Dean ran his hand over his face, then through his hair. “I never hated my home, Sarah. I didn’t want to leave. But I thought I had no choice.”
“And this is somehow supposed to make me feel better?” As the implications began to sink in, she felt bitterness choke her heart like bindweed—invasive, profuse and virtually impossible to get rid of. “Let me get this straight—you lied to me, told me you’d never loved me, that you found everything about me and this town so boring you couldn’t stand the thought of being here one minute longer, not even long enough to take me to my prom. And you did this because you loved me?”
He looked away, a muscle popping in his jaw.
“You jerk!” she shrieked, taking a wild swing at him which he easily dodged. Tears of fury pricked at her eyes, but she would not let them come. She would not. What she did was walk away.
Twenty paces later, she found herself standing next to the forty-foot willow in the middle of the yard, one knee on the wrought-iron seat circling its base, her head and right hand resting on the trunk.
So. He had loved her, just as she thought. No—not as she thought. As he thought, in some convoluted manner unfathomable to her. She would never have just run from a problem, especially not a problem with Dean.
The suffocated laugh didn’t even make it past her lips. Yeah, right. Who was she kidding? Hell, if running from problems was on Olympic event, she’d be a gold medalist.
Suddenly, she knew nothing about anything, except she was so very, very tired.
The grass rustled softly as Dean came closer; she didn’t move. Despite the fury raging inside her, she realized how few males in her admittedly limited experience would have come clean the way Dean just had. Man had guts, she had to admit. Still, his confession wasn’t going to eradicate the past, just like that.
“I cannot believe,” she began, rocking her forehead on the top of her hand, “the only solution you saw to this so-called problem of our differences was to make me think everything we’d shared was a complete sham.”
“You had all these plans,” he said quietly, his voice as much of a caress as it had always been, “these dreams…and I let myself be convinced I couldn’t be a part of all that.” Her eyes actually hurt when she looked at him. He shrugged. “I told you…it was stupid.”
Now she turned, collapsing like a rag doll on the bench, her back against the tree. She could only see his silhouette. Just as well.
“Oh, what you did goes way beyond stupid, Dean. You didn’t care enough to even attempt to talk about what was bothering you. To see if we could work this out together. That concept completely eluded you. Instead, you made me feel like some cheap throwaway who wasn’t worth even losing a little sleep over. Do you have any idea what that summer was like for me, Dean? After you left? Do you?”
After a long pause, he said, “They told me you got sick. Mono, right?”
She hadn’t expected he’d known that. Momentarily thrown, she scrambled for her next sentence. “Before that. Of course I missed the prom, which, like any normal teenage girl, I’d been looking forward to since the first day of high school. But then, I was supposed to give the valedictorian speech at graduation, remember? I didn’t want to read from cards, ’cause I always thought that looked tacky, so I memorized the speech. Except, I blanked.” Her laugh was harsh. “Couldn’t remember one single word. I was completely humiliated.”
Even in the dark, she could see his posture turn defensive. “You blame me for that?”
“It’s a known fact that sleep deprivation causes severe loss of memory function. And I couldn’t sleep…at all…for three weeks after you left.”
He swore.
“My sentiments exactly.” Several beats passed. “I’d never planned on saying any of this to you, you know, considering I didn’t think I’d lay eyes on you again. But since we’re playing True Confessions tonight and I’m so tired I don’t give a flying fig what comes out of my mouth, you might as well know exactly how much you hurt me. And trust me, telling me nine years later that none of it was true doesn’t do a damn thing to erase what I felt during those nine years.”
“I didn’t think it would,” he shot back. She saw his hand snake around to the back of his neck. “But it didn’t seem to make any sense to let you continue to think it, either.” He hesitated, then sat down beside her in such a way she had no choice but to meet his gaze. She did chose, however, to ignore the pain she saw there. If she acknowledged it, she would lose her advantage. That was not an option. “I know I screwed up, Sarah. I also know, no matter what I do, I can’t turn back the clock. I’m not trying to fix something that can’t be fixed.”
Again, she had nothing to say to that.
His head fell back against the trunk. “Does it still hurt?” he asked gently. Too gently. Like the old Dean. Like her Dean, the one who’d always protected her, supported her. Loved her.
“No,” she lied. “I got on with my life. Which as you can see is going pretty well. Now, if you don’t mind…” She slapped her thighs with the palms of her hands, then pushed herself off the bench. “I really need to get some sleep—”
He’d risen when she did and spun her around so his face was inches from hers. His heat was everywhere—in his touch, in his breath on her face, in the feral glint in his eyes. Just like it had been the night they’d become lovers. She gasped, softly, from arousal, from the lingering betrayal, from a determination not to react to any of it.
“Maybe it doesn’t hurt you anymore,” Dean said in a fierce whisper, “but I can’t say the same for myself. I had no idea the pain would bounce back on me like a back draft, consuming my every waking thought. And there are a lot of waking thoughts, because you’re not the only one who lost a great deal of sleep after we broke up.”
“That’s too bad,” Sarah said, attempting to pull away. But his grip strengthened.
“Sarah, listen to me! Whether you ever forgive me or not, you will understand how much I regret hurting you the way I did. How much I regret what I lost.”
Every muscle in her body tensed, her fingers curling into fists as she resisted the urge to slug him. “And exactly how long have you felt like this?”
“Since the moment you ran out of my room, nine years ago.”
For a stunned moment or two, jubilation and fury warred in her head, only to be swiftly eclipsed by as a sense of bitter hopelessness, as it hit her, hard, just how much his confession upped the stakes. Oh, dear Lord…how different things might have been, if she’d only known, if he’d bothered to say something sooner…
“All this time…” She shook her head. “You know, Atlanta’s only two hours away. And we’ve always had a phone, even way out here in the boonies. We get regular mail deliveries, too—”
“I get the point,” he said with a sad smile. “But I figured you probably hated my guts. And…” He sighed, looking up for a moment. “I still thought I’d done the right thing, for a long time. By the time I realized I hadn’t, I figured it was too late—”
“Yes, it is,” she said, grasping at anything that would stop this, right now. She knew he was genuinely sorry, knew he meant every word he’d said. But she didn’t dare let his contrition get to her. She was only safe as long as he was still the bad guy.
“It is too late, Dean. So you know what I think? I think, if that cozy scene in the kitchen a few hours ago is any indication, what you want is another roll in the pine needles. You’ve got a first-class case of the hots, is all that’s going on here.” She planted both palms on his chest and pushed away from him. “In your dreams, buddy boy. Go on back to Atlanta and find yourself some big-city sweetie to scratch your itch. This hick ain’t puttin’ out, you hear?”
She picked up her bag from where she’d dropped it on the lawn earlier and hoofed it toward the house.
“Dammit, Sarah!” he roared, probably waking up everyone within a five-mile radius. “You haven’t heard a single word I’ve said!”
“Go home, Dean,” she called
over her shoulder, praying Katey, at least, was sleeping through this. “Nothing’s changed.”
“I’ve changed, Sarah,” she heard behind her. “Hey— I can even read without moving my lips now, did you know that?”
His words slashed through her. But she didn’t stop.
“We’re going to be family, Sarah Louise,” he said, more softly but no less importunately. “For Jen’s and Lance’s sake, at least, we need to get past this.”
She’d gotten as far as the porch steps; now she turned, one hand gripping the newel post, and saw he’d followed her across the yard. He stood with his hands clenched at his sides, solid and determined and dangerous. His eyes glistened in the moonlight, and she thought once again how impossible, how easy it would be to let herself succumb to his entreaties.
And how wrong she’d been. Everything had changed between them. More than he even knew.
Dean stepped closer, his mouth drawn. “Look, I told you— I don’t expect things to get back the way they were between us, especially not after all this time. All I’m asking is for you to see me as I am now.”
She waited until the first, then the second, wave of pain passed, before she said, quietly, “I’m not sure I can do that.”
The man she once loved with everything she had in her glared at her for several seconds, then turned and strode off into the darkness.
Chapter 4
“Idiot!”
Dean kicked the mailbox post at the end of the Whitehouses’ driveway, then slammed his palm against the sturdy metal box. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…” He repeated the word like a bizarre mantra for several seconds, then rasped his smarting hand across a stubbled cheek.
Gee, Parrish. You handled that real well.
She’d said she didn’t want to talk. He could have waited until morning, maybe found some time when she was at least a little more receptive. But no-o-o—he had to blurt out some sorry-assed confession that made him sound even more callous than he’d been originally.
Dean was beginning to wonder if making stupid moves was part of his genetic makeup, or his destiny, or karma, or whatever the term was these days for repeating your mistakes.
He stared at the dark house for a moment longer, then finally hauled his butt back down the road, not wanting to go back to his aunt’s house, not knowing what to do, as razor-sharp fragments of emotions churned inside him.
Okay. She was right. He had lied. And she had every right to be furious.
But he hadn’t lied just then, and he didn’t know how to make her understand he never would again.
Ten minutes later, he halted in front of Percy Jenkins’s pasture, bordered with a haphazard post-and-rail fence he remembered the cows always seemed to take on faith was meant to keep them off the road.
His chuckle sounded bitter in his own ears. Lord. A lousy pasture, a few rotting timbers, and down reminiscence road he went. Oh, what the hell, Dean thought on a sigh, ominous in the heavy silence. Might as well get ’em all thought out and used up and done with. Maybe then he’d get some peace.
He leaned against the rickety fence and surveyed the moon-washed pasture, its emptiness bringing him an odd sort of comfort as he thought about cows and Sarah and old fences. They’d be out walking, passing this way, and the easygoing beasts would amble up to the so-called barrier, sticking their massive heads over the top with soft snorts and snuffles, knowing Sarah would always stop and rub their noses and shoot the breeze with them, just as if they were people.
She always did have a way with cows, you know?
For several seconds longer he stared into the silver-laced darkness, fighting. Then, at last, he lowered his head onto his arms and let the tears come.
The sun had been up for some time when he finished his hour-long jog. Which had had little positive effect, except perhaps to sweat a couple of quarts of poisons from his body. He’d meant to shower as soon as he got back, change out of his sleeveless sweatshirt and running shorts, but the scent of coffee lured him into the kitchen—where his aunt’s trenchant gaze slammed into him as she sat with her own cup of coffee at the chrome-and-Formica table in the center of the room. Only a desperate need for caffeine kept him from doing an about-face.
It was nearly eight-thirty; he was surprised to see her still in her pastel-flowered housecoat and slippers. But her thinning gray-blond hair was pulled back into its customary bun, not a single wisp allowed free of its confines, putting the world on notice that she was ready to face the challenges of the day, hardheaded nephews included. His head throbbed in spite of the exercise, his eyes were gritty, and his brain felt sandbagged: this he did not need.
Ethel Parrish had fifteen years on Dean’s father, had been married once, briefly, before he was born, but that was all he knew. He also knew she’d never resented taking on her nephews, including an eight-year-old, and she’d treated them well. That didn’t mean she was particularly easy to get along with.
She didn’t start in right away, which meant she was mulling over her plan of attack. Damn—it was much worse when she’d had time to think about what she wanted to say. Keeping a wary eye out in case she pounced, Dean found a bag of English muffins in the bread box, slipped one into the toaster.
The night, or what had been left of it, had been hell. Knowing sleep wasn’t in the cards, he hadn’t even bothered undressing. In fact, the only part of him that had fallen asleep was his backside, gone dead from sitting in the glider on his aunt’s porch for three hours while his thoughts tumbled around in his aching head like laundry in a dryer. But at least he could say the time hadn’t been wasted. Not by a long shot. Because, by the time somebody’s rooster a farm or two away started its raucous crowing at 5:00 a.m., he’d come to a number of conclusions, not the least of which was that Sarah Whitehouse had become an unreasonable, pigheaded, oversensitive pain in the neck and he was better off without her.
Oh, sure, his ego had taken it on the chin when she’d refused to listen to him, when she insisted his intentions toward her were less than circumspect. It had hurt. But now, in the daylight, he supposed he’d been the victim of some sort of nostalgic fantasy. That seeing her, after all this time…well, it wouldn’t be the first time his imagination had taken off without him.
Despite a physical attraction so intense it scared him, it was perfectly obvious now that nothing but guilt had driven him over there last night.
The muffin leapt out of the toaster, making him jump. He snatched it, wincing as the heat seared through his calluses, and dropped it onto a plate.
So, hey—if she wasn’t interested in what he had to say, he sure wasn’t going to bust his butt over it. Besides, there were other women who’d listen to him just fine. Lots of ’em. Especially in Atlanta.
Which had led him to debunking Nostalgic Fantasy Number Two, which was that Sweetbranch was no more a part of his life these days than Sarah was. After all, he had a thriving business in Atlanta which was just about to expand; he had even already looked at a couple of possible factory sites. Upward of a dozen people worked for him, depended on him; with the expansion, that number could easily grow to fifty. More.
That he hated living in a big city, he thought as he finally pulled himself together enough to butter the muffin, couldn’t be allowed to factor into the equation. He’d made his economic bed in Atlanta, so that’s where he’d have to lie for the foreseeable future. Even if it killed him.
Carrying the muffin with him, he found his way to the coffeemaker and filled the cup nearest to his shaking hand, refusing to look again at his aunt until he’d taken at least three large swallows of the brew. The instant he clunked the cup onto the counter, though, she said, “Heard you go out last night.”
He pivoted his torso only as much as necessary to face her, managing to form a tiny, contrite smile. Anything larger hurt too much. “Sorry. I wake you?”
“No.” She scrutinized him from between slitted, bald eyelids. “What were you doing?”
“Just went for a walk.” Anothe
r swallow of coffee.
“Where?”
He was beginning to remember why leaving hadn’t been as difficult as it might have been. He finally turned all the way to her, leaning against the front of the sink. “Nowhere in particular. Just couldn’t sleep.” Inside his skull, a marching band began drill practice.
“Heard Sarah Whitehouse’s truck go by about one. You go to meet her?”
Dean clamped a hand to his head to stop the pounding. “No.” Which was the truth, after all.
“No sense digging up old bones.”
“Yes, I know.” He lowered his hand, then blinked, carefully. “I wouldn’t worry myself, if I were you.” He finished off the coffee, rinsed out the cup and set it upside down on the dish towel on the counter. “After my shower, I’m going up to the house. See what condition it’s in.”
The blue eyes brightened. “You fixin’ to sell it, finally?”
The headache made him contrary. “Haven’t made up my mind yet.”
You had to hand it to Miss Clarissa Ellis, Sarah mused as she gingerly sat on a velvet wing chair in the lady’s living room, nursing her second cup of coffee. The woman sure knew her way around a Singer. For more than forty years, the tiny brunette had been considered the town’s high priestess of fashion. Of course, in her heyday, women still wore elegant clothes, at least some of the time, at least in Alabama, enough, anyway, that Miss Ellis could easily keep five or six seam-stresses busy. Nowadays, though, there wasn’t much call for custom-made clothing, except for the occasional wedding party.
Which was why Sarah was currently being held hostage by a dozen yards of baby-pig-pink polyester organza and a gazillion pins, in a room with five twenty-two-year-old women with perky breasts and perky fannies and even perkier high-pitched voices, four of whom were swathed in bilious lavender clones of Sarah’s dress.
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