LITMIR.BIZ

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thought so twenty—no, sixteen years ago—and he didn’t think so now. After Renee left he called Tamara for Becca’s number, then Becca herself, inviting her to his sister’s gathering. He’d wanted to see her again. Face her. Face his own feelings…

      And the hell of it was, she was just as intriguing and beautiful as before. Maybe more so. Renee was probably right, he thought as he searched inside a cupboard and pulled out a half-full bottle of scotch. He twisted off the cap, found a short glass, and poured in a splash.

      No one—not even himself—could separate Becca from what had happened to Jessie. They would just be forever linked. The only two girls from St. Elizabeth’s whom he’d dated and, eventually, slept with.

      One had run from him, perhaps met her death.

      The other he’d pushed away.

      “Oh, hell,” he muttered under his breath as he lifted his glass and took a sip. He caught the pale image of his reflection in the window over the sink and noticed the tense lines evident on his face. He’d hoped his inadequate apology tonight was enough to at least explain his behavior; he didn’t expect it to make up for anything.

      Because the truth of the matter was he’d treated Becca thoughtlessly. Worse than that, he’d treated her purposely thoughtlessly. How was that for an oxymoron? He’d wanted her to dislike him. He’d been so attracted to her, even when he was with Jessie, that when he and Becca had actually gotten together, he’d never been able to feel right about it. A part of him had believed Jessie was still alive and watching him. Jessie had accused him of being attracted to Becca. It had been the basis of their last fight, the last time he’d seen her before she disappeared.

      Leaning a hip against the counter, twisting off the faucet that seemed to forever drip, he remembered how it had been twenty years earlier in the big room downstairs. Carrying his drink, he walked to the staircase and took the worn steps down to the basement with its low-hanging ceiling and monster of a furnace, then ducked through the doorway to the big rec room where the pool table hidden by its old burgundy faux-leather cover still stood.

      In his mind’s eye, he saw Jessie as she had been. Seated atop the table, staring straight at him, she’d slowly and deliberately unbuttoned her shirt, then slid it off her shoulders.

      He’d lifted a hand in protest, their anger at each other still simmering. “Wait…”

      “Shh!” she warned, a finger to her lips before she leaned forward just a bit, offering him an intimate view of her cleavage, then unhooked her bra, her gorgeous breasts free as she wiggled out of it, her hazel eyes cool with calculation and hot with fury.

      “Jess—”

      “You’ve got a hard-on for Becca,” she said in that low, sultry voice that turned him on. It was the same accusation that had instigated their fight earlier in the day. A fight that everyone at school knew about, he’d subsequently learned, when the cops later sought him out and asked about its cause.

      For a moment it was as if she were in the room with him now. Still sixteen. Still angry. And he hadn’t been able to resist her. She’d pouted and toyed with him, then grabbed him by the shirt and dragged him down on the table with her. Her lips had been hot and moist, her tongue rimming his lips, her fingers eager as they pulled his shirt over his head, then ran feather-light over his muscles.

      It had been fast after that. Both of them stripping away each other’s pants and underwear. He’d wrapped his arms around her, kissed her breasts and then, despite all his promises to himself, he’d made love to her with all of the heat of his youth, lost in the warm, the mystery, the sheer feminine thrall of her like he’d been since the first time they’d come together, his knees pushing hard against the felt-covered slate.

      Afterward, sweating, gasping, while he lay naked on the hard surface, she’d pulled herself away and dressed quickly.

      “You don’t have to go,” he said, levering up on an elbow.

      “Yeah…yeah, I do.”

      “Jessie—”

      “Don’t say it, okay?” she insisted, knowing that he was going to promise that he loved her and for the moment, he did, but that was it…only for the moment. They both knew it. She yanked on her clothes and regarded him with sober eyes while he lay on the burgundy felt table, staring up at the ceiling, lost in his own teen angst.

      “I’m going,” she said, pulling her hair through the neck of her shirt and shaking out the long strands.

      “You could stay.”

      “I don’t think so.” She started across the room.

      “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

      “Maybe.” Her tone was fatalistic.

      “Oh, for the love of God, stop that,” he said in a flash of anger. He hated the way she sometimes acted like they were only living for the day, that there would be no tomorrow. “Why do you always do that?”

      “Because you don’t care!”

      Hudson swore under his breath.

      “Don’t lie to yourself,” she said as she reached the bottom of the stairs. “And quit trying to make yourself the good guy. You want out of this…whatever it is we’ve got going.”

      Before he could stop himself, Hudson bit out, “You’re the one who wants out.”

      She laughed. “Oh, right.”

      He was already reaching for his pants.

      “What about Becca?” she demanded.

      “What about her?”

      “You think I don’t know?” she charged, one foot on the stairs, her head twisted to watch him as he struggled with his zipper. “I see things, y’know. I do. And I see the way you look at her.”

      “I’m sick of fighting,” he muttered, angry at her. At himself. At the fact that there was more than a grain of truth in her charges.

      “Me, too. But…there’s something I need to tell you.”

      “Can’t wait.”

      “Stop being a bastard. I think I might be…in serious trouble…”

      Jessie was silhouetted by the light from the staircase and there was something in her expression that gave him pause. Something darker than their petty argument, something that made her bite her lower lip, as if she were afraid of the next words she might utter. She gazed down at the bottom step, the one his father had replaced, but he knew she wasn’t seeing the new boards or nails holding the stair in place. She was somewhere else. Lost in her own thoughts.

      “What?” he asked.

      “Trouble. Serious trouble.” She wouldn’t look at him.

      Swallowing hard, he prepared himself for the fact that she might be admitting she was pregnant. No matter what she tells you, you have to be a man, Walker. Tough up.

      She looked up at him, worry and more—terror?—shadowing her eyes. “Trouble’s coming to find me,” she said almost inaudibly over the rumble of the furnace and the frantic beating of his own heart.

      “What kind of trouble?”

      “Bad trouble.” She ran a hand nervously through her hair, pushing the golden brown strands from her face. Her fingers trembled slightly. “I don’t know what I was thinking…I…I should have stopped. But I just couldn’t.”

      “Stopped what?”

      “Searching.”

      “Searching for what?” he asked, totally confounded. She wasn’t pregnant? Relief washed over him, but still he was confused. He crossed to her and reached for her hand resting on the banister.

      Instead of explaining further, she changed her mood in her quicksilver way. As if by sheer willpower, she straightened

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