That Thing Called Love by Susan Andersen Read Free Book Online Page A

pot.”
    Jake scrubbed his hands over his face. “I know. I know.”
    “I’ll tell you what I think she got from her relationship with Emmett and Kathy. They were considerably older than her own parents, and I think she looked on them as sort of grandparents. You gotta know how they spoiled Kari—”
    He nodded. God, did he ever.
    “They did the same thing with Austin, but Jenny curbed it wherever she could. So the kid is less spoiled than his mother was. And she flat-out refused to let them spoil her.”
    “Yeah, she’s a goddamn paragon,” Jake muttered, staring across the room at her profile.
    “Pretty much,” Max agreed cheerfully. “A helluva lot more than you can ever hope to be.”
    Jake abruptly became aware that the strawberry blonde was watching him watch Jenny, and even as he noticed, she leaned into the table to say something to her friend. Jenny turned to look his way, a friendly, interested smile on her face.
    It turned cool as the evening wind when she saw him.
    “Shit.”
    Max glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at him with raised eyebrows. “And you call yourself a big-city sophisticate? Hell, even us rubes know if you stare at a female like a dog at a juicy bone long enough—”
    “The hell I did!”
    Max thrust an authoritative forefinger at him. “Dog.” The finger thrust in Jenny’s general direction. “Juicy bone.” He shook his head. “Jesus, kid. I’m embarrassed to acknowledge some of the same blood runs in our veins. It was only a matter of time until you were busted.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    J ENNY STROLLED INTO THE INN ’ S dining room the following morning, only to rock to a halt in the doorway when she saw Jake Bradshaw sitting alone at one of the window tables. How did he do that? How the hell did he manage to be everywhere she went?
    Wasn’t it enough that he’d thrown a monkey wrench into her get-away-from-it-all evening with Tasha last night? Now he had to invade her dining room, as well? This was her time of the morning, dammit, her territory, her inn.
    Okay, maybe the latter wasn’t hers in the legal sense, aside from the portion Emmett had so generously bequeathed her. But in all the ways that mattered, she claimed ownership. The Brothers Inn had been a major part of her life since she’d arrived in Razor Bay at sixteen. Hell, it was the reason she’d come to this town in the first place—the promise of a job when the pampered life she’d known had disintegrated in the wake of her father’s arrest and incarceration.
    And ever since Emmett had promoted her to general manager, she’d made a habit of coming to the dining room each morning at the end of the breakfast shift to eat that much-touted most important meal of the day. She’d found it particularly beneficial since Austin had moved in with her. Breakfast at the inn was her way of easing into the day, a transition between getting the teen off to school and diving into her busy shift at the inn.
    Striding across the room, she smiled at or murmured hellos to the few guests still finishing up their meals, before stopping at Jake’s table.
    “What are you doing here?” Okay, so it was obvious, given the topped-off coffee cup at his elbow and the plate containing a smear of egg yolk, an untouched bunch of red grapes and a single crust of toast, which he’d pushed out of the way to accommodate the Bremerton Sun he was reading.
    But it was the best she could do when she wasn’t allowed to say, You breathe, therefore you bother me—get the hell out of my dining room.
    “Hey.” He looked up from the newspaper spread out on the table. Flashed her a million-dollar smile. “I’m having breakfast. You, too?”
    She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and tapped the toe of a fabulous-if-she-did-say-so-herself Steve Madden Mary Jane. It reverberated a soft tattoo against the hardwood floor.
    Jake’s smile faded. “Is it a problem that I’m staying here? Do you want me to leave?”
    Yes! The moment Austin