Jump Start (Texas Hotzone 1)

The “feist” in Marcie’s feisty faded. “Yes,” she said softly.

“How long?”

“Several years now,” Marcie said, dropping her bombshell.

Had her heart stopped beating? Had the room gone utterly silent? “For several years?”

“He does care,” Marcie repeated. And then, softening her voice, she added, “He worries about you.”

Jennifer stared at her. Then she looked away, arms folding in front of her, memories refusing to be shoved away. Even after all these years, she could remember their first kiss as if it was yesterday. Bobby had moved from San Antonio, and like herself, was attending the University of Texas in Austin, or they might never have met. They’d met on the university campus—Jennifer walking her golden retriever, Bobby walking his German shepherd. The dogs had become fast friends; she and Bobby had become fast lovers. Her fingers raised to her mouth, remembering their first kiss, then dropped with that bittersweet memory.

The sound of snapping pulled her out of her reverie. “Hello?” Marcie said, fingers in front of her face.

Shaking herself mentally, Jennifer refocused on Marcie. Bobby had become like a big brother to Marcie; they were close. Of course they talked. Jennifer didn’t want to be selfish—that Marcie felt she had to hide her relationship with Bobby said she had been.

“I’m sorry,” Jennifer said, meaning it. “This is your wedding and if you want him here, you deserve to have him here. And I’ll wear the yellow-green dress with a smile.” Just don’t press me to deal with Bobby, she pleaded silently.

Marcie seemed to read between the lines, a look of understanding sliding across her face. “Thank you, Jen,” she murmured.

Reaching across the bar, Jen squeezed Marcie’s arm and plastered on a bright smile that didn’t quite make it to her eyes. “Two short weeks and you’ll be a married woman.”

Marcie all but glowed as she glanced across the crowded room to where Mark Snyder, her fiancé, chatted with a table of customers. Mark and Marcie, the two M’s, often joked about. The two lovers. “Yeah,” Marcie said in the midst of a dreamy sigh.

Mark looked up as if he felt Marcie’s eyes on him and then motioned for her to join him. Obediently, Marcie darted from behind the bar. Jennifer sighed in relief, happy to have a few minutes alone.

Grabbing her purse, she decided she’d go freshen up. A little mascara, a dab of powder, and she would have a new mind-set. Her plan intact, she swiveled around on the bar stool and started to slide off.

The minute her feet hit the wood floor, she was stopped dead in her tracks as she crashed into a rock-hard chest. She stood stunned for a long moment as strong hands, familiar and warm, settled on her arms and sent an electric charge pinging around inside her, awareness instant, hot. Her body knew what her mind desperately burned to reject. Bobby Evans was standing in front of her. Touching her. The scent of him, rawly male, intensely masculine, and so damn arousing, insinuated into her senses. Seeped through to her bones.

Slowly, her eyes traveled upward, taking in his towering six-foot-three frame—first sliding over denim-clad hips, then a soft black tee, a broad defined chest and finally his longish, fair hair that framed intense blue eyes. Those eyes now connected with hers. The impact was nothing shy of a head-on, steam-engine collision. Hot and hard. Just like his body and their sex life.

He was older now, a man fully developed and now thirty. Time had served him well; he was bigger, broader and even more appealing than before—tanned with fine lines around his eyes that spoke of experience, depth. And a life she hadn’t been a part of.

“Hey, Jen.” His voice was a deep baritone; his tone, intimate. Familiar. The same tone he’d used when he’d whispered naughty things in her ear during lovemaking.

She swallowed a sudden tickle in her throat. The things she had done with Bobby were, well…beyond pleasure. They were downright delicious. The man had a way of stripping away inhibitions and leaving nothing but the two of them, alone in the world. But that was then, and this was now.

“Bobby?” she asked, as if she were surprised. Well, she was, actually—surprised, that was. Which was something she’d be taking up with Marcie, wedding or not.

“You look good, Jen,” he said, in an embarrassing reminder that she had on her softest, most worn Levi’s and a pink T-shirt that said I love my cat, and that was about it. No jewelry. Not even fancy shoes.

It was that kind of day. A Thursday she wouldn’t soon forget. She’d put down a dog that morning, one she’d treated for years, and watched the owner bawl like a baby. Exactly why she’d been anticipating this daiquiri and some laughs. But she’d made it through that, and she would make it through seeing Bobby again.