She’d left her mark on his heart—his soul.
And now she wouldn’t even look at him.
Damn it, she could at least argue with him some more.
“You just gonna sit here all night?”
He surfaced out of his thoughts slowly, like a diver trying to avoid the bends. Shifting his gaze to the blond waitress, he gave her a tight smile. “Any reason why I shouldn’t?”
She tucked her empty tray under her arm and then followed his gaze as he watched Kelly delivering yet another round of drinks across the room. Shifting her gaze back to him, she said, “Not if all you want is coffee.”
Mike glanced at her. “Meaning…”
“Meaning,” she said, “that Kelly doesn’t do one-nighters, so if that’s what you’re after, you’re really wasting your time.”
“Who says that’s what I’m looking for?”
She laughed shortly and shook her head. “Honey, all you Navy guys are alike. You come into town looking for a good time, and then you disappear.”
Shaking her head, the blonde went back to work and Mike found himself wondering just how many Navy guys hit this club every night? And how many of them were hitting on Kelly?
Damn it, and was she hitting back?
“Idiot.” He’d given up the right to question anything Kelly did when he walked away six years before. He spun his coffee cup on its saucer and watched the inky liquid slosh back and forth like a tiny, choppy sea. None of his business who Kelly saw or what she did. He knew that. But it didn’t stop his guts from churning.
Was Kelly thinking that’s what he wanted, though? Did she figure he was just looking to recapture old times in one long night of tangled sheets and sweaty bodies? And if that wasn’t what he was after, what the hell did he want?
Forgiveness?
He laughed to himself. Judging from the way Kelly had greeted him, he doubted she’d be big on forgiving him anything.
Then, what?
Simple, he thought, as he watched Kelly throw her head back and laugh at something her well-dressed, male customer had said.
He wanted what he’d wanted six years ago.
What he’d been stupid enough to let go of.
He wanted Kelly.
Kelly stepped out into the black, warm summer night and took a deep breath. Savannah smelled of jasmine and the river and a thousand other wonderful scents that she’d never found anywhere else. On a clear June night, the stars shone like thousands of tiny penlights, and a cool sigh of breeze drifted in from the river, easing back the humidity that would only get worse over the summer.
The city was dark but for the streetlights and a few lit storefronts. Bars were closed, and even the hardiest of customers were on their way home. Kelly’s feet hurt, her back ached and her purse jingled merrily with plenty of tips. One good thing about working at Steam…the clientele were generous tippers.
She glanced around, inspecting the nearby shadows and swallowed back the twinge of nerves that always assaulted her when she left work this late. Savannah was a nice place, but like any city, it could be dangerous. And a woman alone, late at night, stayed safe by staying aware of her surroundings.
Heading for the parking lot, she wished momentarily that she’d had one of the bouncers walk her to her car, but she hadn’t wanted to wait. After an entire evening of feeling Mike Connelly’s eyes boring into her back, all she wanted to do was escape.
“Colleen should have warned me,” she muttered, already planning on what she’d say to her old friend. She and Mike’s sister had been friends before Mike and Kelly had become a couple and they’d stayed friends when it was over. But Colleen hadn’t said a word this time about Mike being in town. The happily married mother of two sweet kids had been keeping Kelly up-to-date on Mike over the years whether she wanted to hear it or not.
Colleen made no secret of the fact that she’d like Mike and Kelly back together again. Kelly usually let Colleen’s inclination to interfere slide, but if she was behind tonight’s little “coincidence” of Mike showing up at Steam, there was going to be trouble.
Kelly stopped short when a shadow moved at the corner of the building. Backing up a step, she fought the tiny fingers of fear already clawing at the base of her throat. Her car keys, held in her fisted right hand, speared up through her fingers, a handy little weapon. And she cocked her arm, ready to throw a punch and scream her head off.
Then the shadow took shape.
Kelly blew out a breath as anger slipped past her fear and took charge. She should have known he’d be waiting for her. “Damn it, Mike. You scared me.”
“You should be scared. What the hell are you doing walking through a parking lot at night by yourself?” He stepped away from the building and faced her, a wall of living, breathing outrage.
And, oh, boy, even furious, Mike Connelly made a heck of a picture. The parking lot lights were bright enough to define every plane of his face. In the past six years, he’d hardened up some, she thought, as her gaze drifted over his squared jaw and a nose that had been broken at least once. His dark blue eyes were shadowed by the overhead lights, but it didn’t take a psychic to know that they were flashing with the impatience that was vibrating around him.
Between his impatience and her hot temper, they’d had plenty of memorable fights during the two years they were together. They’d also shared some world-class making up sessions. Until that last fight, of course. When Mike had joined the Navy and shipped out instead of marrying her.
Well, he could just deal with his impatience this time. She hadn’t asked him to sit in the bar all night staring at her as if she was the last steak at a banquet for starving men.
“I’m going to my car, not that it’s any of your business.”
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
She gave him a cold, scathing look as she passed him. “Since you’re obviously here, I’m not.”
He grabbed her upper arm and stopped her in her tracks. Instantly warmth blossomed, her knees went weak and her blood boiled. What was that about, she demanded silently of whichever gods were listening. Six years, and he could still turn her on with a touch?
So not fair.
Why was it that over the last six years she’d never met another man who had the same effect on her? She’d tried to get over Mike. To put him behind her. But every time she felt as though she was getting close, his memory sneaked up on her and made any man she happened to be seeing at the time pale in comparison.
“Let me go.” She said it coolly, calmly and congratulated herself silently on her self-control.
“I want to talk to you.”
“I don’t think so.” Not quite as calm and cool. She tried to jerk her arm free, but his long fingers only tightened their grip until she felt the press of them on her skin like five individual branding irons.
“Why’re you riding me so hard?” he demanded, looming over her in a lame attempt at intimidation.
She cocked a hip, tapped the toe of her shoe against the asphalt and glared at him until he released her arm. “Hmm. Let me think.” Brightening dramatically, she said, “Oh, yes. I remember now. Aren’t you the one who left a month before our wedding?”
His jaw clenched tight and she could practically see steam coming out of his ears. Good. No point in her being the only one angry around here.
“That was six years ago,” he finally said in a voice that was lined with steel.
“Six years and four months,” she corrected, then added as she stepped around him, “but who’s counting?”
“Damn it, Kelly,” he said, coming after her in long-legged steps she would never be able to beat in those three-inch heels.
“What we had was a long time ago. It’s over. Go away, Mike.”
“I did that once before.”
She smiled tightly. “I remember.”
“I know. Look,” he said, grabbing her arm again and then releasing her before she could open her mouth to demand he do it. “I know I screwed up. Bu
t you played a part, too.”
Stunned, absolutely stunned, Kelly stared at him openmouthed for what felt like an eternity. “We had a fight,” she reminded him.
“And you told me to get out.”
She laughed shortly. “I didn’t mean forever.”
He shoved one hand across the top of his head and dug his fingers through his closely cropped dark hair. “I didn’t mean it to be forever, either,” he said, his voice suddenly less fierce and more tired.
“Then why’d you join the Navy?”
“Too many beers piled on top of too much mad.”
“And going to boot camp looked better than marrying me?”
“Damn it, Kelly, we were too young. I was too young. I got scared.”
“You think I wasn’t?”
“I don’t know. I only know I couldn’t go through with it. Not then.”
“So you walked away.”
“Seemed like the best thing to do at the time.”
The best thing? Joining the Navy and walking away from what they could have had was the “best thing”? Her mouth moved, opening and closing. She felt it, but couldn’t seem to stop it. Words rushed through her brain and clogged in her throat, each of them trying so hard to be the first one uttered that none of them could make it. Finally, she did the only thing a speechless, furious woman could do.
She kicked him.
The toe of her red, three-inch, come-and-get-me pumps slammed into his shin just below his knee, and Kelly had the satisfaction of hearing his quick intake of breath.
“Man,” he muttered, reaching down to rub his leg, “you really haven’t changed at all, have you?”
“Not. One. Bit.”
He straightened up and moved in close, backing her up against the side of her car until Kelly felt as if all the air in the world had suddenly evaporated. His chest was too broad. He was too tall. His hands too big. His mouth too…close, as he bent down until they were eye-to-eye.
“Still shooting first and asking questions later, huh?”
“You bet,” she said, and wished her voice sounded just a little firmer. But she was doing well just to keep her knees locked and stay upright. A nonshaky voice was just a little too much to ask for at this point.
Had it gotten hotter? The air felt steamy, and so close it was like trying to breathe water. Her lungs strained and her heart crashed painfully against her ribs.
Mike reached out and grabbed a handful of her hair, letting the dark-red curls sift through his fingers until she felt each tender caress. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and her blood rushed through her veins, as thick and hot as the Savannah night.
“I always liked that about you,” he said, his breath dusting her cheeks as he moved in closer, closer.
“Damn you, Mike,” she whispered, just before his mouth came down on hers. And in the next instant she knew she was the one in trouble here.
Chapter 3
Kelly knew she should stop him.
Her brain kept screaming at her to do just that.
Her mouth, however, was otherwise occupied.
She couldn’t breathe.
Didn’t care, either. Instead, all she could focus on was his touch. The way his big hands cupped her face. The way his broad, muscled chest felt as it always had, like an impenetrable wall, protecting her from the rest of the world. So tall, she thought, going up on her toes, instinctively moving in closer to him, pressing her body along his length as though they’d never been apart. As if the past six years hadn’t happened.
That thought rattled through her brain and then dumped a metaphorical bucket of ice-cold water over her head, ruining the cocoon of sensation Mike wove around her so skillfully.
Planting both hands on his chest, she gave him a shove. It was sort of like trying to shove an SUV, but she gave it her best shot. Mike reacted instantly.
He let her go, then took a step back, scraping one hand over his face. Sucking in a gulp of air, he blew it out again, then folded his arms across his chest and looked at her. “That was better than I remembered,” he said softly, his voice a low rumble of sound that rippled along her already raw nerve endings.
Oh, boy, was it, she thought. But she wasn’t going there. If she admitted to him what he could still do to her, it would open the door to too many possibilities she wasn’t ready to deal with yet. “What do you want, Mike?”
“Cup of coffee?”
She looked at him and laughed shortly. So not what she’d been expecting. She’d thought for sure he’d give her a long, slow look out of those dark blue eyes and say something sexy…something designed to pump her blood just a little faster, hotter. But then Mike never did the expected. Never had, probably never would.
“What do you want, Kelly?” he countered.
Too much of what she shouldn’t have, she thought but didn’t say. Instead of getting into some deep, meaningful conversation in the middle of night while standing in a dark parking lot, she quipped, “World peace and three-inch heels that don’t hurt.”
“Tall order.”
She forced a smile. “Shoot for the stars, that’s me.”
“Always was,” he said. “So why are you working in a nightclub? As I remember it, you wanted to be a school psychologist.”
He did remember. Did he, she wondered, ever think about her? Did he remember, as she did, how it used to be between them? Instantly memories flooded Kelly’s mind. Images of the two of them, sitting out under the stars, talking about their dreams and what their lives would be like. They’d had it all worked out right down to the house they’d build in the countryside. Even the number of children they’d have—three, two boys and one girl. By now, at least one or two of those children would have been born. She’d have been a mother—and at that thought, she actually felt her uterus contract painfully. Well, the future hadn’t exactly worked out as they’d planned, had it?
But she was doing her best to see to it that her own career plans stayed on course. Even though she’d had to take an extra year or so to finish college.
“Still do,” she said shortly, half turning to unlock her car door. She opened it, tossed her purse inside and leaned her forearm across the top of the door. “I’m getting my Master’s during the day and working here at night pays the rent and buys groceries.”
He unfolded his arms and jammed his hands into his jeans pockets as if trying to keep from reaching for her. She appreciated it. Because she wasn’t at all sure she’d fight him if he moved in for another kiss. Her lips were still burning and her knees were still weak from the last one. So she was pretty sure her defenses were shot.
And, oh, boy, did she need defenses.
People made mistakes all the time, but making the same mistakes was just stupid. She wouldn’t allow herself to count on Mike Connelly again only to lose him to the Navy one more time.
Another soft breeze ruffled past them, and at the back of the club, a door opened. “Kelly?”
She turned to look at the man standing on the verandah alone. Clay Crawford leaned both hands on the porch railing, watching them. The parking lot lights illuminated him like a man on a stage. He wore a long-sleeved white dress shirt, open at the collar and sharply creased black slacks. Tall and muscular, he had dark brown hair and blue eyes even darker than Mike’s, and right now those sharp eyes were fixed suspiciously on Mike. “Everything all right?”
Kelly smiled. Clay was everything a true Southern gentleman should be. Tall, dark, gorgeous and fiercely protective of his friends. “I’m fine, Clay, thanks.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I’ll be around if you need…anything.”
“I appreciate it,” Kelly said.
“She won’t,” Mike said at the same time.
“That’ll be up to the lady, now, won’t it?” Clay countered.
“Oh, boy.” She looked from one man to the other, and each of them looked dangerous. Mike bristled like a bear being challenged and Clay was ready to defend his territory. She didn’t know whe
ther to laugh or scream. She was too tired to be dealing with one cranky man, let alone two. “A testosterone standoff. What fun,” she muttered. “And me without my popcorn.”
“Kelly…”
She held up one hand toward Mike. “Just let it go,” she said quietly. Then she turned to face her boss again. “It really is okay, Clay. Mike’s an old—” she nearly choked on the word “—friend. Good night.”
“All right, then, if you say so. ’Night, Kelly.” But Clay made no move to leave. Instead he eased one hip onto the railing and settled in as though sinking down into a comfortable recliner.
Kelly sighed and reached up to rub the spot between her eyes. A headache was brewing and it was going to be a real pip.
“Your watchdog?” Mike muttered.
“My friend,” she corrected.
“Yeah?” His eyes narrowed. “You just told him I’m your ‘friend.”’
“Different kind of friend,” she said, and she was definitely enjoying the snarl in his voice. What? Had he expected that she’d been sitting home alone for the last six years? Okay, so most of the time, she had been alone, but he didn’t have to know that. “Besides,” she said, “Clay’s also my boss.”
“Clay? What the hell kind of name is that?”
“Keep your voice down,” she muttered, and realized that when she next reported for work, Clay was going to be damn curious about this.
“Is he anything else to you?” he asked tightly, sliding the man on the porch another look.
Okay, fun’s fun, but enough already. “Not that it’s any of your business, but no.”
“Looks like he’s interested to me.”
“Well he’s not.” She shot Clay a quick look herself, embarrassed to be still standing in the middle of the parking lot under observation. “Now I’m going home.”
“Kelly,” Mike said, catching hold of the car door as she slipped into the driver’s seat, “I want to see you.”
Her ridiculous, slow-to-learn heart, did a quick two-step. She paid no attention. “You are seeing me, right now.”
She was going to leave. Mike tightened his grip on the door’s edge and kept her from closing it in his face. He looked in at her, and everything in him came to life, as though he was just waking up from a long coma. Her green eyes were shadowed, and in the pale dashboard light she looked tired and even more beautiful than he’d remembered.
The Dare Affair: Summer In Savannah Anth. (Dynasties: The Danforths Book 6.5 Page 9
