LITMIR.BIZ

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who had taught him carpentry. And he’d found the perfect job for a man who couldn’t afford to stick around long. A free agent, he was paid a flat fee, erasing any need for uncomfortable questions about his past and his identity.

      He smoothly shifted gears, resisting the urge to increase his speed when traffic opened up. Considering his resistance to ending up a mechanic, he was surprised to find he liked working with his hands. More than that, he enjoyed the feel of a virgin piece of wood under his fingers, watching as it slowly told him how to cut it, then gave in to his will and became furniture that was not only functional but bore the mark of its original beauty.

      Not all that unlike the way Leah opened up under his hands, freeing the girl he once knew as spunky and smart and gutsy, afraid of nothing. Passionate, greedy, demanding. So unlike the Leah of today whose eyes were devoid of any emotion at all and whose movements seemed automated, uninspired.

      She had once told him that she loved the feel of his rough skin against hers….

      J.T. set his jaw. Of all the women he’d been with in his life, including the one that had ended up stealing his freedom, he had yet to determine what it was about Leah Dubois Burger that touched him so profoundly.

      But if there was one thing he planned to do before leaving Toledo, Ohio, it was not only to unearth if she felt the same way about him, but whether or not she could accept who he had become.

      4

      “MEET ME AT TEN TONIGHT.”

      Leah stood outside her car in the University of Toledo parking lot later that day, the midday sun warm against her face, her fingers trembling as they held the small piece of paper that had been under her windshield wiper. The longing that had been burning through her veins for the past week sent a warm shiver careening through her body. J.T. had written the name of a small bar and where it was just outside the western city line. He hadn’t signed his name. But she didn’t think any of the twenty-year-olds in her classes had left her the note. No, it was definitely J.T.

      She stuffed the paper into the pocket of her slacks then unlocked the door to her car and climbed in, sitting for long moments staring through the window.

      She swallowed hard, the sound loud in the confines of the closed car. She couldn’t go. Wouldn’t.

      Her watch chimed off the hour and she absently glanced at it. It took her a moment to register that she was due to meet Dan at the therapist’s office in half an hour, the one time a month when they met at lunchtime as opposed to after five.

      She picked up her cell phone, lightly rolling her thumbs over the numbers. She’d never cancelled a session before. But how could she possibly go and face her ex-husband and the counselor feeling the way she did?

      And how did she feel?

      Flustered. Needy. Alive. Like the woman she’d once been who hadn’t expressed her sexiness through lingerie hidden under her clothes, but in everything she did.

      Stupid.

      She blinked at the last word, her movements even more sluggish than they’d been recently. Hadn’t she gone this route before? Hadn’t she put everything on the line for a man who had a history of disappearing? Who offered her nothing beyond the moment, only the here and now? Hadn’t she sacrificed her marriage, her relationship with her daughter and the only way of life she had known for a few hours of escape in another man’s arms?

      She reached to slip the cell phone back into her purse and it vibrated. She looked at the display. Her sister, Rachel.

      Leah idly considered not answering.

      Rachel was a year younger and a whole world happier than she was. In two months she’d be marrying the man of her dreams. A man with a past even darker than Leah’s was, but a heart as big as Ohio. All you had to do was look at Gabe Wellington to see how much he loved Rachel.

      Had Dan ever looked at her that way? She briefly closed her eyes, trying to remember. No, he hadn’t. Maybe. Way back in the beginning.

      “For a minute there I thought you weren’t going to pick up,” her sister said when Leah finally answered just before the call would have rerouted to voice mail.

      I wish I hadn’t. “Class ran over.” Liar.

      “What are you doing for lunch?”

      She glanced at her watch again though she didn’t have to. She knew what time it was every moment of every day, if only because it seemed to drag by. “I have to be at the counselor’s in twenty minutes.”

      “Oh.”

      Leah caught the flat tone of her sister’s voice as she said the simple word. “And that would mean what, exactly?”

      A pause then, “You don’t sound like yourself. What’s going on?”

      Rachel. The smarter of the two sisters who had not only made it through college, but had gone on to law school to become an attorney and a city councilwoman.

      Sometimes Leah hated her.

      But she’d always love her.

      “Nothing. I guess I just didn’t sleep well last night. And Sami read me the riot act this morning for not washing her volleyball shorts.”

      “And you’re going to counseling like that? May be you should cancel and meet me for a margarita.”

      Leah sighed and relaxed slightly into the driver’s seat, wondering if the muddled emotions crowding her chest would ever leave. “I can’t tell you how good that sounds.”

      “So do it then. And meet me at Carmel’s in ten.”

      Leah opened her mouth to refuse but Rachel had already hung up.

      She absently pushed disconnect and stared at the cell for a long moment. She’d never canceled a session before. Surely this one time couldn’t do any harm.

      She called Dan’s office first only to learn he’d already left.

      Maybe she should go. Dan was probably already on his way, if he wasn’t already there. Either way, he would have his cell switched off.

      She dialed the therapist’s office next and told the assistant she couldn’t make it but that she’d be there for their regularly scheduled meeting.

      She disconnected, put the cell back in her bag, then pulled it back out again to switch the receiver off, routing all incoming calls directly to voice mail. The instant she did it, she felt ten pounds lighter, though it did nothing to stop the moths fluttering around in her belly.

      Oh, boy, did she ever need this margarita.

      “GABE WANTS ME TO MOVE into his place after the wedding,” Rachel told her from where she sat across from her at Carmel’s Mexican Restaurant.

      Leah fingered the coarse salt lining on her extra-large margarita glass then licked her finger. She’d never been much of a drinker and knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to drink more than a quarter of the concoction before her, but somehow it made her feel better to sip from a mammoth glass than a smaller one.

      “And the problem is?”

      “The problem is I just bought my own house, had it completely renovated and just moved into it three months ago. I don’t want to move again.” She sipped at her own margarita then crossed her arms on top of the table. “Besides, the thought of living in the mausoleum he calls home gives me the creeps.”

      Leah cracked a halfhearted smile. “It can’t be that bad. The Wellington place is a part of Toledo history.”

      “Then Gabe should turn it into a museum or something.”

      Leah didn’t know much about the Wellington estate beyond the sweeping grounds and the towering castlelike spires. She’d fished for an invitation from her sister once or twice, but it sounded like Rachel spent as little time at the house as possible and was trying to find ways

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