Not His Type

by Shanna Hatfield

  Jake was more than happy to drive the two-hours to Longview to deliver the car and see the look of hope it brought into the young man’s eyes, knowing that not that many months ago Sam had been exactly where he was now. Sam gave him everything, no strings attached, but asked that when he no longer needed the car and equipment, that he’d find someone else to pass them on to who did.

  “Wow, Sam,” Jake said, feeling a warmth spreading through him at having witnessed the wonderful gift Sam had just shared. “That was incredible. You are really going to make a difference in his life.”

  “It kind of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?” Sam asked, wearing a huge grin.

  “Well, what now?” Jake asked, as they headed back toward the freeway and home.

  “I’ve got one more stop I’d like to make if you are game for it,” Sam said.

  “Just name it,” Jake said, liking Anna’s brother better all the time.

  Another hour and a half later, they were sitting in a salesman’s office at a huge auto dealership. Sam needed something to drive and with funds left from his accident settlement, decided to get a new pickup. He was mostly recovered from the accident and ready to get behind the wheel of something that involved pedals on the floor. He knew a pickup was the most practical choice for him with the farm and wanted it to be a dandy. He and Jake looked over nearly every pickup on the lot and test drove three. After deliberating on which one to get, Sam finally decided on a silver crew cab pickup, with a short box and four-wheel drive.

  “I can’t wait to show Lisa,” Sam said, unable to stop grinning from ear to ear. “She is going to be so surprised.”

  “I bet she will be,” Jake agreed. Sam had been driving that little car with the hand controls and there was barely enough room for two people to fit. It wasn’t ideal for a busy farmer and certainly not for a young man in his prime with a new bride.

  Finishing the paperwork, Sam floated out to his pickup on cloud nine. Calling home, he told them he’d bring pizza and a surprise for dinner, then invited Jake to join them.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Jake said with a grin.

  Sam and Jake stopped at a pizza parlor on the way home and Jake volunteered to carry it in his truck so it wouldn’t mess up the new smell in Sam’s.

  Pulling into the driveway, Sam made a mental note to tell Anna that Jake was a really great guy. If she was smart, she wouldn’t let him get away and his baby sister was known for her intelligence.

  He tooted the horn and Lisa, his parents and Anna came running out of the house, all looking surprised. Jake pulled in behind him, waiting a minute to join them in order to give the family plenty of time to admire Sam’s truck.

  “Sam, what did you do?” Lisa said, giving him a hug and practically dancing around. “Oh, this is awesome.”

  “Well, I couldn’t be taking my bride anywhere in my toy car,” Sam said, referring to the one he’d just given away. Lisa gave him a kiss as she climbed inside and checked out all the features.

  Ken did his share in offering praise and admiration. He had to hand it to his kids. They knew how to pick nice wheels.

  Anna gave Sam a hug. “Congrats, Tuff. This is fabulous.”

  Sam hugged her back and nodded toward the pickup behind him. “You can thank Jake for me for bringing home the pizza so the truck didn’t smell like pepperoni.”

  Anna noticed Jake pulling pizza boxes out of his pickup and ran over to help him, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  “So, I hear you are the hero of the day, rescuing my brother’s sweet ride from the stench of pizza,” Anna teased.

  “Yep, that’s me. Hero. Hanger of wedding decorations, assistant test driver and chauffeur of pizza,” Jake said with a big grin. Feigning exhaustion, he sighed, “I think I’m about worn out, it’s been a busy day.”

  “Well, maybe I can find a way to make it up to you,” Anna said, giving him a wink as they started into the house with the pizza.

  After dinner, Sam took Lisa, Sue and Ken for a ride in his pickup, leaving the house quiet and empty. Anna sat next to Jake on the couch, holding hands, slouched into the cushions with their feet on the ottoman watching television. Neither one of them could have said what they were watching. They were simply enjoying the quiet and being together.

  “So, Anna, you said earlier you’d find some way to make up for this extremely taxing day,” Jake said, rolling his head her direction. “What did you have in mind?”

  Anna knew she should learn to stop throwing out teasing promises that Jake would later expect her to keep. Leaning over she gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “How about that?”

  “Not even close,” Jake said, trying to look stern.

  Anna gave him a fast kiss on the lips.

  “You aren’t even trying,” he growled.

  Anna felt her insides start to warm and flutter. She sat and looked at him for a long moment then slowly slid over into his lap. She massaged his shoulders for a few minutes then gently tugged on his earlobe with her teeth. When she heard him groan and felt his hands tighten around her waist, she whispered in his ear. “Close your eyes.”

  Jake went completely still and obeyed, having no idea what to expect from Anna. He wasn’t sure he had enough self-control left to stop anything she might start, but was willing to try. When she blew a huge, wet sloppy kiss on his neck and started to jump up, he held her tight and began tickling her sides unmercifully.

  “After all that back-breaking, perfectly rotten wedding stuff you made me do this morning, running all over the countryside with your brother this afternoon and then driving home tormented by the smells of pizza, all I get from you is a raspberry?” Jake hollered, indignant. “That is just not acceptable, Anna. Not at all.”

  She struggled, between giggles and gasps for air, to get away but Jake’s strong arms held her fast. He quickly grabbed a flailing foot and began tickling her toes as well and that nearly threw Anna into spasms.

  “Oh, stop, Jake, please stop,” she begged, trying to wiggle free. Raising her voice, she yelled desperately, “I’m sorry. Please stop. You’ve got to stop. Please, Jake. Please!”

  Just then, the kitchen door banged open and her dad rushed inside. Jake and Anna simultaneously glanced over the back of the family room couch into the kitchen to see her parents, Lisa and Sam all looking concerned. Jake started to get up, nearly dumping her on the floor before grasping her waist and helping her stand upright.

  “Oh, hi,” Anna said, tugging on her T-shirt, twisted from the tickling, and walked into the kitchen. “Did you have fun?”

  Sue looked at Ken and shook her head while Lisa popped Sam on the arm and said, “I told you there wasn’t anything wrong.”

  “What’s going on?” Anna asked, getting out iced tea and cake left over from the bridal shower.

  Sue smiled and Lisa laughed. “We were coming up the walk and could hear you begging Jake to stop. Our resident cavemen jumped to the worst conclusion possible and decided to charge in here and rescue you.”

  Anna’s mouth made a round “O” while Jake blushed. Wishing he could slink out the door and go home, he instead glanced at Anna. “We were just having fun. I didn’t know Anna was so ticklish.”

  “Did you try her feet?” Sam asked, grabbing the cake platter and setting it on the table. “That always throws her for a loop.”

  Everyone laughed as the tension left the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “I can’t believe the wedding is in three days,” Anna commented to her mother as she tugged at the neckline of her bridesmaid dress. She knew she should not have waited so long for the final fitting. It fit perfectly almost everywhere. Anna was slightly more endowed than the design of the gown allowed.

  Lisa chose sage green as the color for the tea-length taffeta dresses, styled with sweetheart necklines, tight princess seams and full tea-length skirts. Wide satin ribbon straps were all that were standing between Anna and a decidedly unfortunate wardrobe malfunction.
<
br />   “Are you sure this is my dress?” Anna asked as her mother looked through the rack of bridesmaids dresses, each one clearly labeled. Lisa had four attendants. Her best friend would serve as maid of honor and her two sisters, along with Anna, would be bridesmaids. It wasn’t hard to figure out what dress belonged to Anna since the other girls were all considerably shorter and petite.

  “Yes, it is yours,” Sue confirmed. “How did we not notice this earlier? We’ll just have to get it fixed. Yank it off and let’s see what the seams look like.”

  “Do you think she’d notice if I wore a shawl?” Anna asked with a grin. Lisa had planned every detail of this wedding right down to what color socks Sam was going to wear. They both knew a shawl would be immediately discovered.

  The seams were wide so Anna left further direction to the dress shop in Sue’s capable hands and ran back to work.

  <><><>

  The day of the wedding was unseasonably warm for September. Not a cloud filled the sky as Anna and Sue sat sipping tea and enjoying a few peaceful moments before the chaos of the day erupted.

  The explosion came earlier than they planned as Sam barreled in the kitchen door looking panicked.

  "What's wrong, Sam?" Sue said, immediately thinking something terrible had happened.

  "Kyle has the stomach flu," Sam said of his fourth groomsman, a convincing double for the fourth horseman of the apocalypse. "He just called and isn't going to be able to stand up with me. Lisa is going to come unhinged."

  Sam sank onto a kitchen chair and ran his hand through his hair with a dramatic sigh. Anna had never seen him like this.

  "Well, we'll just have to figure something out," Anna said, trying to ease her brother's concerns. Fine time to get the flu. Kyle seemed well enough at the rehearsal last night but she had a sneaking suspicion his flu bug had more to do with the party after the rehearsal rather than anything contagious.

  Why Sam had chosen Kyle was beyond her ability to understand. There was not a single redeeming characteristic about him, in Anna’s opinion. Although Kyle had been a childhood friend of Sam’s, he seemed incapable of maturing past the mentality he had embraced his sophomore year of high school.

  Sam sat up and looked at Anna. "Would you ask Jake?"

  "Ask Jake what?" Anna inquired, not sure what her brother was getting at.

  "If he would stand up with me," Sam said, gaining enthusiasm as he embraced the idea. "I really would rather have Jake than Kyle, but Kyle had agreed long before Jake entered the picture let alone became quite so permanent a fixture around here."

  "Why don't you ask him," Anna gave her brother a look that said he was about to tread on thin ice. "I'm sure he'd be happy to. It's not like he wasn't going to be there anyway."

  "Please ask him for me, Anna. You know he won't turn you down," Sam pleaded. "Besides, I've got a long list of other things I need to take care of today and finding another groomsman and getting him a tux isn't on the list. Please, please, Anna?"

  "Stop begging, Tuff, I can't take the suffering," Anna laughed. "I'll call Jake after we have breakfast and see what he has to say."

  Sam pecked her cheek. "You are the best sister, ever."

  "You just say that because I'm your only sister,” Anna teased as she sipped her tea.

  "But you'd still be the best, even if I had ten."

  “Merciful stars,” Sue exclaimed, “I don’t even want to think about that.”

  Anna tried calling Jake right after breakfast and got no answer on his cell phone. That was unusual. The house he shared with four other guys didn't have a land line so she had no other means of getting in touch with him. After trying twice more and not getting a response, she wasn’t sure what to do. They usually talked or texted each other by 9 a.m. on weekends. Odd that today of all days she couldn't get an answer.

  Before Sam reached full-blown hysteria, Anna took Kyle's tux and went to find Jake. She arrived at his house about a quarter past ten. She had never been inside the two-story house shared by five guys and was now curious about what it looked like.

  Jake once brought her by but left her in the truck while he ran in to grab something, so she had no idea what to expect. Walking up the steps, she was impressed the outside looked clean and orderly. Stepping up to the door, she hoped nothing was wrong and Jake was home. His truck was parked on the street, so that was a good indication she would find him inside.

  Jake slept in this morning, something unusual for him. He went out the night before with Sam and his friends after the rehearsal dinner, serving as one of the designated drivers for those who had too much liquid fun, and got in late. He knew today would be long and it would probably be late again when he got home tonight, so it was almost ten when he rolled out of bed and jumped in the shower.

  He sauntered into the kitchen, hair still wet, clad in a pair of jeans, to find their resident health-nut Van mixing up one of his smoothie concoctions. Paul and Mark were hanging out on the sofa eating cold cereal and watching cartoons while the sound of Phil snoring could be heard faintly from upstairs.

  The five of them had been friends growing up and when Mark's parents decided to move out of this house, he was allowed to stay and rent out rooms as long as it was well-maintained. So part of their ridiculously cheap rent every month went to a cleaning service that came weekly and mucked out their messes. After all, five single guys couldn't be expected to do much in the way of housekeeping, even if Jake and Van were dubbed “neat freaks.”

  Van was pouring his smoothie into a glass he held over the sink, idly gazing out the kitchen window when his head snapped up and he yelled, “Code Pink! Code Pink!” After one unfortunate mishap of a girlfriend walking in to find three of the roommates in their underwear and embarrassing them all, the guys devised code pink as a way to announce an unplanned female guest.

  Jake leaned over to see a girl coming up the front walk and if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, it was Anna.

  Mark and Paul, who were both sitting in their boxers, scrambled for cover while Van turned and ran for his room. That left Jake to get the door.

  Anna was surprised when the door opened and Jake stood there smiling at her.

  "Mornin' Sugar," he drawled, pushing the screen door open and kissing her cheek. "What brings you by?"

  Anna stepped in to a surprisingly clean, and from all appearances, well-kept house. She had expected weird smells, piles of garbage and general chaos. Instead, it looked like any other nice home on the block.

  "I'm sorry to just drop in, but I tried calling and couldn't get a hold of you. We've got a bit of a wedding problem and Sam is hoping you can help him out," Anna said, looking around and spying two of Jake's roomies on the couch. From the looks of their hair, they had barely gotten out of bed.

  "Sorry. I slept in and haven't even checked my phone this morning." Jake walked her toward the front room, visible from the open entry area. "This is Mark and Paul, Anna. I don't think you've met before," Jake said, by way of introduction. The two guys appeared to be trying to share a small fleece blanket. Bare feet and legs hung out below the stretched fabric, bare shoulders poked out above and they both had bright red faces.

  Anna inclined her head, blushing while she averted her gaze. "Nice to meet you both."

  Seeing the need to relieve the agony of his friends and his girl, Jake turned Anna toward the stairs and grabbed her hand. "Let's go to my room to talk," he said as he hustled her into his bedroom. He was a bit red-faced that his bed was unmade and the clothes he wore yesterday were in a pile on the floor. He gave them a swift kick toward the hamper.

  Anna didn't seem to notice, though. She was too busy staring at Jake's chest. She thought back to all the times they had been together and realized she had never seen Jake shirtless. It was probably a good thing she hadn't because right now it was causing sensations she'd rather not deal with today to rocket through her entire body.

  His jeans were snug and bare toes poked out from the hem. Anna knew Jake had a fine phy
sique, but seeing his upper body bare in the broad daylight with hard sculpted muscles was enough to completely rattle a girl. No wonder he could pick her up like she weighed no more than a sack of potatoes. Anna couldn’t pull her gaze away, awestruck as she was, holding her hands behind her back to keep from reaching out and touching one of Jake’s brawny muscles.

  Jake remembered he was only half dressed as he grabbed a shirt from his closet and slipped it on. He had paraded around showing off his muscles to more girls than he even wanted to think about but something about Anna, something sweet and untouched, gave him a healthy dose of modesty. He didn't, however, have a big enough dose to button it and instead turned back to Anna.

  That was worse agony than the bare chest Anna decided, still staring at Jake. With a portion of his tanned bare skin teasing her from behind a shirt that made his eyes all that much bluer, hair still damp and curling around his forehead, smelling clean and fresh from the shower, Anna felt her knees start to weaken. She finally understood what was meant by the phrase sex appeal. If it had a name and face, right at that moment it was Jake Chandler.

  "So, what is the problem?” Jake asked, watching undefined emotions flit through Anna’s expressive violet eyes. She was acting quite unusual, even for Anna, and he wasn't sure what to make of it.

  When she didn't answer and continued gaping at his chest, he began to feel a bit unnerved under her intense perusal and turned his back to her while he made his bed. "Anna?" he asked looking over his shoulder, hoping she'd eventually get to the point of this unexpected visit. "What's the problem, Sugar? You said there was a wedding problem?"

  Seeming to snap out of her trance, she blinked her eyes and turned her focus on his face. That was what she needed to do...focus. Wedding? That’s why she was here. Sam needed Jake’s help.