LITMIR.BIZ

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face, saw her wince.

      “I can’t have children,” she said. “You know that.”

      The pain in her voice almost made him turn back. Almost. “Are you sure about that?”

      She stared at him a long moment before answering. He waited for one of her ice walls to slide in place, but her expression remained naked, bleeding. He could hear the edge to her breathing. And slowly, slowly, fire came back into her eyes.

      “Do you enjoy being cruel?” she asked in a cracked voice.

      “It’s a legitimate question. We had sex. If there’s any chance—”

      “It was a mistake!” she surprised him by shouting. “It was one of those heat of the moment—”

      He went coldly still. “Don’t.”

      He didn’t know whether it was the edge to his voice or the fury he knew hardened his expression, but something dangerously close to fear flashed in her eyes. “Don’t what?”

      “Don’t sit there and insinuate you didn’t know what you were doing. You wanted me every bit as much as I wanted you.”

      For a moment he saw the same heat in her gaze, that glaze of passion that had haunted him for so long. But then, finally, at last, a Bethany ice wall slid into place, and she angled her chin. “That doesn’t make it right.”

      He wasn’t going to let her do it. Wasn’t going to let her use the heat between them as a weapon against him. “Quit trying to make everything black or white,” he bit out. “It wasn’t premeditated. It just…happened. We were stranded. You needed someone, and I was there.”

      A shadow crossed her face. “It was wrong.”

      It took effort, but somehow he resisted the urge to reach across the seat and put his mouth to hers, prove what she tried to deny.

      Instead, he let an insolent smile curve his lips. “I thought it was pretty damn right.”

      “Dylan—”

      “But don’t worry, angel, when I think of that night…” which he tried not to “…I don’t see you naked or hear the way you cried out my name, I see the morning after, waking up alone in that big cold bed. I may be a slow learner, but sledgehammers like that usually do the trick.”

      “Then there’s nothing left to say, is there?” she asked in a voice devoid of all emotion.

      Because he wanted to crush her in his arms, he released the locks. “Go.”

      She did. Without looking back, she pushed open the door and let in a blast of cold, then stepped into the night and vanished in the darkness.

      Just like always.

      B. B. King belted out the blues, but with only ten minutes until Shady’s called it a night, few remained to listen. Two of the three pool tables stood deserted. Only one poor soul remained at the bar. The smoke was actually beginning to clear.

      “You know this breaks every rule in the book,” Zito said, running a hand over his scruffy face.

      Dylan polished off his scotch and dropped the empty glass on top of a heart carved into the battered wood table. “Depends upon whose book you’re talking about.”

      “Since when have I given a damn about any book but my own?”

      That’s exactly what Dylan was counting on. After he’d followed Bethany to a hotel, he’d tried to go home and put her out of his mind, but quickly realized climbing Mount Hood blindfolded would be easier.

      He needed to know what had gone down in that interrogation room. He knew Zito’s partner, knew the man’s knack for going for the jugular. And it had killed him to wait outside, to not know, to imagine. Had they broken her? Had they made her hurt?

      “No one’s making you stay,” he reminded the detective.

      Zito made a show of picking up his microbrew and drinking deeply of the local favorite, all the while his speculative, too-seeing gaze trained on Dylan. “Don’t tell me the champion of the underdog is standing by the woman who killed your cousin? Beauty doesn’t equate innocence, son.”

      “You think she did it?” he asked as blandly as he could.

      Zito shrugged. “Chances are.”

      “Evidence?”

      Zito reached for a cigarette. “Mostly circumstantial at this point, but the divorce makes a nice motive. She lost a lot when he walked out on her.”

      “Money never mattered to her.” Just stability. Peace. Solitude. The kind of lifestyle Dylan could never offer.

      “People change.”

      Dylan eyed the half-empty pack of cigarettes. He hadn’t put one to his mouth in over a year, hadn’t craved the pungent bite in months. Until now. Sure people changed, but deep down, needs and desires stayed the same.

      The daughter of a woman who thrived on grabbing the spotlight any way she could, who upgraded husbands and lovers more frequently than most people did cars, Bethany had always dreamed of a life straight out of a fifties sitcom. She wanted to be June Cleaver. She wanted to marry Ward.

      Instead, she’d married Lance.

      Dylan had always wondered what went down when Lance decided to enter public service, rather than the private sector he’d always promised he would serve. If she’d been angry, betrayed, she’d never let it show. While Lance’s star soared, she’d devoted herself to a nonprofit organization for underprivileged teenage girls.

      The blade of sorrow caught him by surprise. Prince Lance was dead now. Gone forever. And Bethany was left standing in the spotlight, alone. With blood on her hands.

      “It doesn’t add up,” he muttered. Despite the circumstantial evidence and apparent motivation, Dylan couldn’t see Bethany doing anything to draw attention to herself, much less place herself in the heart of a scandal.

      “Not all crimes are premeditated,” Zito pointed out. “Passion can lead to murder as easily as a one-night stand. You don’t know what went down today. You don’t know what was going on between her and Lance. She might have just snapped.”

      A hard sound broke from Dylan’s throat. “You don’t know Bethany.” She never snapped, never came unglued. Never. Except—

      Don’t go there, he warned himself. Don’t even acknowledge there existed.

      “I hate to spoil the party,” Loretta Myers said as she picked up their empties, “but some of us have homes to go to.”

      Dylan glanced around the darkened bar and saw that only he and Zito remained. “Come on, Lori, cut us some slack.”

      “Five minutes, saint. Five minutes.”

      He winked, earning a glower before she strolled away.

      “You can’t let that pretty face fool you, son.”

      Dylan jerked his attention back to Zito, the cigarettes begging him from the table. Sometimes, restraint came at a high cost. “Come on, man, even I’m not that hard up.”

      “Not Loretta. Bethany. I saw the way you were looking at her, the way she was looking at you.”

      “And what way would that be?”

      “I’m not a poet, son, but for a minute there I thought I was going to have a second crime to clean up.” Zito stood. “One of the hardest lessons a cop learns is to remain objective, no matter what. That’s what makes Bethany St. Croix so dangerous. I know it’s hard to look into those sexy blue eyes and see a murderer, not a woman you’d love to have underneath you, but facts don’t lie. And right now, the facts say she probably killed Lance. It’s my job to prove it.”

      Everything inside Dylan hardened. He wanted to hit something. Someone. Hit hard. He wanted

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