LITMIR.BIZ

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nice to meet you.”

      Yeah, right. Cozy Kevin had got him by the balls. He jerked his chin in response. He didn’t trust himself to say anything.

      Carrie walked Kevin to the door. They didn’t linger. A simple goodbye, and he was gone.

      Thunder gazed at his ex, and silence engulfed the condo. She fidgeted with her highlighted hair, twisting the ends.

      “Quit looking at me like that,” she said.

      “Like what?”

      “Like I’m still married to you.”

      “You should have told me Kevin was going to be here.”

      “I don’t owe you an explanation, Thunder.”

      “Maybe not. But I asked you over the phone if you were with anyone. You could have been honest.”

      “It isn’t serious.”

      “Really?” He wanted to step forward, to crowd her, to get as close as he possibly could. “Then what’s the deal with the motel?”

      “I have to work later. I manage my parents’ motel now.” She zeroed in on the groceries in the kitchen and went to put them away.

      Refusing to drop the subject, he followed her. “That doesn’t explain why Kevin has a room there.”

      She opened the fridge and put a bag of apples inside. A jar of mayonnaise went next, followed by some prepackaged lunch meat. “That’s where he stays when he’s in town. He’s a salesman for a pharmaceutical company.”

      Thunder raised his eyebrows. “You’re dating a drug dealer?”

      “Very funny.” She finished putting away the groceries and removed a red-labeled can from the cabinet. “Do you want coffee?”

      He gave her a frustrated nod, then leaned against the counter. “Why did he ask you to stop by his room later?”

      She shot him an exasperated look. “We plan on having dinner tonight. During my break.”

      He couldn’t help himself. He grilled her as though she were a cheating spouse. “Are you sleeping with him?”

      “Not that it’s any of your business, but no, I’m not.” She went to the sink to fill the carafe with water. “We’re still getting to know each other.”

      “And he’s okay with you putting him off? What a wuss.”

      She heaved a sigh. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

      “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      “It means that some men know how to be friends with a woman.” She looked him square in the eye. “You’ve never grasped that concept.”

      He frowned at her. “You and I were friends.”

      “No we weren’t. All we had was sex.”

      Her words stung, right down to the core. “We had more than that.” He watched her put coffee grounds in the filter. “We had the baby.”

      Her hand nearly slipped. “I got pregnant because we were sleeping together. Not because we were friends.”

      “Fine. Whatever.” He ignored the emptiness in his chest, the ache that always surfaced when he thought about the loss of their child. He knew the miscarriage had left a hole in her heart, too. He could see the familiar sadness in her eyes. At first they’d been scared spitless about becoming parents, but within a matter of weeks they’d grown romantically accustomed to the idea. “I didn’t come here to dredge up the past.”

      No, Carrie thought. He’d got in touch with her because he wanted to interview her about a case he was working on. She wasn’t surprised that he did high-profile security and investigative work. She’d been a homebody, a nester, but he’d always dreamed of bigger and better things, of saving the world, of making a difference. After the divorce, he’d enlisted in the Army, where he’d become an intelligence officer. She’d heard that he’d been a mercenary too, that after he left the Army, he’d taken high-risk jobs. People were always telling her things about Thunder. But that happened when you lived in a small town, where everyone seemed to know your past. Not that she hadn’t been curious about him. He hadn’t been an easy man to forget.

      She poured the coffee and tried not think about their youth, about him splaying his hands across her tummy and asking her what they should name the baby.

      They’d chosen Tracy for a girl and Trevor for a boy.

      Carrie handed him his coffee. He accepted the steaming brew, watching her with an intense expression in those deep, dark eyes. He’d aged strong and hard, with unrelenting features. He was bigger, broader, more muscular, burgeoning into the warrior he was destined to become.

      He’d been planning on enlisting in the Army before she’d got pregnant, before he’d been honor-bound to marry her. And afterward he’d expected her to be his military wife, to sit on an Army base somewhere and wait for him to return from Lord only knew where. She’d refused, and he’d remained as restless as an alley cat, scratching his way through a young, troubled marriage.

      But even so, he’d wanted the baby. He’d wanted to be a father. The memory hurt more than she cared to admit. She was supposed to be over him. Twenty years was a long time. Their child would have been a young adult today.

      “What’s that?” he asked.

      She blinked, then realized she’d just splashed a vanilla-flavored creamer into her cup. She held up the container, showing it to him. “Do you want some?”

      “No.” He angled his head. “You always had a sweet tooth.”

      “Yeah, but now everything goes straight to my hips.”

      He checked her out, slowly and steadily. “I like how you look.”

      Uh-oh. A case of self-consciousness crept over her, so she stirred her drink, trying to seem unaffected. “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”

      “And I wasn’t taking the unintended bait.”

      “Okay, then.” She clanked her spoon. He was still checking her out, like the predator he’d always been. Even as a teenager, he’d had a blatant way of looking at her, of making her feel sexual. A tactic that had worked in his favor, especially on the night she’d given him her virginity. For Carrie, first-time sex had been painful, but he’d held her afterward, promising it would get better.

      And it had. Every time he’d touched her, she’d fallen deeper in love. Foolish girl that she was. But in the end, she’d filed the divorce papers. Dissolving the marriage had been her choice, her heartbreak, her salvation. After they’d lost the baby, everything had fallen apart, including her emotions, her fear of staying with a man who was much too eager to conquer the world.

      Carrie took a deep breath, and Thunder ran his hand through his hair. It was shorter than it had been when they were young, but not as close-cropped as she’d expected. He didn’t wear a military cut.

      “Are you ready?” he asked.

      She nodded. She knew he meant the interview. He’d told her over the phone that he wanted to question her about Julia Alcott, a woman who used to work at her family’s motel.

      They sat at the kitchen table, with the afternoon sun shining through a window.

      “When’s the last time you saw Julia?” he asked.

      “It’s been ten years. That’s how long ago she worked for my parents.”

      “Did you know her very well?”

      “We had a lunch together a few times. We weren’t overly close, but I liked her. She was easy to talk to, mature for her age. She’s younger than I am. She was only eighteen at the time.”

      “And you were twenty-eight then.”

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