Hotter than Texas (Pecan Creek) - By Tina Leonard Page 0,40
your sister. What do you think?” Jake said.
Lucy sniffed. “Tell me something I don’t know.” She started to edge the door shut. He stuck his boot toe in the doorway.
“Hang on a minute. Please.”
Lucy relinquished some of the pressure on his foot. He removed his boot, ceding ground, hoping a truce could be called. “I want to apologize to Sugar.”
“You should,” Lucy said. “You certainly should.”
“And I certainly will,” Jake said, “if you quit guarding the door like a dragon and let me in.”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “My sister isn’t really prepared for your kind of games, Jake. My guess is you’ve nursed at the adder’s bosom, and there’s probably a lot of mean in you. Sugar’s already been disappointed. Why should I let you in?”
He could see he’d made an error by not bringing something to soften up Lucifer—Lucy—with. “Lucy, I swear I have no nefarious designs on your sister.”
“Define nefarious. I don’t think it’s possible you know where the lines are drawn, Jake.” She looked at his bouquet. “Do you really think those weeds you probably dug out of a field or snatched from someone’s grave are a decent apology?”
Jake grimaced. “Do I have to show you the florist’s receipt to get past the door?”
“Let me think,” Lucy said. “Yes.”
She started to close the door, then thought better of it. Glancing over her shoulder—he guessed to make certain no one was listening—she snatched the flowers from him. “Look, Jake. I’ve decided Bentleys are poison, okay? So buzz off. Leave my sister to her nuts. She’s happy now, happier than she’s been in a few years, and she doesn’t need a guy like you whose girlfriend is still jerking him around on a chain.”
A thought occurred to him. “Lucy.”
She stopped in the act of closing the door. “What?”
“Have you talked to my mother lately?”
She hesitated, then closed the door.
“And that was a yes,” Jake said. “This is not good.”
He stood on the porch for a moment, perplexed as to his next move. How did he dislodge himself from the doghouse?
The door opened, and Jake straightened.
“Hi,” Sugar said.
“Hi!” Jake felt his face split into the world’s biggest grin. “I didn’t think, I mean, Lucy—”
“She’s protective. Thanks for the flowers. They’re beautiful. And no, I don’t need to see the receipt.”
“Good,” Jake said, “because I was kind of bluffing on that one. You don’t get a receipt at our town flower shop. It kind of works on the honor system of the owner’s memory. She rings you up on her hand-crank Monroe, and you walk out with your purchase, and everyone hopes everyone is happy.”
Sugar smiled. “You didn’t have to bring flowers. I’m not upset. I assume that’s why you brought them.”
“Well, yeah. I’m hoping for another da—I mean, another friendly outing with you,” Jake said.
Sugar looked at him. “Are you trying to date me, Jake?”
“I’m trying, but it’s not going too well,” he admitted. “For example, I’d love to take you out to dinner tonight, someplace where my knuckleheaded friends can’t find us.”
“I like your friends. They’re fun.”
“Okay, then, I’d like to go where my ex-girlfriend can’t find us.”
Sugar’s gaze leveled on him. Her eyes searched his face, probably for honesty—she seemed like the kind of woman for whom honesty mattered a whole heckuva lot—so he hoped she saw what she needed to convince her. She looked so pretty in blue jean cutoffs, her hair pulled through a visor and a white eyelet blouse with fluttery sleeves that blew a little bit in the breeze, that he had to concentrate on not staring at her.
“I’m free tonight,” she said.
He got a rush of pure adrenaline he hadn’t had since he left the military. “What time, doll? Just say the word and I’ll be here.”
“Where are you taking me?”
He thought fast. “Want to go canoeing?”
She smiled. “I would love that.”
“Then we can go whenever you want to.”
She stepped out the door. “Like now?”
Thank God he had bug spray in the truck—the skeets were going to be all over those delicious legs and those sweet— Jake nearly blacked out thinking about what the mosquitos would feast on that he probably never would. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to wear a lot of bug spray.”
“Mm. Date night,” Sugar said. “Guess that means no sex for you.”
A circuit felt like it blew in his brain. He was pretty certain he wore one of Kel’s poleaxed expressions, the kind Kel got every time he thought about Lucy. “I wasn’t aware sex was a possibility.”