Gurl-Posse Kidnap: How to open a book

I like fast paced plots with an afterjet ending for my crime thrillers. 'Cept my dainty readers want to know character, back story and how'd he get so bent. So I wrote a new opening that reads like this:

After Thanksgiving when new wine rests on the lees at bubbling ferment, family secrets tumble out in a drenching rain, blind to who gets hurt. A drug deal unravels into murder, kidnap and redemption as PI Jake Knight helps his client see the light.

CHAPTER 1

Jake settled on a stool with one boot atop the rail. He twisted to ease the ache at his beltline where a bullet scored a divot weeks earlier. Tanya sailed by, smelling like angel cake, and set down a glass of ice-water by him. He smiled. She smiled. Ever observant, she hovered an inch away from out of reach. “For your veins?” she teased.

She returned with his dinner on an oval plate. A barricade of crisp garlic fries restrained succulent juices. With knife and fork he carved into the roast beef mounded on toasted sourdough. The odor steamed up his sinuses, cleared the rain and damp from his thoughts and warmed his heart. She laughed all the way back to his elbow with a cloth napkin. He’d have felt less vulnerable had he known she delighted in the pure nurture of her man.

A quarter hit the juke box and rolled down memory lane. Dolly Parton’s voice sidled up to the guy one stool down, keen to squeeze lost love from his chill IPA. After a respectful pause for heartache, Tanya rolled another quarter Jake’s way. It was spackled with chips of red nail polish, round like a bullet hole. He punched up a classic by a local boy. Horns kicked the sky higher and bounced off a base line with a boogie beat. Huey Lewis let loose, “You don’t need no credit card to ride this train. The power of love…”

Her green eyes vaporized his heart and her shoulders shimmied with approval. His throat knotted. He wanted to clear the verbal logjam by whispering in her ear on a pillow bound for far away. A heartbeat later, Dolly’s ornery soul mate wiped a labored hand over his rough stubble, tapped his glass to signal refill and tapped Jake’s glass too. Tanya nodded and turned to the draft beer tap. “What a crock,” the guy muttered. “That singer is too drunk on what nobody serves no more.” Jake winked at Tanya and saw pure gold ore.

Once a skinny rail with pony tails, orchid tattoos now bloomed from her elbow to her sleeveless top. She’d rounded into all he held dear, his touchstone of sanity with a hint of flint. That put her at the top of his Christmas list, underlined and circled twice. And he had no idea what might express all that she deserved.

He glanced at her emerald eyes, a sparkle he’d searched the world for and only found in her. She pulled away, tawny hair tied to the side, her grin quivered into throaty chuckles, not quite a giggle. Jake laughed at himself, captivated. She floated back with a draft IPA. She stretched, looked at Jake and did the oddest thing with the tip of her tongue. He imagined a lynx on a tree limb over a game trail. He longed to be king of her jungle, oh Jesus please.