Jake regretted the offhand remark. Par for the course, he always seemed to say the wrong thing to Connor lately, and in this case Connor was right. Jake was in a mood.
Jake motioned to the bartender. “Give us two more, would ya, Joe? Seems the Thorne boys are of the same mind tonight.” He turned toward his brother, prepared to make atonement. “What brings you out this time of night?”
It was getting close to last call. Connor wasn’t known for frequenting the bar, so Jake had been surprised when his brother had sat beside him. Jake had been so mired in his own pickle, though, he hadn’t given it much thought at first.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Connor said with a throwaway shrug as he reached for his longneck and took a deep pull.
Tell me about it, Jake thought but didn’t say as much. Ever since he’d left Chris Travers standing at her front door, he’d been as revved as a DuPont Chevy on NASCAR race day.
“Figured there’d be a poker game goin’ on,” Connor added while Jake huddled over his beer and tried to forget the things that prickly woman had done to him. Like turn him on, fire him up and wring him out.
“Game broke up about midnight,” Jake said. He’d turned down the offer to join in. In his state of mind, he would have lost the business and wouldn’t even have cared.
But he wasn’t so self-consumed that he didn’t notice something was up with Connor. Jake cared about his brother. Connor hadn’t been the same since returning from the Middle East. He had followed their father’s footsteps in an attempt to win the old man’s favor by becoming a U.S. Army Airborne Ranger and then an engineer.
Jake, an adrenaline junkie, had opted for a different type of career adventure. After his four-year hitch with the Army, during which time he took college credit classes that he finished up at University of Texas, he’d gone to work for Red Adair fighting oil-well fires.
He’d became so addicted to the danger, he’d wanted a greater hand in it and left Red to form his own company, Hellfire, International. While his twin had been fighting terrorists in the Middle East, Jake made his own statement for freedom and patriotism by fighting oil fires in the same war-torn countries.
They’d both been there. Now they were back. And some things had never changed. Such as sensing when there was a problem.
“Heard from the old man lately?” Jake asked, wondering if a recent set-to with their father was at the root of Connor’s dark mood.
Connor’s grunt gave Jake his answer. Yeah, Connor had had another tangle with their father. Even though his folks had moved to Florida, James Thorne still could reach out and touch all kinds of raw nerves.
When Connor had retired from active duty, he’d made the ultimate sacrifice. He’d taken over the family engineering firm when their father retired. Jake owed his twin big-time for that. It had gotten the old man off his back.
Some would call his father’s repeated wish for Jake to take over the business the burden of the favored son. Jake called it something else—damn unfortunate.
He knew that their father’s blatant favoritism toward Jake had always made Connor feel like second banana. Oh, Connor had never said as much. He didn’t have to. Actions spoke louder than any words. Even when they were kids, Jake often had talked his way out of a sound pounding with the old man’s belt. Connor, on the rare occasion he bucked the old man, never even tried. He just took the beating. And as a result, Jake had watched Connor turn deeper into himself, bottle up his pain and anger until the dark mood would hit him.
Like tonight.
“Tell you what, brother mine,” Jake said, slinging an arm over Connor’s shoulder, knowing there were some things embedded so deep, no amount of heart-to-heart sessions would drag them out, “how about we blow this place, dive into a case of brew and the two of us get rip-roaring drunk? I haven’t tied one on in a coon’s age. You game?”
That finally made Connor smile. “Must be woman trouble.”
“Got that right,” Jake muttered as he dug into his hip pocket for his wallet, then tossed some bills onto the bar. Big-time woman trouble.
What in the hell was he going to do about Chrissie Travers? Things had gotten out of hand tonight. He’d set out to do a little seducing. Just a little good-natured fun and games.
But then he’d kissed her…and she’d come alive like a flame set to a candle.
And it hadn’t seemed so much like fun and games after that. He’d felt the subtle give of her body, the gentle swell of her breasts against his chest. It had been much more than a kiss to her. Not to him, of course. No, he thought and wiped at a bead of sweat that had pooled on his forehead. Not to him.
Now he knew what that niggling sense of catastrophe he’d been experiencing on and off all night was about. He’d screwed up. When he’d crossed the line from teasing to appreciating, from tormenting to kissing…Well, he’d changed the dynamics between Chrissie and him.
When she was a prickly little prude, he’d been as safe as a Boy Scout on a supervised campout. But when she’d transformed into a vibrant, alluring woman before his eyes, he’d ditched his Scout troop in favor of a little sweet talk and seduction. And the safety factor had flown out the proverbial window.
Words such as serious and relationship and future and other scary notions leaped to mind. He simply didn’t do those things. Not any more. Jake had gone the marriage route once and he’d gotten used, burned, battered and beaten. Ever since, fun and games had been his stock-in-trade. Just fun. Just games.
Prissy Chrissie, however, kissed as though she planned on changing the rules and the stakes. And well, that just wasn’t going to happen. Not to him. Not again.
That’s why he’d walked. Before the harm. Before the foul.
So why was he sitting here fighting the urge to walk right back to Chrissie? Get a better, longer, bigger taste of what he’d just walked away from?
He dragged a hand over his face. He had to think. He had to think about this a lot. But not tonight.
“Come on,” he said. “My place. Gotta be something on ESPN to take our minds off what ails us.”
“This time of night? Nothing but reruns,” Connor said, walking beside him out of the club.
“Good enough for me,” Jake said.
When the light finally dawned, it lit up Christine’s world like a ten-thousand-watt bulb and darn near blinded her. That’s why Monday at noon she had a mission on her mind when she maneuvered her flashy, brand-new red convertible—purchased just fifteen minutes ago when she traded in her used tan compact—into a space in front of Hellfire, International.
She was turning over new leaves left and right. No more dull and drab and ultrasafe for Christine Travers. From now on it was flash and fire, razzle and dazzle. She was filled with determination to change a few more things when she fed the meter, drew a deep breath and headed into the building.
She’d thought about her meeting-slash-date with Jake Thorne all weekend. Mostly she’d thought about the way he’d kissed her. She’d gotten all warm and tin-gly inside. And she liked the feeling of excitement and anticipation. She’d
