Page 1 of Love & Rockets

Chapter 1

“Stop squinting. You look like you’re constipated.”

Jake Dalton grimaced as his mother’s sharp elbow found the soft spot between his sixth and seventh ribs. He grunted and his brother Brian hugged his fiancée in a lame-ass attempt to hide his laughter. Luckily, Brooke wasn’t anyone’s shill or decoy. Eyes wide and innocent as a newborn baby’s, she poked a finger into Brian’s side, hitting him in the same vulnerable spot. Obviously, their mother was training the daughter she’d always wanted well.

Resisting the urge to smirk, Jake simply covered his bruised side with his hand and leaned down to speak directly into his mother’s ear. “I wouldn’t have to if you’d let me wear my glasses. It’s a piece of tape.”

Julia Dalton huffed an impatient breath but didn’t bother sparing him a glance. “There are dozens of eligible young women here, Jacob.” She scanned the Starlight Ballroom with a practiced eye, murmuring almost to herself as she took in every tiny detail. “I’ll be damned if I let my handsome boy go walking around like some kind of Poindexter all night.”

“Hate to break this to you, Ma, but your boy is a Poindexter,” Brian said with a grin.

“Better than being a guppy,” Jake muttered, turning his head so he could sneak in a squint.

The put-down packed about as much punch as it did when they were kids. Jake knew for a fact there was nothing his water-logged little brother would have liked more than to actually be a guppy. In the end, Brian had to settle for life on two legs as a semi-famous marine biologist and oceanographer. Better than a guppy, but still not quite shark material. But now he’d landed the incredible Brooke Hastings, so maybe Brian had finally figured out there were some perks to not being covered with scales.

“I gave birth to two doctors and neither of you can give me what I really need,” his mother said, heaving a wistful sigh.

Brian and Jake groaned in unison, but unaccustomed to the old refrain, Brooke stepped right into the set-up. “What’s that?” his future sister-in-law asked, her smile solicitous.

“Valium,” all three Dalton men answered in unison.

While Jake shared a grin with his dad and brother, his mom shot them a death glare. A flash of gratitude warmed Jake from the inside out. Thanks to his mom’s misplaced vanity, his glasses were tucked in his coat pocket, and he was the only one of her men who couldn’t see her malevolent stare clearly.

But his mother missed nothing. Within seconds, his father caught a staggering blow from her elbow with his ribs. Jake mirrored his father’s wince and immediately straightened up. Andrew might have settled for a simple master’s degree rather than the doctorates his sons had earned in what he liked to term their ‘pipe dream’ fields, but the man was anything but a fool. When Jake was sixteen and embarking on his first relationship that looked like it would last longer than the seven minutes of heaven he’d experienced in Molly Watkins’s coat closet, his dad had taken him aside and offered one bit of sage advice.

Don’t waste your breath arguing with a woman you love, son. You’re gonna give in to her anyway. No sense in working up a sweat.

His parents’ marriage was closing in on forty years, and everything seemed to be clicking along. Jake saw no reason to doubt sound advice. No one knew better than an engineer that if something wasn’t actually broke, trying to fix it would only screw things up beyond all repair.

Kind of like his glasses.

They were in perfect working order when he tossed them onto his bed. Even after he’d sat right on them, they were only a little mangled. But then he’d tried to straighten them, and damn if the whole ear piece didn’t snap right off in his hand. He’d fixed them as best he could with what he’d had on hand. In truth, he thought he’d done a pretty good job. The frames were black and a little shiny, so he used electrical tape to anchor the temple to the rest of the frame. Of course, his mother spotted the chintzy repair job within seconds.

He’d swear the woman had herself retro-fitted with some kind of ocular scanner that alerted her to social infractions. So he’d worn his Iron Man pajamas under his school uniform a couple times. And maybe he had been a bit too vocal in his defense of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. But he was smart. Adaptable. Unlike his younger brother, who insisted on learning every life lesson in the hardest possible way, Jake was fairly quick to admit his mother was right about some things when it came to interacting with fellow members of the human race. Okay, most things. Particularly with interacting with the females of the species. But a guy had to see, damn it. The room might be chock-full of bachelorettes, but how the hell was he supposed to know if he wanted to talk to one if he couldn’t see her?

“We’re going to get a drink,” Brian announced.

His brother nodded toward the far corner of the room. Jake could only assume there was a bar set up somewhere in that general direction, but it was clear, even without his glasses, his little brother intended to ditch him there. Like the unhelpful pain in the ass he always was.

“Don’t.” Jake grunted.

Brian laughed and murmured, “Careful, there’s a bogey incoming.”

“Bogey?”

“Socialite. Radar lock engaged.”

Jake set his jaw and started to reach into the breast pocket of his suit coat, but a gentle hand on his arm stopped him.

“Don’t you dare,” his mother said through a smile so bright the gleam in her eyes might be mistaken for a twinkle. “That’s Cassidy Johanssen heading our way.”

Brian emitted a gurgling gasp that sounded like his trusty scuba equipment had let him down. Jake blinked furiously as he glanced from side to side, hoping to figure out the angle of attack, and desperately wishing the government had gotten the old Strategic Defense Initiative off the ground.

“Ten o’clock,” his father whispered.

When his mother slanted a sharp look in his direction, Jake’s dad stared woefully at the nearly full tumbler of scotch and water in his hand, clearly wishing he had an excuse to go to the bar, too.

“Hang in,” Brooke said quietly, giving his arm a squeeze. “I hear she’s been seeing Jack Tucker pretty steady and he’s leaving the bar. I think you’re fairly safe.”

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