CHAPTER 4
Laken
“What are you doing here?” Pap asks with a smile as I saunter into Chesty’s and take the seat normally reserved for Trixie. I’ve closed shop for the day and want to hang out with my favorite grandpa. Well, he’s my only grandpa, but he’d be my favorite if he weren’t.
“I feel sorry for you, old man,” I quip as I give a chin lift to Sam-Pete behind the bar to indicate I want a beer. “Now that your favorite granddaughter has abandoned you for love, I’ve decided to take her spot.”
Pap snorts, picking up his draft that’s sitting in front of him to take a sip. It’s true… Trixie is his favorite grandchild. She was the first, and they always had the closest bond. I mean… Pap loves all five of us Mancinkus kids, but he always had a special sparkle in his eyes for Trixie. We don’t begrudge her that at all, as there’s plenty of love to go around in our family. We may be a wild bunch and bicker all the time, but we are deeply devoted to each other.
Ever since Trixie hooked back up with her first true love, Ry Powers, her seat at the bar has been collecting cobwebs. Over the last month, the remaining four Mancinkus kids have all been taking turns to come hang out with Pap when Trixie can’t. He’s not stupid. He knows what we’re doing.
Which is why I told him exactly why I was here when he asked.
Sam-Pete sets my draft beer in front of me, and Pap pays him. I let him because I don’t feel like arguing. It’s been a long day, and I’ve got an early start tomorrow. While the vet clinic is closed, I promised Lowe and Mely I’d be at their house for an early morning delivery of 4x4s. Lowe’s going to build a sunroom on the back of the kitchen that overlooks Crabtree Creek that runs behind Mainer House. He’s off with Mely to New York for a long weekend to visit with her bestie Morri, so I volunteered to stay at their house to accept the shipment.
“How’d your new employee work out today?” Pap asks, and I don’t even have to look at him to know he suppressed a cackle with that question. I’m sure he finds it hilarious I had Jake work off his bill to me.
“He actually wasn’t all that bad,” I tell him before taking a long pull off my beer. “He refused to express anal glands, but it was a long shot at best I’d get him to agree to do it.”
Pap chuckles, and I hear it clearly. The music won’t start cranking loud in here until the evening hours.
I wait for his laughter to die down, but it doesn’t.
Finally, I turn to look at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Just… you could have had so much fun torturing him today if you’d been thinking about it,” Pap says with another snicker. “Made him do all sorts of nasty stuff.”
“Nah,” I say with a smile as I turn back to my beer. “He turned out to be a nice guy, even if he’s a little clueless when it comes to farming.”
“He’s a Ravens fan,” Pap says, and my head whips his way.
“What?” I ask with a sneer. I’m as diehard of a Steelers fan as Pap is, and we abhor the Ravens and those who cheer for them.
Pap nods. “He was born and raised in Baltimore. But in fairness, he’s also a Bears fan now that he’s adopted Chicago as his hometown.
Well, that was more palatable at least.
“You got all of this when he came in to grab lunch today?” I ask curiously, knowing that as outgoing as Pap is, he’d have gotten as much scoop as possible.
“That was about it,” Pap says. “The order was ready since you’d called it in. But I do know something else that he didn’t have to tell me.”
“What’s that?”
“He played professional football for the Bears,” Pap says slyly, and my eyebrows shoot up.
“He did?”
Pap nods confidently. “Recognized him. In fact, I would have recognized him from his college days at University of Southern California where he was one of the best linebackers in college football. He was a first-round draft pick for the Bears, and he played four years there.”
I don’t doubt Pap in the slightest. The man may bleed black and gold for his beloved Pittsburgh teams, but he knows everything about all sports. If he’s not watching the news, he’s watching ESPN. He can talk everything from tennis to NASCAR to soccer, and about a million different sports that range in between.
“Explains why he’s so big.” Big and muscley and gorgeous.
“Ruptured an Achilles tendon, I seem to remember,” Pap says as he taps a finger to his chin. “An injury you can sometimes come back from, but he didn’t. Must have been pretty bad.”
Very interesting. So Mr. McDaniel was a college football standout, an NFL linebacker, and now someone who made enough money that he needed major tax deductions. The whole football thing makes him infinitely more attractive, and I know that’s so totally shallow. But I don’t care, and for two reasons.
I’ll most likely never see Jake McDaniel again. More importantly, I just don’t care if I’m a shallow ogler of men. It’s the way I am, and I love my carefree life of casual dating. When there’s a good enough connection, I’m not above a very casual hookup, either.
It’s the way I prefer it.
“Speak of the devil,” Pap mutters, and I turn to him. He isn’t looking at me, though, rather at the door.
When I glance over my shoulder, I’m surprised to see Jake walk in. His gaze sweeps the bar and comes to land on Pap and me. With a genial smile, he walks our way and I take a moment to do what I do best when there’s a good-looking man around.
I check him out.
He’s wearing a different pair of jeans. The ones at work today were faded, but these are dark denim. A black V-neck fits his bulging muscles like a second skin, along with a matching black leather belt and some fancy-looking black shoes that don’t belong on a farm or in Whynot.
“Good evening, Pap… Laken,” he says as he sidles up to the bar on my right, looking over my head at Pap who sits to the left of me.
“Jake,” Pap says genially.
But I blurt out, “You played professional football?”
Jake blinks in surprise before smiling down at me. “Yup. Four years with the Bears. How did you know that?”
I thumb over my shoulder at Pap. “He recognized you.”
“Are you impressed?” Jake asks with a waggle of his eyebrows, and then turns to Sam-Pete to order a beer before he gets an answer.
When he looks back at me, I wrinkle my nose. “You’re a Ravens fan. Not much about you impresses me now that I know that.”
Rather than be offended, Jake gives a bark of a laugh and I’m charmed by the twinkle of amusement in his eyes. No joke. Steelers and Ravens fans don’t generally get along, but he seems completely cool with it.
“You’re cute when you’re all worked up about your football, but I’m not overly competitive these days,” Jake explains. “If the Ravens win, that’s awesome. If they don’t, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Once I left football behind, I left it behind.”
“But how could you do that?” I ask curiously, because I thought all professional athletes had it in their DNA to play their sport until they were dragged off the field in a wheelchair or something.
“Because I had other stuff I wanted to do in my life,” he says with a shrug. Sam-Pete brings Jake his beer, and he takes a moment to pay him. “I had a degree and a desire to go back to school for another one. Football was a big part of me, but it wasn’t my entire life.”
“Were you sad when you had to give it up?”
“Yeah,” he admits with a smile. “It was an amazing part of my life. My team was like my extended family.”
“So what exactly do you do now?” I ask, turning my back completely on Pap. He won’t take this as rude because A) Pap indulges all of his grandkids, and B) he’s never at a loss for companionship. Someone will meander up to him to discuss the farm report over a beer, or even a heated discussion about baseball.
Jake slides an empty barstool over and sits down. He turns to face me, resting a foot on the rail along the bottom of the bar, and casually perches his arm on the top. “Manufacturing. Computer chips to be exact.”
“I thought all of that was pretty much done in China now?”
He appraises me for a minute before he says, “A gorgeous and smart lady who’s up on current world market trends. Interesting.”
I smirk at him, trying to ignore the flutter low in my belly that he thinks I’m gorgeous. That’s the first indication he’s given of any interest outside of rounding up wayward goats. Not that it makes a difference… seeing how he’s leaving tomorrow.
“China manufactures a great deal of component parts for the largest computer manufacturers in the world,” he says, “but that’s mostly for consumer products. My company deals in parts for the business side.”
“Interesting,” I say with a sincere smile. Learn something new every day. But I’m curious about something else. “How did your interview with Jenks go?”
“I hired him,” Jake says confidently. “He gave a great interview, had the necessary skills to keep the farm running, and actually had a legitimate reason why he didn’t show up to work for you on Friday.”
This surprises the hell out of me so much that my shoulders jerk back defensively. “What could possibly be a good excuse?”
“He said he gave his notice to you in writing two weeks ago,” Jake tells me, and my mind spins. There’s no way. I would have remembered that. I jerk again when he adds, “Said he put it on your desk with a stack of mail he picked up from the post office.”
I groan as my head drops. I’m terrible about going through my mail. My business and personal bills are paid on auto draft, so I don’t have a pressing need to open the mail when it comes in. At least once a month, I’ll make myself do a general cleanup of my desk, but it really just means throwing most of it away.
I’m guessing his notice is right on my desk where he said it is, in a big pile waiting to be reviewed.
But still…
“But why wouldn’t he have said something? Why not say on his last day, ‘It’s been great working with you, Dr. Mancinkus. Thanks for everything.’?”
Jake shrugs and picks up his beer. “Maybe because you never mentioned his resignation to him. He could have thought you were mad.”
Ugh. That makes me feel bad now, and I don’t like feeling bad. I would much rather believe Jenks is an irresponsible jerk, because let’s face it… that’s his general reputation in town. He doesn’t ever last very long at a job, and when he’s unemployed, he lives with his mom over on Willow Tree Lane. I wasn’t his first job, and working for Jake won’t be his last. That’s just the way Jenks operates, but still… it appears he might have a slight bit of responsibility since he gave me notice.
“Well… I’m glad then that you found someone,” I finally say, holding my beer out so he taps his against mine. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” he says and then takes a sip. When he sets it back down on the bar top, he leans toward me a bit. “So what’s your story, Laken Mancinkus? How did a beautiful and clearly talented veterinarian end up in this small town?”
I give him a coy smile, pleased with his flirting, then broaden it to a grin. “I was born and raised here. Pap’s my grandfather.”
Jake’s eyebrows shoot high in surprise. “He is?”
Leaning to the left, Jake looks at Pap, who I can hear is talking to Billy Crump about a sale they have on pork shoulders at the grocery store. When his gaze comes back to me, I laugh. “Yes… he’s my grandfather, and my whole family lives in this town.”
Jake’s brown eyes go warmer, and I can tell that means he respects the concept of a close family. He surmises, “So it was only natural for you to come back home to practice.”
I give a slight shake of my head. “Actually… I was going to be a big-city vet and stay in Raleigh after I graduated from NC State’s vet school. I practiced there for two years before moving back home to open shop.”
“Big-city life not for you?” he teases.
I snort. “Something like that.”
Actually, nothing like that, but he doesn’t need to know I wasn’t running from the city itself.
Jake leans slightly again, glances at Pap, and then looks back at me. “I’m having a bit of a hard time flirting with you while you sit next to your grandfather. Want to go play some pool?”
“You’re flirting with me?” I tease and bat my eyelashes. “I hadn’t caught that.”
“I’ll have to up my game then,” he replies with a wink.
I grab my beer and stand up from my stool. “Loser buys the drinks.”
“You’re on,” he says as he pushes from his seat. “But I’m really good.”
“Honey,” I say tartly over my shoulder as I saunter toward one of the three pool tables in Chesty’s. “I was practically birthed on one of these tables with a beer in my hand. You’re going down.”
♦
Three hours later…
Jake and I stumble out of Chesty’s, laughing our asses off.
“I would have killed to see the look on your brother’s face when he bit into that donut,” Jake practically wheezes.
I had been telling him about the prank war my brother, Lowe, engaged in with his wife’s best friend, Morri D, last month. Morri had Lowe’s favorite donuts filled with mayonnaise rather than the light vanilla creme that he goes crazy over. Lowe hates nothing in the world more than mayonnaise, so it was a really good trick.
When the door closes, I take a step and actually wobble. The giggle I emit pretty much confirms I’m toasted. Not fall-down, stinkin’ drunk where I won’t remember tonight and will be puking my guts up in the morning. But the kind where I’ve got no inhibitions left and I’ll wake up with a bad headache.
There’s a huge difference.
“I sure hope you’re not driving,” Jake says as he steadies me by the elbow.
I turn and point down to the end of the block where Mainer House faces us. “Staying at Lowe’s house tonight. He and Mely are out of town. And speaking of driving, you sure as hell can’t drive to Farrington Farms tonight. You’ve had as much to drink as I have.”
“I’m bigger than you,” he says in a low voice as his free hand comes up to hold my other elbow. He steps in a little closer and looks down at me. “So I can handle a bit more.”
And oh, wow.
Big mountain of a man who practically blocks out the moonlight stepping in so close, I could probably kiss him by going to my tiptoes.
So I do.
I raise up and to my delight, his head bends down. I press my mouth to his and he accepts.
We’d been flirting hard all night, pounding beers and playing pool. Pap went upstairs a few hours ago, and once he was gone, the flirting intensified even more. There’s no denying the attraction between us.
Jake backs me into the brick wall beside the door to Chesty’s, his hands moving from my elbows to my face. His kiss is commanding, and there’s no mistaking the intention behind it. It makes my blood race and my toes curl.
When he pulls away, he murmurs, “Going to invite me to stay the night with you?”
I smile at him, curling my hands into his t-shirt. Giving a tiny tug, I say, “Why, yes. Yes, I am.”
“Good,” he rumbles low with appreciation before tilting his head to place his lips at my neck. “I accept your invitation.”