LITMIR.BIZ

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kid. And you could give her some insight into me as a woman.” She turned to Reve. “You know Jacob and I even dated for a while, and I’m here to tell you that this man”—Jazzy wound her arm around Jacob’s arm—“is one great kisser.”

      Reve gasped. Jazzy laughed. Jacob seared Jazzy with his tight gaze.

      “Ah, lighten up, you two,” Jazzy told them. “Relax. I’m just having some fun with y’all.”

      “I’m afraid I don’t see the humor in this situation,” Reve said.

      “Look, I don’t know why you two decided instantly that you can’t stand each other, but we need to do something to change this. Right now. If Reve is my sister, I can’t have one of my oldest and dearest friends and my newly found twin hating each other.”

      “I haven’t got time for this,” Jacob said and tried to move past Jazzy.

      She stood stubbornly in his way. “Agree to have lunch with us and I’ll—”

      “I have other plans for lunch,” he said.

      “Then supper tonight—you two with Caleb and me.”

      “Don’t do this,” Jacob told her, a strained expression on his face.

      “I’m not available for dinner,” Reve said.

      Jazzy heaved a deep sigh. “Okay, I give up. For now. But don’t think this is the end of it.” She moved aside and allowed Jacob to pass.

      Once they were alone, Reve snapped around and glared at Jazzy. “I do not—under any circumstances—wish to be engaged socially with Sheriff Butler. I’d appreciate it if you’d give up any plans you have that involve my becoming better acquainted with that man.”

      Jazzy let out a long, low whistle. “He really punched all your buttons, didn’t he?”

      “All the wrong buttons.”

      Jazzy shook her head. “I just can’t figure it out. I’ve never seen Jacob have a negative effect on a woman before. Usually, a woman takes one look at him and swoons at his feet. After all, honey, let’s face it—the man is to die for.”

      “I’m afraid I fail to see whatever it is that makes him so irresistible.”

      “You’re kidding, right?”

      “Let’s end this ridiculous conversation.” Reve started walking toward her Jaguar in the side parking lot next to the clinic. “I can drop you back by Jasmine’s, if you’d like. I made plans for an early check-in at my cabin. I’d like to get settled and freshen up before lunch.”

      “I’ll walk,” Jazzy said. “It’s only a few blocks.”

      “Very well. What time shall I meet you for lunch?”

      “How about one o’clock?”

      Reve nodded agreement.

      Jazzy didn’t press the matter—getting Reve and Jacob together—but she had no intention of letting it drop. She suspected that although Reve disliked Jacob and probably found him intimidating, she wasn’t as immune to his obvious masculine charms as she professed to be. Maybe Reve just didn’t know how to deal with unwanted sexual attraction. And unless she missed her guess, that was what was going on between Jacob and Reve.

      Jazzy couldn’t contain her laughter, amused at the thought of sexual sparks igniting between Jacob and Reve. Talk about a mismatched couple.

      “Dare I ask what you find so amusing?” Reve asked.

      “Nothing really. I was just thinking how you stick out like a sore thumb around here. Unless you hobnob with the Uptons or the MacKinnons, all you’re going to run across around here are just common folks. Hill people. Rednecks. And a few breeds, like Jacob and Genny.”

      “I suspected the sheriff was part Native American. Doesn’t he mind being referred to as a breed?”

      “He and Genny are both a quarter Cherokee and damn proud of it. And I’m practically family to them, so my referring to them that way is the same as the two of them calling themselves breeds.”

      “At least they know their heritage. Whereas you and I . . .” Reve let the sentence trail off into silence.

      “You really are worried about it, aren’t you? Poor Reve. What if you find out I’m your twin and that our parents were really white trash? Me, I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ve always been white trash. But you—”

      “I am a Sorrell, regardless of my genetic heritage.”

      “Yeah, I guess you are, aren’t you?”

      Jazzy turned and walked away, not glancing back, but sensing that Reve was watching her. She wanted to be friends with this woman, to find some common bond between them other than the likelihood they were sisters. But the chances of that happening appeared to fall into the snowball’s chance in hell category.

      Becky Olmstead had graduated from high school in the spring and was working as a gofer at MacKinnon Media headquarters to earn enough money to pay for college. At least, that was what she’d told her mother. But she had no intention of going to college, and her job here was just a smoke screen to keep her old lady off her back. Combining what she earned here with what she picked up at night on her other job, she should be able to leave Cherokee Pointe before New Year’s and begin a new life in Nashville. More than anything, she wanted to get away from home—from her nagging mother and her mean, drunken stepfather. If anyone had told her two years ago that she would have gone from being a teenager who just liked to have fun, to one of half a dozen hookers in Cherokee Pointe, she wouldn’t have believed it. But when, at sixteen, she’d been offered fifty bucks to go down on a guy, she hadn’t been able to refuse such easy money.

      If folks knew the men she’d screwed during the past couple of years, they’d be surprised. Hell, they’d be shocked. Her first john, the one who’d given her fifty bucks to give him a blow job, was old enough to be her grandfather and was a prominent citizen. He still came to her occasionally, but not so often lately. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t serviced him in nearly two months. But he wasn’t the only big spender. Not by a long shot. Actually, if she wasn’t just a little bit afraid of getting into some bad trouble, she’d try blackmail. She sure could ruin a few lives if she named names.

      Nah, better not go that route, she told herself. She’d been saving steadily for her big escape, and pretty soon she’d have a sizable nest egg, enough to live on until she could hook up with the right people in Music City. Who knew, could be she’d wind up married to some famous country singer and get to live in one of those fancy mansions that would put the Upton house and the MacKinnon house to shame.

      “Becky! Go over to Jasmine’s and pick up Mr. MacKinnon’s lunch, right now!” Glenda Motte, Brian MacKinnon’s secretary, called out to her.

      “Right away, Ms. Motte.”

      Becky hurried to the employee’s lounge, where she’d left her jacket that morning, and glanced at the wall clock above the coffeemaker. She hoped the meal was ready when she got to Jasmine’s; otherwise, Mr. MacKinnon would take a strip off Ms. Motte’s hide. The man was a tyrant. She figured that nobody who worked for him really liked him. But who had the balls to tell the man to go to hell? He ruled over MacKinnon Media like a damned dictator, and if anybody crossed him, he saw to it that they lost their job. Since starting work here in June, she’d had to run errands throughout the complex that housed the Cherokee Pointe Herald as well as WMMK TV and radio stations, so she’d heard plenty of grumbling about the big boss.

      “He’s not half the man his father is.”

      “Farlan MacKinnon is one of the best men I know. A fair and honest man. Brian runs a poor second best to his father.”

      “Brian is such a shithead. Too bad he’s not more like the old man. Or even more like that loony uncle of his. At least Wallace MacKinnon is likable.”

      Becky

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