Remembering Yesterday Read Free

had even wondered, if they were simply a raw fantasy from seeing someone so wonderfully masculine and handsome. But the guilt in her mother’s expressions had put Ava on the alert.
    Ava had asked both of her parents about him once she was back at home from the doctor’s, but they had remained tight-lipped. And strangely, they’d seemed angry as well as guilty. Even Patrick, the man she had been casually dating for the past few months, had been furious when she had asked him about Devlin. Benton was a small town, and Patrick had already gotten numerous calls from his friends to say that his girl had lost some of her marbles, when she’d spotted the middle Calhoun boy. She had wanted to rail at Patrick. Not just because she wasn’t his girl—not like that. But also because he’d had seemed more concerned, about what the townsfolk thought about her reaction, than about why she’d had a reaction in the first place. As if she could control her response to that strong a memory. If her parents thought that hiding the truth from her would make the memories go away, then they were wrong.
    For the hundredth time she wondered if she was doing the right thing in dating Patrick. Ava knew she didn’t love him. They’d been friends as long as she could remember, but it was only at her parents’ insistence that she’d gone out with him in the first place—possibly because he was safe, a comforting anchor in her uncertain world. But six months later, they still hadn’t moved beyond lukewarm kissing. It obviously frustrated him, but she just wasn’t ready to move to a deeper level of intimacy.
    She was broken.
    She knew it, and Patrick knew it. She doubted she’d ever be able to feel safe in a relationship until she was somehow whole. But she feared that if she was ever whole again, there would be no place for him in her life. Ava should feel some sympathy for Patrick, because no matter how much he wanted her to love him, he was losing her. He tried hard but she would not grieve if they parted.
    Coming to a stop, she struggled out of the car and stepped into the bracing wind and freezing rain. The cold slapped at her, jarring and wicked. Slamming the van door shut, she hurried up the wide wrap-around front porch, clutching her coat closer as the howling wind tried to rip it from her body. She shivered as she walked up to the door and rang the bell, then strained to hear if anything chimed over the winds and the occasional bellow of thunder. Banging her fist on the door and pealing the doorbell once more, Ava belatedly realized she might have been reckless in her need for closure. It was after midnight and the house seemed so echoingly empty.
    She hoped her mother would not try to check in on her back at home. In the event Mom did, Ava had left a note on her pillow saying she was visiting her best friend Willow. Ava had tried to tell Willow of her memories. Her friend had seemed so shocked, but Ava thought there was something else behind her reactions. Willow had said that it had seemed too much that one of the town’s bad boys and their princess had done the dirty at one point. Those had been Willow’s words: ‘Done the dirty.’ Not Ava’s.
    Even though she thought Willow might be right. The memories were explicit, raw and so very dirty .
    Heat crawled up her neck as she took rapid breaths to calm her nerves. It wouldn’t do for him to open the door and see her blushing. After she rang the doorbell for what felt like the hundredth time, the door was finally flung open.
    “Wha—?” His growl was cut short when he spied her.
    Ava swallowed as awareness jolted through her. He was wearing faded, torn jeans, and a half-buttoned blue chambray shirt with its sleeves rolled to his elbows. She could see the dark hair on his chest, and she knew that hair arrowed down all the way to his briefs.
    Panic clawed at her throat . Oh God, I should not know that .
    Her eyes focused on his bare toes before she squared her shoulders and