Chapter 9 #2
She slowed at the turn that would lead to his house. Not that she’d actually intended to show up at his place at this time of the evening. But why not? She wasn’t afraid of him.
What more could he do to her? Kill her? How did you kill someone who was dead already?
After making that final turn, she parked on the side of the dirt road next to a cluster of shady maples.
The narrow, curvy road wound through the woods at the base of the mountain, finally reconnecting with 18.
There wasn’t another house for as far as she could see.
The red Firebird was parked in front. He was home.
His first night outside those prison walls.
She thought about those seconds this afternoon outside the courthouse when he’d stared right at her from across the street.
He didn’t look that different. There were small changes; his hair was shorter, his skin paler.
He looked heavier or maybe just more muscled.
There was a scar that hadn’t been there before. On his left cheek.
But the eyes were exactly the same.
Her fingers clutched the steering wheel as she recalled the way that silvery gaze could reach right inside her and make her feel totally lost. He’d been very good at making her feel vulnerable and helpless . . . and needy.
She’d fallen in lust with him at sixteen. No one in the world had known except Heather. Emily’s best friend’s crushes had fluctuated between Keith Turner and Marvin Cook, both football players, with their lettermen jackets and massive egos.
Not Emily. Nope, she’d picked a guy who’d barely managed to survive his senior year. He’d missed nearly as many days as he’d attended. Austin had a bit of an ego himself, but his vast charm had rendered most females blind to its presence. Emily’s father had considered him a thug.
Em, you stay away from that boy. He’s trouble.
She’d known it was true, but that hadn’t kept her from fantasizing about him. After all, fantasies were supposed to be about the forbidden.
A detail as simple as the way his clothes had fit made her heart beat wildly and her foolish adolescent hormones surge.
The T-shirts that had molded to his body, the faded, tattered jeans that had wrapped his lower anatomy, were nothing short of sinful.
Everything about him, the way he talked, the way he moved, all of it, had been designed for sex appeal.
He would slide those dark sunglasses into place and spin out of a parking lot in that racy red Firebird and she would long to go with him.
To have the wind rushing through her hair .
. . to have him put his hand on her bare thigh and foster all those forbidden sensations that just breathing in the same airspace as him had the power to ignite.
She remembered the way his lips would tilt when he smiled.
That sexy curl that no mere woman, much less a teenage girl, could hope to resist. He’d teased her, flirted with her ruthlessly.
Each time, she’d turned her back on him.
Pretended not to notice. She’d been a good girl; she hadn’t associated with boys like him outside her fantasies.
At first he’d laughed at the way she ignored him. Then it became a sort of challenge to him. See just how far he could go before she turned tail and ran.
Once they’d even kissed.
At the movie theater he’d sneaked up behind her and put his hands over her eyes.
She’d whirled around to face the culprit.
He was the last person she’d expected to see.
He’d never gotten quite that close before, never once touched her.
Shock had frozen her to the spot when their gazes collided and his fingers lingered against her hair.
Something had shifted in her small world as he’d stared into her eyes.
She had known in the deepest recesses of her soul that she was about to be kissed.
It was her first.
His lips had met hers and she’d leaned into the incredible sensations .
. . had reached her arms around his neck and let her trembling body rest against his strong, lean one.
He’d kissed her long and deep, used his tongue in ways she’d only read about.
His palms had cupped her face, those long fingers threaded into her hair.
A kind of heat she’d never before experienced had flowed through her, settling between her thighs.
As if the voice of reason had suddenly kicked in, he’d drawn away, winked, then walked off without so much as a word. She’d been humiliated. Even that infuriating episode hadn’t made her stop wanting him.
A deeper shadow fell across the driver’s side window and jolted her back to the present. She looked up, blinked. He stood right outside her open window.
Fear exploded in her veins.
How could she have not heard his approach?
Her brain issued all the appropriate flight commands, but her hands . . . her fingers refused to act.
With her heart clanging and the blood funneling like a hurricane in her ears, she couldn’t think. She couldn’t piece together what to do next.
He didn’t move, just stood there and waited for her to do or say something.
She reached for the ignition, but Heather’s face, frozen in cameo on her gravestone, suddenly flashed in Emily’s mind.
No.
This was a public road. It was a free country. She could park here if she damn well wanted to. He couldn’t touch her, not without risking an assault accusation. Daring him, she wrenched open the door. He backed up a step to avoid being hit by it as she got out.
She grabbed on to her fledgling courage with both hands and pretended not to be scared to death.
“Is there a problem?” she demanded, staring directly into those seething gray eyes, her hands planted on her hips in challenge.
He was bigger than she remembered, taller .
. . his shoulders broader. And then there was the scar, marring the angle of his jaw and the hollow beneath that lean cheek.
She shivered at the idea of how he may have gotten it before she could stifle the reaction.
He looked away a moment, as if he didn’t trust himself to continue holding that stare or even to answer her question. Or maybe he was just confused that she hadn’t run. He’d better get used to that, because she wasn’t the same scared little girl he once knew.
When that cold steel gaze latched on to hers once more, he demanded, “What do you want?”
Her pulse scrambled. Since he hadn’t testified at the second trial, it was the first time she’d heard his voice in ten years.
Not since the trial when, after the summations from both sides, he’d risen from the defendant’s chair and told the jury what a mistake they would be making if they found him guilty.
He was innocent, he’d insisted. He had stood there, wearing that cheap suit his court-appointed attorney had probably instructed his mother to buy, and met the gaze of every person in that jury box.
He’d looked young and humble and terrified.
Emily had barely noticed. Her entire focus had been on seeing that he got what was coming to him.
That old familiar fury kindled inside her.
The one emotion of which she was fully capable of experiencing the full range.
“What do I want?” She laughed, the sound laden with bitter contempt.
He didn’t really want to know, but since he’d asked, she would damn sure tell him.
“I want you back in prison where you belong.” She bit down hard on her lip to prevent its blasted trembling as the rage catapulted through her.
“I want you to pay for what you did until you draw your last pathetic breath.”
She blinked back the burn of tears. God, she would not cry in front of him. She’d cried enough and it hadn’t changed a damned thing. Heather was still dead . . . she was still dead.
For the first time she realized just how dead. Her life was a road that went nowhere . . . an abrupt stop. She felt nothing except anger . . . she was nothing. Because of him.
He started to turn away but changed his mind.
A muscle in his tightly clenched jaw contracted before he spoke.
“Your efforts would be much better spent, Miss Wallace, trying to find out who else was in your room that night and whether or not it was actually you they were after. Otherwise, you should do yourself a favor and stop wasting your time on me.”