Twisted Up (Taking Chances #1) - Erin Nicholas Page 0,3

eyes were on her, she felt a lot more than that. Like hot and tingly and squirmy. Just to name a few things.

She’d definitely needed warning he was coming. He knew it. And he knew why.

Ever since that tornado last summer, whenever Jake would blow into town, he’d somehow manage to immediately “run into her” and they’d end up making out.

It was appropriate to use storm terminology. Jake was the emergency-management specialist for the city of Kansas City, and when he came home, it was like a hurricane hit without warning. Sure, he always initiated the first kiss, but Avery hadn’t once pushed him away. It seemed as soon as Jake put a hand on her, nothing existed except her senses of touch and taste—and nothing could override the urge to do a lot of both. Then he went back to Missouri, leaving a mess of emotions in his wake that it took days for her to sort through, and she’d swear, again, that she was done with him.

She’d sworn she was done with him four times now since last June.

“Well, I appreciate all the preparation you put into tonight for me,” he said with a grin as his gaze ran over her again.

She felt her entire body flush. He was not talking about the confetti or the candles.

“The only prep I need when you show up is a warning so I can find a great place to hide until you blow over.” She crossed her arms, trying to look unaffected.

She tried with everything she had to not respond to him, of course. She’d definitely gotten better at hiding her reactions to him. But even now her nerve endings were jumping up and down, like excited puppies that hadn’t seen their favorite guy in too long.

Jake! Jake! Jake! Pet me, cuddle me, kiss me!

She was already anticipating the kiss that she was absolutely, positively not going to let happen.

Of course, she’d said that every time.

“So it’s kind of an emergency when I get back into town?” Jake asked.

She lifted a shoulder. “Something like that.”

He grinned. Which made her frown.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me in a long time. Not ever, of course,” he added. “There was that one night where you said very nice things to me—but it has been a long time.”

Avery felt her face heat up. It had been ten years since she’d said very nice things to Jake. Those had been along the lines of “Oh, yes,” “Oh, please,” and “That feels so good.”

The thing was, there were a lot of nice things she could say. Like, “Your blog on community action plans was great,” or “The donation you made to the Boy Scouts was so generous,” or “You looked really good in that photo in Newsweek.”

So what if she followed his blog and read his articles on emergency management and had tuned in on two—okay, maybe four—of his online webinars? As the fire chief in Chance, it was her professional obligation to follow one of the nation’s most respected emergency-management and disaster-relief specialists.

She’d learned a lot from him and admired him. Professionally. From afar.

She barely noticed that he was even better-looking now than he had been in high school.

He was a good guy.

But he was a good guy who believed his own hype. Avery liked to think she was helping keep his ego in check by not letting on that she believed it, too.

But all that did make it harder to resist him.

Still, she would for one very good reason—there was always something more important pulling him away. He’d left after graduation, after every trip home, after every kiss. And he’d leave again at the end of this weekend. She and Chance would never be enough to keep him here for any length of time.

Avery had a hard time forgiving him for that.

Yes, he was a big, important guy who did big, important things.

Yes, those big, important things saved lives.

She simply couldn’t help being irritated that these things were far away from Chance.

As if to prove her point, Jake’s phone dinged in his pocket. He pulled it out and frowned at the incoming text. Avery watched as he typed in a response.

Jake had grown up as a part of the perfect family. The Mitchells had always been the core, the backbone, of Chance, and Jake was a fifth-generation Mitchell. But he’d left the family and their legacy for what he considered greener pastures.

Avery would have killed to have a family like his. She would