Cross My Heart (A Contemporary Romance Novel)

“You will?”
    She smiled up at him. “You expected a harder sell?”
    “I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “Coming here was impulsive, and I’m not usually impulsive. I didn’t know what to expect. But I thought you might have plans.”
    His brown eyes warmed a little as he looked at her, and Jenna felt a tingle at the base of her spine.
    “My only plan involved a pizza, which I will now call and cancel. I’d love to come to your house for dinner. But your daughter knows I’m not in a band anymore, right? I don’t want to meet Claire under false pretenses of fame and glory.”
    He shook his head. “She told me your band broke up a few years ago. She did say something about a reunion tour this fall. I think she’ll probably ask you about that.”
     Jenna laughed. “Her and everyone else. Give me a few minutes to change, okay? I’ve been doing some painting and I’m not exactly presentable.”
    His eyes traveled down her body and back up to her face. “I think you’re very presentable,” he said, and she could tell it was the second impulsive thing he’d done today, because he looked a little self-conscious after he said it.
    She felt a sudden rush of awareness, like an electric surge. It was so strong and so unexpected that she almost took a step back.
    “Okay, then,” she said after a moment. “I’ll be over in, say, half an hour? Will that work for you?”
    “That’s perfect,” he said. “We’re having salmon, if that’s all right.”
    “Perfect,” she said, echoing him.
    “Well…great. We’ll see you in half an hour.”
    Jenna leaned against the doorframe and watched him cross the lawns between their houses. When she realized she was staring, she closed the door firmly and went upstairs to shower.
    A few minutes later she was scrubbing paint flecks off her skin under the spray of hot water. She pictured Michael’s serious face and warm brown eyes, and the way his loose-limbed body had filled her doorway. She remembered his gaze moving over her, and the way her body had responded.
    She hadn’t felt that zing in a long time. It had been a while since she’d even felt like flirting with anyone.
    But why now? Why him? Michael was nothing like the bad boy type she’d always gone for in the past.
    He struck her as the responsible type. Stable and mature. He looked so serious—and she knew from her neighbor on the other side that he was a doctor.
    She’d turned thirty a few months ago, a milestone she hadn’t wrapped her mind around yet. Was her attraction to her conservative-looking neighbor a sign of things to come? Was this the final death knell of her old wild self, the girl who’d left home to start a rock band?
    Jenna stepped out of the shower and toweled herself dry. She smoothed lotion onto her skin and stood at the counter to apply her makeup.
    She’d always sworn she’d never lose her edge, never turn boring or conventional or tame. Look at Tina Turner, still rocking the house at seventy. If Tina could stay wild then so could she.
    But looking at herself now, she acknowledged that she wasn’t the person she’d been at eighteen…or even twenty-five. Five years ago, for instance, she would have gone for dead pale skin and lips, and exaggerated her eyes with thick black liner. Now she was putting on mascara and lip gloss and not much else.
    She couldn’t pin down the exact moment in time she’d changed her look. It had been a gradual thing.
    There’d been other changes, too. She’d quit smoking almost three years ago, and to help deal with the nicotine cravings she’d started jogging. Now she actually enjoyed getting up early to run before breakfast. A far cry from her days in the band, when the Mollies would stay up till dawn and sleep till late afternoon, in time to get ready for that night’s show.
    She didn’t go out to the clubs as much, either. She’d settled in Chicago after the Mollies called it quits, working as a studio musician and enrolling in a degree program for music education. Between work and classes something had to give—and that turned out to be her night life.
    Then a few things happened. The Mollies made plans for a reunion tour, she got the job offer from L.A., and an old friend asked her if she’d be interested in teaching music that summer in Willow Springs, Iowa.
    The lease was up on her Chicago apartment. Aunt Beth and Uncle Sean were travelling until fall, and when they offered her their house for a couple of months,