Hey, I exercise,” Jenny said indignantly. “I’m a single mother, I run around all the time. I burn calories like an Olympian!”
“Uh-huh.” Derek lifted a hand and turned to go.
“I don’t like spandex,” Jenny said to his departing back. She raised her voice to make sure he heard over the noise of the crowd. “Doesn’t mean I’m unfit or don’t like to exercise. I love to exercise!”
“That went well,” Lila said.
Jenny tore her eyes off Derek, who’d made it across the room and joined a group of his friends.
“I don’t really mind about the gym thing,” Lila continued. “It was all for show. I thought maybe I should shut you guys down before people around you started having spontaneous orgasms from all the sexual tension you were throwing off. Sitting this close, I know I’ve had two. What about you, Kurt?”
* * * *
Derek kicked back and let the chatter and noise of the bar wash over him. He joined the boisterous conversation around the table now and then with a smile or a comment, but he was giving it—maybe—ten percent. The rest of his attention was all for Jenny Finley.
It was a surprise to see her at Kurt’s on a Friday night. The bar-restaurant was a popular hangout for Emerson residents of all ages, served great wings and better fries, but he rarely saw Jenny here. He rarely saw her at all. Mostly, he saw her running. Like that day at the gym.
Lila, of course, had noticed him come in and head in their direction. Being about as subtle as a brick to the face in her matchmaking, she’d tricked Jenny into the startling confession that she did, after all, find him attractive.
It was good to hear.
Derek gave zero shits about his looks, but he did care what Jenny thought of him. Although he didn’t even like to admit it to himself, her determined rebuffals had been starting to chafe.
Chafing aside, it was good to hear because he was desperately, endlessly, in love with the woman.
Now that she’d admitted she was attracted to him, and she knew that he knew it, Derek had something to work with.
As children, he and Jenny had been close. As teens they’d been friendly (him) yet distant (her). As adults, they’d only recently reconnected. It had not been under the best of circumstances.
He was repossessing her household goods at the time.
Although if you wanted to get picky about it, since Derek was a mechanic and not a repo agent and thus hadn’t been doing it legally, it counted as theft.
Which Jenny had accused him of. Many, many times.
At high volume.
But what else was he supposed to have done? A client and friend of Derek’s had come in to pick up his van before going to his next job. He’d asked Derek if he knew a Jenny Hansen, and was she the type to go after a guy when he showed up on her doorstep to strip her house of all valuable items to pay her ex-husband’s debts?
Derek had confirmed that yes, Jenny was indeed the type to go after a guy, and she was the kind of woman to do it with a baseball bat and a wicked aim, not her fingernails. Of course, Derek had offered to go along and help out, smooth things over.
He couldn’t abide the thought of the little girl he used to play with standing there crying—or wielding a baseball bat—while strangers dismantled her home. That Jenny had assumed he was a repo agent wasn’t his fault. And okay, he hadn’t bothered to clear up the misunderstanding, because she’d have thrown him out.
Happy to give her someone safe and familiar she could get angry with, Derek had let her think the worst.
Damn, did she get angry. Derek shifted on his seat, remembering her flushed cheeks and sparkling light-blue eyes. She’d been on crutches with a broken leg at the time, and she hadn’t needed a baseball bat to underscore her fury. She had managed to crack him in the shins three times before he’d laughingly wrestled the crutches away from her.
Derek hadn’t minded bearing the brunt of Jenny’s anger.
He’d preferred her anger, in fact. It had only lasted until she discovered that he hadn’t been there officially. What had followed was worse.
She’d dismissed him.
The harder Derek chased, the faster Jenny ran. Eventually, a man had to ask himself if he was barking up the wrong tree.
Going on tonight’s confession, coupled with the looks she kept shooting him across the bar, he guessed not.
Game on, then.
CHAPTER THREE
“Am I boring you?” Lila said.
Jenny jerked upright, opening her eyes wide. “What? No.”
Lila yawned.
“Just boring myself, then? Cool.”
Jenny echoed the yawn, covering her mouth with the back of her hand. She blinked rapidly. “What time is it? And did I fall asleep in the nachos?”
Lila checked her phone. She pulled a face. “Ugh. This is pathetic. It isn’t even ten.”
“And the nachos?” Jenny patted her hair, checking for salsa.
“It’s possible. Pretty sure I was talking to Kurt at twenty after nine, which leaves approximately fifteen minutes unaccounted for, during which we may have both fallen asleep.”
Sitting there like a pair of old ladies on a park bench having a nap in the sun. Awesome. “We are total rock stars,” Jenny said.
“Right?” Lila examined Jenny’s hair. “All clear. No salsa. No cheese.”
Jenny yawned again. “I don’t think we’ll be closing the bar down tonight, Lila.”
“Thank God. I was in the office at six this morning. I want to go to bed so bad.” She broke off to watch Kurt walk past. When she didn’t say anything more, he stopped and stared at her for a second, shook his head, and walked on. “You see that?” Lila drooped and rested her forehead on the arms she’d crossed on the shiny wood. “I couldn’t even make it into a dirty comment to tempt Kurt. And that one was easy.”
“You won’t hate me if I float the suggestion we wrap this up?”
“Bless you, no.”
“We are still rock stars, though?”
“Yep.”
“Good. For a moment there, I thought we were a worn-out old part-time student slash part-time garden center employee slash full-time mother, and a workaholic gym bunny.”
“I take offense at that term.” Lila slid off her stool. “I am not a workaholic.” She smoothed down her shirt. “And you’re not old.”
Jenny felt it, though. Man, did she feel it.
“Also, lest we forget, I am no longer a student,” Jenny said. Lila held up a hand and they high-fived.
Getting a bottle of tequila down from the top shelf, Kurt glanced over and winced at their clumsy almost-miss. “Neither of you are driving home. Gimme your keys. I’ll call a cab.”
