Actually Love - Jessie & Zach by Melanie Shawn Read Free Book Online Page B

before he had to head out on tour.
    A genuine smile of love spread across Krista’s face. “Things are going great. He has a week off for Thanksgiving, and I plan on keeping him occupied every second of it.” Her sister bounced her shoulders up and down as she wagged her eyebrows.
    “TMI,” Jessie said flatly as she turned her attention back to her computer and opened her email.
    “Since you are the reigning Queen of No Info, I don’t think that you get to qualify anyone else’s sharing as too much information.” Krista drummed her manicured nails on the kitchen table and waited several beats before asking again, “ Sooo who is the man-candy?”
    Part of Jessie wanted to tell her sister everything about Zach. She wanted to tell her that, since meeting him a week ago, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. That her mind was cluttered with every single one of the sixty-two minutes they’d shared together. That she was going to be moving in with someone she had so much chemistry with that she had no idea how she was going to control herself around him.
    Honestly, the way she was feeling was so out of character for her that she might have to advise him to lock his doors at night. If she woke up after having one of the h-o-t dreams she’d been having every night since they’d met and he was just down the hall from her, Jessie wouldn’t trust herself to not pay him a visit.
    A concerned expression clouded Jessie’s oldest sister Haley’s face as she entered the kitchen of the house the three of them shared. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine.” The last thing she wanted was both of her sisters to start giving her the third degree.
    Trying to ignore the glances that her two sisters were shooting to each other, Jessie opened the email marked urgent from her cousin Seth. Jessie had asked Seth, who owned Elite Security, to run a background check on Zach just to be on the safe side. Before she got a chance to read it, she felt the back of Haley’s hand pressing against her forehead as she checked to see if Jessie was running a fever.
    Pulling Haley’s hand away, Jessie assured her sister, “I’m not sick, Mom .”
    Haley was the oldest of the Sloan girls. Then came Krista, Jessie, and Becca, the baby of the family. Krista and Jessie always gave Haley a hard time whenever her nurturing got a little excessive and called her “Mom.”
    “You look pale,” Haley said pointedly as she crossed her arms in front over her chest.
    “I’m just tired.” Jessie wasn’t lying. She was tired. Exhausted really. Between fourteen-hour days at work, a commute that took an hour and a half both ways on a good day, and a week of restless sleep thanks to one very sexy boxer, she was running on fumes.
    “It’s the commute.” Haley sat across from Jessie. “It’s too much.”
    “Well, I won’t be doing it after tomorrow,” Jessie explained.
    Both of her sisters looked like shocked mirror images. Eyes widened, mouths open.
    Haley was the first to recover, asking simply, “Why not?”
    “I got a place in the city.”
    “You’re moving out? When?” Haley asked in disbelief.
    “This weekend.” Jessie would have thought that was clear after she’d said that she wouldn’t be making the commute after tomorrow .
    Her phone buzzed, and she looked down. It was her cousin Seth calling. She got a sick feeling in her stomach. Between the cryptic email and now the phone call, she figured that he did not have good news for her.
    Jessie picked up on the second ring… “Hey.”
    “Are you dating Zach Courtland?” Seth asked. Her cousin was not big on pleasantries. She appreciated that.
    “No,” she answered honestly.
    “Then why did I need to run a background check?” Seth’s voice did not sound happy, which only made the sensation of dread filling her gut to intensify.
    “He’s a potential roommate.” Jessie had added potential because if Seth had uncovered something shady about Zach, Jessie planned on backing