Test Drive by Marie Harte Page A

dating scene, but he’d never been anything but circumspect about his lady friends—or so rumor had it.
    Then again, if she were to believe Rena, Johnny might be angling for a real relationship. Something more involved than just sex.
    And I’m reaching here, I know it. She held out her glass for more wine, coming to like the tart drink, and decided to keep her eyes and ears open about Johnny. It couldn’t hurt to do a bit of reconnaissance on the man, especially if she was possibly thinking about maybe considering a future in which she dated him.
    Dating didn’t mean she had to sleep with him. But all that might be moot. After having asked her and been rejected so many times, he might not ask her out again.
    Didn’t mean she couldn’t ask him, though.
    “Why are you so quiet, I wonder?” Rena asked with a smug grin. “Thinking about a certain someone with the last name of Devlin?”
    Lara frowned. “If I am, it’s your fault. Now quit talking him up, and let’s discuss what’s really on my mind lately.”
    “What?”
    “Ron Howell and Kristin’s plea that I handle him, since she dumped her lawyer—or Slick Dick dumped her. Either way, she and my parents want me to deal with him.”
    Rena stared, wide-eyed. “Are you going to?”
    “What choice do I have?”
    “Well, make sure you do it in public.” Rena gave her a devilish grin. “And I know just the place.”

Chapter 4
    Tuesday night, with his old man back in town, Johnny suddenly had plans for the following weekend. So much for another break from the grind. Admittedly he’d been spoiled by a few days with nothing to do but fantasize about Lara. Talk about some fevered dreams.
    “So, who is she?” Jack Devlin asked.
    “Who?”
    “The woman who put that look on your face.” Jack chuckled. “Got your dick twisted in a knot, eh?”
    “Whatever.” Johnny hoped he didn’t look as pathetic as he felt and refused to outwardly look in Lara’s direction. He’d come to Ray’s tonight specifically to watch her, and what kind of loser hung around a bar just hoping to see someone who’d rejected him twelve times? Not a Devlin, that’s for sure.
    His father had been bagging women since he’d turned fourteen, to hear him tell it. Johnny knew his dad meant well, but the old man didn’t understand women as well as he thought he did.
    Fucking them and loving them had never gone hand in hand for Jack Devlin. Not since his wife had died. But Johnny had to wonder if his parents would have stayed together if his mom had lived.
    So sad to be so jaded, but he’d understood the truth about his dad at a young age. Pretty women came and went out of Jack Devlin’s life, and out of Johnny’s. One had even lasted half a year before she’d split. His dad didn’t normally do more than a few months at most, fidelity not in his makeup.
    Despite his father’s philandering, Jack Devlin was a genuinely good guy. Hell on relationships, yet a stand-up friend and father in many other ways.
    “You see, boy, women are like flowers.”
    Johnny groaned. “Please. Not the flowers speech.”
    “Some are colorful, some are full, straight, or curvy. Others are fragrant or thorny. But they’re all pretty in their own way.”
    “Please, Dad. Not now.”
    Lara nodded at some dickhead down at the bar, and the jerkoff smiled at her. What made it worse was that the guy didn’t seem to be a regular, because he had on clothes that looked clean and pressed. A pricey watch too, unless it was a fake, but it seemed to match the designer jeans and expensive button-down. He couldn’t be more than a few years older than Lara and didn’t seem to be that bad looking either. Not good.
    “Sometimes you have to take your time holding that flower, not too tight or too loose. Too tight and you’ll get pricked. Too loose and she’ll slip through your fingers. But when you get a good sniff of—”
    “I’ll get us more beers.”
    His father chuckled as he darted away. Before he could