Simply The Best Read online

  AT LEAST I WAS THERE FOR YOU

  She had been there. In his house, keeping him company. Making him forget he was sick. But she’d been absolutely no use as a nursemaid. “Alex, you’d kill people with your kindness.”

  “I would—” She paused. “Okay, maybe I would. But still, I have to finish this house.”

  “Why? What has gotten into you? You’re even more stubborn than usual lately.”

  “I am not.”

  “Are too.”

  She took a step forward, chin upturned in a tease, closing the gap between them. “Am not.”

  He came closer, his grin widening. “Are too.”

  His voice had lowered, his gaze dropping to her lips. At that moment, something inside Alex suddenly went hot and liquid. This had been a game, a joke, but the joke died on her lips, as she became very aware of Mack. Of the muscles beneath his T-shirt. Of the way his skin glistened with a fine sheen of sweat. Of how blue his eyes were. Of how his lips curved into just the right kind of grin, the kind that made her want to—

  Kiss him.

  Where the hell had that come from?

  Simply The Best

  SHIRLEY JUMP

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter One

  Mack Douglas wondered some days if Alexandra Kenner even knew he was a man.

  She had never looked at Mack the way other women did. Virtually every woman Mack had ever known noticed he was made up of testosterone. Some flirted, some just smiled. Others made their interest quite clear by a shifting of cleavage, a bold invitation to dinner or an even bolder invitation to bed, but Alex—

  Alex saw him as a friend. The ugly, curse-of-death F word.

  Right now, she was swimming laps in his inground pool, her sleek body streaking back and forth in the bright sunshine, while she worked off a broken heart. Earlier that afternoon she’d told him all about how Edward—or the Evil One, as Mack had come to think of him—had turned out to be married. The bastard had been two-timing his wife and Alex.

  Some men, Mack decided, just didn’t need to live. And Mack didn’t really need to hear the details, either, not from Alex.

  Especially not while she was wearing a bikini.

  She flipped over, the water sluicing down her skin. He bit back a groan. Shifted from foot to foot. Kept his mouth shut about the effect she was having on him. Again.

  He’d never told Alex how he felt. To her, he was just Mack. He always had been. They’d been friends forever, since he saved her from a bee in first grade, and, in turn, she’d given him something to look forward to every morning.

  Alex had changed his life when she’d moved next door and become his friend, and he, she’d told him many times, had changed hers. For twenty-two years he’d also seen her as just that—

  A friend.

  Someone to tell his problems to. Another on his e-mail list to forward that one about the priest and the monkey who went into a bar. The first one he’d call when he scored Red Sox box seats, the last one he’d call at the end of a date when the woman had turned out to think she was the descendant of Marv the Martian.

  Then, somewhere along the way, Mack had started to notice Alex. Notice the way she breathed. The scent of her perfume. The shape of her hips, her breasts.

  And he’d stopped thinking of her in friendly terms.

  It had been, however, a one-sided thought road. For a guy, there were days when that particular avenue was pure agony. Like today.

  Alex stopped swimming. “Have you heard a single word I’ve said in the last ten minutes?”

  “Of course,” he lied, watching her float on her back in the pool, her breasts poking up in the water, two very enticing flotation devices. Ever since she’d slipped into a swimsuit, his concentration had gone south—and stayed south.

  “Uh-huh. So what did I just say?”

  “That all men are the scum of the earth. And Edward is king of the scum pond.”

  Alex laughed. “Close enough.” She rolled over onto her stomach, swam across the pool, her strokes even and smooth. Then she hoisted herself out of his pool and Mack had to remember to breathe.

  The water cascaded over her breasts, running like a waterfall down every inch of her luscious curves, shimmering along her tiny waist, the arc of her hips, as she climbed up the ladder, then onto the concrete. She swung her long brown hair to one side, squeezed the water out of it, completely unaware of what such a movement made the rest of her body do in that teeny, tiny, hot-pink bikini.

  Mack swallowed. Grabbed the beer beside him and knocked back half.

  “Thanks, Mack,” Alex said, finally grabbing a towel and wrapping it around herself, taking away the best parts from his sight. “I needed that.”

  I did, too.

  With a sigh, he put down the beer. “My pool is open, anytime.”

  “Despite the fact that you listen about as well as a fence post,” she said, grinning, “I appreciate the invitation to come over today. I needed to get as far away from Edward as possible. And I always love your house. To find the best house on the corner, look for the one owned by the carpenter.”

  “One of these days, you’ll let me build you one.”

  “When I have a need for more than one bedroom.” She sat down on the lounge chair and he found himself starting to pray.

  Take off the towel and lie back, go for a tan.

  “I didn’t know what I was going to do after that whole thing with Edward,” Alex said. “What kind of guy proposes to a woman while he’s still married to someone else?”

  “Well, he did say he was separated.” Mack figured he’d stand up for his kind, at least a little. Though a big part of him wanted to find Edward, rip the guy’s guts out and feed them to the nearest carnivorous animal.

  “Separated is not divorced, Mack. You know that. Did you date other women when you were married?”

  He winced. Why’d Alex have to bring up that topic? If there was one door to his past that Mack preferred to keep bolted shut, it was the one holding the memories of his short-lived marriage. “You know I didn’t cheat. I might have sucked at being a husband, but I never ran around on Samantha. And,” Mack said, drawing in a breath, “as Forrest Gump would say, that’s all I want to say about that.”

  “Are you ever going to talk about it with me?”

  “Nope.”

  “I thought we were best friends.”

  “We are. Which is why I’ll keep my nig
htmares in my own bedroom.” He grinned. “No sense keeping you up at night pacing the halls in your fuzzy slippers, now, is there?”

  “Mack, that’s what friends are for. To be there and hear the good, the bad and the ugly.”

  “Wanna have a sleepover and find out for sure?” Mack asked. Only half-kidding.

  Alex rolled her eyes. “You are incorrigible.”

  “Which is why I’m divorced. What’s Edward’s excuse?”

  “Don’t ask me. Frankly, I think he was hedging his bets.” Alex’s face reddened with renewed anger. “He had the gall to tell me his wife thought they were ‘working things out.’ He still goes to counseling with her every Tuesday, for God’s sake. Yet, all this time he’s been living with me and just happened to forget to mention that he was married. You don’t just forget a wife.”

  “You do if it’s convenient for getting you the next one. Sort of like keeping a spare tire in the back of your pickup for emergencies.”

  “I am not a spare tire.” Alex blew a lock of hair out of her face with a gust and shot him a glare. “Why are men such jerks?”

  That word got Mack’s attention. Reminded him that he had descended into the depths of jerkdom by standing there, praying for Alex to take off the towel so that he could sneak a peek at her body again. Some friend that made him. He sank onto the lounge chair beside her and handed her a beer. “Because we have very tiny brains and we tend to keep them behind our zippers.”

  Alex laughed. “Seriously.”

  Mack shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s hard to think with this tiny brain.”

  He wasn’t exaggerating, either, given that most of his thoughts right now were running down another track entirely, and being dictated by the brain behind his zipper. Clearly, given his past relationship record and present thought patterns, he shouldn’t be the spokesperson for the male population. He didn’t exactly make them look good.

  Nor was he any better at commitment than Edward was. At least Edward had stayed married. Ever since Mack’s single failed attempt—which lasted only slightly longer than the average Hollywood marriage—Mack had steered clear of matrimony—as clear as one man could steer of the institution. He’d sooner put his head through a crosscut shredder than repeat that mistake.

  Alex sighed. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is meet one nice guy. Why is that so hard?”

  “Why do you want to?” Mack asked, leaning forward, propping his elbows on his knees. “I mean, aren’t you working hard on becoming reporter of the year over there at the City Times? Why bother adding in the complication of a relationship?”

  He, for one, couldn’t imagine that kind of future, not in a million years. He’d learned his lesson—the bachelor life was the best one for him. No one to answer to, no one to wonder why he came home late from work. No one to question a damn thing he did, which was why he now stuck to the kind of relationship where he got in quick, got out quicker.

  Even if lately all that had begun to feel as empty as a light beer. Was he missing out on some secret the rest of the world knew and he didn’t? Or was he just having some kind of weird male hormonal thing?

  Probably a vitamin B deficiency. Yeah, that was it.

  Alex put aside the beer. “How long have you known me, Mack?”

  “Forever.”

  “And in all that time, did I ever have a normal family? Parents? A golden retriever? Hell, I couldn’t have paid Oliver Twist to change places with me as a little kid, at least until I went to live with my grandmother. Most kids dream of a pony for Christmas. Me, I just wanted…”

  Alex drew in a breath, looked away for a moment, making Mack’s chest tighten in sympathy, because he knew the moment that had changed Alex’s life, the day when everything went downhill.

  Then she straightened and became her sassy self again. “Well, who wants to be Oliver Twist, anyway? Annie was the one who ended up with Daddy Warbucks.” She grinned.

  “And the dog, don’t forget the dog.” At the mention of the three-letter word, Mack’s mutt, Chester, got to his feet and padded over to them, tongue lolling, tail wagging. His whole body shaking with include-me-in-this-too. The tan dog was a mess of breeds—long ears, a short tail, and a squat, barrel body.

  Alex bent down and patted Chester. He looked up at her with complete adoration, his tail whirling like a helicopter rotor. “Look at him. Anyone else would have called this dog a lost cause, but not you.”

  “Are you saying my dog is ugly?”

  “He’s not a Yorkie pup, let me put it that way.” Alex rubbed Chester’s ears and he let out a doggie groan.

  For the first time since Mack had rescued Chester from behind a Dumpster on a construction site a year ago, Mack was jealous of his own dog.

  “But he’s cute.”

  “Like his owner?”

  Alex laughed. “Since when do you fish for compliments?”

  Since he’d started wondering what Alex thought of him. Since Alex started paying more attention to his dog than to him. “Hey, I’m a guy. My ego is always in a fragile state.”

  Alex’s laughter deepened. “Nothing about you is fragile, Mack.” She scratched Chester under the chin and the dog flopped onto the ground, offering up his belly for the same manual adoration.

  Mack swallowed hard. He would have started eating Alpo just to trade places with his dog. “Well, just having a dog doesn’t mean your life is on the right track.”

  A dog hadn’t filled in all the gaps. Hadn’t helped quiet the continual craving in Mack’s gut for something—what, he didn’t know—but something he was missing. Like a platter that wasn’t on his personal buffet. He’d tried everything in his life to find that dish, but it hadn’t worked.

  Maybe he just needed a vacation. A break from the mundaneness of work. Yeah. A couple weeks on a beach, and he’d get this…this sense of dissatisfaction out of his system. And maybe also shed this constant want for what he couldn’t have.

  Chester spied a squirrel in the yard and scrambled after it.

  Alex sat back and let out a sigh. “I have almost everything I ever wanted, careerwise, and what I don’t have, I can get myself. I can make that part of my life work like a watch, but when it comes to relationships, I’ve got two black thumbs. I’d just like something, or rather, someone, that’s normal in my life.”

  “You’ve got me.”

  She laughed. “You, my hulking friend, are far from normal.” Alex leaned back, turned her face up to meet the summer sun. “I’m serious. All these years, I’ve been dating, and it’s the same old story. Single woman in the city finding jerk number seven hundred and sixty two. I want a change. I want a man like me.”

  Mack arched a brow. “Like you?”

  “Someone who wants to cut through the crap of a relationship, be honest and maybe…I don’t know, settle down, at least for a little while. Except…” Alex paused.

  “The whole idea of settling down scares the crap out of you?”

  “Yeah.” She laughed. “I guess we’re two of a kind that way, aren’t we?”

  “Absolutely. I wouldn’t come within a hundred yards of an altar again if you paid me.” He’d learned his lesson there. Should have been smart enough not to even attempt it in the first place. He wasn’t cut out for the stifling blanket of marriage, and had made Samantha’s life miserable.

  He knew, because she’d told him. A thousand times. Then she’d slammed the door so hard it had cracked the jamb. The next time he’d seen her had been across the table in her attorney’s office.

  “But I’m ready to take a chance now,” Alex said. “Be a grown-up.”

  He laughed. “A grown-up? Now that sounds boring.”

  “What’s boring is the dating rat race. I am so sick of it. I’m D-O-N-E. I want a solid, stable relationship.”

  He mocked a yawn, teasing her. “How fun is that?”

  “Is it so unusual to want a man who comes home when he says he will? Give me one dependable guy who doesn’t think honesty is a sexually tra
nsmitted disease, and I’ll be happy for the rest of my life.”

  Mack thought about that for a second. In his current role as representative of the male population, he made all men look like hedonistic liars. Okay, so some of them were. Hell, he’d been known to have a few of those tendencies once in a while.

  Maybe more than once in a while.

  “So, what are you going to do if you find this needle in the X-Y haystack?” Mack asked.

  Alex raised and dropped one bare shoulder. Mack’s hand curled tighter around his beer. The cold glass bottle was no substitute for the warm skin a few feet away.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I might even fall in love.”

  He grinned. “I’d say you have the falling in love part down pat.”

  She leaned over and smacked him. “Thanks a lot.”

  When she moved like that, Mack had to grab his beer so he wouldn’t stare down her bikini top again. Why couldn’t Alex wear a one-piece, like other women? Why did that damn towel have to keep slipping?

  She drew in a breath, raising her breasts. Up. Down. Up. Down. “What would you say if I told you I even considered getting married?”

  He put a hand over his mouth, feigning shock. “I’d probably faint.”

  “Well, I did. I know, I know, next to you, I’m one of the most commitment-phobic people out there. But for a second there, when Edward proposed, it didn’t sound as scary as I thought it would. Until I found out he was married.” She wagged a finger in Mack’s direction. “Then I wanted to kill him.”

  “Good thing you didn’t. It’s kind of hard to meet Mr. Right when you’re sitting on death row.”