Love and Death in Blue Lake Read Free Page A

again.
    Another clap of thunder must have brought her to her senses because she put a hand on his chest and pushed him away with the lightest touch, as if she were as reluctant to release him as he was to let her go.
    “Want I should drive you home?”
    They were inches apart, and their eyes held each other, telling stories neither would say aloud.
    “Okay.” Her eyes shifted to her bare feet, toenails painted peachy-pink something. His Courtney always wore black nail polish. This was somebody new, but she was also the same.
    “We can sit and talk for a while, see if it slows down.” He wasn’t sure if he meant the rain or his madly beating heart. Maybe both. “I’ll still drive you. Can throw your bike in the back of my truck.” Eddie didn’t like talking and especially not that many sentences in a row. He waited for her to turn him down.
    “Okay.”
    That was the girl he knew, always easy with him, going along, well except for the baby part. She went along with everything until one day she didn’t, and no matter what he said, he could not change her mind, and then it was too late and she was gone.
    He took her hand and pulled her to the sofa. She let him. He held her hand a little longer than he should have, and she pulled away first.
    “There was only ever you for me.” What had he just said? And how could he take it back? “So you love him?” He tried to cover his declaration with more words. “The way we loved each other?” He had to know how she felt. Because he was feeling caught back in time, caught back in her.
    “So, what? No sex for eighteen years?” She folded her hands in her lap, demure as all hell, her gaze leveled at her fingertips, which he noted were painted the same shade as her toes.
    His little vixen, acting so innocent, but with the quick retort, sting in tail. “Well, none that meant what we did.”
    Her soft laugh was just the same. She moved with slow grace, hugging her legs to her chest, refusing to look at him. Or answer him. “All the girls in school loved you, and I’m sure they formed a consolation line the minute I left town.”
    “I was inconsolable.” Sure, he’d gone through those girls in a matter of weeks, but he wasn’t proud of it. After that first dazed year of sex and anger that turned into a steady stab of sadness, he slowed down, yeah, he still fooled around, but he never loved. He didn’t bother with excuses, he just walked. Way he saw it, women knew what to expect when they took him on.
    “It doesn’t do any good to talk about it.” Forehead pressed to her knees, voice muffled.
    “No, I suppose not, but why should that stop us? We always could talk about anything.” And then he remembered that it was true. He could always talk to her. Ten sentences in a row. Hours of talking and dreaming and loving her. The cracked window inside him opened wide, and it all rushed back in, as fierce inside his body as the weather outdoors.
    Her head came up as if she felt the shift in him, and she turned her face to his. Her eye makeup had smudged in the humidity. She used to do that on purpose, like a sexy vampire. He reached out and touched her face. “Your eyes…”
    “Oh god.” She tried mopping up the mess, but made it worse.
    “No, don’t. I like you like this.”
    “Yeah, ’cause you’re crazy.”
    “About you. Your eyes always said come here and love me. They’re saying it now.”
    ****
    He kissed her again. And she let him again. This time they went a little rougher, let their hunger out a little more. She slid against him, and his hands roamed beneath her damp shirt. That caught Courtney. What was she doing? She was engaged. She was happy. She was living her dream life. Or so she thought, until she’d seen Edward today. This was crazy. How could everything change in a matter of hours like this? It couldn’t change. She wouldn’t let it. She was divorcing Edward and marrying Xander. End of story.
    She pushed him away again to catch her breath.