A Great Kisser
DONNA KAUFFMAN
For Rhonda
My life is better for having you in it.
And a special thanks to Debbie & Jean, the and rest of the Magnificent Minions, Refugees, and New Regulars for making this past year such a fantastic new beginning for me. I couldn’t have done it without each and every one of you.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Jake McKenna was good at fixing planes. Not people. It was easier to rebuild a P-51 Mustang that hadn’t been in the air since World War II than it was to endure a single phone call from his baby sister.
Ruby Jean could be an absolute doll—with other people. She didn’t confide in other people. She didn’t call every other day and cry her heart out with other people. Because somehow, she’d gotten it into her head that the only one who could solve her problems—and he’d never met a person who thought they had so many problems—was her big brother.
“Don’t—” he cautioned. But it was too late. “Cry,” he added, uselessly. “Ruby Jean, it’s not your problem.” It rarely was. Ruby Jean made a habit of taking the whole world on her tiny shoulders. Whether the world wanted to be there or not.
“But that’s just it, Jake. It is my problem!”
“How is entertaining your boss’s new stepdaughter suddenly your job? You’re his personal assistant, not a cruise director.”
“You don’t understand, Jake.”
And that was Jake’s problem. He rarely understood anything where his little sister was concerned. Or, for that matter, women in general. Which was why, at the ripe old age of thirty-three, he was a happy, well-adjusted bachelor. “I’m sure you’ll explain it to me.” He wiped the sleeve of his ragged sweatshirt across his face, heedless of the grease smear now decorating both sweatshirt and skin, and sat on the overturned oil drum. He stared at the regulator that two straight days of work hadn’t come close to fixing, and half listened to everything he never wanted to know about Ruby Jean’s crisis du jour, which he had no intention of fixing.
“So, that’s why it’s so important that you do this. I finally have some room for advancement, Jake, and you know in this town that’s not a small thing. I can’t let this one little thing screw up my chances.”
Personally, Jake didn’t see where working for Arlen Thompson, even if he was the mayor of the mountain resort town of Cedar Springs, was a job worth holding on to. He thought the man was a bit of an egocentric who took full advantage of anyone who might help him and not require his help in return, and Jake’s softhearted sister, who worked like a dog as his personal assistant, was near the top of that list.
But there wasn’t a great deal of commerce in Cedar Springs, Colorado, that wasn’t directly related to the ski resort, which was, more or less, the reason for the town’s continued existence at this point in its long history. But Ruby Jean didn’t ski anymore. Nor, thanks to Swing Thatcher, now the head of the resort ski school and the bastard who broke Ruby Jean’s tender heart when they were both in high school, did she want anything to do with anyone who did.
Jake had encouraged her to take her dreams east, at least as far as the front range, and find a job in Denver or one of the suburb cities, where she could build the kind of future she desired. But Ruby Jean was all about family sticking close, and as they were the only family each other had, he supposed he was stuck with her and the drama that accompanied her. Not that he minded. Usually. He loved his sister and would defend her to the death to anyone else. But Jake had no intention of leaving Cedar Springs. He loved the central Rockies. Being surrounded by their snowy peaks did his heart and soul good. If Ruby Jean wanted to be within wailing distance, that was up to her.
Then she was sniffling, and the sniffling was threatening to turn into a full-blown sob, and his attention was pulled back to the drama.
“Just say yes, okay, Jake? I’m only asking for you to show her around a little. That’s all.”
“Wait, what did you just say? You want me to what?”
There was a long, wavery sigh. “You never listen to anything I say.”
He couldn’t really argue with her there. “RJ, you know I have a race to prepare for and Betty Sue here needs a hell of a lot of work.”
“As she always does. I’m just asking one tiny favor.”
“The difference is, now I have willing sponsors chomping at the bit, but they’re demanding some kind of proof that we have a chance to really compete or they’re taking their money elsewhere. And I have to keep the flying school going, or what’s left of the roof over my head also goes. So, I really don’t have time to do…whatever it was you just asked me to do.”
“Her name is Lauren Matthews. She’s your age.”
“Wow, that old, huh?” The way Ruby Jean had said it made the woman sound positively prehistoric. But then, given RJ was eight years younger than him, anyone over thirty was ancient to her anyway.
Ruby Jean sniffled. “I’m just saying you might even have something in common. You could even like each other.”
“Don’t. I have enough problems at the moment. No matchmaking.”
“I’m not, really. I know I promised to stop that, and I have. This really isn’t that at all. According to Mayor Thompson, she’s a bit of a workaholic—she works on Capitol Hill for a senator, which is so exciting I think, but doesn’t leave her with much of a social life. She completely hates the idea that the mayor has married her mother, because, you know, they eloped after barely meeting and all. So, now she’s finally coming out here to check him out, and he’s all freaked out that he needs to make this great impression on her, probably because of his own political aspirations, and being as he’s the mayor, he wants her to see how great Cedar Springs is, and—”
“Okay, okay, take a breath. What political aspirations? He’s been mayor forever.”
“Oh crap, I wasn’t supposed to—just forget I said anything.”
Jake was perfectly willing to do that. “I don’t want to know.”
“So, you’ll help me then?”