The Groom Wanted Seconds: A Novella

by Shirley Jump

  THE GROOM

  WANTED SECONDS

  A SWEET AND SAVORY PREQUEL

  BY SHIRLEY JUMP

  Copyright Information

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2012 by Shirley Jump

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  eISBN: 978-1-937776-42-8

  Also by Shirley Jump

  Check out the entire Sweet and Savory Novel series:

  The Groom Wanted Seconds (Prequel)

  The Bride Wore Chocolate

  The Devil Served Desire

  The Angel Tasted Temptation

  Special Christmas Novella (Dec 2012)

  Other books by Shirley:

  Really Something

  The Bachelor Preferred Pastry

  Around the Bend

  The Other Wife

  Return of the Last McKenna

  Simply the Best

  Visit Shirley online at www.ShirleyJump.com or follow her on Twitter @ShirleyJump!

  www.SweetandSavoryRomances.com

  Table of Contents

  THE GROOM WANTED SECONDS

  Copyright Information

  Also by Shirley Jump

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Excerpt from The Bride Wore Chocolate (Sweet and Savory, Book 1)

  Excerpt from The Devil Served Desire (Sweet and Savory, Book 2)

  Excerpt from The Angel Tasted Temptation (Sweet and Savory, Book 3)

  Author Bio

  1 8-ounce package cream cheese, well softened

  1 10-ounce can chunk chicken (or 10 ounces cooked and shredded chicken)

  1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce

  1/2 cup blue cheese dressing

  1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles

  1 8-ounce bag shredded colby-jack cheese

  Cooking isn’t your thing, so this dump and bake dish is perfect, especially when you’re still trying to figure out why she ended it and whether there’s any hope you can win her back. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a 1-quart casserole, mix the cream cheese, chicken, sauce, dressing, blue cheese and most of the colby-jack. Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese on top.

  Then sit back and wallow, or write really bad poetry, while it bakes for 20 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips, celery sticks, carrot sticks—whatever works to fill that gaping hole in your life. And if you’re serving it with beer, remember it’s never a good idea to mix alcohol and bad decisions.

  CHAPTER 1

  He was a fool.

  Jeremy Hamilton realized that fact about five minutes after Rebecca Wilson broke up with him, on a warm early summer day three months ago. Still, he’d let her go, figuring that was the best choice all around. She didn’t want him. Not anymore.

  It hurt like hell to watch her head out of his apartment and hop into her car. As Rebecca left, the skies began to darken, a storm rolling in, a poetic exclamation point on the end of their relationship—if one was the kind of guy who thought in poetic terms. Jeremy, as logical as Spock, saw the storm as a shifting in barometric pressure and nothing more. All his life, he’d been able to puzzle out the whys and wherefores. Except when it came to Rebecca.

  They’d been dating for over a year, while he tried to juggle his last semester in college, along with work and some semblance of a life. They’d been crazy and chaotic months, leaving Jeremy feeling like a giant piece of salt water taffy in a preschoolers’ tug of war.

  The day she broke up with him, Rebecca said she’d gotten tired of being the next thing to cross off an ever growing list. She’d kissed him on the cheek, handed over his favorite sweater, then walked out of his apartment and out of his life.

  Then why was he here in her neighborhood three months later, crossing the street, heading toward her house, when she’d made it clear they were over? What was he thinking?

  That being without Rebecca had been hell, and if there was even a .00001 chance she’d take him back, he’d risk it.

  “Yo, Jeremy! What are you doing here?”

  He turned to see Rebecca’s cousin Will leaning on the fence that separated his house from Rebecca’s. Will was almost thirty, still lived at home, and talked like he was fifteen. He was working on mastering some skateboarding game on Playstation. Everybody had to have a goal in life, and Will’s was to beat Tony Hawk in virtual reality. “How you doing, Will?”

  “Good, good. Taking a break. I got a wrist injury when I twisted the damned controller the wrong way.” He wriggled his arm. “Makes those ollies wicked hard to master.”

  “I bet.” Whatever ollies were. Jeremy turned back to Rebecca’s.

  “Uh, you thinking of visiting Rebecca? I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Will said.

  “Why not?”

  Will let out a long-suffering sigh and leaned over the fence, resting his arms on the dog-eared posts. “Dude, it’s like ProSkater. Sometimes you gotta know when to go for the Fingerflip Airwalk and when to skate away, because you haven’t got enough air to land it.”

  “Uh…okay.”

  Will threw up his hands. “Well, don’t say I didn’t try to do you a solid. Anyway, I gotta get back in and work on my Kickflip McTwist.”

  Jeremy hesitated on the walkway. He debated taking Will’s advice and turning around. Giving up on an already lost cause. After all, he’d done okay without her the last few months, hadn’t he?

  If one defined “okay” as suffering like a caffeine addict put on a diet of decaf only. For the first week after Rebecca left, he had done what any suddenly single bachelor did—partied like a rock star with his friends, flirted like hell with every leggy blonde that crossed his path, and in general, acted like an idiot.

  The second week she was gone, the partying lost its allure. So he threw himself into his job instead, hammering out the hours at the engineering firm that had hired him as an unpaid summer intern, keeping his head down and his nose to the grindstone. Y2K was only a few months away, and while the firm scrambled to prepare for any kind of possible what-if, Jeremy tried to make his mark in a company where the senior engineers called him “kid.”

  The third week she was gone, he had to unplug his phone to keep from calling her mother to find out where Rebecca had gone and when she was coming back. He’d taken to going on long, punishing runs along what used to be their route by the Charles River. Instead of an endorphin high, the runs left him with the urge to write lovesick poetry that would have made Edgar Allen Poe cry.

  By the end of the summer, he told himself he was okay. And better off without her in his life. He’d asked a couple women out on dates and pretended to have a good time. He and Rebecca were over, and that was what he wanted.

  He didn’t have room in his days for a relationship like that, not when he was trying hard to get a grip on the career ladder. Without Rebecca, he could concentrate on impressing the boss at Griffin Engineering. Yeah, that was exactly why he’d gone to see Star Wars Episode I three times in one week. Because he was fine, just fine.

  Then he pulled into his grandmother’s driveway on a Monday night in early September and saw Rebecca’s car parked outside her mothe
r’s house down the street, and he realized everything he’d told himself was a lie. He was a fool for letting her go, and getting her back was the only thing he wanted.

  So now he stood on the stoop outside her mother’s house, cursing himself for being here while nerves bubbled in his gut, and he wondered if maybe he should just go next door and spend his life mastering virtual skateboarding with Will instead.

  He pressed the doorbell button and heard the notes chime. Damn. He should have brought flowers or something. But then he would have looked like he was trying too hard—

  Or would she have liked that? No, Rebecca wasn’t given to overly romantic gestures. She liked things simple, as predictable as straight lines. No need for the fluff of a Hollywood movie. It was part of what had brought them together—him, with his linear engineer’s mind and Rebecca with her no-nonsense approach to everything. She was in business school, for God’s sake. It didn’t get less fluff and flowery than that.

  The oak door opened. Rebecca’s green eyes widened when she saw him, and the nerves in his gut multiplied. Her pink lips formed into a little, enticing O, and she raised a quick hand to brush a tendril of dark brown hair off her forehead. She wore little makeup, and had on a pale yellow Suffolk U T-shirt paired with silky navy running shorts that showed her amazing legs and tanned arms. She’d never looked sexier or more desirable.

  God, he’d missed her.

  “Jeremy.” Her voice was flat, as unemotional as if he was the mailman. “What…what are you doing here?”

  For a second, his mind went blank. He hadn’t thought beyond ringing the bell. So far, his plan for getting her back scored a giant goose egg. “I came down to mow my Grandma’s lawn, then I saw your car in the drive. I didn’t realize you were back.”

  “Just got home today.”

  “Oh. Good.” Way to play the lame card, Jeremy. He cleared his throat. Acting like a lovesick fifteen-year-old wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “Did you have a good vacation?”

  Oh yeah, much better. That kind of sophisticated talk was going to get him his own plaque in the Lame Hall of Fame.

  “Yeah.” She glanced back over her shoulder, and he wondered if she had company. A new boyfriend?

  The thought pained him. It wasn’t like they were still together, or like he’d been a monk in the weeks she’d been gone, but still the thought of another man kissing Rebecca’s lips, holding Rebecca tight…

  Coming over here had been a bad idea. A really bad idea.

  That didn’t stop him from making it worse. He blamed it on the desire that simmered inside him, a pilot light that had never gone out, despite their breakup and the months apart. He still wanted her, as much as he had the first time they’d kissed. He ached to reach out and touch her, but kept his hands shoved into his pockets. Will had warned him against attempting this Kickflip McTwister, or whatever he’d called it. Maybe the gamer knew something Jeremy didn’t.

  Jeremy shot Rebecca a grin, the kind he hoped said hey, we still have something between us, don’t we? “Since you’re back in town now, maybe we could grab some dinner tonight?”

  She shook her head. “We broke up, remember? Going out to dinner wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  He tried another tactic, even as he could feel failure waiting over his head like an executioner’s axe. “I just wanted to catch up. See how your summer went.”

  “It was…fine.” Something in her tone told him that the past three months had been anything but fine. Because she’d missed him? Or because she regretted returning to Boston?

  “You know, Lockhart is conducting at the Pops on Friday night. They’re doing a jazz themed show and—”

  “I’m sorry, Jeremy. I can’t. Thanks for stopping by.” She started to shut the door.

  He put out his hand, to stop the door, feeling the mistake even as he made it, and unable to stop himself. All he could do was stare at the pretty pink of her lips and wonder how the hell he let this woman get away. “Rebecca, let’s at least talk about this. We—”

  “Are over. Goodbye, Jeremy.”

  Then the door shut and she was gone. The latch clicked into place. The sound ricocheted in his head.

  Damn. He was too late. He’d let too much time go by before contacting Rebecca. If her cold and distant tone hadn’t clued him in, then all he had to look at was the closed door in his face—clear, final, no other way to interpret it. They were done.

  The logical side of his brain told him to let her go, to move on, to cut his losses. The statistical chances of them working it out were in the low teens. Only a fool took on a lost cause like that. And Jeremy Hamilton had already been fool enough when it came to Rebecca Wilson.

  Trouble was, he was a fool who was still in love. And like a hoarse pop star trying to launch a hit record, he kept on pursuing a lost cause, long after his best chance at success had passed him by.

  2 pounds ground round

  1 green pepper, chopped

  1 onion, chopped

  2 cloves garlic, minced

  1 8-ounce can tomato sauce

  8 ounces water

  1-3 tablespoons chili powder

  1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

  1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

  1/2 teaspoon oregano

  1 teaspoon ground cumin

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 16-ounce can kidney beans, drained and rinsed, optional

  You’ve made a few bad choices over the last few months, and now all that regret is giving you indigestion. Try something spicy to take your mind off things you can’t change. You’ll wake up your palate, and get your metabolism roaring (which means more room for Girl Scout cookie calories later!). In a Dutch oven, brown the ground beef with the onion, pepper and garlic. Drain off fat (you don’t need those calories to add to your guilt, now do you?).

  Add remaining ingredients, except for the kidney beans. Simmer slowly for about 45 minutes (or you can put it in a crock-pot for 4-6 hours on low if you have all day to wait). Add beans and heat through. If you have a lot of regrets to sweat away, increase cayenne pepper and/or chili powder until the heat level is enough to get you out of your seat and moving forward again.

  CHAPTER 2

  Rebecca closed the door, leaned her head against it and took in a deep breath. Her chest ached, tears seared the back of her eyes. Her hand rested on the knob, but she didn’t turn it. Didn’t undo the decision.

  He’d had his chance in the year they’d dated, and he’d blown it. And the sad part? He probably didn’t even realize where he’d gone wrong.

  She’d changed in the months since. Changed in good ways, and in bad, but most of all changed in what she wanted from a relationship.

  “Did I hear the doorbell ring?”

  Rebecca jerked upright, and swiped at her eyes before turning around to face her mother. “Uh, yeah, it was the doorbell.”

  “Was it UPS?” Ma asked. “I’m waiting on a shipment from QVC. I’ve been in a vicious bidding war for Beanie Babies on eBay.” She pressed a hand to the chest of her pink sweatsuit, as if the other bidder might show up at any time with an auction gavel and outgun her for a Twigs the Giraffe. Contrasted by the pale yellow tint in her hair, the bright clothes gave her mother the effect of being a human dish of sherbet. Rebecca loved her mother, quirks and all, but right now, she wasn’t in the mood to talk about deliveries or doorbells or anything.

  “They’re not making them anymore, you know,” her mother went on. “I have to scoop up what I can.”

  “Ma, you already have like a hundred.”

  “Two hundred and twenty one. But when you have children,” Gloria wagged a finger, “you’ll thank me.”

  Rebecca doubted that, nor did she think her mother would ever let her stuffed beanbag collection out of the hermetically sealed boxes she kept them in. “No, it wasn’t UPS. It was…” she thought of saying Jeremy, then realized that would launch her mother into prying mode, so instead she said, “no one.”

  “No one?” her
mother said. “Well, someone rang the doorbell. I doubt it’s that little demon spawn from next door. He’s not tall enough to reach the doorbell yet.”

  “Ma! You can’t call someone’s kid a demon spawn.”

  “If the name fits the behavior, you can. You remember what he did to the neighbor’s pug. That poor dog was pink for weeks.” Gloria shook her head. “Never let a four-year-old near the Rit Dye.”

  Rebecca laughed. “This coming from the woman who believes hair should be technicolor?”

  Gloria grinned, and pressed a hand to her yellow pouf. “I’m making a statement.”

  Rebecca shook her head. Her mother was unique, in a thousand ways. She’d never really fit in back in Heavendale, Indiana, where Rebecca grew up. Then her father had taken a job with the airlines, and they’d moved to Boston when Rebecca was in high school. With her bright hair, wild outfits and exuberant personality, Gloria had fit right into the community, like a peg in the right hole.

  “You okay, honey?” her mother asked, placing a cool palm against Rebecca’s cheek. “You look a little pale.”

  “I’m fine. Just…tired from traveling.” Seeing Jeremy had been a lot harder than she’d expected. All summer, she’d told herself she was over him, and then he’d come to her door with that lopsided grin of his, and doubts had wormed their way into her better judgment.

  No, she wouldn’t cave. She’d focus on something else—anything else—and if she did that long enough and hard enough, Jeremy would become a distant, pleasant memory.

  “Anyway,” Rebecca said to her mother, “I have to get ready. I’m meeting the girls for coffee.”

  Good timing, she decided, because coming back home and seeing Jeremy before she even unpacked her bags had left her unsettled. Heck, she’d been feeling that way for weeks. One mistake—