Loving Jessie Read Online Free PDF Page B

mellowed him any.”
    “Not unless he started out shooting customers as they walked in the door.” Lurene leaned one hip against the back of the counter. It was midafternoon, and the place was empty. There were things she could have been doing, but one thing she’d learned in the last five years was to take small breaks where she could find them. “Ernie told me the chili recipe was worth more than the restaurant, said he’d had some corporate hotshot try to buy it from him, wanting to bottle it for commercial sale.”
    “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Matt said. “I worked with a reporter in Beirut once who’d done some sort of exposé on the runoff from farms in the Valley contaminating the water supply. The main thing he seemed to remember about the area was Ernie’s chili burgers. He didn’t quite say as much, but I got the feeling that, as far as he was concerned, if the water had anything to do with the waythe chili turned out, he wasn’t going to complain about a little DDT.”
    Lurene laughed, a rich, bawdy sound, her not exactly beautiful yet uniquely attractive face alight with amusement. “I don’t think that’s likely to become my advertising slogan, but I’ll take it as a compliment. Why don’t you have a seat and I’ll see if I can’t rustle you up a world-famous Ernie’s chili burger with all the trimmings?”
    Though he’d used hunger as an excuse to stop, Matt hadn’t really planned to eat, but at Lurene’s suggestion his stomach reminded him that lunch had been both miles and hours ago.
    “I’ll take you up on that,” he said, and settled onto the stool next to Jessie. Maybe Thomas Wolfe was wrong. Maybe you really could go home again.
    “I thought we were friends.” Lurene leaned against the back of the counter and fixed Jessie with a stern look.
    Matt had just left, and Jessie was looking at the door, smiling a little as she thought of how good it had been to see him again. It took a moment for Lurene’s comment to sink in. When it did, she spun the stool around and gave the other woman a surprised look.
    “What?”
    “Friends do not keep secrets from each other.” Lurene tapped long scarlet nails on the counter.
    “Secrets?” Jessie frowned in confusion. “What secrets?” Lurene shot a significant glance toward the door, and Jessie’s brows shot up. “Matt? Matt’s not a secret.”
    “Not that I blame you,” Lurene said, ignoring her protest. “If I knew a man who looked like that, I certainly wouldn’t want to share him.”
    “Share him?” Jessie laughed. “He’s not… I mean, he’s just Matt.”
    “Just Matt?” Lurene’s carefully plucked brows rose. “That man gives new meaning to the word hunk . Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
    “Of course I… Well, I mean, obviously he’s attractive.”
    “Attractive?” Lurene’s brows climbed another notch. “He’s gorgeous.”
    “Yeah, I guess.” It was ridiculous to feel uncomfortable, Jessie thought. It wasn’t as if Lurene was criticizing Matt.
    “So tell me everything. Don’t leave out a single, juicy detail. Inquiring minds want to know everything.” Lurene gave her a look of such bright curiosity that Jessie laughed.
    “There’s not all that much to tell.” There was a scattering of salt on the counter, and she concentrated on nudging the grains into a neat little pile with the tip of her finger. “I’ve known Matt since I was eight. Grandad had just retired from teaching full-time, but he was doing some tutoring, and he’d also started doing some garden-design work. Reilly’s mother—” She looked up at Lurene. “You’ve met Reilly McKinnon.”
    “Sure. Tall, blond, good-looking. Gorgeous wife. Used to be Miss America or something.”
    “Third runner-up,” Jessie corrected and then wished the words unsaid. It sounded so bitchy. She continued before Lurene could comment. “Anyway, Mrs. McKinnon hired Grandad to rework the gardens at her home. He’d already taken the job