For the first time in several weeks, life was beautiful. This could work. They’d both graduate high school and find a place somewhere close to college. She’d go to art school while he went for his Political Science degree. It would be hard, but together they could do it.
“This is just perfect,” Jack said as Audrey sat back in her seat. “The timing…I was gonna wait until we got there, but…”
Jack reached into his pocket, using his injured arm to steer the car for a moment. But his seatbelt was in the way. He un-clicked it and reached again.
The rest of the images in her mind blended together in one flash of a collage, but spread out like an old reel-to-reel film. In slow motion, like a piano solo of “The Descent” by Michele McLaughlin, the headlights veered to the right, and the black and white spots of a cow beamed back at them brighter than the sun. The tires squealed, the high-pitched scream of the brakes mixed with the moo of the cow, and she slammed against her door, the window shattering against her forehead.
Her body lifted out of the seat and her head hit the roof, followed by the sack of food that was originally at her feet. Her body tossed around the car like a ping-pong ball, every jab and scrape more painful than before, and she opened her eyes just in time to see Jack’s body eject through the windshield, followed by a massive pole careen through the back seat, ripping the car in shreds. Audrey’s body diverted sharply to the right, and a stabbing pain unlike any words could describe spread through her torso and chest.
A few seconds, or hours later, a numbing cold destroyed every nerve in her body.
****
Ethan’s hands rested on her thigh and knee, two warming cores against the bitter cold her body still remembered.
“I didn’t remember the details for several months,” Audrey finished, holding on to one of his hands. “But one day I woke up and remembered everything. And it has replayed in my mind every night since then.
“I miscarried after the accident. And any chance for a piece of Jack to live on was gone. No one else knew I was pregnant. Then, even though I was eighteen, the doctor still told my mother. Probably because I’d need help to recover. I assume she told my father, because he never looked at me the same after that. Neither of them did.”
Ethan squeezed her fingers and rested his hand on the small of her back. “Did Jack’s parents ever know? Did you tell them tonight?”
Audrey looked into his eyes, sorrow interlaced with every word, but no tears. “No. That would have only reopened the wound for them. What’s done is done.”
“That’s why you reacted so hard to Addy and Brace.” She could see him put the pieces together in his mind. “You knew better than anyone what kind of tightrope she was walking.”
Audrey nodded. “By the time I remembered the details, that reporter had already painted me as this rebellious murderer, and the truth didn’t matter. I had to finish high school from home—not just because of my injuries, but because of the gossip and threats running rampant.”
“Because the team lost the state champ game,” Ethan finished for her. Audrey nodded and pursed her lips. Her grip tightened around Ethan’s hand.
“Adam didn’t speak to me for months…didn’t even acknowledge my existence.”
“I’m so sorry, Aud.”
The shame and disgust on her brother’s face was still clear in her mind. She swallowed against the guilt. “Not a week after I received my diploma in the mail, my parents sent me away to start school at UT Arlington. My father’s friend was an aid in Congressman Mason Nichols’ office, so I got a job as an intern. He had it all set up before I even left.”
Audrey closed her eyes as she remembered her father’s last words the day she went away. “Be useful, for once.” The pain didn’t consume her as much anymore.
“I spent the next several years of my life in utter depression as I studied and worked. I didn’t have the heart for art school anymore, so I changed my degree to Political Science, along with my name. Used the school’s counselors for the little therapy they offered and…that’s how the Peacemaker Audrey Allen got her start in politics.”
Reading Ethan’s face became harder when she finished. The wrinkles on his forehead and his unfamiliar frown hid either his sympathy, empathy, or guilt. But the strangest thing was that he would no longer look her in the eye.
“I’ve spent the last ten years trying to make up for everything. I promised myself—and Jack—that I would live his dream. I’m now in a position that could make my family proud, as well as Jack’s, and as I sit here looking over this pond…” The waters rippled and shards of starlight beamed off the surface, even in the darkness. “My favorite spot in the world,” she whispered. “All I want to do now is sketch.”
“Sketch?” Ethan asked, now staring in her eyes with amusement and disbelief.
Audrey nodded. “I have at least a dozen drawings of this place. I could easily add another fifty. I had planned to visit every art museum in the Northern Hemisphere. Sell my work on the street in every place I went, to help me get the money to visit the next one.”
“You still could,” he smiled.
Audrey laughed, quick but deep and hearty. The light in Ethan’s eyes matched his genuine smile. The one that grew on her, softened her, more and more every minute.
“No, really. If it’s something you really want, why not? You’re still young.”
“Be realistic, Ethan. The election is only a few days away, and the Women’s Crisis Center is just getting off the ground.”
“You could do it.” He cut her off. “If anyone could do it, it’s you. You have more passion and determination than anyone I’ve ever met. And you really care about people. Congress could use more people like you, but I don’t think they deserve you.”
The truth in his eyes and sincere words made her stomach flutter. No one had made her feel like this since Jack. The irrational sense of safety and excitement all jumbled at once. He believed in her, and it was as scary as it was fulfilling.
“Is this from Ethan Tanner the journalist, or—”
“It’s from me. No reporter hat, writer scarf, or commentator gloves—just me.”
He’d never looked sexier to her before. His full lips were uncharacteristic for most men, but they only made it more impossible to look away when he spoke. She remembered his lips against hers and what amazed her most were his eyes, the blue specks in his gray irises sparking with fire.
She didn’t have to wait to see that spark again. Her breath stopped as he moved his hands to hold her face, each thumb lightly tracing against her earrings. He held her cheeks strongly, yet tenderly.
His lips cushioned against hers, consuming and thorough, yet immeasurably patient. His soft mouth moved against hers, and she opened for him, lightly skimming her tongue along his teeth. He was hot, a minty taste mixed with a touch of coffee and sugar. He moved against her again, now more forceful and urging, and slid his hands down her neck to her back, pulling her into him.
Audrey waited for her gut to kick in and tell her this was wrong. The wrenching feeling zooming straight to her brain to urge her to disconnect, and regret. But it never came. Only soft morsels of desire growing deeper and stronger within, pushing her to explore and let go. Let go with Ethan Tanner. The writer? The playboy? No. The man. Just as she wasn’t Audrey Allen, the politician right now. She was just Audrey. A woman. A woman who deserved to be craved, needed…to melt without fear.
She felt the moan deep from Ethan’s throat, muffled by their fused lips, as he pushed his frame against hers and skimmed his hand down to cup her bottom.
She needed to melt. Melt into the strong arms of one who matched her desire. He ached for her, and that knowledge rocketed sparks through her body. Sparks that she dreaded she’d never feel again.
When his other hand drifted below her shoulder and hovered over the side of her breast, her heart leapt. “Wait,” she pulled back breathlessly. “Not here.”
“Why not?” he whispered and nuzzled h
er ear.
“For one, it’s too cold…”
“I’ll keep you warm.” His voice vibrated against her neck, sending lightning down her spine. Amazing how she felt him smile against her skin.
“Mmm…wait, stop.” She pushed against his shoulders and shot out of the bench. “Come on.” In one fluid motion, she gripped his hand and yanked him up, taking off down the hill toward the road.
“In your car? Wow, that’s high school.” He laughed.
“Not what I had in mind. Can you wait a few hours?”
Ethan almost gagged and whirled her around, leaning her against the passenger door. “Hours? I can’t wait a few minutes. God, I want you, Audrey. Please don’t make me wait hours.”
“Well, it can’t be at my parents’ house. You want a repeat of Addy and Brace?”
“No, I want a repeat of you. Over and over.” He nuzzled her neck again, lightly skimming his tongue along her chin. “We’re adults, Audrey.”
“Yes we are. Which is why you can keep a wrinkle in it until we get back to my condo.” When Ethan groaned, she cupped his face hard between her fingers. “I promise I’ll speed all the way home.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ethan had never gone this crazy over a woman before. Actually agreeing to wait hours for her while he stood at full mast since that mouth-watering kiss on the bench. This is crazy!
Ethan smothered his face in the hand towel pushing his back against the guest bathroom door. On the other side of this wall Audrey was packing her things, in a frenzied rush, he hoped. He raked the towel through his hair, even though it was bone dry. Anything to relieve the madness that paralyzed his judgment.
This is Audrey Allen, your target. The one you’ve obliterated into political Siberia. Wouldn’t be long before she’d realize it.
Ethan glared at himself in the mirror, focusing on the slight crook in his nose. “You don’t deserve her,” he told himself. “But, God almighty, if he exists, you’ve never wanted someone more. So make it right.”
How? How in the hell? Cuz if you don’t, that’s exactly where you’re going.
Ethan yanked his phone from his pocket and held down the speed dial.
It rang.
And rang.
“This is Bose McGavin. I’m busy running a newspaper, so...” His voicemail continued with the usual crap.
“Shit! Bose, the one time you don’t answer your phone!”
Ethan squeezed his fist on the counter, waiting for Bose’s voicemail to end. Finally, the beep.
“Bose, it’s me.” Forcing his voice to slow down wasn’t possible. Not when he was this desperate to fix things. “Listen, ignore my email. Just delete it. If you’ve already read it, don’t run the article. I’ll have a better one for you in the morning. Trust me. For once, don’t run it.”
He clamped his phone shut and tried to inhale. Shaky and shallow. Holy shit, I’m a goner. One chance with her and I’m a fucking basset hound.
Hopefully she’d never have to know what he had previously written. The only piece of his work he was truly ashamed of, God willing, would never see the light of day.
Or this shot with Audrey—shit, is this love?—would never see the light of day instead.
****
“What do you mean, ‘there might be a problem,’ Audrey?” Miranda hissed through the phone. “Five days before a runoff election and you’re canoodling with a writer who’s dug up a manslaughter case on you from ten years ago?”
“You’re the one who suggested I bring him home for Thanksgiving,” Audrey shot back, trying to keep her voice low.
“You were supposed to have a clean slate. An open book, Audrey. You never told me any of this.”
“Mandy, it was a car accident when I was eighteen that almost killed me as well. No charges, no civil suits. No one knew about it but the people in this tiny town, but it also started my passion for politics.”
“This isn’t what I had in mind for playing the family card in this election.”
“It’s not what I planned either, but…actually, I don’t think he’s gonna write the nasty exposé we dreaded.” Audrey noticed her cheeks were still flushed as she stared into her childhood mirror. Foreplay with Ethan by the pond left her lips slightly swollen as well, ready and willing for more. “I told him the truth, Mandy. All about the accident, what I’d worked for over the last decade, and then he gave me...”
“Gave you what?”
“A compliment—from Ethan Tanner.”
“Of course. He’s throwing you off your guard to tell him more.”
“No, really. The things he said, and the way he said it…that Congress didn’t deserve me. That I care about people and have more passion. The most determination than anyone he’s met.”
Please don’t shred this. Don’t take this away from me.
A deep breath on the other side of the phone made Audrey wish she could express her hopes better. She wasn’t used to long-shot-hoping like this.
“All right, Audrey. I trust you on this, but it sounds too much like the Titanic here. The first sign of an iceberg, you have to let me know. Press releases and commentary after the crash are only deck music ’til the boat sinks.”
“Mandy, take off your campaign manager hat for a second.”
The sigh lingered on the phone, and her voice softened even before she spoke.
“If it’s real, I’m happy for you. You, of all people, deserve it. Ethan is smart, sure knows how to talk to women, and, let’s face it—is sexier than sex itself.”
Audrey laughed. “Sex isn’t sexy.”
“You could roast marshmallows off his ass, he’s that smokin’.”
“Great job not objectifying him. Isn’t that what women fight so hard against?”
“Equal treatment is a bitch. But that’s why you love me. When are you comin’ back?”
Audrey shook her head. “In a few hours.”
“Well, between your several likely orgasms, call Canyon and go over a few speech items for tomorrow night’s fundraiser.”
“I won’t be calling anybody between those, girl,” Audrey laughed.
“Yeah, yeah. Live it up, girl, cuz tomorrow we have a busy day. No time for Mr. Sex-In-A-Cup until after you’re voted Senator Allen.”
The line ended, and Audrey continued to stare at herself in the mirror.
Senator Allen.
Is this what she really wanted? It was the first time she’d ever questioned it. But Ethan had a point—she could still sketch and paint, too. Maybe even sell her artwork to raise more money for the Crisis Center. Throw in a few museum visits here and there between congress sessions.
Closing her eyes, images of the Met, the Louvre, even the Guggenheim, walking through galleries as her mind filled with inspiration from history’s greatest masters and flawless pieces, hand in hand with Ethan.
Her eyes flared open. Seriously? Would he even consider it? A long-term relationship. Could she handle it? Did she even want that?
Yes…yes I do.
“And I want it with him,” she said to the face in the mirror.
Energy surged through her veins and she quickly packed her bag, ignoring any folding or organizing. She shoved her folders back in her suitcase and grabbed her toiletry kit. A refresh of her perfume and lip gloss, and next was deodorant. But when she lifted her shirt and saw the horrid array of scars down her side and under her arm, she stopped.
Each white, jagged line still rough under her soft fingers. The puffy evidence of her mistake spread to her back and disappeared under her pant line, where a small chunk of her hip was carved out and only more scars remained.
But would he want me? After he sees this…
The scars had always bothered her, but once the stabbing pain and tender aches had ebbed, she’d learned to accept them after a decade. Part of the price she paid for Jack’s death. It hadn’t stopped her from pursuing her goals. But it had stopped her from pursuing the few relationships that could have blossomed. A cl
assmate in college, a fellow intern, even an investor early on in her political career.
Nothing came of them, not even a lingering kiss, because she wouldn’t let it get there. Self-consciousness ran deeper than her scars, leaving her lover count at one. Who’d never lived to see the scars form.
Could she take that risk with Ethan? He’d seemed to dismiss her “murderer” allegations without a second thought, unlike her hometown, but could he handle the scars? Her deformed silhouette?
Audrey forced herself to breathe and then reapplied her deodorant. A few minutes later she stared into Ethan’s glittering eyes at the bottom of the stairs. Her pulse skipped. God, please keep that look in your eyes. Don’t let it fade when you see me.
****
“How’d it go with the Davises?” Myrna asked as she stepped in from the kitchen. Paul approached from the back hallway and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms as he waited.
Ethan couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Her skin glowed and hair haloed like an angel from the ceiling light behind her. But what kept him the most entranced were her eyes. Hungry, determined, and yet tinged with dark blue tension. A woman with that many emotions running through her was bound to erupt with passion in a way he’d never thought possible.
But she’d just been through hell not three hours before. And he was anxious to know her response just as much as her parents.
Audrey set her bags next to the staircase and brushed her hair back with her hand. “They said exactly what I needed to hear.” She smiled. “The truth.”
Without a word, Myrna stepped forward and hugged her daughter, not wiping her tears until she stepped back. But Audrey’s father continued to stand in the hallway, fidgeting with an awkward grimace.
“I’ll help take your bags to the car,” he broke in, gripping the luggage handles and pushing through the door.
“If you can make the drive,” Audrey redirected to her mother. “Please come to the fundraiser. It would mean a lot.”
“Oh sweetie,” she sighed, squeezing her daughter’s hand. “I’m sure it’s gonna be lovely. But your father has to work and you know him. He’ll crash in front of the football game when he gets home. But I’ll be thinkin’ about you.”
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