LITMIR.BIZ

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chin. Looking like she was getting ready to fight him until he admitted he was lying.

      Damn, she was amazing.

      Desperately, he said, “That’s because you’re a kid.”

      She paled. “Kid?” she whispered and backed up.

      “Yeah. A kid.”

      Hurt spread across her features and his stomach clenched. He forced himself to continue. “Here’s some advice. Lose the makeup. It makes you look trashy. And whoever taught you to kiss didn’t do a very good job.”

      She froze and stared at him. “You can teach me—”

      Shouts of laughter interrupted her. She looked over his shoulder, her eyes widening so much they practically swallowed her whole.

      Whirling around, he saw his ex-girlfriend Stacy surrounded by her friends. All standing in the open doorway. All laughing at them. At Lily.

      John gritted his teeth and struggled for calm, when all he wanted was to rip them apart. Instead, he walked toward Stacy with determined steps, grabbed her face, and kissed her hard. Her tongue eagerly surged against his, wet and agile, and she grasped his hair, her long fingernails cutting into his scalp in a way that had always been arousing.

      He felt nothing. Nothing but desperation.

      Tearing himself away, he saw the smug satisfaction in Stacy’s eyes. “Now why don’t you…” He turned toward Lily and stopped.

      She was gone.

       Chapter 1

       Fifteen years later …

      Lily Cantrell opened her front door and stared at the man who had his hand raised to knock again. He was tall, dark-haired and wore a yellow button-down shirt and jacket with jeans. His shoulders were broad and his eyes were still the most beautiful shade of blue she’d ever seen. Despite the years that had separated them, he’d been the only man she’d ever loved, even after he’d rejected her so ruthlessly. Even after…

      “Hello, small fry,” John said, his voice deeper than she remembered. “It’s good to see you again.”

      The years had perfected his masculine frame. He’d gotten bigger. Broader. The strong angles of his cheeks and jaw provided a rugged framework for the dark slash of his eyebrows above his pale blue eyes, and the prominent thrust of his nose and the sensual line of his wide mouth proclaimed him to be a bit of a barbarian. Fine lines gathered at the corner of his eyes, telling her without a doubt the boy she’d loved had grown into a man to be reckoned with.

      John pushed back his hair in a familiar gesture that twisted her insides with longing and pain.

      “You going to invite me in, Lily?”

      Invite him in?

      Instinctively she raised a hand to her cheek. Fifteen years ago, her mother had slapped her for the first and only time. All because Lily had insisted on going to see him, this man, the boy her mother had warned was too old for her and would only end up hurting her. She’d been right, but Lily never had a chance to tell her so. She’d never had a chance to say she was sorry for the terrible things she’d said. And she’d never had a chance to say goodbye.

      Before any of that could happen, her mother had died. Now, days before the man responsible was to be executed, John suddenly showed up?

      Her first instinct was to slam the door. To hide. To run. But she couldn’t.

      She wouldn’t.

      She’d acted like an ungrateful, selfish child once and soon afterward her mother had been murdered. She wouldn’t disgrace her mother’s memory any more than she had. She wouldn’t run from this man now.

      She stepped out onto the porch, shutting the front door behind her. “What do you want, John?”

      He didn’t smile, but she could swear his eyes did. “Good to see you, too, Lily. Can I come in?”

      She shook her head. “Answer my question.”

      “I’d really like to talk about it inside—”

      “And I’d really like you to tell me why you’re here before I call the cops.”

      “No need. They’re already here.” He pulled out a thick black leather flasher wallet and showed her a shiny badge and accompanying picture ID.

      “You’re a cop?” She couldn’t disguise the shock in her voice. He’d been the ultimate bad boy. Accused of doing drugs and worse.

      “I’m a detective with El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department.”

      “El Dorado County? But why—” Realization made her eyes widen. “Is this about the execution?” The execution of her mother’s murderer wasn’t something Lily was taking any pleasure in. In fact, with the dreams having started up again, she’d been trying not to think about the execution at all. She just prayed that afterward she and her family would find some measure of peace, peace that had been eluding them. Her work with her art-therapy patients helped a lot, but—

      John’s jaw tightened. “I’m not here to cause trouble. This doesn’t have to be a battle between us, Lily.”

      He’s changed. Still intense, but more controlled. Confident. He didn’t need to play the bad boy anymore. He was prime alpha male, sure of himself, not caring what others thought about him.

      Well, she’d grown up, too. “This is about the execution, isn’t it?”

      He blinked and cleared his throat. “Talking to the victim’s family isn’t unusual during the last stages of the appeal process. Chris Hardesty’s claiming innocence, so—”

      “I don’t understand.” The calm façade she’d adopted cracked slightly. “Who cares what he’s saying now. You have the evidence. You have the trial transcripts. His confession. Why are you reopening my mother’s case?”

      “We’re not reopening the case, Lily, but the Attorney General’s Office wants me to follow up on some leads. There’s been a series of murders in El Dorado, murders I’ve been investigating, and the modus operandi for all of them are similar to your mother’s. At first we thought they were copycat murders, spurred on by news coverage of the approaching execution, and they probably are, but …”

      When he hesitated, her heart beat in a furious rhythm, pounding in her ears. His words left room for doubt and for a second it shivered through her.

      No. No matter what I dream, the evidence shows Hardesty killed Mom. But if these murders were similar, that meant …

      “Someone’s been stabbed?”

      He didn’t say anything and a wave of dizziness hit her.

      “Look, I’m not saying Hardesty’s innocent. Just that it needs further investigating. Hardesty says—”

      A laugh burst from her, raw and ugly. It horrified her. Made her sound like she was on the verge of hysteria. She knew exactly how convincing Hardesty was. “The police investigated. I don’t know why you people are doing this.”

      He narrowed his eyes and shifted the bag on his shoulder, a black satchel she noticed for the very first time. “You people?”

      “Yes. Hardesty and his attorneys. The D.A. Now you. All you do is cater to the criminals. In the meantime, forget about the victims—”

      John shook his head. “I never forgot about you. And somehow I don’t think you forgot about me, either.”

      The innuendo in his voice shocked her. So did the tugging in her stomach. She remembered telling him she loved him. She remembered kissing him at his party—the party to which she hadn’t been invited. And she remembered what he’d said in response.

       Here’s

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