by Lisa Jackson
“Been there, done that,” Becca murmured.
“Oh, sorry. I’m an idiot.”
“It’s all right. It never would’ve worked with Ben.”
Tamara raised her margarita to Becca, then took a long swallow. Setting the glass back down, she eyed it critically. “I have to lay off these, they are no good for you, I mean no good. I only drink alcohol when I’m really stressed, like I am about all this Jessie stuff. Much as I believe in ghosts, it’s a little eerie for everyone to think she might be one of the souls who can’t pass over.”
“What are you talking about? You still think she’s alive.”
The waiter returned with the check. They paid the bill and were out the door, walking toward their cars, fighting gusts of late-February wind, the Mexican music following them outside when Tamara said, “Okay, I confess, I had an ulterior motive for meeting tonight. And it’s not completely about Jessie or whoever’s bones were found in the maze.”
“Thank God.”
“Well, maybe. Maybe not.” Tamara fished in her oversized bag for a set of keys. “It’s Hudson. I picked up the vibe between the two of you at Blue Note. Something’s still there, isn’t it?”
Becca couldn’t lie, but she couldn’t admit she’d never gotten over him. “What do you mean?”
“Didn’t you guys ever get together? I always thought you did. I mean a few years after Jessie disappeared, not in high school or anything. I think Vangie said something once.”
Evangeline had always been a gossip.
“I ran into Hudson and Zeke a time or two after high school,” Becca admitted as they reached her Jetta. “And Hudson and I hung out some. Renee knew. Vangie, too, I guess.”
“Just hung out?” Tamara arched a brow.
Becca shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”
“But you still have feelings for him? I mean, come on. I pick up this stuff as a matter of course. You and he were sending out shock waves the other night, so I just want to know, is it on again? Are you seeing him? I don’t want to get in the way, if that’s the case.”
“I’m…not…well…we’re…” She didn’t know how to admit that she was on her way to meet him, that she was thrilled about the chance to be alone with him again, but that she also knew it might be emotional suicide. She’d loved him so much, with that schoolgirl fanaticism that could be fatal.
“What?” Tamara demanded as the wind, icy with winter, kicked up.
“I’m on my way to his place now,” Becca finally admitted, lifting her hands in surrender. A hank of her own hair blew across her face as the wind chased wet leaves across the parking lot.
“Ahh…” Tamara nodded and let out a long sigh as she opened the door of her Mazda. “I was hoping my radar was wrong, but it rarely is. Say hi for me. And if it doesn’t work out, let me know. He’s the best of the bunch. By a looonnnnggg shot. We were all kind of jealous of Jessie back in high school, weren’t we?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“So…if you’re involved with Hudson—”
“We’re not involved.”
“Not yet,” Tamara said. “Then maybe I should set my sights on The Third.”
Becca groaned.
“Or Mitch. They’re both single.”
“So is Jarrett, I think.”
“I’m not a masochist,” Tamara said, swallowing a smile, “but please, please, don’t ask me about sadism.”
She sketched a wave and slid behind the wheel of her car.
Becca, parked two spots over, did the same, nosing her Jetta out of the lot, heading west toward Hudson’s and wondering if she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.
Chapter Nine
Hudson shoved the bottle of white wine he’d just purchased into the refrigerator. It was Chardonnay. Medium-priced. Should be right, but there was no way in hell he would know because if he drank, it was beer. Maybe scotch. Wine was outside his interest level, and his knowledge of the subject could be summed up in two words: red and white.
But he’d watched Becca sip white wine at Blue Note, and he’d figured that was what she’d like to drink.
He ran a hand through his hair. “Good God,” he berated himself. He’d fought the urge to call her for over a week and had just about given in when he’d heard her voice on the answering machine. He’d told himself to back off, keep his distance, that now that Jessie’s body might have been discovered, this was the worst time, the absolute worst, to start trying to rekindle old flames—flames that just didn’t seem to die despite all the years that had passed.
Becca…Lord, she was beautiful.
As had been Jessie.
Sometimes, in his dreams, those kind of sexy, almost kinky dreams when he woke with a hard-on, he’d be making love to one of them, usually Jessie. Always her long brown-blond hair spilled around her, her hazel eyes were wide with excitement, pupils dilated as he touched her between her legs. “More,” she whispered in his ear, and as he rolled atop her, spreading her legs with his knees, she grinned devilishly, as if she knew something he didn’t before she faded, her image bleeding into Becca’s. The scene would shift suddenly. Instead of lying atop the pool table or in his bed, more likely than not, he and Becca were entwined beneath the old timbers of the barn or under the swaying branches of the willow tree. In the distance, where the long branches and vibrant leaves shifted, he would catch a glimpse, an ashen, ethereal image of Jessie watching them. A ghost. Dead, yet existing.
And smiling.
Knowing.
Accusing him silently, sarcastically, of his betrayal.
As if she’d known that even in high school he’d been attracted to Rebecca.
Jesus, it was chilling. He’d wake up in a sweat, his cock shriveling, his head pounding with a lust that was forever split between two women.
No wonder he’d never had a wet dream; Jessie’s wide-eyed voyeurism took care of that.
Grabbing himself a beer, he snapped off the cap and took several long swallows. His thoughts turned to Becca. She’d run hot and cold with him. Wanting him, then backing off, just as he had with her.
With Rebecca Ryan, no, Becca Sutcliff, he didn’t know what to expect.
But he was about to find out, he thought, opening the window a bit to let in a little of the cool night air. The kitchen tended to get stuffy with the wood stove burning, the scent of charred oak sometimes overpowering. He had to check the pipe, clean it out or rip the damned thing out altogether. It was part of the plan, but tonight he’d settle for a bit of cold winter air. He noticed a spiderweb, swatted it down, then thought to hell with it. If Becca didn’t like the way he lived, she could bloody well lump it.
He heard the sound of an engine and, through the window, caught the splash of headlight beams against the old garage as he drained the rest of his beer.
“Showtime,” he said to himself, leaving the emptied longneck on the chipped counter.
Hands damp on the wheel, Becca turned her Jetta off the two-lane road that wound through shaggy fields of brush and headed toward the gravel drive that led first through a copse of trees, then split a tended field, and ended at the gray two-story farmhouse with various and sundry outbuildings behind it.
Lights were on and the front porch was lit from inside lamps. Becca parked her car to one side, took a deep breath, and stripping the keys from the ignition, told herself it was now or never. Out of the Jetta, she walked across a patch of gravel and up three wide wooden steps to the porch. Memories assailed her, though she found the old swing where she’d sat with Hudson was missing. She glanced toward the fields and the solitary willow tree with its drooping branches.
She felt an ache in her heart, a shifting deep inside. How many times had they made love there? Ten? Twenty? More? She remembered kissing Hudson, his lips hot, his hands, pressed against her spine, strong and large.
“Oh, Lord,” she whispered, shaking the image.
The front door was inset with a rectangle of beveled glass, and she could s
ee right down the hall. She rang the bell, which tolled somberly inside the house.
Hudson came into view, striding toward the door, his long legs eating up the length of oak planks that led from the rear. In a moment he was opening the door to her.
“You made it.”
“Like riding a bike.”
“Doesn’t seem that long, does it?”
“Nope,” she admitted as he stepped out of the way, and she crossed the old threshold, looking around. Some changes she noticed right away: the aroma of Hudson’s father’s beloved cigars was gone. But his mother’s furniture remained in all its floral glory.
Becca found herself smiling.
“What?” he asked.
“Just remembering,” she said with a gesture around the room as she shrugged out of her coat.
He hung it over a curved arm of the hall tree that stood at the base of the stairs, then glanced around, seeing the room through her eyes before leading her to the kitchen where the wood stove and television shouted that this was clearly the heart of the home. “One of these days I’ll change things,” he said.
“Why?”
He laughed. “Oh, I dunno. Maybe it’s time to jettison out of the seventies. Would you like some wine?” he asked, heading toward the kitchen while Becca cruised slowly behind him, taking in the house.
“How about one of those,” she said, hitching her chin toward the empty bottle resting near the sink.
“Huh.” A girl after his own heart. Always…
He reached into the refrigerator, popped open a longneck for each of them, then returned to the table, turning the chair around to straddle it backward. Becca smiled to herself. Just like he had in his teens. It was as if sixteen years slipped away as their conversation drifted into small talk. He asked her about her job and she told him a bit about the kind of work she did, then inquired about the ranch. He mentioned that he’d just hired a new foreman and that he’d given up what sounded like a successful real estate career to enjoy the fruits of his labor on these sprawling acres located near the foothills of the Coast Range.
When there was a lull, Hudson rolled his nearly empty bottle between his palms, then looked up and said, “Okay, now that that’s out of the way, tell me what you’re really thinking.”
“About?” Becca asked cautiously.
“Jessie. The bones. The meeting with our longtime…friends…”
“Do I have to?”
He shot her an indulgent look, then she watched the amusement fall from his face. “I think she died right there. In the maze. And I think someone killed her. It’s not like whoever it was had a heart attack, happened to fall into a hole at St. Lizzie’s, then was somehow inexplicably buried.”
“But it doesn’t have to be Jessie.”
“Seems the most likely answer.”
“I don’t know…”
“You think she’s alive.”
Becca took a swallow from her Budweiser. “No. I guess I’m assuming she’s dead like everyone else, except Tamara, though she might be waffling a bit. I guess I just don’t really want it to be, though I can’t think of another explanation why Jessie would leave her parents wondering what happened to her, worrying about her, if she were still alive. Twenty years is a long time to be missing. Renee definitely believes those are Jessie’s bones.”
Hudson’s eyebrows slammed together. “You talked to Renee?”
“We had a drink together.”
“Really?” Obviously this was out of left field for him. “Because you’re such good buds?”
“Because of Jessie and this mess.”
“She tell you about Tim? The separation.”
“A little. Mostly we talked about Jessie and our feelings about her.”
“Huh.” Hudson finished his beer and set it down on the table. “She didn’t try to convert you to the Tarot?” he asked dryly.
“She tried. I resisted.”
Hudson gazed into Becca’s eyes and a smile teased his lips. “I’ve…missed you,” he said slowly.
Becca felt the backs of her eyes burn and she had to look down at her beer. She was not going to embarrass herself. Not. “So, you think Jessie was murdered and left in that grave?”
“I think she ran into—trouble—and she died because of it. She’s never contacted me,” he added. “Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit, but I always thought she would, if she were alive.”
“You never thought she ran away?”
“Oh, sure. At first. I didn’t want to believe she was totally gone, and I sure as hell didn’t want to believe any of McNally’s theories. And I didn’t want any of us to be involved,” he added as an afterthought.
“But now…?” she asked, a sense of dread crawling up her spine. “Do you think one of the kids who went to St. Lizzie’s is involved?”
“I hope not.”
But he sounded like he were trying to convince himself. “So, what if it’s not Jessie?” Becca asked. “I mean…what if it really is someone else?”
“Then who is it? And where the hell is Jessie? What’s she been doing? What kind of life did she make for herself? Can you see her married? Having children? Living a normal life?”
“That would be a leap.”
“Was she as different as I remember?” Hudson suddenly asked, as if the question were wrung from him. He got to his feet and paced around the kitchen, stopping by her chair. She had to turn her neck to look up at him. “We keep talking about her and she’s taken on mythological proportions, but she was just a girl with a history of running away. All we know for certain is that bones were discovered in the maze. If they aren’t Jessie’s, then whose are they?”
Becca lifted her palms.
“I don’t want to think about it anymore,” Hudson said. “I’d rather talk about—anything else. Got a subject you want to discuss? The economy? Global warming? Whether Zeke and Vangie will actually ever get married?”
“I pick number three.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
Uncomfortable, Becca got up from her chair, but she was too close to him so she moved toward the counter, leaning her hips against it. “Okay, what’s going on there? There was a ring on her finger…?”
“Zeke’s never been in love with her.”
“But he gave her an engagement ring.”
“He’ll find some reason not to go through with it. He won’t follow through. It’s not his way.”
“Ahh…”
“We were both bad about follow-through once. I like to think I’ve gotten better about it.” He came to lean beside her at the counter. A long pause ensued. Becca was fully aware of his slim hips so close to hers. “I’m sorry I never called.”
“You already apologized. Sort of. I could have called you, too.”
“No, I should have called,” Hudson said tautly. “I wanted to. I wish I had.”
“I thought you were still in love with Jessie,” Becca admitted with difficulty. “I’m not sure you aren’t still.”
“Like Zeke, I’m not sure I ever was,” he admitted. “We were sixteen.”
“Some people fall in love at sixteen.”
“I wanted to—be with you.”
Becca glanced sideways at him in surprise. “When Jessie was still here?”
“She knew I had feelings for you, though I never said anything. She always knew.”
“I didn’t know,” Becca said a trifle breathlessly. Her heart was starting a giddy galloping. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing!
“I couldn’t act on my feelings, and I didn’t know how to break up with her. I was thinking about it and then she was gone. I kept thinking she’d come back and I’d make this clean break. When I saw you that summer I didn’t care anymore. Zeke thought I was trying to bring Jessie back, but that wasn’t even close. I let him think it, though.”
“He talked you out of seeing me,” Becca realized.
Hudson grimaced. “Zeke didn’t want me wi
th anybody, but his words made me rethink things. I wasn’t really ready to be with anyone seriously. I was a dumb college kid. And Jessie’s disappearance was still like this entity.”
“It’s not anymore?”
“No.” They stared at each other for long moments. She saw his blue eyes darken with a simmering emotion, one she understood well.
Feeling slightly light-headed, Becca murmured, “I think I’d better leave before I do something I’ll regret.”
He seemed about to argue with her, then inclined his head in agreement.
“You’re not going to try harder than that?” she asked, her words sounding far away to her own ears.
With a sensual smile curving his lips, he slowly reached for her, turning her into him, his hands sliding up her back. She ran her arms around his chest and for a moment their lips were a hairsbreadth apart.
He said, “I think I’d like to kiss you.”
“I think…you should…”
She felt his lips press against hers. Felt the promise of something about to ignite. Her insides seemed to melt. She wanted nothing more than for him to sweep her into his arms and carry her up the creaking old stairs to his bedroom.
“Hudson…” she whispered against his mouth.
“Hmmm?”
“I’ve missed you, too.”
In the next split second her fantasy became reality: he picked her off her feet and carried her up the ancient stairs to a room that faced the mountains—his parents’ bedroom all those years ago. Without another word, he fell with her onto a mattress that sagged and groaned, and kissed her as if he thought he might never again get the chance.
Becca let go.
Of her guilt.
Of her reservations.
Of her sanity.
Her mouth opened of its own accord, the taste of him familiar and erotic, the scent of him bringing back memory after memory of pleasure. His hands scaled down her ribs as if he knew her, and as he peeled off her clothes, she returned the favor, kissing his exposed skin, feeling the strength of taut, male muscles. Exploring his hard, strong shoulders and the sinewy arms that held her tight.
