Read Shattered Heart (Z series) Online

Authors: Jerri Drennen

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Shattered Heart (Z series) (2 page)

BOOK: Shattered Heart (Z series)
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He slid in next to his objective.

She scooted over as far as she could.

Again, he refused to be discouraged. She was just playing hard to get. He’d go along with it. But they’d be leaving together. Of that, he had no doubt.

“I’m JT.” He looked straight at Miss Blue-Eyes, waiting for her to reply.
Nothing
. She just sat there looking down at her lap.

Jeez.
Maybe this was going to be harder than he thought.

“I’m Cara. That’s Charlotte sitting next to you.” She proceeded to bat her eyes at him.

“Nice to meet you two. Any suggestions on where to have breakfast in the morning?”

“Lettie’s,” the brunette blurted out.

JT would have liked the woman next to him to give him something to work with. At this rate, it was going to take all night to get her in bed, and frankly, he wanted to get the ball rolling, get to the action. Something his military training had engrained in him.

“How about you?” He tapped her on the arm. “Do you like Lettie’s?”

She looked at him and smiled. “I do.”

He grinned back. “Then Lettie’s it is.”

“What brings you to town, JT?” the other woman asked, her amber eyes skimming over his chest and shoulders. He could probably have her in record time. Too bad he only had eyes for the woman beside him.

“I’m here on business.”

The bartender brought the drinks JT ordered. He made a point of sliding one to Charlotte, hoping it’d loosen her up some. At this point he wasn’t getting anything. Not if something didn’t change.

Maybe he should settle for the brunette?

He looked Cara over. She was pretty enough but there was something about Charlotte that got his blood pumping, especially in a certain part of his anatomy. If JT couldn’t have her, he’d rather go back to the motel alone.

She took a long swallow of her drink, and JT inwardly grinned. Enough alcohol and she’d be all over him. Of course, he didn’t want a drunk woman to sleep with. Just one who’d leave her inhibitions at the door and enjoy what he’d do to her.

His eyes shot to her breasts. Nice. Large. His type of tits. The kind you could get lost in for hours.

“So, Charlotte, what do you do?” he asked, trying to shake off the stirring in his groin the thought brought with it.

She placed her drink down on the table, and a flash of something caught JT’s eye.

A ring.

On her ring finger.

Fuck
.

No wonder she wasn’t giving him the time of day. She was married, and that blew all his plans for an evening of pleasure straight out the window.

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

 

Charlotte flipped a row of silver-dollar pancakes on the grill and winced when the side of her hand accidently brushed hot metal. She cursed and blew on the red mark forming.

Her mind wasn’t on work; it was on her encounter with
Mister Gorgeous
the night before. Guilt still ate at her for it.

When the man came to their booth and sat next to her, she’d acted like a complete idiot—as if she’d never had a conversation with a guy. At first, she couldn’t even look at him in fear her jaw would drop, but when she did finally glance up, his intense, icy blue eyes seemed to be focused solely on her. It was as if he was interested, yet abruptly he’d excused himself and left Bailey’s. Leaving her to wonder what she’d done.

And why she cared one way or the other puzzled the hell out of her even more, especially since she felt she’d betrayed her husband in some way. Marrying William was a business arrangement. This was something
different
, and she was never going to trust her heart to another man. Not when it was so painful to lose Shaun.

The jingle of the bell over the cafe door had her turning.

Her breath caught in her chest. It was
him
. He took a seat in the booth over one from Susan Emerson, William’s personal assistant, a woman in her late forties, who came in almost every day for breakfast. She always left a meager tip. Probably because William didn’t pay her what she was worth.

Mr. Hottie
reached for the menu tucked into a holder against the wall and studied it.

Charlotte turned back to her task, removing the flapjacks one by one and placing them on a plate.

She stuck the order up and rang the bell.

Cara raced to the window separating the diner from the kitchen and grasped the dish. “See who just walked in?”

How could she have missed him? Hell, every woman in the cafe was checking him out, including Susan. Surprisingly, he looked even better in the light of day, and that lanky swagger he had made him even more appealing.

Charlotte swallowed hard. “Yeah, just get going. The food’s getting cold.”

She refused to be distracted. He was just another patron, one who wasn’t going to become a regular, so why should she care? Now, if he could somehow help her reach her goal of saving Lettie’s, she might. But she didn’t see how that could happen.

Cara threw a ticket up on the window ledge, and Charlotte snatched the paper.

She raced to the refrigerator and grabbed two eggs and some bacon. She quickly threw everything on the grill and went to pop down two slices of toast. Then she shot back and turned the eggs and bacon.

When the food was ready, she rang the bell, noticing that Cara stood next to JT, holding the coffee pot, chatting away like the two were old friends. For some reason that irritated her, and she hollered, “Order up, Cara.”

JT clearly recognized her voice and turned toward her, his piercing gaze sending a raging heat over her entire body.

Charlotte stepped out of view. The man unnerved her more than anyone. Not even her husband had stirred such a strange feeling inside her stomach. Butterflies, followed by something that literally caused a vise-like grip in her belly.

Her best friend came up to the window and frowned, then took the plate and left.

Jeez.
Charlotte didn’t like the way
he
made her feel. Like she was on fire with no water in sight to put it out.

She shook her head.

This was crazy. She was a grown woman—had been married for God’s sake, and here she acted as if this was her first awareness of the male species. Completely ridiculous, and she was much too young to be having hot flashes.

Charlotte released a breath and walked to the storage closet to replenish her supplies. Breakfast rush had begun to wind down, but their morning had been busy. If this continued, she’d be able to promise William his money back.

Maybe he’d consider giving her a loan.

Why hadn’t she thought of that?

She didn’t want to marry William any more than he surely did her. He was just trying to right a wrong he thought he was responsible for.

The first time he’d asked her to consider marrying him was nine months after Shaun’s death. She’d been shocked by his offer and had refused, which he immediately accepted. Six months later he asked again, then a few months after that. Charlotte wasn’t sure why he still felt guilty after so long. But until the bank informed her of her balloon payment due on her loan, she never even considered taking William up on his offer. Somehow he got wind of her trouble and he’d come to her with his deal. Marry him and not lose Lettie’s.

But perhaps if she told him business had picked up and that she should be able to pay him back in a hurry if he just loaned her money, they wouldn’t have to do something so drastic as get married.

“Are you all right, Lettie?” Cara stared at her through the window, her amber eyes narrowed.

“Yeah, what do you need?”

“JT told me to tell you that his breakfast was perfect. He left us both a tip.”

Charlotte blew out another breath. Hopefully she’d never see
him
again because he just messed with her head and she needed hers screwed on tight to turn this business around.

 

* * *

 

JT opened the door on his truck when his cell went off. He grabbed the phone and pressed talk.

“Is this JT?” a man’s voice asked.

“Yes it is.”

“I’m calling about the position you applied for at the Terran Corporation. Are you still interested?”

JT closed his eyes.
Finally.
“More than interested.”

“Good. Mr. Terran would like to meet with you this afternoon, if that’s convenient.”

“Where did he want to meet?”

“He’ll be at the Gray Summit site until two. Could you possibly meet him there?”

“Sure. Let him know I’ll try to be there around one.”

“Perfect. He’ll see you then.”

JT ended the call and smiled. Now he had to prove himself indispensable to Terran and hope he could get the information Z needed to bring the man to justice.

This sting operation took a long time to orchestrate. Two years since Homeland Security had been contacted by a man who worked for Terran. He’d been on their watch-list since, especially when the guy who tipped them off had died in an accident. That’s when they noted a number of overseas containers that claimed to be building materials coming from a country that didn’t export them. Unfortunately, the shipments were checked and nothing unusual found. It was almost as if they’d been warned of the inspection.

HS contacted Z and had been waiting for an
in
to Terran, which they finally received. JT had had three months to cram for a civil engineering degree, along with education on construction science and management, so that he could do the job he’d be hired for. Not easy, but he was confident he could deal with whatever came up, and if he couldn’t, he had Zack and Lynch on the outside for help. They would be available to come in if he got into any kind of trouble.

JT hoped he wouldn’t need them—particularly Lynch, since he’d just recently married and had a baby on the way. His wife, Casey, needed him, and JT could completely understand, based on the couple’s past history—with the loss of their first child.

JT jumped into his truck and started the engine, staring at the large plate-glass window that had Lettie’s written on it. Charlotte had cooked his meal.
Perfectly.
He’d never met a woman who was so great in the kitchen. Most of the gals he’d dated over the years had been domestically challenged in every way. JT wondered how well Charlotte kept house.

Where the hell did that come from
?

If he even suggested that to a woman, he’d be slammed as a sexist pig, and he was far from that. He, Zack and Lynch had lived on their own for years.

Too bad all of that was about to change since Casey had returned from New Orleans with Lynch. The two were looking for their own place, so he and Zack would need to get another roommate soon. The house they lived in was much too big for two guys.

A blonde head bobbed past the window, and JT’s thoughts diverted back to Charlotte. Damned if her marital status hadn’t disappointed the hell out of him. He’d wanted to go to bed with her in the worst way and, to top it off, hours later, he’d dreamt about doing just that. If the real deal was anything like the dream, he’d consider going against his code of honor and chase after her, ring or not. But it was just that, a dream. No one could be that good in bed.

JT shifted the truck into reverse and backed away from the cafe, intent on getting his focus on what was important. How to get in and out of Oregon as fast as he could. The place was too damned dreary. Rain and more rain. Maybe when he finished
the job
he’d take a detour on his way home, run down to South Beach for some rest and recreation—find himself a willing chica and lay on some white sand with her for a week or so and soak up the sun.

A vivid picture of a voluptuous goddess with long, shiny black hair emerged in his mind’s eye. Then the picture changed. A short-haired blonde replaced her. One with eyes so blue he couldn’t differentiate where they ended and the clear sky began.

Son-of-a-bitch
.

This woman had somehow gotten inside his head, and right now, that was the last thing JT needed. Not when he was about to meet William Terran for the first time—a meeting that could make or break a mission that was important to Z and the country as a whole, if what was in those containers turned out to be what they suspected.

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

 

Charlotte rolled onto her back, angry that she couldn’t sleep. She’d been fighting restlessness for hours, all because she couldn’t get JT off her mind. Her body thrummed to life every time she pictured him.

She blew out a ragged breath, turning on her side. This was the first time in weeks she hadn’t fallen asleep the minute her head hit the pillow.

A pair of ice-blue eyes haunted her—along with a set of full, tempting lips.

She sat abruptly and slammed her fists into the mattress. Why was she allowing this man to disrupt her rest? He was nobody—here in town for a short time and then he’d be gone. Charlotte needed to remember that, especially since she was hardly the type to have some kind of wild fling, unlike her best friend. Hell, Charlotte had only been with two men in the twenty-seven years she’d been alive.

Two.

Sad to some, but she’d never been into casual sex. Being held in a man’s arms hadn’t been a high priority, especially since her husband’s death. Not until she spotted JT across Bailey’s.

She would bet Lettie’s itself that he’d had more than two partners in his lifetime. He probably could add a couple of zeroes behind that. The man oozed raw sexuality and had an over-confidence that few males could pull off without appearing conceited.

Charlotte shoved the covers aside and rose. No way was she getting any sleep with this man wreaking havoc with her head.

Maybe a cup of warm milk would help.

She padded down the hall to the kitchen and switched on the light, jumping half out of her skin when she heard a knock at the door.

She glanced at the sunflower clock on the wall and frowned. Who in their right mind would come by at eleven at night?

BOOK: Shattered Heart (Z series)
8.32Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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