CHAPTER ONE
Six months earlier
“A toast!”
“Lila!” Jenny reached over and tugged Lila’s arm. “Sit your ass down.”
“Today,” Lila continued, “is a great day!”
Jenny glanced around. Yep. People were looking. Clenching her teeth in a big fake smile, she tugged again. “Sit.”
Lila pried Jenny’s fingers away and raised her glass high.
Groaning, Jenny dropped her head in her hands. “Please sit.”
Lila did not sit. “Today, my dearest friend, you have achieved.”
“Yes. I have. Thank you so much. Now I’m begging you. Please sit. No one cares about my achievement. You’re disturbing the peace.”
Behind the bar, Kurt snorted as he wiped down the gleaming wood. “Peace?” he said. “We get peace in here on a Friday night, my business is in trouble. Disturb away, Lila.”
“Must you encourage her?” Jenny asked Kurt.
He shrugged and gave her a wink before ambling off to serve a customer at the other end of the bar.
Lila sat down with a thump. “I care,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You said no one cares about your achievement. I care.”
It was true. Lila Baxter had cared since their first day of elementary school, when Megan Rivas had pushed Jenny into the dirt, stolen her lunch, and refused to give it back until Lila had sat on Megan and started pulling her hair out. Strand by single strand.
Jenny and Lila had ended up in the principal’s office in the very first hour of kindergarten, setting a school record and earning a reputation for troublemaking they’d more than lived up to as they blazed through the education system.
Lila had continued to care, even when she went away to college in Seattle while Jenny stayed in their small town of Emerson and made the big, huge, enormous stupid mistake of marrying Dean Hansen.
She’d cared when Jenny’s father had died, and when Jenny had her daughter Kate, and then she’d cared enough to kick Dean in the junk when Jenny couldn’t risk losing her custody case. Or risk an assault charge.
“Fuck the cops,” Lila had said, before letting Dean have it with a Louboutin to the groin.
Hard to believe Jenny’s bestie was an award-winning realtor and a successful member of Emerson’s business community.
“I know you care, Lila. Means a lot.”
“Can I finish my toast now?”
“Please.”
“Give me a boost up onto the bar first.”
Jenny sighed. “Really?”
“Nah. I know how you hate to be the center of attention. I can keep it classy. Low-key. Raise your glass.”
Jenny did.
“Empty? We can’t toast with empty glasses.” Lila pounded on the bar. “Kurt! We need refills!”
“He’s busy, Lila.”
Lila ignored her. “Kurt!”
“In a minute!” he yelled, serving the boisterous group of guys who’d bellied up to the far end of the bar.
“Forget it,” Lila yelled back. “I’ll help myself.”
Kurt pointed at her. “You get behind my bar again, we’re gonna have a problem.”
“I won’t break anything this time.”
“Sit your ass down.”
Lila sat.
Jenny licked the last traces of salt from the rim of her glass. “Why does it work when he says it?”
“Because it entertains me when a man tries to tell me what to do. Of course, every now and then I actually have to do it and make them think they’re getting somewhere, or they stop. This is one of those times.” She leaned forward then backward on the high stool, trying to catch Kurt’s eye. “Seriously, how long does it take to serve beer? It’s not a cocktail. He doesn’t have to make it first.”
As soon as Kurt had brought them fresh margaritas, Lila held up her glass. With a smile, Jenny held up her own.
“My dearest friend,” Lila began, “congratulations on your fine achievement.” She paused as they clinked. “You now have a very fancy piece of paper that says you’re really good at digging dirt. I am so proud of you.”
“Jerk. It’s not just digging dirt.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. Moving it around, too. And sticking plants in it.”
Today Jenny had received her certificate in landscaping and horticultural design from the tiny local community college, and yeah. Hell yeah, it was a fine achievement.
It had taken her two years of part-time study which she’d somehow managed to fit in around being a single mother and working at the garden center, but she’d done it.
She was now one step closer to fulfilling her dream of having her own landscaping business. That dream might still be a million light years away, but as of today, it was a million light years minus one step.
Since Jenny was a twenty-eight-year-old single mother/divorcee/orphan, she knew how important it was to celebrate each and every good thing that came along.
Which was why she was here tonight with Lila, to cut loose in a way she rarely did. Kate was having a sleepover with Jenny’s sister, Elle. If Jenny wanted to, she could stay at the bar until it closed, order herself a giant pizza, eat the whole pie, then fall asleep face down in the empty box.
She yawned. Probably she wouldn’t do any of that, though. It was—she checked her watch. Wow. Nine p.m.—and she was exhausted.
“Oh, no,” Lila said. “Don’t even think it.”
What? That a bubble bath followed by bed sounded more fun than staying at the bar until last call? The pizza part of the plan, she’d keep.
“When did we last have a girls’ night out?” Lila said.
“We come here all the time.”
“To eat in the restaurant. Or for one drink before you have to go pay the babysitter. God bless Elle for moving back to Emerson. There’s nothing like taking advantage of family for providing free childcare.”
Jenny narrowed her eyes. “Except I didn’t take advantage of Elle. You did, when you set this up without telling me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Because Jenny wouldn’t have asked, and Lila knew it.
Even though Elle was happy to look after Kate whenever she needed it, Jenny pretty much figured she’d used up all her take-advantage-of-family currency back when she was a kid herself.
Their mom had run off into the great unknown when Jenny was six, their dad’s response had been to run off and hide in a bottle, and twelve-year-old Elle had shouldered the responsibility of keeping the Finley household together.
“When was it?” Lila kicked the rung of Jenny’s bar stool. “When did we last have a proper night out?”
“I don’t know.” Jenny rolled the stem of her glass between finger and thumb. “Was I even in my twenties?”
“Come on. Let’s work it out. There must be a time in the last eight years that we—” Lila cut off abruptly, and scratched her head. “Never mind.”
Jenny stared at her, then remembered. “Right. My divorce party.” She laughed. “This beats the hell out of last time, then.” She held out her glass and Lila clinked.
“Girls. Enough with the clinking,” Kurt said. “Once is acceptable. Lame, but acceptable. Twice is sad. I’ve lost count how many times you’ve done it tonight. Enough. You’re lowering the tone of my fine establishment.”
“Girls?” Lila sat up straight.
“Fine establishment?” Jenny sat up straighter.
Kurt’s eyes twinkled. He was in his mid-thirties, a shade over average height with a way-past-average powerful build, and Lila had made it her life’s goal to get into his pants.
Not being a coy woman, she had come out and stated it to his face on their first meeting. Kurt had laughed and managed, thus far at least, to resist her determined charms.
He set another round of margaritas down in front of them.
“Ooh,” Lila said. “I do like a man who can anticipate my needs. Good boy.”
“I didn’t anticipate.” Kurt crossed his arms over his chest and pointed a single finger at the other end of the bar. “They’re courtesy of your latest admirers.”
As one, Jenny and Lila leaned to get a good look at the guys who’d sent them drinks.
Jenny slumped.
At the boys who’d sent them drinks.
They were probably only a handful of years younger than her, but she felt a century or two older. At least. Make that a geological era. They were wearing button-down shirts, khakis, and bright, carefree smiles. To Jenny, they looked like they’d hatched yesterday.
“Hmm,” Lila said.
“No hmm,” Jenny said. “This is supposed to be a child-free evening.”
Kurt let out a booming laugh. “Gonna go tell them that.”
“I’ll do it.” Lila slid off her stool and sashayed over to the men, who watched her approach with hopeful faces.
“She is extremely direct, isn’t she?” Kurt laid his forearms along the bar and leaned into them, head angled to watch Lila go.
To watch Lila’s ass go, Jenny noted with a smile. “She’ll let them down gently. She’s direct, but she’s never cruel.”
Kurt’s eyes came to her. “You Lila’s wingman? Talking her up to me?”
Jenny shook her head. “I absolutely think you should stay away from her.”
“And why is that? Going to keep me for yourself?”
Jenny snorted her drink with surprise. “No,” she said indignantly, alcohol stinging her nasal passages.
“You sure about that?”
“Yes. One: you’re not my type.”
“I’m a hot bartender who happens to own the place. Honey, I am the type of every woman here. And, if they’re honest with themselves, half the men. Make that three-quarters.”
“Not me.”
“Let’s check again at closing time, shall we?”
“No. Because, two: I see the way you look at Lila.”
Kurt’s expression didn’t change, but Jenny noticed a subtle tension in his broad shoulders.
“And three: I see the way Lila looks at you. She’s got dibs. Sisters before misters. You could offer yourself up to me naked on a platter and I’d still say no.”
“Why is Kurt naked on a platter?” Lila slid back onto her stool. She held up a hand, palm out. “Never mind. I don’t care about the why. Just, yes please.”
Kurt reached out, gave a lock of Lila’s hair a playful tug, then walked off to serve another customer.
“He touched me,” Lila breathed with rapture.
Jenny sipped her drink. “You ever think about playing hard to get?”
“Nope. You ever think about playing at all? If you want Kurt, I’ll step aside for you.”
Jenny gazed at her, horrified. “I don’t want Kurt!”
“In God’s name, why not?”
“I don’t want anyone.”
Jenny was off men.
Forever.
“I think you’re crazy,” Lila said.
“I think I’m smart.” Look what had happened last time she trusted a man. All her worldly goods were repossessed, she was tossed out of the marital home, and her credit score ruined.
“I think you’re taking it all too seriously. Kurt would be fun. And also, in case it has evaded your notice, he is gorgeous.”
Jenny glanced over at Kurt. Lila was right. Kurt was, indeed, easy on the eyes.
That didn’t mean much to Jenny.
Her ex-husband, Dean, was easy on the eyes.
Elle’s metal sculptor boyfriend, Alex, was startlingly good-looking, if you went for towering, brooding artists.
Jenny’s best male friend, Gabe Sterling, billionaire and all-round pain in her ass, was his own rough-edged brand of fine.
Sometimes Jenny felt as if she was surrounded by beautiful men. It made for a pleasant view, but otherwise, they were wasted on her. She had more important things to be worrying about. Top of that list was being a great mother.
“No to Kurt,” Jenny said firmly.
Lila sagged on her stool with exaggerated relief. “I thought you were going to go for it.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, Lila. There is no guy on Earth who can tempt me enough to take a chance on him.”
“That so?” Lila crossed her legs. One foot bounced slowly, like a cat twitching its tail. “Have you forgotten about the existence of Ryan Reynolds?”
“He’s married.”
“In fantasyland, no one is married.”
“Then sure, fantasyland Ryan Reynolds can tempt me. He is very welcome to tempt me as much as he likes. But my original statement holds. There is no guy on Earth who can tempt me.”
“What about Gabe?”
The wild-affair-with-Gabriel-Sterling boat had sailed soon after they’d met a few months ago. Jenny had hacked through the ropes and shoved that boat out to sea with a jaunty salute. An overwhelming, charismatic man like Gabe was dangerous. He could make a woman feel like the most important thing in the world, right up until he got bored. And a man like Gabe got bored easily. “Gabe’s a friend.”
“Friend with benefits?”
“More like an annoying brother.”
“Stepbrother?” Lila lifted and lowered her brows.
“Ew.”
“I get the feeling he’d go for it if you would. And if you need some hints on how to seduce a guy, you know I’m here for you.”
“Because you’re so good at it.”
“I am extremely good at it.”
Jenny looked meaningfully over at Kurt, who was flirting with a brunette in a business suit at the other end of the bar.
“He will be my greatest conquest,” Lila said. “I’m playing a long game. You wait. I will have him wrapped around my finger any day now. I will have him, and I will have his beautiful babies.”
You had to admire Lila’s confidence.
“No to Gabe, no to Kurt.” Lila tapped her chin. “If only I could think of another hot single guy hanging around in Emerson.”
Don’t say it, Jenny thought. Don’t say his name.
Lila pursed her lips as she scanned the room behind them. “What about Derek Tate?”
Damn it. “Is he here? He isn’t here. Is he?” Don’t look.
Lila sipped her margarita and shook her head.
Jenny relaxed. “Don’t do that to me.”
“You deserve it.”
She wished she did deserve Derek. She’d do almost anything to deserve Derek. But even if she, angry bitter divorcee that she was, did deserve a man with his good humor and his smiling warmth, she couldn’t have him.
She’d made a vow to never let her guard down, and to focus on what was important: Kate, her daughter, and providing her daughter with the stable home environment and happy childhood that Jenny had never had.
She’d made a mess of it thus far, what with picking Dean the compulsive gambler as Kate’s father, who had sold their home out from under them to pay his debts, then ran off to Atlantic City, or Vegas, or wherever it was compulsive gamblers ran off to after they’d destroyed their family.
Sex with Derek, a man who lit her up with just a smile and teased her to distraction every time she allowed him to get close, was a temptation she could not, would not, afford.
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.