A Great Kisser Read Online Free PDF Page B

she was thinking about, what, specifically, she was worried about, but caught himself before he actually gave in to the urge to ask if there was anything he could do. He had a laundry list of things to think about and worry over. Lauren Matthews was not on that list, nor would she be.
    He thought about Ruby Jean’s idea that what Lauren needed was a little loosening up. And that she’d thought her older brother would be the perfect guy to do the loosening. If he hadn’t been enduring his sister’s attempts to match him up with any woman who dared linger long enough for Ruby Jean to discover she was single, he might have been offended by the implication. But Ruby Jean didn’t have a mean-spirited bone in her body. In fact, all she’d ever wanted, since the age of thirteen when she’d been very abruptly left with only a big brother to take care of her, was for everyone in her immediate orbit to be content and happy.
    And, from the moment he’d hit thirty without a “prospect on the horizon” she’d begun searching in earnest, despite the fact that he’d done everything to assure her that he was perfectly content and happy to remain just as he was.
    But, of course, RJ was having none of that. And now she was hell-bent on fixing her boss’s marital problems. Jake figured he should be thankful for the distraction, as it meant he’d be spared for the time being. Except now she was dragging him into it, likely hoping to kill two birds with one matrimonial stone.
    “I’m really sorry.”
    “What?” Jake looked over at her. She hadn’t spoken in so long, the sudden sound of her voice had caught him off guard. “Why?”
    “Oh…no, you just—you sighed. And I was apologizing for being the reason you were dragged away from whatever it was you were doing to come and pick me up.”
    “It wasn’t that. My thoughts were…elsewhere.” As yours seem to be , he wanted to say but didn’t. “It was probably just as well I stepped out when I did. Another ten minutes and I might have done more harm than good trying to fix that damn manifold regulator.”
    She smiled. “What’s a damn manifold regulator?”
    His lips curved, naturally, easily. It felt good. Shouldn’t have been so surprising. He’d always thought he was a pretty upbeat person, but just in the short time he’d been around her, he was realizing the smiles must have been a bit fewer and farther between of late than he’d realized. Ruby Jean had complained that he’d been too stressed out lately, but with everything currently on his plate, stress was unavoidable. Still, he hadn’t thought it had been getting to him as much as it apparently had. “It’s one of many engine parts that keeps my P-51 Mustang in the air.”
    “Well, then it’s probably just as well you did step out. What kind of plane is a P-51? Crop duster or something?”
    His smile turned wry. “Or something. They were flown in World War II. I race one.”
    She turned to face him more fully. “Really. I didn’t know people raced airplanes.”
    A quick glance over at her showed the color was coming back into her cheeks, making her freckles less stark. Her hair had started to dry, and he noticed she had a lot more of it than he’d realized. It hung to her shoulders, almost poker straight, but in a kind of thick, shiny, brown waterfall. He wondered if it felt as silky as it looked.
    Flexing his grip on the steering wheel, he looked back to the road. Which was where his mind should be. And not on any part of Ms. Lauren Matthews. Even if he were to entertain any ideas about her, in any way, two things would stop him. One, his baby sister did not need even the slightest bit of encouragement. And, two, Lauren was Arlen’s stepdaughter. “Some folks do,” he said at length, realizing she was waiting for him to respond.
    “Just antique planes, or others?”
    “All kinds. Sort of like car racing, there are different types, different sports. It varies country to country. I only race