“You’re losing me.”
“It’s not about my birthday, but my life.”
“Definitely lost.”
“But it is what it is so I need to make the most of what I have, which isn’t much. I’ve got my work cut out for me.”
He pressed a finger to his temple, rubbed.
“Creative visualization is a beautiful thing. I will have my adventure, just you wait and see.”
“Back to shaking up things in Eden, huh?”
“I was planning to start tomorrow, but you know what they say…” She quirked a brow, waited.
“No time like the present?”
Her full lips curved into another of those loopy grins. “For the past year, I’ve spent every night in this bed alone. It would certainly break my blah, boring routine if you—”
“No.”
“—kissed me.”
Shit.
“It’s the least you could do.”
“For?”
“Refusing to be my first.”
He scratched his forehead, reflecting on the episode he’d sworn to take to his grave. “You were fourteen.”
She scrunched her brow. “So? How old were you when you first—”
“That’s different.”
“Why? Because you’re a guy? That’s a stupid argument,” she slurred, “but I’ll let it slide and point out that I am now thirty-two.”
“You’re also blitzed.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What if I was sober?”
“You’d still be Spenser’s little sister.”
She heaved a dramatic sigh. Then she stretched like a languid cat, teasing him with thoughts of Gumby flexibility.
“I know,” he said, only half kidding. “My loss.”
“My stinky birthday.” She stuck out her lower lip in a contrived but alluring pout.
He knew when he was being played. His ex had been a master manipulator. Not that Kylie was in Amanda’s league. Kylie was drunk. He scrambled for a graceful exit without hurting her feelings.
She mistook his hesitation as an invitation. “A pleasurable distinction,” she whispered, then pressed those pouty lips to his.
Soft. Sweet. Hot.
Holy shit.
He froze.
She sighed. “Thanks for the birthday kiss, Jack.”
He grappled for a casual response.
“Too bad I didn’t feel anything.”
CHAPTER THREE
ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE.
Hell would have been preferable.
As was his routine for the past seven years, Travis Martin rose at 6:00 a.m. He showered—using bargain-brand soap, shampoo and shaving cream. He dressed in Lee Dungarees Carpenter Jeans, a plaid shirt and beige work boots. Breakfast consisted of oatmeal, white toast and a cup of Folgers. He scanned the local newspaper while he ate. The only upset in this routine was the absence of his wife. She’d died three months earlier. Life had been difficult before. Now it was painful.
Still, Travis stayed the course.
At 7:00 a.m. he pinned on his name tag and tugged on a cap embroidered with his employer’s logo: Hank’s Hardware.
At 7:05 he was out the door of his run-down farmhouse and behind the wheel of his 1995 Chevy pickup. The truck, like his clothes, was nondescript. He blended with the male population of Eden. He was just another hardworking, blue collar stiff who occasionally attended church on Sunday mornings—not that he got anything out of the preacher’s sermons. Now and then he dropped by Kerri’s Confections where he indulged in doughnuts and coffee. What he really wanted was a cannoli and espresso, not that he ever asked. Once in a while, like most of the men in these parts, he made an appearance at Boone’s Bar and Grill, where he tossed back a couple of beers. Last night he’d been sitting at the end of the bar, nursing a bottle of Pabst and craving a glass of Chianti, when Kylie McGraw, who was typically as unassuming as himself, went a little oobatz. Unlike anyone else in Boone’s, Travis had empathized.
Like Kylie, he despised the tedium of this Midwestern mom-and-pop town.
Unlike Kylie, he had no intention of shaking things up. He’d flirted with danger a month earlier, a moment of weakness. A mistake he’d quickly rectified. Drawing attention to himself was not an option.
Or was it?
At 7:40, Travis parked his pickup in the alley behind the hardware store. He entered through the back door, traded greetings with his boss and two coworkers. He tidied his work station and skimmed new orders. He did everything exactly as he always did, only this morning, like that one unfortunate night, he couldn’t calm his inner self. His true self.
At 8:00 a.m., his boss opened for business and Travis struggled to maintain his composure, his wife’s last request ringing in his ears. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Unfortunately, as his loneliness and frustration escalated, the warning packed less punch.
CHAPTER FOUR
KYLIE WOKE UP WITH a blinding headache and a gross taste in her mouth. Her memory was splotchy, too, but it could have been worse. She could have woken up next to Ashe. Or she could have puked up her guts. Although, if she had slept with Ashe, she would have felt wretched and not because of a hangover. She didn’t care how good-looking he was, the man was a bed-hopping sleaze with a checkered past, and she had scruples.
She also had a stabbing pain behind her dust-dry eyeballs.
Who would have thought a trendy drink could be so lethal? Except she’d had three, four if you counted the third as a double, over a short period of time. She regretted taking a spill at Boone’s—not exactly a shining moment—and she sort of felt bad for lashing out at Max and gang. But she didn’t regret her vow to shake things up. She’d meant every word, well, the ones she remembered. At the very least, she could attack her own dull-as-dirt existence. She could be bold. She could take risks.
A moment blipped in her mind.
Her. Jack.
She smacked her forehead, winced.
“Stupid cosmos.”
She had a big-butt hangover and one mortifying memory. Her lame attempt at seducing Jack Reynolds. He’d resisted her flirting. He’d tolerated her kiss. She didn’t know what else to call it. He didn’t jerk back, but he didn’t reciprocate. But that wasn’t the shocker.
There’d been no spark!
Considering the Mount Fuji-size crush she’d had on the man for most of her freaking life, she’d expected to go up in flames the moment she’d sampled that sexy mouth. Instead, she’d felt nothing, nada, numb. Either the alcohol had obliterated her senses or she really was over him. Completely. She chose to believe the latter. Otherwise, living in the same town with him, again, would be torture.
She still couldn’t believe he’d moved back to Eden in the first place. He’d devoted his life to fighting the bad guy. Even as a kid, Jack had been the first to stand up to schoolyard bullies, usually in defense of others, because you’d have to be nuttier than a squirrel’s hoard to tangle with Jack Reynolds. He and Spenser were both motivated by macho protector instincts. Only Jack gravitated toward fighting crime in the big city, and Spenser had joined the fight