LITMIR.BIZ

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eye.

      “Ever talk to him?”

      “No!” Her heart raced. But why was Michael probing so hard?

      After a long moment of scrutinizing her, Michael’s hard face relaxed again, and she decided maybe she’d pulled it off.

      “Good,” he said, his tone oddly controlled.

      “Officer Nash, it’s late,” she stated.

      “Michael,” he murmured.

      She went to the front door and opened it. She smiled when he grabbed his notebook and got up.

      He glanced around. Fortunately, the family photos didn’t seem to attract his attention. But he’d had a lot of time alone with them in the den. Still, he had no reason to be suspicious. But if he looked at Carmen’s pictures too closely…

      “Nice house. Nice couch. And the pool. The pool’s great. You always did like to swim. I remember when we ran away together, how you wanted to go to that beach with all the palms and skinny-dip.”

      She tensed again but said nothing.

      “What about your art? You still draw everything you see?”

      She shook her head.

      “That’s too bad. You were good. I remember how you wanted to be a famous artist.”

      His comment made her feel wistful. As a kid she’d seen her art as a way out of East Austin and the deadend kind of life Hazel had led, just as Michael had seen playing college football as his ticket to success. Both of them had been through so much. First they’d blamed each other for their fathers’ tragedy. Only with time had he seen that her pain was as great as his, and their mutual pain had caused them to form a bond. Then she’d gotten pregnant and made her decision.

      Rosie felt the stirring of a vague, nostalgic longing. For what? It wasn’t as if things could have ever worked out between them.

      She’d done what she’d thought best, and now they both, him unwittingly, had to live with the consequences. Period. There was no going back.

      Unable to read her mind, he grinned and changed tack. “I notice this house belongs to one of your ex-fiancé’s ex-wives, Yolie Carver. The fast-food taco queen.”

      He’d emphasized the name Carver, and Rosie tensed again.

      “You’re not living with her just to cozy up to his family? You’re not still stalking…” His eyes darkened.

      “You were leaving,” she reminded him, shakily. “Little girl found. Case closed.” She tried to make her voice light.

      “Right. Just curious. You always did want to live high, princess.”

      “Is that a crime?”

      “Some things never change, I guess. Is that what you have against me? That I’m a cop? That I can’t afford a house like this? If you weren’t out for revenge, is that why you could bed me, but then be so anxious to get rid of me—”

      “Why did you give up being a big pro football star?”

      “You mean why’d I quit, just when I was set to rake in millions?”

      “To become a cop?”

      “You think I was a fool?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      His daddy had been a cop. And he’d said he’d hated his daddy. Maybe being a cop was a calling.

      Michael had moved up the ranks fast. She wondered if it was because he was good or because he knew the right people. Or because he was on the take like his daddy. Or maybe he felt he had to live down what his daddy had done.

      “Why are you so damn set against me?” he demanded.

      “Look, I don’t need this,” she whispered.

      He pitched a business card onto Yolie’s gleaming coffee table.

      She felt a strange, aching disappointment that she didn’t understand. As if her heart was breaking as it had all those years ago when she’d decided to dump him.

      He’d ruined her life. Because of what had happened with him, she’d given up her art…and everything else she’d longed to have and be. Now she was a nobody, she, who’d been alive with ambition and so damned eager for a ticket on the glittering train car.

      She picked up his business card and then set it down again.

      “Well, you know where to find me, princess.”

      As he walked toward her, invading her personal space as only he could, his eyes burned her neckline. She blushed and became annoyed that he could upset her just by getting too close.

      “I just broke up with my girlfriend. Maybe I could take you…and Alexis, too, to Zilker Park or something. Maybe teach her to throw a Frisbee. Maybe ride the little train…You have my card.”

      “I don’t think so.”

      He brushed past her and stepped outside. She shot the bolt and leaned against the door, rasping in quick breaths as his brisk footsteps receded down the walk. For a long time, she just stood there, feeling as if she were melting on the outside but frozen in the middle.

      He’d invited Alexis to the park. Why did that touch her? Had he felt some bond with the child? Did he suspect the truth, maybe, on some subconscious level?

      Feeling a strange need to call him back, she rushed to her window and watched his lean form slide into a battered, blue Crown Victoria with a tall antenna on the trunk. Her heart caught. He looked so lonely out there in the dark.

      Only after his engine started was she able to break the connection and make herself march to the kitchen. She was lusting for Michael, which meant she probably should indulge herself with some of Yolie’s birthday cake. But when she opened the fridge and saw the huge piece of chocolate cake, the red candle on top of it spelled Forty.

       Teeny piece. Trust me.

      She pulled the awful candle off and licked the length of it.

       Delicious! Sinfully so!

      As she threw it in the trash, she imagined herself trying to zip her forty-year-old butt into her new spandex jeans. When she returned to the fridge, she pushed the cake plate behind the milk carton and grabbed an apple. She went to the drawer where she kept her favorite Kasumi paring knife, which Pierce had bought her on a trip they’d made together to Japan.

      It wasn’t there.

      Frustrated, she dashed about the kitchen, jerking all the drawers open. Finally, she settled on a dull blade from Yolie’s block. Then she sliced the apple into bite-size chunks and poured herself a glass of water.

      The knife would probably turn up where she least expected it.

      After putting her glass and Yolie’s knife in the dishwasher, she went upstairs, undressed and got into bed with Alexis. She reached toward the lamp chain to switch on the light and then stopped herself. When her thoughts turned to Michael again, she felt weak and empty and strange.

      Her heart pounded as she remembered how lonely he’d looked as he’d gotten in his car. He’d hit it off with Alexis. He’d wanted to take them to Zilker Park.

      Feeling confused, she reached for Alexis and snuggled closer to her and tried to forget Pierce, Michael and her stressful night.

      Forty. Life felt frighteningly too real. She wanted to be a kid again and believe she could have the fairy tale.

      One thing was for sure.

      She needed to put both her old flames in the past—where they belonged.

      Four

      When the phone rang at 5:00 a.m., Rosie’s first weary reflex was to reach for

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