Volume One: In Moonlight and Memories, #1

by Julie Ann Walker

  “He grew up and got crazy-hot.”

  She laughs, as I’d hoped she would. It’ll take time for things between us to get truly comfortable again. But I don’t regret telling her the truth. I feel like I’ve shed the skin of my past. What’s growing back in its place is thicker, tougher. More me.

  “So? You told Cash you still love him, huh?” I prompt, proving to her (and to myself) that I truly am still the guy she can talk to about anything. “What’d he say to that?”

  She wrinkles her nose. “I didn’t give him a lot of time to respond. Which, in retrospect, probably wasn’t the smartest move. Like I told Jean-Pierre, now I don’t know how to interpret the kiss that followed. I mean, on the one hand, I felt all the old feels. On the other hand, Cash hopped off that mattress like it was covered in poisonous snakes and nearly dragged me home by my hair. So, now I’m wondering…” She trails off and shrugs. “Well, now I’m just left wondering. He hasn’t called or texted today, so what does that tell you?”

  When I don’t immediately answer, she continues, “My mind’s been jumping like hot grease in a skillet, and the result is a Waistband Monday and two too many slices of pizza.” She rubs a hand over her belly. “I’m capable of eating my feelings at a professional level, in case you were wondering.”

  “I’m sure you’re winding yourself up over nothing,” I reassure her. “Given all that’s happened, Cash is probably just aiming to take things slow.”

  “You think? Did he mention anything to you?”

  “No.” I shake my head, shifting awkwardly because it’s time I say what I came to say. “But I reckon that’s only ’cause we were too busy working out how we aim to deal with this bad business with Sullivan.”

  I hate the fear that makes her brow pinch. “Did something happen after he came at us in Café Du Monde?”

  “That’s what brought Rick ’round to see Cash last night. He wanted to tell Cash to keep his distance from us ’cause Sullivan has declared war.”

  “War?” Her eyes go as wide as pie plates.

  “Little does Sullivan know, I’m pretty damn good at war,” I assure her. “And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the best defense is a good offense. We’re gonna hit him where it hurts. You think you could set up a time for us to talk with Miss Bea?”

  She blinks. “What does Aunt Bea have to do with this?”

  “If we’re lucky, she’ll have the information we need.”

  Once again, she unconsciously grabs her locket, squeezing it in her fist. Every time she does that, it feels like she’s hanging on to a piece of me. Which gives me a thrill even though it shouldn’t.

  “I wish I could undo what I did that night,” she whispers.

  I tighten my arm around her. “All you did was defend yourself. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Tell that to George Sullivan. Or more like, tell that to Dean Sullivan. Oh, wait. You can’t. He’s dead.”

  I blow out a weary sigh and glance out the window at the starless night. I’d planned to go stag to my senior prom and meet Cash and Maggie at the dance. But when Cash stopped by on his way out of town, beat to shit and with a savage look in his eyes, I did as he asked and took Maggie in his stead.

  In hindsight, it was the biggest mistake of my life.

  “I shouldn’t have dragged you to that stupid prom,” I grumble, remembering the destroyed look on her face when I handed her the letter Cash had written and explained to her that he was gone. “I shoulda sat with you on that porch swing until your aunt Bea called you to go inside.”

  “I wanted to go to prom,” she insists. “Cash had just broken my sixteen-year-old heart. I needed a distraction, and you provided it. I’ve never thanked you for that, have I?”

  “Considering how things turned out, there wasn’t much time or much call for thanks.”

  “Well, now there’s time and call for it now. Thank you.” She lifts her hand as if to tug on my ear, then hastily drops it, curling her fingers into a fist on her lap.

  I hate that she second-guesses herself when it comes to touching me. But I have faith she’ll get past it. I just have to give her time to realize I wasn’t kidding when I told her nothing’s changed for me.

  “You were always there for me when I needed you.” Her voice is soft when she emphasizes, “Always.”

  “Still”—I shake my head—“dinner and the dance shoulda been enough. We never shoulda gone to that party afterward.”

  “As I recall, you didn’t want to. I was the one who insisted. By that point, my heartbreak had morphed into pure-D fury. I was going to show Cash I didn’t need him. Show him I could have a grand ol’ time without him.”

  She had been crazed that night. Wild-eyed and single-minded in her pursuit of fun.

  “Yeah, but as soon as I drove up and saw Dean’s truck there, I shoulda turned right back around.”

  “You couldn’t have known what he’d do.”

  “Maybe not. But I knew he was bad news.” Thinking about Dean, even all these years later, still makes my teeth clench. “I shoulda known he’d try something after Cash beat the living shit outta him. He was the sort to nurse a grudge.”

  Maggie shivers, and I know she’s reliving those hellish moments in the swamp. If someone ever invents brain bleach, the first thing I’ll do is use it to wash her clean of the memory of what happened there.

  “Whose place was that anyway?” she asks. “Do you remember?”

  “Cory something-or-other. It was his dad’s fishing house.”

  “That’s right.” She nods. “Cory Jackson. He was in the marching band.”

  “Not a day goes by that I don’t regret dragging you outta that house and into the swamp,” I admit.

  She gives me a disbelieving look. “The baseball team was getting baked in the corner. Half the girls on the cheerleading squad were bonging beers; the other half were getting felt up by drunk teenage boys. And Dean and his butthole buddies were looking to fight anyone and everyone. That place was a powder keg waiting to explode. You got me out of there because it was the smart thing to do, and I’d gone way past making smart decisions. And besides, for a while afterward it was…nice.” She nudges me with her elbow. “You taught me how to waltz, remember?”

  My mind drifts back to that clearing in the swamp…

  A cool breeze stirred the air. The bullfrogs and bugs and gators were in fine form, singing their lament in the moonlight as I led Maggie away from the house on stilts and down a narrow path into the heart of the bayou.

  “What should we do now?” she asked me, the stars above twinkling in her eyes. Even though she’d fixed her mascara after crying her heart out on the porch swing, there were still smudges below her bottom lids. Her hair had slipped a little from its fancy updo. Tendrils of black curls fell across her shoulders, flirting with the edge of her sweetheart neckline.

  She looked like a temptress in that red sequined prom dress. A temptress who didn’t yet know her own power.

  “Wanna dance?” I offered her a hand. We could still hear the music from the house party, even though we had to be a hundred yards away.

  “To this?” She wrinkled her nose.

  Someone had tuned the radio to a zydeco station. The fiddles whined. The accordion wailed. And the lead singer opined ever leaving the black water of the bayou for the sun-baked hills of Texas.

  “Sure. You know how to waltz, right?” When she shook her head, I winked. “Come on, then. Let this swamp rat teach you a thing or two.”

  “I can’t dance here in these shoes.” She pointed to her strappy high-heeled sandals. “The heels will get stuck in the dirt.”

  “So kick ’em off.”

  “And have a twig stab through my foot?”

  “You can stand on my feet. No more excuses, woman. I’m teaching you to waltz.”

  “So bossy,” she accused, even as she bent to undo the clasps on her shoes.

  Her innate coordination had her learning the steps to the wa
ltz in no time. We moved around that little clearing as one, and I tried not to notice the feel of her soft hand in mine, or the way her hips twisted in that slinky dress.

  It was different dancing in the middle of nowhere than it had been dancing in the festooned school gym. There, two hundred sets of eyes had watched us, wondering what happened to the combative blond-haired boy who was supposed to be her escort. But out in the bayou, it was only us.

  And yet she was still my best friend’s girl.

  Wasn’t she?

  Someone switched radio stations, and David Archuleta started singing about having a crush. Shaking my head, I thought it couldn’t get any more appropriate. Although, what I felt for Maggie went way beyond anything so trite or trivial.

  It wasn’t love at first sight. Even at eighteen years old, I knew that concept was complete and utter horseshit.

  Lust at first sight was certainly possible. But love required getting to know a person. All the good parts and bad parts, all the weird parts and sad parts.

  Luckily, the hours we’d spent together in the school library reading and talking about Harry Potter, and the days and weeks and months we’d been friends since, had afforded me the rare honor of getting to know Maggie. I no longer thought of her as the pretty girl with the sky-blue eyes and gap-toothed smile. (That was simply packaging.) I thought of her as Maggie May. And Maggie May epitomized the look and feel, the smell and taste of…love.

  Out in that bayou, dancing with her in my arms, I finally admitted to myself that I was ass over teakettle for her. Like a fruit fly, I’d buzzed around the notion for months, landing occasionally only to flit off again. But there was no more denying it.

  Pulling her close, I swayed with her to the lilting melody of Archuleta’s crooning tenor, reveling in the way she fitted against me like a puzzle piece clicking into place. There were no electrical storms on the horizon, and yet the air around us crackled with an expectant sort of energy.

  I let my hand drift up her back until my thumb brushed along the top edge of her dress. I never knew skin could feel so satiny.

  “Luc?” She tightened her grip on my waist. “Why did he leave? Was it something I did? Something I said? Did he not want to—” Her voice hitched on a sob, and the spell between us snapped as easily as the stick beneath the heel of my rented patent leather shoe.

  “It’s got nothing to do with you, Maggie May,” I assured her.

  “Then why, Luc?” She stopped dancing to hold me at arm’s length. Her eyes were big and wet with unshed tears. “Why did he leave tonight of all nights?”

  I swallowed and turned away, torn between my loyalty to Cash and my love for her. “He had to go. That’s all I can say.”

  “W-will he come back?” Her gaze beseeched me.

  I hugged her close and gave her the only truth I could. “I don’t think so.”

  A terrible whimper escaped her then. All I could do was try my best to hold her together even as she fell apart. It was odd to want her for myself at the same time I wanted Cash to come home and stop her from hurting.

  I have no recollection of how long we stayed there in that clearing, her crying her heart out and me hanging on to her for dear life. But eventually her tears subsided, and she heaved a deep sigh that sounded like resignation.

  When she looked up at me, I used my thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks, marveling at the warmth of her, the softness of her, the vulnerability and strength of a sixteen-year-old girl on the cusp of womanhood.

  “Luc?” Her voice was tremulous.

  When I stared into her eyes, she must’ve seen the hunger in mine, the need I had spent so much time hiding.

  “Luc, I—” She swallowed but didn’t shake her head no when I bent toward her.

  Slowly (so slowly I died a little with each passing second) I closed the distance between us. When I felt her hot breath brush my lips, I shuddered.

  “Maggie May?” Every question in my head was wrapped up in those three syllables. In her name.

  She began to tremble. With sorrow? With passion? I was too inexperienced to tell.

  “I’m cold,” she blurted, jerking from the circle of my arms and taking three steps backward. It felt like she reached inside my chest and took my heart with her.

  In that moment, I knew.

  She would never be mine.

  “I’ll run back to Smurf and grab my jacket,” I told her, trying to be the gentleman my momma raised me to be despite my aching heart. I hoped that the few minutes it would take to make the round trip to the truck and back would be enough for me to come to terms with the loss of something I never even had. “You stay here.”

  With those three words, I sealed our fate.

  More Books by Julie Ann Walker

  Black Knights Inc. Romantic Suspense Series...

  Hell on Wheels

  In Rides Trouble

  Rev It Up

  Thrill Ride

  Born Wild

  Hell for Leather

  Full Throttle

  Too Hard to Handle

  Wild Ride

  Fuel for Fire

  Hot Pursuit

  Built to Last

  Deep Six Romantic Suspense Series...

  Hot as Hell (prequel novella)

  Hell or High Water

  Devil and the Deep

  About Julie Ann Walker

  A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Julie loves to travel the world looking for views to compete with her deadlines. And if those views happen to come with a blue sky and sunshine? All the better! When she’s not writing, Julie enjoys camping, hiking, cycling, fishing, cooking, petting every dog that walks by her, and… reading, of course!

  Find her online at

  www.julieannwalker.com