His mouth devoured hers as his hands glided over her back to her waist, down to her hips. His tongue begged, persuaded, demanded, until Ann responded willingly, opening her mouth to him. His lips seared hers, made the butterflies go wild inside her stomach, and set her nice, safe little world into a blazing inferno.
He tore his mouth from hers, burying his hands in her hair as he tilted her face to his. “It’s still there. Do you feel it?” he demanded in a low, ragged voice.
“Yes,” she whispered, and then she breathed his name against his lips just before he took her mouth again in deep, probing thrusts that grew more urgent with each pounding heartbeat.
His mouth was so hot, the air so still and thick and close. Ann clung to him, pressing against his hardness as her world spun and raced with mindless, melting pleasure. She was falling, but Drew’s arms were around her, catching her, steadying her, and then driving her to desperation.
Their mouths still fused, his hands stroked against her thighs and hips, along her waist and ribs, then down again to tug loose the hem of her shirt from her shorts. His fingers stole along her naked flesh, teasing, then pausing briefly when he met with no barrier. With a deep, sensuous groan, he slid his hand around to cover her bare breast.
Lifting his mouth from hers, he traced her jawline with his lips, pausing to whisper deep, dark promises that left her hot and quivering with a long-hidden need. He pulled her shirt upward, exposing her breasts, and bending suddenly, his mouth replaced his hand. Ann’s head fell back, her eyes tightly closed.
She’d never experienced passion before, she realized weakly. Certainly not with David, not even with Drew years ago. Not like this. Everything, everything was obliterated but the feel of his lips against her breast, the sound of his low whispers in the dark, the feel of his hand, burning against her skin.
The tiny tremors shooting through her, faster and faster, brought Ann fully alert as she realized what was about to happen. And then she became aware of something else, a sound. Voices.
“Drew, Drew, stop!” She tried to push him away as she struggled against him.
Slowly he lifted his head, staring down at her in confusion. “Honey, what’s wrong?”
“Someone’s coming,” she whispered furiously.
Drew’s head snapped around at the approaching voices through the trees. They automatically stepped apart, and Drew moved in front of Ann while she hastily adjusted her clothing.
“Drew, is that you?” Jack called as he and Kelly detached themselves from the shadows and moved toward Ann and Drew. “What the devil are you doing out here in the dark—” His voice broke off abruptly as he noticed Ann standing behind Drew.
“We came out here to enjoy the fireworks,” Drew said matter-of-factly. His voice betrayed nothing of the intense emotion that had just passed between them, but Ann’s face still flamed, her hands still trembled, her body still quivered. She was certain that she would never be the same.
“Looks like the show’s over,” Jack muttered, and Kelly laughed softly into the darkness.
Ann’s face grew even hotter, but Drew merely said, “Doesn’t it? In that case, I guess we’ll head back.”
Ann lifted her chin and sailed past all of them with only a muttered “Good night.” She left dead silence in her wake. She could feel their stares on her retreating back, knew that they had read the situation correctly. And it didn’t help any when Drew caught up with her and placed a possessive arm over her shoulder as they walked back toward the park. If Jack and Kelly had had any doubts before about what they’d interrupted, they certainly wouldn’t now, Ann thought with a sudden wave of bitterness.
“Do you have to advertise?” she said angrily, shrugging Drew’s arm off her shoulder as they neared the park.
“Why not? I’m not ashamed of what we were doing. It was perfectly natural.”
“There was nothing perfect or natural about it,” Ann snapped. “It was a huge mistake.” They had stopped in the shadows near the edge of the park, and she took a few steps away, distancing herself from him. Instead of knocking down barriers, what had almost happened a few moments earlier had erected new ones. Ann was embarrassed and furious with herself for her lack of control. And she was furious with Drew for still having a hold over her.
She knew he was staring at her, but she couldn’t see his expression in the darkness. “Why is it a mistake,” he asked slowly, “that we still have feelings for each other? We’re both free now.”
“Free?” She gave a low, bitter laugh. “We’ll never be free. There’re too many things between us. And the feelings we have for each other are all the wrong ones.”
He took a step toward her. “What do you mean?”
“The love, the trust, the sharing—they’re all gone, Drew. What we feel for each other now is purely physical. It’s...chemistry or something,” she said crisply, crossing her arms in front of her. “Don’t you see? It’s what’s gone that matters. We don’t even know each other anymore. Maybe the attraction is still there, but it isn’t enough.”
“Why not? Isn’t that the way most relationships start? With physical attraction?”
She stared at him for a moment, startled. “I don’t want a relationship with you. I don’t want anything from you.”
He was standing in front of her now, staring down at her. His face was still shadowed but Ann had no trouble reading the stubborn set of his jaw, the rigid line of his mouth. “How do you know that?” he persisted. “Didn’t you just say we don’t know each other anymore? I want to see you again, Ann. Tomorrow night.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You were ready to have dinner with me the other night, before Donna had to go to the hospital.” His tone altered slightly. “Or was my first assumption correct? Was that just an excuse so you wouldn’t have to see me?”
“Of course not,” Ann denied quickly, perhaps a shade too quickly, she worried. “But if you were as eager to see me as you let on...” She let her words trail off in confusion.
“What?”
She hesitated for a moment, then said in a rush, “You didn’t even call me when you got back to town. I didn’t even know you were back until I saw you at the game today. It just seems to me that I’m awfully easy for you to forget, Drew. You did for ten years.”
His eyes, deep and intense, held her gaze. Even in the darkness, she found she couldn’t look away.
“Not one day has gone by in all those years that I haven’t thought about you.”
“Then why did you wait so long to come back?” Ann asked desperately. “I’ve asked myself that question so many times, and the only answer I can think of is that—” She bit her lip as her voice began to tremble. “I have to wonder, Drew, if it’s me you really want.”
He glared down at her as though she were crazy. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Her arms were still folded in front of her. She tightened them around herself. “When you look at me, is it me you see? Or is it...Aiden?”
He said nothing, merely continued to stare at her. Then he grabbed her shoulders, his fingers biting into her flesh. “Don’t you understand anything? It was always you I saw. How do you think I ever stood touching her? Because she had your face. I never loved her.”
Ann closed her eyes for a moment, trying to repair her defenses against the words that she had longed to hear for too many years. “How can I believe that when you were with her for so long, even after she lost the baby? And after the divorce you never came back.” The words to me were left unspoken, but they clung to the charged air around them like the remnants of a bad dream.
Drew paused, wondering if he should tell her all of it, including Aiden’s final ultimatum, the one that had all but destroyed him. He saw the slight quiver of her mouth, could feel her trembling beneath his hands. She was close to crumbling and he wasn’t sure if he dared go on, if his purpose would be served by cutting her that deeply.
In the end what he finally said was, “I di
dn’t think I had the right to come to you. Not after what I’d done. It’s taken all these years for me to put that part of my life behind me. We’re two different people now, Ann. Can’t we forget the past and move forward?”
“There is no forward for you and me. It’s over.”
“It is not over.” He slid his hands slowly down her arms, then gently tugged loose her grasp. “Did it feel like it was over a few minutes ago?” he asked softly. His hands moved back up her arms, feathering over her shoulders. “It felt more like the beginning to me.” One hand moved to the back of her neck, gently urging her toward him.
“You’re not being fair,” Ann said, her arms dropping to her sides.
“I’m tired of being fair,” Drew said roughly. “Just tell me one thing.” His arms captured her again, pulling her against him, holding her close in spite of her resistance. “Do you still care, Angel? Or is it my imagination, my wishful thinking?”
Her sigh fell softly into the darkness. “I...don’t know. No, I don’t...I can’t.”
“Because of Aiden?” There was deep pain and a trace of resignation in his voice, but he said with stubborn resolve, “We’ve both made our reparations. We did the right thing for too many years. It’s our turn now.”
Ann felt the truth of his words hit her like the aftermath of an earthquake. The burden of guilt, so long resting on her shoulders, seemed to lift and float away. She could almost believe what he said was true.
“It isn’t over, Ann,” he whispered against her ear.
Ann shivered in response, her eyes fluttering closed. “I’m beginning to realize that,” she said breathlessly. “But, Drew, I can’t make you any promises.”
His voice was low and soft and infinitely seductive as he murmured against her lips, “I think you just did.”
* * *
Ann came abruptly awake with the uneasy notion that a noise had disturbed her sleep. She sat up in bed, eyes staring wide into the darkness. Turning on the bedside lamp, she anxiously searched the room with her gaze.
Sometime during the night the wind had picked up. She could hear the rustle of leaves outside her bedroom window. The gauzy curtains whipped and twisted in the breeze, the ends snaking across the polished surface of her dresser. On the floor in front of the dresser, a picture frame lay face down, a victim of the wind.
Ann got out of bed and crossed the room, stooping to pick up the picture. She cried out in dismay as a jagged piece of glass sliced the end of her finger. The frame slipped from her hand and fell to the floor, right side up this time. Holding her finger tightly, Ann stared down at the photogragh of her and Aiden. She shivered suddenly as a cold draft of wind crawled across her skin.
A jagged crack in the glass split the image in two, severing Ann from her sister. A drop of her own blood was smeared across the glass covering her heart.
She wasn’t sure why—perhaps because of the picture she’d found earlier that day in her car; perhaps because it was the dead of night—but that ruined photograph seemed portentous somehow. An omen of something she did not yet understand.
Eight
As Drew wheeled into a parking space in front of the Crossfield Motel, he realized he was probably going to be late for the only date that had mattered to him in over ten years. Cutting off the engine, he flashed a quick glance at his wristwatch, hoping to find a discrepancy with the clock on the dash. No such luck.
With a silent oath, he jerked open the car door, yanked out his briefcase and hurried up the metal steps to his second-floor room, cursing Mayor Sikes for his long-windedness, which was about as effective as cursing rain in April or the heat in July. All of them were inevitable.
He’d spent the entire afternoon with the mayor and several ladies from the Historical Society walking Riverside Drive, mapping out his proposals for renovations, drawing sketches for their inspection and answering endless questions, many of them having absolutely nothing to do with Riverside Development.
Wilma Gates and Bernice Ballard had seemed particularly interested to find out how he was making out with Ann—concerning the sale of her land, Bernice had quickly added, then nudged Wilma knowingly when she thought he wasn’t looking. The council vote for rezoning was coming up, they reminded him. Had Ann changed her mind about that? Did he know about Adam Lowell’s will, the trust funds, the deathbed promise Ann had made to her father?
Hell, they knew more about Ann’s business than he did, and Drew wasn’t above asking a few questions of his own. He hoped his had been a little more subtle, but looking back now, he doubted he’d fooled anyone.
Unlocking the door, he tossed his briefcase onto the bed and headed straight for the bathroom, hopping on first one foot then the other as he pulled off his shoes and heaved them toward the closet.
Quickly undressing, he climbed into the shower, knowing it would do no good to wait for the water to warm. A hot shower was only a memory at the Crossfield Motel. Shivering and muttering graphic suggestions to the management, he let the cold stream of water pelt his skin.
With brisk, efficient movements, he lathered his hair and soaped his body as he tried to analyze the source of his aggravation. He was nervous and edgy, and it had nothing to do with the cold water or the council vote or anything else concerning his job. He was worried about tonight, about how things would progress with Angel. If they would progress at all.
Patience, he reminded himself grimly. He’d had ten long years to learn that. He and Angel were starting over. Once more their lives had joined, and this time he had to make it right. This time he couldn’t afford any mistakes. He was too much of a pragmatist to believe in fate or destiny, but he did believe he and Angel were meant to be together.
Now, he just had to convince her of the same thing.
* * *
Why had she agreed to go out with him? Ann asked herself for the hundredth time as she pulled her car onto the highway and headed toward town. She couldn’t remember being this nervous for a date since—actually, since the first time she’d gone out with Drew back in high school.
It had seemed silly even back then to be so agitated. She and Drew had been friends for a long time. When he’d finally asked her out, it should have seemed the most natural thing in the world, but Ann had been in a frenzy all day, fussing over her clothes, worrying about what she would say and how she would act, anxiously wondering whether he’d find her attractive.
Not unlike tonight, she decided, and that thought gave her very little comfort. She found her behavior annoying, in fact. For heaven’s sake, you’re a grown woman, she admonished herself. And Drew Maitland is just a man, and this is just a dinner date.
Wrong on both counts. Drew Maitland was not just any man and there was no use pretending otherwise; he was the man she had once loved more than anything or anyone and he was the man who had torn her life apart. And tonight wasn’t just a dinner date; it was a night of reckoning, a night for some hard decisions on both their parts, a night she wasn’t at all sure she was ready to face.
Ann rolled down her window and let the rush of wind sweep across her skin as it lifted the heavy red curls from her neck. The night was beautiful, warm and clear with a blanket of stars covering the sky and a waxing moon staring pale among the dark silhouette of the woods. The fence rows along the side of the road were tangled with honeysuckle vines that perfumed the air with a lovely, sweet fragrance. It was a night, like so many summer nights long ago.
Ann’s hands clenched tightly on the steering wheel, her knuckles whitening as she sped along the highway, toward town, toward Drew. She wouldn’t do this, she resolved. She would not let herself be caught up in memories and emotions that belonged in the past. The momentary softness she’d yielded to fled. Her mouth hardened once again.
Seeing Drew, letting him back into her life was leaving herself wide open for the kind of devastation that had taken her so long to get over. She had built up her defenses over the years, she had guarded herself well...until now. But she had not reckoned o
n Drew’s return, nor the powerful hold he still had over her. She had learned in a frighteningly short space of time that her fragile shields were no match for him.
The restaurant Ann had chosen was one of the new ones that had seemingly sprung up overnight to accommodate Crossfield’s sudden prosperity. Located near the river on the outskirts of town, the Riverboat Landing was a trendy dining place for the newcomers in the area. Most of the natives still frequented the establishments in town, and that was the main reason Ann had made the selection. She hoped that she and Drew would not run into anyone they knew. She’d had a hard enough time explaining tonight to herself, much less to anyone else.
Pulling into a darkened, secluded corner of the parking lot, Ann got out of the car and crossed the pavement to the restaurant, smoothing the wrinkles from her dress as she walked. Of all the outfits she’d sifted through, she wondered now why she’d chosen this particular one—an off-the-shoulder dress in clinging black knit with a mid-thigh hemline. In L.A. the dress wouldn’t have gotten a second glance; in Crossfield, it suddenly seemed a bit too daring and flashy, a dress more suited to Aiden than to her.
But not anymore, Ann reminded herself firmly, squaring her shoulders in determination. She’d changed in the last ten years. She’d had to. She was no longer the clinging, insecure young woman Drew had betrayed, a woman whose confidence in her own attractiveness had been all but destroyed for a long, long time. She wasn’t Angel anymore. She’d dressed this way because she had something to prove, not just to Drew, but to herself.
He was sitting at the bar when she entered through the stained-glass door of the restaurant. She could see his reflection in the ornate mirror behind the bar, and she stood for a moment, letting her gaze roam over his features, taking in at once the strong line of jaw and chin, the bold slash of his brows above eyes that were the most magnetic blue she had ever seen. His hair, glistening gold highlights under the artificial lighting, looked slightly damp, as though he’d just stepped from the shower. A tantalizing thought in its own right, Ann mused as she let her gaze drop to the broad shoulders beneath the expensive-looking sport coat. His hands, large and strong and well-formed, were resting on the bar on either side of an untouched drink.
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