by Rachel Lee
“You don’t have to live with her, or deal with her, when this is over. You’ll walk away. So you control how much effect she has on you.” She gave a negligent half shrug. “She’s only as real as you let her be.”
He stared at her. He’d never thought about it like that, that now he had the power, that she had no authority over him, no recourse at all.
“How’d you get to be so…wise?”
“Age,” she said dryly. “I am, as was recently pointed out to me, older than you.”
The thought that the difference in their ages, slight as it was, might have bothered her pleased him. It meant she was thinking about it.
“I know,” he said.
She drew back, startled. “You do?”
“David told me you were thirty before I even met you.”
“Oh.”
“If you’re thinking four years makes you the boss, forget it.”
He said it with all the mock sternness he could managed. It worked, she smiled. It did funny things to his insides, and he wanted to reach for her. He stopped himself, knowing that if he didn’t get moving it was only going to get worse. Or better, he amended, as his body clenched at the memory of that night on the beach.
“I’d better go before she heads out again to save the world from disasters like me.”
“We’ll both go,” Amelia said, quickly and efficiently sorting the last of the magazines into their slots.
“You don’t have to go.”
“I know. I’m older than you. I don’t have to do anything.”
She said it so deadpan that he didn’t realize for a moment that she was teasing. When he did, he couldn’t help laughing out loud. She looked up at him then, and he saw that glint in her eyes. She might be quiet and reserved, but a devilish sense of humor lurked behind the calm exterior.
Along with a passionate fire that was hidden even deeper. A fire that had, from what he could see, surprised even her. And he couldn’t deny how that that made him feel, to think that she’d never felt that way before, that it was him, and his touch, that had startled her with her own response.
“—easier that way.”
With an effort, he quashed his unruly thoughts and his body’s response to them, and tuned back in to what she was saying.
“Easier?” he asked, hoping the fact that he’d just zoned out wasn’t obvious.
“I can be sort of a buffer. People usually stay calmer if there’s someone else there to…referee.”
“You sure you want to be in the line of fire?”
“No,” she admitted. “But there’s always the chance she might tell me something she might not tell you.”
Boy, did she have his mother’s number. And the thought of having someone standing beside him when he confronted her was more appealing than he ever would have imagined.
Or maybe it was just the thought of that someone being Amelia.
He felt a sudden urge to see her take his mother on; he had the feeling Amelia would find even more of that strength that she didn’t seem to realize she had.
“Want to take the bike?” he asked. “I’d hate to disappoint her by showing up any other way.”
Amelia looked startled. “I…don’t know. I’ve never been on one.”
I’ll bet you never made out on the beach before, either, he thought, but wisely decided to keep the words to himself.
“You can have the helmet,” he offered.
She eyed him suspiciously. “So you don’t have to wear it?”
“Only partly,” he admitted with a grin.
For a minute he thought she was going to refuse. But she found the nerve, and moments later they were on the bike and he was giving her some quick instructions. “Keep your feet on the pegs, even when we stop. And if I lean, stay with me, don’t try to sit upright.”
The black helmet bobbed once. She was nervous, clearly, but also determined.
“And,” he added, “hang on tight.”
She hesitated, and he reached for her hands and pulled her arms around him. Before she could protest he started the bike, felt her jump as the Harley came to life. Her embrace tightened, and he grinned; this, not being free of the helmet, was the benefit he’d been after.
He wasn’t surprised at how quickly she learned; by the third turn she had the hang of it and quit instinctively trying to stay at ninety degrees from the ground when they rounded a turn. But her embrace stayed tight, and he could feel the heat of her as she clung to him, could feel the surprising strength of her legs as she gripped him.
That gave rise to a riot of thoughts and images that soon had him reassessing the wisdom of this; he was hard and aching, and it was taking every bit of his concentration to just keep going, and to do it at a sedate enough pace not to scare her.
But it had a bright side, too. By the time they reached the house, he realized he hadn’t dwelt very much on what was coming: a confrontation with the woman who had made him feel like a charity case, a child kept out of duty, his entire life. The thought took the edge off his arousal, and that particular ache faded. Another, much older one, tried to rise in its place.
Setting his jaw, he gunned the motor a couple of times as he rode up into the driveway, then again before shutting it off.
Take that, he thought, realizing even as the words formed how childish they sounded.
You control how much effect she has on you.
Amelia’s words echoed in his head, and he tucked them away to be used as a shield in the next minutes. He had a feeling he was going to end up chanting them like a mantra.
He turned to her then, guessing that she would be a bit wobbly on her feet, as most people were after the first ride. She swayed slightly as she slid off the bike, and he steadied her. She fumbled with the D-ring fastener on the helmet, and he reached beneath her chin to help release it. He hoped she hadn’t been frightened by the ride.
She lifted off the helmet. Ran a hand through her hair to lift it after the compression of the headgear. Shook her head. And then she looked up at him.
The exhilaration fairly radiated from her, and her eyes sparkled golden brown.
“That was…incredible!”
He let out a long, relieved breath.
“No wonder people get addicted to it! It’s like flying.”
He decided now was not the time to tell her they’d never gone over forty-five. Instead he grinned at her, took the helmet and hooked it onto the back of the bike, took off his sunglasses and hooked them on the neck of his T-shirt.
“Next best thing to shooting the rapids.” She looked ready to ask about his comment, and he hastily forestalled her. “Let’s get this over with.”
She nodded, turned and then stopped. She was looking at something past his right shoulder.
“I think she heard your…announcement.”
“You don’t miss a thing, do you?” he said, keeping his back to the house. “On the porch?”
Amelia nodded. “Put on your flame-retardant suit.”
“Breathing fire, is she?”
“Looks that way.”
He drew himself up straight, determined not to betray his inner turmoil. But before he could turn around, Amelia put a hand on his arm.
“Think about it,” she urged. “She’s upset. She’s lost her cool. You’ve done that to her. You’re in control.”
The revelation was simple, but profound. For the first time he believed it, really believed it. He wanted to kiss her. But he wouldn’t, not here, not now. Instead he lifted two fingers to his lips, then pressed them to hers.
“Remind me to deliver that directly later.”
Amelia blushed, but her gaze didn’t waver.
He took a deep breath and let his mouth curve into the cockiest grin he could manage.
He turned around.
“Hi there, Mom!” he called out cheerfully, even waving as he walked up to the porch steps. She’d always hated that. From David she would accept “Mom,” from him she had required “Mother.” An
d had preferred nothing at all that mentioned the connection.
“What are you doing here?” She looked down at him as if he were a slug she’d discovered on her roses. “Haven’t you caused enough trouble already? Humiliating me in front of an entire room of people and inciting David to act so irresponsibly?”
Well, that set the tone, Luke thought. No fence-mending going on here. And an interesting order she put his offenses in. “I heard you lost another son,” he said brightly. “How’d you drive this one away?”
If his mother were the kind of woman who spat, Luke knew he would be wiping his face about now. He hadn’t really meant to start out this way, but just the way she looked at him triggered old, knee-jerk responses he had to fight to control.
“Luke,” Amelia said softly.
He reined in the raw temper his mother brought out in him. “Yeah, okay. Look,” he said to the woman glaring at him from the porch, a bare second, he knew, from ordering him off her property, “I didn’t come here to fight with you. I want to find my brother, just like you do.”
“He’s not your brother, and I’ll thank you to stay out of this. Just go back to wherever you crawled out from and leave this to me.”
“Leaving it to you is why Davie’s gone.”
“His name is David.”
“Please!” Amelia said. “It’s silly to argue about names when David could be in trouble, or hurt!”
It was silly, Luke realized. Was that all his mother could fixate on? Her son, the son she supposedly cared about, was missing, and all she could get upset about was that he’d used a nickname she’d never liked?
He saw in that moment how truly narrow her world was, how the only things that mattered to her were those that directly affected her. And in that moment he realized how truly far behind he’d left her.
“She’s right. Forget how much you hate me for a minute and tell us if you have any idea where he might have gone.”
“If I had any idea, he would be home now,” she snapped.
“Has he ever talked about any place he liked to go, or wanted to go?” Amelia asked, her voice more conciliatory than Luke liked, but he understood what she was trying to do.
“No. He’s full of stupid ideas about doing reckless things just now, most of them his fault.”
She didn’t need to point to make it clear who she meant.
“With all due respect, Mrs. Hiller,” Amelia said, startling Luke with the sudden ice in her tone, “David hasn’t seen his brother in eight years. Any stupid ideas he might have, have been nurtured and fed here.”
Jackie Hiller’s nose shot upward. “As if I’d encourage such irresponsible stupidity.”
“Look, Mother,” Luke began, willing to be at least that conciliatory if it would help find David. She ignored him. Nothing new there.
“I’ve tried to overlook the gossip about you, Amelia,” Jackie said, her voice now stern, condescending. “No one knows better than I what a charmer he can be when he chooses to be. It’s how he wiggled out of a lot of the trouble he caused. But you must remember, he’s no good and never will be.”
“We’re not here to talk about me,” Amelia retorted.
“You should listen to me,” Jackie said, almost urgently. “I was like you, once, Amelia. Young and foolish, quiet and shy. And I, too, was taken in by a handsome face, a devilish smile and an attitude. His father had all of that, and he passed it on. Along with the knowledge of how to use it,” she ended ominously.
Luke stared at his mother; he’d never heard her so much as mention his father, not once in his life. Whenever he’d brought it up, her answer had always been “The less you know about him, the better.” And that had been the end of the topic, as far as she was concerned. He’d even searched the house once, looking for some clue to the man whose name was all his son had of him. He’d found nothing, and when his mother realized what he’d done, she’d locked him in his room for two days, telling him he’d wasted his time, she’d destroyed anything connected to Patrick McGuire long ago.
“Believe me,” Jackie said, “I know how exciting a bad boy can be, especially to a sheltered girl like you, like I was. But it’s no good, Amelia. They’re trouble, through and through, and you’ll only be hurt in the end.”
Was this one of her speeches? he wondered. Did she use his father as well as himself to frighten young girls? Was this her platform, using not fire and brimstone, but her own flesh and blood as the example of the wages of sin, as her mother had always put it?
It suddenly occurred to him to look at Amelia, to see how she was enduring this unexpected turn in his mother’s tirade. For the first time since he’d known her, her face was expressionless, and he was unable to read even the faintest clue to what she was thinking.
His stomach knotted. What was she thinking? Surely she wasn’t buying this garbage?
“Thank you for your concern,” Amelia said. She sounded stiff, formal and utterly unlike herself. Luke’s stomach began to churn.
“I do understand, dear.” His mother’s voice was suddenly kind, coaxing, leaving Luke reeling a bit from the swiftness of the change. “To a good girl, a boy with a reputation is fascinating. There’s a certain…cachet I can’t deny. I fell victim to it myself. That’s why I’m trying to save you, and others, from the same fate.”
Spoken like the heroine of some tragic melodrama, Luke thought.
“I’ve heard enough of this,” he ground out. “She’s not going to be any help. Let’s get out of here, Amelia.”
“Yes,” she said. But she didn’t look at him. And when he leaned over to look at her face, her expression was still that blank, concealing mask.
He would have bet anything that she wouldn’t go for his mother’s invective. That if there was anyone in Santiago Beach who wouldn’t believe it, it would be Amelia. He just couldn’t believe that five minutes with his mother would have changed how she thought about him.
When they got back to the store and got off the motorcycle, she still wouldn’t look at him. She pulled off the helmet, fastened it to the back of the bike as he had at his mother’s and tidied her hair, all without a single glance his direction. It took him three tries before he could even get out her name.
“Amelia? Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I was just…thinking.”
He had to force the words out past the sudden tightness in his throat. “About…what she said?”
She nodded.
“You know she hates me,” he said, hating the note of desperation that had crept into his voice.
“Not what she said about you,” Amelia said, her voice oddly flat. “What she said about me.”
Chapter 13
I know how exciting a bad boy can be, especially to a sheltered girl like you…. To a good girl, a boy with a reputation is fascinating. There’s a certain…cachet….
His mother’s words rang in her head as she unlocked the door and went into the store. Luke followed her, and she sensed his tension, but she didn’t dare look at him. She had to think, and she couldn’t do that under his steady blue gaze.
She was a little wobbly and having trouble convincing herself it was just the ride back that had her off balance. She’d gone there expecting to hear a tirade against Luke; what she’d gotten was a rather devastating suggestion about her own attraction to him, spoken by a woman who had, for all her faults, clearly been there.
He followed her into her office; she didn’t try to stop him. She couldn’t even think about his presence now, while her mind was spinning, trying to process the assessment Jackie Hiller had hung on her.
She dropped her keys on her desk, pulled up her chair and sat down, needing to.
Was that it? Was that why she’d responded to him, why she’d done things she’d never done before? Was his reputation, that cachet his mother had spoken of, at the root of her attraction to him? Was she simply a good girl drawn to the thrill of being with a bad boy?
But he was so much more than that. She knew
he was.
No one knows better than I what a charmer he can be when he chooses to be.
Was that it? Had she fallen for an admittedly gorgeous face and an easy charm? She had so little experience, it was only to be expected.
Am I really a thirty-year-old naive fool? she wondered.
She cringed inwardly at the thought and wished she was home in her favorite overstuffed reading chair, where she could curl up, like an animal protecting itself. Hoping for distraction, she glanced over at her answering machine, but there were no messages needing her attention. Too bad the mail hadn’t come yet; maybe there would be something there that—
“Amelia.” It was a whisper, barely audible. She didn’t lift her gaze. She stared down at her desk blotter, stared at the notes scribbled here and there without really seeing the words.
“You can’t really think you’re anything like her?” He sounded almost desperate. “That’s what she’s saying, isn’t it, that you’re a fool, like she was? You’re no fool.”
She supposed it was rather insulting for his mother to assume that, at thirty, Amelia was being as blind as she herself had been at sixteen. She might not have much experience, but despite her own doubts, she was, as Luke had said, no fool.
“If you think she’s right, if you’re going to believe what she said about you, then you might as well believe what she said about me.”
At that she finally looked up at him. What she saw in his face wrenched her soul.
He was expecting her to turn on him.
Everything he’d ever told her about his life, everything David had told her, all the snide, nasty remarks she’d heard from his mother, came rushing back. Did she really want to believe the vitriol that woman poured out on the head of her own son? Whatever her mistakes had been, what right did she have to blame her child for them?
She supposed the converse of what Luke had said was also true; if Amelia didn’t believe what his mother said about him, then why believe what she said about her?
“It’s not true,” he said, for the first time since she’d known him actually issuing a denial. “I mean, what I did when I was a kid, a lot of that’s true, but—”
