Page 20 of Lush Curves

Since Sarah and Jax had found each other, and since Noah had moved out to Carly’s Place and made a real go of his painting career, Annie had looked light-years better, though. She’d gained a bit of weight, making her sweetly-rounded and curvy, less angular and sharp, and the lines around her eyes and mouth had receded and retreated. Her eyes were bright and beautiful, and she actually made an effort with her long red hair, which made a bigger difference than Jax could have imagined.

So, yeah, Annie was a damn attractive woman now, and maybe always had been, under all the strain and stress. She was also asinglewoman, for all intents and purposes, though she’d never been able to find her husband to divorce the fucker, so she wasstilllegally married, but so what? She considered herself divorced, and she sure as hell was, in Jax’s view. And if she was ready to date a nice guy, Jax was all for it, though he’d ensure that hewasa nice guy. He glanced at Sarah, wondering how she was going to take it all. Her first words showed him:

“But… whylie?” Sarah asked. “I mean –it’s great that you’re dating someone, Mom. Why is this a secret?”

“Well…” Annie floundered. “I just – I wasn’t sure that you’d approve.”

“Approve?” Sarah echoed. “Why do I need to approve, Mom?” She gestured at Jax. “God knows I didn’t ask you what you thought of Jax before we started dating, and Godalsoknows that youdidn’tapprove… not that I cared, mind you. He was hot.”

That broke the tension a bit and they all grinned at each other, remembering that awkward first meeting, thinking about how far they’d all come since then.

“Anyway,” Sarah continued. “I’m thrilled that you’ve got a date on Friday, because let’s face it, you’re long overdue for a night out. Who is he?” She gave her Mom a saucy grin. “Anyone we know?”

“No,” Annie said firmly. She may have had to come clean about the actual existence of the date, but there was no way inhellthat she was sharing the identity of said date. “Just a guy who comes into the diner every once in a while.”

“Nice guy?” Jax grated out, already feeling protective of his future mother-in-law, already kind of hating the idiot who was almost-certain to hurt her in some way – and whenthathappened, Jax was getting the boys together and they’d be paying dickface a visit. “Single? Solvent?”

“Sexy?” Sarah chimed in. “Supersexy, even?”

“Argh,” Annie muttered, flushing red, knowing that it was clashing furiously with her hair. “Enough, kids.”

“Aw, c’mon,” Sarah began, but Annie cut her off.

“No. I stayed out ofyourlove life, and I’ve become very hands-off about Noah’s too, after my first worries about him and Callie. I want you to do the same for me, sweetie … stay out of things. I honestly don’t expect this to go anywhere, which is another reason that I didn’t want to say anything. I think we’ll have one date – one, singular – and then that’ll be it. Nothing to get excited about, or get invested in. It’s one dinner – one, singular – and then I’m sure we’ll go our separate ways.”

“Why?” Jax said. “You think he’s not worth it?”

“Oh, no. No. He’stotallyworth it.”

“So – what?” Jax narrowed his eyes at her again, pinning her with his usual damn x-ray vision. “You thinkyou’renot worth it, huh?”

“I just said for you to stay out of it,” Annie said tartly as she got to her feet and reached for her heavy coat. “So I’ll thank you to do that.”

“Oh, Mom –” Sarah said, a bit alarmed that they’d pushed it too far. “We didn’t mean –”

“I know,” Annie said wrapping her scarf around her neck and retrieving her gloves from her coat pockets. “Look, kids… my love life is dead, and it’s been that way for a long, long time. One dinner doesn’t mean anything, OK? This guy is… well. He’s not for me, not long-term. He’s just a decent guy who invited me for a meal, and I said yes because it’s nice to eat with another human person, just for a change. But this isn’tgoinganywhere – I know it, he knows it, now you know it.”

“Really?” Sarah said tentatively. “Really nowhere?”

“Really.” Annie dug her car keys out of her purse, gave Sarah and Jax her firmest smile, the one that she gave drunk customers who thought they were being cute, and as she did, she tried hard to forget Sam’s slow, gorgeous smile as he’d held her hand and called her ‘honey’. “Really,reallynowhere.”

And she wasn’t actually sure who she was trying to convince anymore, because if truth be told, despite her best efforts and all her common sense, a tiny sliver of hope had started to creep into her heart and it had taken hold, it had gained ground, it had started to blossom. Hope for a kiss; hope for a second date; hope for being the focus of this smart, kind, funny man’s desire and want. Just for a little while.

But if there one thing that she knew, it was that hoping for things with Smoking Hot Young Doctor Sam Frickin’ Innis was a one-way shortcut to heartbreak and heartache. Hoping foranythingwith him was a massive mistake; it was a fool’s errand; it was folly and it was pathetic. In her experience, hope was a malicious motherfucker in so,somany ways, more ways than she could count. Hope was cruel and taunting and, ultimately, hope was hopeless.

She left Jax and Sarah’s beautiful home in the Rockies, and went to her shitty little car that was practically being held together with duct tape. She slammed her car door, and as she did, she also slammed down on her hope.Hard.

Maybe not hard enough, though.

Chapter Four

“So,” Sam said, pouring her a third glass of wine, depositing the last spring roll on her plate. “How’s your life, Annie?”

“Um,” she said, scrambling to marshal her rambling, meandering thoughts and get them under some semblance of control. The wine had gone straight to her head, partly because she never drank, partly because she’d been so nervous about this date that she’d barely eaten that day. “In what respect?”

“Any respect, honey.” He wielded his chopsticks like a goddamn pro, picking up a piece of broccoli easily. “What do you want to tell me about?”

Her brain froze up, went fuzzy. What was she to tell Sam, exactly?

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