âYou just have to promise me one thing,â Jake said.
Running the pad of her index finger over his tempting bottom lip, her wrist rubbed against the sexy stubble on his cheeks. Her body reacted with a warming shiver. He opened his mouth and gently caught her finger between his teeth. Nipped at it and sucked on it for a moment.
It felt like sheâd been waiting her entire life for this moment. Despite his words, he certainly didnât seem to be in a hurry to get away. Yeah, he wasnât going anywhere.
Not right now, at least.
âAnything,â Anna said.
She wasnât going to let him tell her he wasnât good enough for her.
She knew what she wanted, and heâd just slipped his arms around her again.
âNo regrets,â he said.
âNo regrets,â she answered. âBut tell me something. How do you know that youâre not good for meâthat weâre not good togetherâif weâve never⦠tried it out?â
***
Celebrations, Inc:
Letâs get this party started!
Chapter One
Anna Adams parked her yellow VW Beetle in Jake Lennoxâs driveway, grabbed her MP3 player and took a moment to make sure it was loaded and ready to go.
She was about to hold an intervention and musicâjust the right songâwas the key component of this quirky job.
Today, she was going to save Jake, her lifelong best friend, from himself. Or at least from drowning in the quicksand of his own sorrow.
This morning, Celebration Memorial Hospital had been abuzz with rumors that Jakeâs girlfriend, Dorenda, had dumped him. Anna mightâve been a little miffed that sheâd had to hear about his breakup through the nursing staff grapevine, but the sister of one of Dorendaâs friends was an LPN who worked the seven-to-three shift at the hospital and sheâd come in positively brimming over with the gossip.
Jake had been scarce today. He hadnât been around for lunch. Another doctor had done rounds today. When sheâd tried to phone Jake after work, the call had gone to voice mail.
The radio silence was what made Anna worry. She hadnât realized that heâd been so hung up on Miss Texas. Thatâs what everyone called Dorenda, even though no one was sure if sheâd actually held the title or if sheâd gotten the nickname simply because she was tall and beautiful and looked like she shouldâve worn a crown to her day job. Poor schlubs like Anna did well to make it to their shifts at the hospital wearing mascara and lipstick.
Anna wasnât sure what the real story was. When Jake had a girlfriend, he tended to disappear into the tunnel of love. Or at least he never seemed to bring his girlfriends around her. And Dr. Jake Lennox usually had a girlfriend.
Anna didnât celebrate Jakeâs breakups, but she had to admit she did relish the intervals between his relationships, because, for as long as sheâd known him, that was when sheâd gotten her friend back. Sure, they usually saw each other daily at the hospital. It was not as if he completely disappeared. But in those times between relationships, he always gravitated to her.
She would take the spaces in between any day. Because those spaces ran deeper than the superficial stretches of time he spent with the Miss Texases of the world.
Anna rapped their special knockâknock, knock-knock, knock, knockâon Jakeâs front door, then let herself in.
He never locked the door, but then again, they never waited to be invited into each otherâs homes. âJake? Are you here?â
Really, she wasnât surprised when he didnât answer. In fact, she had a pretty good idea of where he was. So, she closed the door and let herself in the backyard gate and followed the mulch path down to the lake, the crowning jewel of his property.
Yep, if he was back here brooding, it clearly called for an intervention or, as theyâd come to call it over the years, the Sadness Intervention Dance.
It was their private ritual. Whenever one of them was blue about something, the other performed the dumbest dance he or she could come up with for the sole reason of making the other person smile. The dance was always different, but the song was