Free She's Gotta Be Mine by Jasmine Haynes, Jennifer Skully Page B

most definitely couldn’t be the sex.
    Could it? Ewwe .
     
    * * * * *
     
    He should stop answering the doorbell. She was the only one who ever rang it. Yesterday, he hadn’t quite recognized the sound. This time, however, he knew. He opened the door anyway. Today she was carrying a stainless bowl of...pasta salad.
    Shit. He liked pasta salad. And if it was anything like her lasagna, he didn’t stand a chance.
    “I’ve already had dinner,” Nick told her, while enumerating to himself all the reasons he shouldn’t invite her in. She’d just been dumped. She was needy. She was no spring chicken, had probably gotten ousted for a younger model. She was also excessively chipper. He didn’t trust chipper.
    Bobbie held out the bowl like a religious offering. “You can eat it tomorrow.”
    He held onto the door with one hand, ready for the slam. She was pushy, and he didn’t trust pushy either. “Lady, what does it take to get rid of you? Permanently.”
    He expected a serial killer comment. Instead, she seemed to take him seriously, pulling her lower lip between her teeth and chewing, giving the matter her considerable brain power. Christ, the idea was for him to chew the lipstick off her mouth. And damn, he wanted to. Badly.
    “Well, I’ll get off your porch this time. If you promise to go to the Accordion Festival with me in a couple of weeks.”
    He laughed. Lasagna, Buffy the Vampire Slayer , pasta salad, and now the Right Honorable Mayor Wylie Meade’s Accordion Festival, which was supposed to cover the budget shortfall caused by his erection, of the Taj Ma’Wylie , that is.
    Damn, a Freudian slip. He shouldn’t be considering erections and Bobbie Jones in the same thought. “Don’t think so.”
    “But they’ll be having polka dances and stuff. Don’t you love watching the polka? Haven’t you ever seen Lawrence Welk do it on PBS? He was the most marvelous dancer.”
    She gave him a dreamy, half-lidded look reserved for Justin Bieber , if you were under the age of fifteen, or the prospect of sultry southern nights spent on satin sheets if you were over the age of consent. The bulge in his pants indicated they both clearly met his age requirement.
    Bad idea, really bad idea. Repeat after me, you learned your lesson when Cookie Beaumont came sniffing around .
    Bobbie licked her lips, and his dick twitched. Apparently he hadn’t learned his lesson.
    “Stop that.”
    Her eyes widened. “Stop what?”
    She stared at him, all innocence and sweet green eyes. Funny thing, he wasn’t sure she had a clue what she was doing to him. “I’m not going to the Accordion Festival.”
    “Aw, come on. You might find everyone will start liking you when they figure out you’re just a normal kinda guy.”
    He ignored the insult of being considered normal. “Do I look like I care if any of them like me?”
    She pursed her lips, considered him a moment, as if she couldn’t believe he didn’t give a damn. He was about to reiterate when she conceded. “All right, then settle for surprising people. They’d never expect it. You’d drive them crazy.”
    Especially Eugenia Meade, who’d planned the whole thing right down to headlining the Linz Minyon Band from Milwaukee and snookering Cookie Beaumont into decorating. Bobbie’s eyes sparkled with excitement at the prospect. Suddenly Nick saw exactly what Janey Dillings and Patsy Bell Sapp saw. The man who’d left her had to be freaking insane to kick the brilliance of that smile out of his life forever. Not to mention his bed.
    “When is your divorce final?”
    She clutched the bowl of pasta to her stomach as if he’d punched her. “Warren is working on all that stuff.”
    He squashed the rumble of remorse over wounding her. He needed to know. “You don’t really want a divorce, do you?”
    She took a deep breath, her chest straining the stretchy sweater material, then said, “It’s the height of bad manners to stay where you’re plainly not wanted.” Her eyes