Page 2 of Loving Jake

Kimberly blew away a long curl of hair that had fallen into her eyes with an air of defeat. Two of the most persistent people she knew stared back at her, and she didn’t have a chance of avoiding the subject of Jake Taylor. She took a deep breath and decided, as Catherine eloquently put it, to spill it.

“Fine, you want details, here they are.” Kimberly glared at her sister and her amused expression, before she turned her back on her to face Catherine.

“Jake lived down the street from us. He’s George’s age. I’ve sort of had a crush on him for a while.” She avoided a glance at her sister because she was likely doing something as juvenile as rolling her eyes. “Anyway, I was, and always will be, George’s little sister to him, four years his junior. Jake dated, married, and divorced, without a second glance in my direction. Period. End of story.” Hearing herself say it out loud, she realized that she had held on to a bunch of foolish hopes and dreams all these years and it was time to let go of them.

“How can you say that?” Carly shrieked, her disbelief clear in her ear-piercing wail. “You never even let him know how you felt, at least not directly. The few times he tried to talk to you, you ran in the opposite direction as fast as you could.”

Kimberly gripped the edge of the table and dug her fingernails into the soft wood. “What does it matter, anyway? You said yourself that he has always known how I felt about him. He wasn’t interested in me then, and he won’t be now.”

Carly shook her head. “Wow, for a social influencer, with over twenty-thousand followers on Instagram, you sure are down on yourself.”

Kimberly’s eyes bulged wide. “I post photos of things I find interesting,” she shot back in a whispered hiss. “That doesn’t mean I have this unrealistic view of life. My life, specifically. I’m not going to humiliate myself by making a play for Jake, and you aren’t going to try anything either. Promise me, Carly.”

Carly’s snort shot through Kimberly like a bunch of tiny pins sticking into her skin. “Kimberly, you were a teenager, and when you finally grew up and graduated college, he had already hooked up with his ex. That’s changed now; you’re all grown up, and he’s available again. From the gossip I’vegathered over the last couple of years, he’s been wrapped up in his career, and according toPeoplemagazine last month, he’s not in a serious relationship.” Carly turned to Catherine and added, “He’s an international correspondent, kind of like Anderson Cooper, only hipper, which is pretty amazing since Anderson Cooper is hip.” She looked at her sister and placed her hand on her upper arm. “Kim, come on,” Carly said encouragingly, “he’s not involved with anyone. This could be your chance to?—”

“Um, excuse me,” interrupted Catherine with a nervous laugh. “But if the subject of our discussion is still the guy who is about six-foot-two, sun- bleached hair, and a body that could definitely offer mind-blowing sex, and a lot of it, then I’d say we have about two minutes before he’s standing in front of us!”

Kimberly gasped. There was a flock of butterflies partying down in her stomach, and it felt as if a few of them may have made their way to her throat and were looking for an exit. A quick check over her sister’s shoulder confirmed her worst fears. Jake was headed in a path that led him straight to them.

So much for escaping before he noticed our trio, she thought glumly. If she hadn’t spent so much time trying to defend herself, she could be inside George’s house right now, hiding in a bedroom closet, or better yet, making a beeline for the front door. She chewed nervously on her bottom lip. Had she remembered to put on make-up this morning? What about deodorant? Had she remembered to put on deodorant before darting off to run errands before the party? Yeah right, sure she did. She bent her head and discreetly sniffed each armpit. Why me? She groaned inwardly right before a voice from the past shot through her, sending every butterfly in her stomach into massive chaos.

“Hello, ladies.”

“Jake!” Carly scrambled out of her chair and into his arms as fast as her very pregnant body allowed her. “I didn’t know youwere coming! When did you arrive? Have you seen George yet?”

“Carly, you haven’t changed at all, have you? Still shy as ever.” Jake laughed in a deep, thick, sexy tone that replaced the earlier pin pricks with chills, skating along Kimberly’s skin. “Except, maybe, for that little basketball you’re now sporting.”

“Due next month.” Carly smiled proudly with a pat to her protruding stomach. “Jake,” she continued, “I would like to introduce you to Catherine Sinclair, Rick’s wife. They married last year.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you Catherine.”

Carly tilted her head toward her sister. “And, of course, you remember Kimberly?”

Kimberly watched the warmth of his smile spread across his lips, and she licked her own in response. He was more handsome than she remembered, his sun-bronzed skin smooth with only thin creases at the corner of his eyes when he smiled, his hair a shade lighter than brown, thick and pulled back from his face by a leather band at his nape. She looked into his eyes and found him staring at her, the honey-colored irises reflecting something close to amusement. Her eyes grew wide, and she quickly moved them to the region of his chest.

“Of course, I remember Kimberly.” His playful grin, widened. “Just because you have dominated everyone’s attention your entire life,” he said to Carly, “doesn’t mean I forgot you have a sister,” he teased.

Kimberly glanced up at him again from her seat at the table, and still he stared at her. She swallowed, twice.

“It’s nice to see you again, Kimberly.”

“Um. Hi, Jake?” She twisted her hands together on her lap. “How are you?” she croaked in barely more than a whisper and then inwardly cringed. She tried to cool the blush that stainedher neck and cheeks with several discreet waves of her hand, but she failed miserably. She glanced at her sister, and Carly’s eyes glared back an unsubtle threat: make your move, sis, or I’ll do the moving for you. Beneath the table, Kimberly wiped her damp palms on the front of her sundress and squeezed each of her trembling knees. All she wanted to do was dive under the table and pretend that she was invisible. Holy crap, she inwardly moaned, if Jake really knew her feelings for him, how could she ever look him in the eye again? Especially when she wore the wordshopelessly in love with youstamped on her forehead?

“Jake, please, have a seat. Have you eaten anything yet?” Carly shot a glaring look at Kimberly again and then diverted her attention back to Jake.

“Yes, I did. More that I should have.” He patted the base of his abdomen, and his hands revealed a tight, flat stomach. “Five minutes after I walked in the door, Linda made sure I piled my plate high.”

“That’s Linda for you,” Carly responded.

Kimberly pushed the pasta into a mound on her plate until a jolt of pain shot through the middle of her shin. “Ow,” she muttered and rubbed her leg. Had her sister really just kicked her under the table with the tip of her Jimmy Choo platforms? She stole a glance at Carly, who responded with a meaningful glare.

“I’m glad you made it to the party. It has to be at least three years since we’ve seen you. The last I heard you were in Central America?” Carly prompted.

“South America, actually.”

“It’s been four years,” Kimberly softly corrected, immediately causing the other three heads at the table to turn swiftly in her direction. “I, ah, went through some of George’s Fourth of July photo albums not too long ago,” she fumbled through theexplanation despite the flush that crept up her neck and over her cheeks.

How Jake, and only Jake, had been able to capture her heart and then fluster her to the point of embarrassment because of it, had caused her more than one headache. She had met a lot of men in college, and later at various jobs, and never did any of them cause her heart to throb erratically the way Jake did. She would ask herself why, only to be reminded of the numerous times she had witnessed him going out of his way to be kind to someone, or how he always thought to bring flowers to her mother when invited to dinner, and she would know all too well the answer. He was probably more successful than most of his friends, yet he never bragged, and he always made everyone feel special, that whatever you did was of equal importance to the world. Why did he have to be so perfect for her? She would ask herself this whenever she thought of him, which was most days, and every night, which was something she would never admit to anyone.

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