The Groom Wanted Seconds: A Novella

THE GROOM

WANTED SECONDS

A
S
WEET AND
S
AVORY
P
REQUEL

BY
S
HIRLEY
J
UMP

Copyright Information

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Copyright © 2012 by Shirley Jump

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

eISBN: 978-1-937776-42-8

Also by Shirley Jump

Check out the entire Sweet and Savory Novel series:

The Groom Wanted Seconds (Prequel)

The Bride Wore Chocolate

The Devil Served Desire

The Angel Tasted Temptation

Special Christmas Novella (Dec 2012)

Other books by Shirley:

Really Something

The Bachelor Preferred Pastry

Around the Bend

The Other Wife

Return of the Last McKenna

Simply the Best

Visit Shirley online at
www.ShirleyJump.com
or follow her on Twitter
@ShirleyJump
!

www.SweetandSavoryRomances.com

Table of Contents

THE GROOM WANTED SECONDS

Copyright Information

Also by Shirley Jump

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Excerpt from The Bride Wore Chocolate (Sweet and Savory, Book 1)

Excerpt from The Devil Served Desire (Sweet and Savory, Book 2)

Excerpt from The Angel Tasted Temptation (Sweet and Savory, Book 3)

Author Bio

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, well softened

1 10-ounce can chunk chicken (or 10 ounces cooked and shredded chicken)

1/2 cup buffalo wing sauce

1/2 cup blue cheese dressing

1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles

1 8-ounce bag shredded colby-jack cheese

Cooking isn’t your thing, so this dump and bake dish is perfect, especially when you’re still trying to figure out why she ended it and whether there’s any hope you can win her back. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. In a 1-quart casserole, mix the cream cheese, chicken, sauce, dressing, blue cheese and most of the colby-jack. Sprinkle the rest of the shredded cheese on top.

Then sit back and wallow, or write really bad poetry, while it bakes for 20 minutes. Serve with tortilla chips, celery sticks, carrot sticks—whatever works to fill that gaping hole in your life. And if you’re serving it with beer, remember it’s never a good idea to mix alcohol and bad decisions.

C
HAPTER 1

He was a fool.

Jeremy Hamilton realized that fact about five minutes after Rebecca Wilson broke up with him, on a warm early summer day three months ago. Still, he’d let her go, figuring that was the best choice all around. She didn’t want him. Not anymore.

It hurt like hell to watch her head out of his apartment and hop into her car. As Rebecca left, the skies began to darken, a storm rolling in, a poetic exclamation point on the end of their relationship—if one was the kind of guy who thought in poetic terms. Jeremy, as logical as Spock, saw the storm as a shifting in barometric pressure and nothing more. All his life, he’d been able to puzzle out the whys and wherefores. Except when it came to Rebecca.

They’d been dating for over a year, while he tried to juggle his last semester in college, along with work and some semblance of a life. They’d been crazy and chaotic months, leaving Jeremy feeling like a giant piece of salt water taffy in a preschoolers’ tug of war.

The day she broke up with him, Rebecca said she’d gotten tired of being the next thing to cross off an ever growing list. She’d kissed him on the cheek, handed over his favorite sweater, then walked out of his apartment and out of his life.

Then why was he here in her neighborhood three months later, crossing the street, heading toward her house, when she’d made it clear they were over? What was he thinking?

That being without Rebecca had been hell, and if there was even a .00001 chance she’d take him back, he’d risk it.

“Yo, Jeremy! What are you doing here?”

He turned to see Rebecca’s cousin Will leaning on the fence that separated his house from Rebecca’s. Will was almost thirty, still lived at home, and talked like he was fifteen. He was working on mastering some skateboarding game on Playstation. Everybody had to have a goal in life, and Will’s was to beat Tony Hawk in virtual reality. “How you doing, Will?”

“Good, good. Taking a break. I got a wrist injury when I twisted the damned controller the wrong way.” He wriggled his arm. “Makes those ollies wicked hard to master.”

“I bet.” Whatever ollies were. Jeremy turned back to Rebecca’s.

“Uh, you thinking of visiting Rebecca? I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Will said.

“Why not?”

Will let out a long-suffering sigh and leaned over the fence, resting his arms on the dog-eared posts. “Dude, it’s like ProSkater. Sometimes you gotta know when to go for the Fingerflip Airwalk and when to skate away, because you haven’t got enough air to land it.”

“Uh…okay.”

Will threw up his hands. “Well, don’t say I didn’t try to do you a solid. Anyway, I gotta get back in and work on my Kickflip McTwist.”

Jeremy hesitated on the walkway. He debated taking Will’s advice and turning around. Giving up on an already lost cause. After all, he’d done okay without her the last few months, hadn’t he?

If one defined “okay” as suffering like a caffeine addict put on a diet of decaf only. For the first week after Rebecca left, he had done what any suddenly single bachelor did—partied like a rock star with his friends, flirted like hell with every leggy blonde that crossed his path, and in general, acted like an idiot.

The second week she was gone, the partying lost its allure. So he threw himself into his job instead, hammering out the hours at the engineering firm that had hired him as an unpaid summer intern, keeping his head down and his nose to the grindstone. Y2K was only a few months away, and while the firm scrambled to prepare for any kind of possible what-if, Jeremy tried to make his mark in a company where the senior engineers called him “kid.”

The third week she was gone, he had to unplug his phone to keep from calling her mother to find out where Rebecca had gone and when she was coming back. He’d taken to going on long, punishing runs along what used to be their route by the Charles River. Instead of an endorphin high, the runs left him with the urge to write lovesick poetry that would have made Edgar Allen Poe cry.

By the end of the summer, he told himself he was okay. And better off without her in his life. He’d asked a couple women out on dates and pretended to have a good time. He and Rebecca were over, and that was what he wanted.

He didn’t have room in his days for a relationship like that, not when he was trying hard to get a grip on the career ladder. Without Rebecca, he could concentrate on impressing the boss at Griffin Engineering. Yeah, that was exactly why he’d gone to see
Star Wars Episode I
three times in one week. Because he was fine, just fine.

Then he pulled into his grandmother’s driveway on a Monday night in early September and saw Rebecca’s car parked outside her mother’s house down the street, and he realized everything he’d told himself was a lie. He was a fool for letting her go, and getting her back was the only thing he wanted.

So now he stood on the stoop outside her mother’s house, cursing himself for being here while nerves bubbled in his gut, and he wondered if maybe he should just go next door and spend his life mastering virtual skateboarding with Will instead.

He pressed the doorbell button and heard the notes chime. Damn. He should have brought flowers or something. But then he would have looked like he was trying too hard—

Or would she have liked that? No, Rebecca wasn’t given to overly romantic gestures. She liked things simple, as predictable as straight lines. No need for the fluff of a Hollywood movie. It was part of what had brought them together—him, with his linear engineer’s mind and Rebecca with her no-nonsense approach to everything. She was in business school, for God’s sake. It didn’t get less fluff and flowery than that.

The oak door opened. Rebecca’s green eyes widened when she saw him, and the nerves in his gut multiplied. Her pink lips formed into a little, enticing O, and she raised a quick hand to brush a tendril of dark brown hair off her forehead. She wore little makeup, and had on a pale yellow Suffolk U T-shirt paired with silky navy running shorts that showed her amazing legs and tanned arms. She’d never looked sexier or more desirable.

God, he’d missed her.

“Jeremy.” Her voice was flat, as unemotional as if he was the mailman. “What…what are you doing here?”

For a second, his mind went blank. He hadn’t thought beyond ringing the bell. So far, his plan for getting her back scored a giant goose egg. “I came down to mow my Grandma’s lawn, then I saw your car in the drive. I didn’t realize you were back.”

“Just got home today.”

“Oh. Good.”
Way to play the lame card, Jeremy.
He cleared his throat. Acting like a lovesick fifteen-year-old wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “Did you have a good vacation?”

Oh yeah, much better. That kind of sophisticated talk was going to get him his own plaque in the Lame Hall of Fame.

“Yeah.” She glanced back over her shoulder, and he wondered if she had company. A new boyfriend?

The thought pained him. It wasn’t like they were still together, or like he’d been a monk in the weeks she’d been gone, but still the thought of another man kissing Rebecca’s lips, holding Rebecca tight…

Coming over here had been a bad idea. A really bad idea.

That didn’t stop him from making it worse. He blamed it on the desire that simmered inside him, a pilot light that had never gone out, despite their breakup and the months apart. He still wanted her, as much as he had the first time they’d kissed. He ached to reach out and touch her, but kept his hands shoved into his pockets. Will had warned him against attempting this Kickflip McTwister, or whatever he’d called it. Maybe the gamer knew something Jeremy didn’t.