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Forbidden
Tori Carrington


Leah Dubois can't believe it when J. T. West comes rolling back into town on his Harley. During their torrid love affair over a year ago, he'd done things to her that no other man ever had before…or ever would again. Only, when she left her husband for him, J.T. disappeared without a word. But she'd never stopped craving his touch….J.T. knows he has nothing to offer Leah, but he can't stay away. His need for her is beyond control, beyond reason. He has to have her for as long as she'll let him…or until his past catches up with him. Because J.T. is a man on the run. And no matter how much he regrets it, he knows he'll end up loving Leah–then leaving her–again….









He wondered if she had only sex on her mind


Leah advanced on J.T., her dark eyes all hot desire. Stopping in front of him, she kissed him like her life depended on it.

Good Lord, what this woman did to him. “Hello to you, too,” he murmured, cupping her shoulders and pulling her slightly away.

She grabbed his hand and started leading him into the house, leaving no doubt about her motivations for being there. It made him a little uneasy.

“Can a guy catch a shower first?” he asked, stalling.

She turned toward him. “But I want you to be dirty.” The flush of passion on her pale cheeks made it clear what she meant.

J.T. swallowed hard. Just the passion in Leah’s face made him forget about the work that needed to be done, forget that she’d very obviously come out just for sex.

He loved claiming her sweet body. Loved making her go over the edge.

But it was her heart he was after.

And he was afraid he’d never reach it.









Dear Reader,

SLEEPING WITH SECRETS… Intrigued? We have to admit the title of this miniseries grabbed us from the start and refused to let go. It tempted us to step into the shadows, opening our eyes to all sorts of forbidden, sexy ideas that began with our title in the January 2004 Private Scandals anthology and continues with three books for the Blaze line.

In the first story, Forbidden, sexy single mom Leah Dubois Burger had life all figured out…until J. T. West awakened a restlessness in her a year and a half ago, setting off a chain reaction that was as destructive as it was exciting.

We hope Leah and J.T.’s story draws you in and doesn’t let go until the very last page. We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 (we’ll respond with a signed bookplate, newsletter and bookmark), or visit us on the Web at www.toricarrington.com for hot drawings. And don’t miss the other two books in our SLEEPING WITH SECRETS miniseries. Look for Indecent in June 2004 and Wicked in August.

Here’s wishing you love, romance and compelling reading.

Lori & Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington




Forbidden

Tori Carrington







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


We warmly dedicate this book to Diana Tidlund

aka Moosehog, the coolest biker babe we know!

May all your adventures be sweet….




Contents


Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue




1


EVERY TIME IT RAINED Leah Dubois Burger thought of J. T. West. The way he’d dragged his strong fingers down the flesh of her back, tracing a path to her bottom. He’d branded her, claimed her, all the while vividly reminding her what it meant to be a woman.

Unfortunately, it rained a lot in Toledo, Ohio, in April. And J.T. hadn’t been in the city for nearly a year and a half.

And J. T. West was responsible for the biggest mistake of her life.

Leah leaned against the steering wheel of her late model Lexus and stared at the rain pelting the windshield. She’d shut off the car engine so all she heard were the rhythmic drops hitting the hood of the car. Across the parking lot she could make out the blue neon lights of the Kroger store. It was only 7:00 p.m. but the heavy dark clouds had ushered in dusk early making it feel like winter was holding on by its fingernails. A loaf of bread was all she had to buy. She needed it to make Sami lunch in the morning. She pictured her eleven-year-old daughter waiting at their house in Ottawa Hills, finishing the dinner dishes and talking to her father on the phone like she did every night at about this time. Asking when he was going to move back into the house.

Dan…

Leah waited for an emotion, any emotion, to hit her. She’d been married to the man for eleven years and for the past three months they’d been going through post-marriage therapy to try to patch up their marriage. But her ex-husband failed to bruise the outer edges of her thoughts.

J.T…..

The bottom of her stomach dropped out and her heart began pounding harder than the rain against the asphalt. Such a profound reaction, despite that nearly sixteen months had passed since she’d last seen the man. Despite that he had tempted her into an affair that had ended her marriage and plunged her daughter into a preadolescent funk. Yet how could she forget that he’d made her feel alive again for the first time in…well, a very long time. In truth, she hadn’t felt so vital, so free, since that one long-ago August when she was sixteen, he barely eighteen, and the summer had seemed to stretch on forever, making it seem like what they had might never end.

But it had ended.

Only to begin again fourteen years later. After she’d married another man. After she’d started a family. After she’d believed she’d long since grown out of her crush on J. T. West.

A passing car’s headlights cut a swath through the soggy night, making Leah blink. She reached for the umbrella on the passenger seat, then hesitated, deciding a little cold rain might be just the thing she needed to wash away wayward memories of the few steamy weeks she’d spent loving a man who had twice disappeared from her life as abruptly as he’d appeared.

She walked toward the supermarket even as her brain told her she should run. Within moments her beige blouse was plastered against her skin and her tan slacks were soaked and wet. But she couldn’t bring herself to care beyond pushing her thick, blond hair from her face. An uncharacteristic reaction for someone who spent a great deal of time perfecting her conservative yet stylish appearance. First it had been because she was a judge’s daughter, then because she was a prominent attorney’s wife. But mostly she enjoyed taking care of her appearance because she liked to look good, liked to feel feminine. Which was also why she allowed herself one self-indulgence—the supersexy lingerie she always wore. She caught a glimpse of herself in the automatic glass doors the moment before they opened. She barely recognized the bedraggled woman staring back at her. The limp, wet hair. The vacant expression. The untidy clothes. She guessed that she should feel something at the sight, but didn’t.

She pushed herself forward, blinking at the bright lights. It seemed odd that everyone was going on with life as usual. She didn’t know what else she expected. Maybe that they would all pause and look at her as if they knew what she’d been thinking. Or rather whom she’d been thinking about. Whisper comments on her dreadful appearance. Instead the cashiers scanned groceries, the patrons perused the impulse-buy magazines on display at the checkout counter, and the bag boys slid merchandise into white plastic bags, none of them giving her any notice.

All in all, life went on as usual.

Why, then, didn’t it feel that way for her?

She absently picked up a shopping basket and cut through an empty line, her steps slow, her mind sluggish. All day she’d been distracted and disoriented. She’d forgotten to wash Sami’s basketball jersey and her daughter hadn’t been happy about it, Febreze-doused and sporting a spot above the “U” in Burger no matter how hard Leah had tried to rub it out. She’d sat through lunch with her sister, Rachel, barely tasting the food and hardly registering her sister’s presence beyond how happy she looked now that she and Gabe Wellington had set a date for their wedding. Her father had called while she’d been making meatloaf for dinner and she’d forgotten to add eggs so it had come out dry and cracked. She wasn’t sure how she felt that Sami hadn’t seemed to notice beyond commenting on how much better her Grandma Burger’s meatloaf was, then reaching for the ketchup bottle.

When had life become so…routine? So dull?

“Oh, Leah, if only life was all roses and candlelight,” she could hear her mother saying when she’d been stood up the night of her junior prom. “Comfort yourself with the knowledge that when things get bad, it means good times are ahead.”

Leah figured she was long overdue for good times. Or even okay times.

Or, at the very least, a few minutes with her mother who had always somehow managed to make her feel better.

But Patricia Dubois had died of breast cancer over a year and a half ago.

Curiously, at the same time Leah had crossed paths with J. T. West again.

She stared down at the can of chicken noodle soup in her hand, not remembering picking it up, and with no real sense of how long she’d been standing staring at it.

“This weather is something else, isn’t it?”

Leah looked up at an elderly woman standing nearby. “Isn’t it, though?” She managed a feeble smile, put the can in her basket, then moved farther on down the aisle.

Bread. She’d come here for a loaf of bread. She programmed her feet to head in the direction of the bakery section. Maybe a long, hot bath and a book would help ease her out of this strange mood. And chocolate. Lots of chocolate. She stopped at the end of the aisle and rather than continuing toward the bakery section, she backtracked to the racks upon racks of sweets where a nice extra-large bar of Hershey’s with almonds was waiting for her.

Along with J. T. West…

She blinked. It wasn’t possible. Had to be a trick of her imagination. She’d conjured up his presence through the power of wishful or wistful thinking. But no. The more she blinked, the clearer he became. He was there. Back in Toledo. In the grocery store. Looking at her as if she was the entire reason he was there.

Where she’d been numb, now every nerve ending sparked to glorious, heated life.

Temptation incarnate, J. T. West. Looking better than any one man had a right to.

Standing at the other end of the aisle, leaning a wide shoulder against the shelving, his long, thick jean-clad legs crossed at his booted ankles. His leather jacket remarkably dry, the white T-shirt underneath hugging his abs in all the right places. The only evidence that he’d been out in the rain at all lay in the dampness of his hair. Jet-black hair that swooped down over his forehead, giving his eyes an intense quality even here in the brightly lit supermarket.

It seemed strangely apropos that he’d picked the candy aisle in which to reveal himself. He fit right in among the forbidden sweets. Decadent and illicit.

Oh, God, J. T. West is back.

A shiver ran the length of Leah’s body from the top of her head to the very tip of her toes.

She swallowed thickly.

Oh, God, J. T. West is back….



J.T. WASN’T SURE WHY he’d chosen now to reveal his presence to Leah. This moment. He’d rolled back into Toledo on his Harley four days ago. And had been tailing Leah ever since.

Up this close, Leah Dubois Burger looked better than even his memory of her. J.T. shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans for fear that if he didn’t trap them they’d automatically reach out for the woman who looked so hauntingly beautiful—even in the glaring fluorescent lights of the supermarket, even soaked to the bone—it made him ache.

“Hello, Leah.”

He stared at the long line of her elegant neck as she slowly swallowed, her gaze fixed on him.

“J.T….”

Something coiled tight in the pit of his stomach at the way his name exited as a hushed breath through her lush, lush lips.

He fought a groan.

How long had he envisioned this moment? When he might come face-to-face with Leah again? Might take in her beautiful features? A month? A year?

No. He knew exactly how long. Since the moment he’d left her sleeping in that ratty motel room exactly sixteen months, three days and fifteen hours ago.

Throughout every waking and sleeping moment since then, she’d been a constant presence in his life. As a memory. A sigh.

And throughout every waking moment he’d cursed that clinging memory. Tried to ban it. Ban her. Make himself forget.

But it was during his dreams when he had no power over the direction of his thoughts that she wiped away all his willpower and held him at her mercy. Until he stood right where he was now. Looking at her. Assessing her. Trying to fathom whether she’d thought about him as much as he had about her.

Somehow he knew that she had thought about him. Thought about them. Could tell by the dilation of the pupils in her dark eyes. The flick of her tongue at the corner of her mouth. The shallowness of her breathing. The tightening of her nipples under her damp blouse that seemed to beg him for attention.

J.T. knew that if he slid his fingers inside the waistband of her slacks he’d find her hot and wet and ready. And right then he wanted that more than anything. More than the food that sustained him. More than the air that he breathed.

More than the risk of his own freedom.

Leah finally broke away and turned toward the shelf. She stuffed a chocolate bar into her basket, began to walk away, then backtracked and put another bar, then another into the basket before she passed him.

J.T. noted that she had yet to say more than his name. As she disappeared at the end of the aisle, he supposed seeing him again after so long was quite a shock for her. She might even be having some trouble convincing herself he was really there.

His mind filled with the ways that he could prove to her that he was back.




2


PLEASE, HURRY.

Leah pushed her few items down the checkout line conveyor belt, mentally praying for the cashier to pick up the pace. She wanted…no, needed to get out of there as quickly as she could. Before J.T….

Someone put a six-pack of Coors on the belt behind her. Her breath froze in her lungs. She didn’t have to look to see who it was. She already knew. The brand was J.T.’s.

“Ma’am? Your card, please.”

Leah blinked to stare at the cashier. Her card…Her brain distantly registered that she was being asked for her savings card, but she couldn’t bring herself to retrieve it from her purse. “No card,” she whispered.

The cashier entered a code and began ringing up the purchases.

Leah was acutely aware of J.T.’s presence behind her. Felt a magnetic force drawing her in, affecting the flow of her blood, the direction of her thoughts. Never in her life had she met someone as physically powerful, emotionally mesmerizing as J. T. West. He entered a room and you knew it. If J.T. wanted you, you were loath to refuse him.

The cashier named a price.

Pay…she needed to pay for the groceries.

Leah’s brain refused to register the simplest of commands.

She reached into her bag and rummaged around inside for her wallet, her hands trembling wildly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath…then watched as the contents of her purse dumped out onto the floor at her feet.

She knelt to pick everything up at the same time as J.T.

Leah swallowed thickly. God, he smelled good. Too good. There was something about the way the detergent he used on his clothes combined with the musk of his soap and the rich leather of his jacket that appealed to her on a primal level. Made her think of clear streams and wide-open spaces. And of a passion so wild she forgot who she was.

“Ma’am?” the cashier said again, repeating the price.

In that one moment, Leah forgot not to look up into J.T.’s eyes. Forgot that up this close the intoxicating golden hue would hypnotize her. Tempt her to count the flecks of green in the light brown depths. Lure her into doing things that in her right mind she would never, ever do.

“I’ve got it.” J.T. peeled a couple of bills from a roll he took from the back pocket of his jeans.

“No, really…” Leah stood up, nearly dumping her purse again, only to realize she was too late. J.T. had not only paid for her things, but was now paying for his beer.

She stared at him as he handed her bag to her and gestured toward the door.

Leah knew she should say something. Thank him for buying the groceries. Offer to pay him back. Ask him what he was doing there. But she couldn’t seem to bring herself to say anything. Instead she virtually rocketed for her car and climbed in, ignorant of the rain and her appearance.

And unsurprised when J.T. climbed into the passenger’s seat next to her.

Her gulp sounded loud in the small confines. She hadn’t been prepared for how…intimate the setting would be. With the darkness outside, the rain pelting against the rooftop, the scent of his nearness crowding her senses, it was all she could do not to gasp at the evocativeness of it all.

“When did you get back?”

Leah’s words sounded breathy even to her own ears and she wondered if J.T. could hear the thud-thud of her heart in the silence of the car.

He squinted at her. “Does it matter?”

No, it didn’t. But his response did imply that he’d been back for more than just a day.

The thought made her thighs grow even damper. Knowing that J.T. had been in town for a prolonged period presented her with a whole different viewpoint. Partly because she’d known that when he’d left sixteen months ago, he’d left town completely and she’d figured he’d never come back.

But he had. And for more than a day.

And now he was sitting in her car making her remember with vivid clarity how sweet it was to kiss his skillful mouth. How thrilling it was to have his arms around her.

How very wrong it was for her to want both.

“Dan and I are reconciling,” she said.

That got a response from him. He dropped his gaze then squinted through the windshield, headlights from a passing car flickering over his granite features. “You divorced?”

Leah caught her bottom lip between her teeth and also looked away. She nodded, wondering how wise it was to reveal that she was free.

Oh, free was so wrong a word it made her wince. She wasn’t any freer now than she had been back then. She and Dan were reconciling. For God’s sake, they were even now discussing the date when he might move back into the house. Her daughter, Sami, talked about her father’s return nonstop. Her family had come to accept the reconciliation and plans were being made for a family dinner on Easter, mere weeks away.

And she still wanted the man sitting next to her with a ferocity that scared her to death.

Leah felt J.T.’s hand on her cheek. The thick, callused pad of his thumb felt so natural against her skin that rather than pulling back, she allowed her eyes to drift close and her head to lean into his touch.

“Do you love him?”

Leah felt her chest cave in on her heart. She blinked to look into J.T.’s intense gaze. He’d asked the question of her before. The night they’d first met.

She hadn’t answered him then. And she had never asked herself the question again.

“J.T., I don’t think this is such a good idea. Sami’s waiting for me to get home. I’m glad to see you, happy you’re doing well…”

“Kiss me, Leah.”

The words were so simple, so straightforward. And had the effect of a bulldozer on all her good intentions.

She crossed the mere inches separating them and did as he requested.

Oh God, oh God, oh God…

He tasted so good. Better than she remembered. Like butterscotch candy and hot, hot man. His lips were soft and malleable. His tongue like a lick of fire as it entered her mouth.

Leah’s breath quickened, her blood flowed through her veins enticing her limbs to action. Her fingers found their way to J.T.’s damp hair. Her chest found a way to crush against his across the narrow console. Her mouth slipped and bit and devoured his lips until she was afraid that the fire of his tongue would ignite her entire body.

He caught her chin in his hand and held her steady for long, silent moments, staring into her eyes. “Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked.

Yes.

No!

Leah didn’t know what she wanted. She just wanted what she was feeling never to stop.

Her silence appeared all the answer he needed as he hauled her across the console until her bottom rested in his lap and her legs dangled over into the driver’s seat. She became instantly aware of his erection, long and hard against her bottom. She moaned and melded her mouth to his, afraid of what might happen if they continued, afraid of what might happen if they didn’t. Her fingers found their way to his jacket and pushed open the leather, then shoved up the soft cotton of his T-shirt. She remembered that he was rock-hard everywhere and she quickly discovered that hadn’t changed. Except that he seemed to be even more solidly muscular. Leaner. A dangerous energy emanated from him that caught her up in its conflicting current.

She didn’t realize he’d opened her blouse until she felt his tongue against the upper swell of her right breast. Leah stretched her neck and gritted her teeth together, shivers traveling down her back then up again, making her tremble from head to foot. J.T. cupped her breast, then squeezed, forcing the flesh upward from the lacy demi cup. He fastened his mouth over her painfully distended nipple and she cried out, digging her fingers deeply into the flesh of his shoulders. She knew a need so powerful it rocked her to the core.

She fumbled for and found his zipper, tugging it down and sliding her fingers inside the cotton of his boxers until she held the very essence of him. His turgid flesh was so long. So thick. So hard. Her mouth watered with the desire to taste him. To coax out his bittersweet semen. To hear him call out her name, his fingers entwined in her hair, tightly holding her to him.

With some awkwardness, she helped him rid her of her slacks and then straddled him, her right knee hitting the console, her left wedged tightly against the door. But she didn’t care. All she could concentrate on was how badly she wanted this one man. How hot she was, how hot he was, and how she knew that only he could put out the fire twisting and turning inside her.

She reached to position him against her hungry flesh. She gasped when he grabbed her wrist in a viselike grip.

“No,” he ground out.

The air disappeared from Leah’s lungs.

“Not like this. Not in a car. Not so soon.”

Leah blinked at him, incapable of speech.

J.T. stared at her for a long moment then deposited her back onto the driver’s seat. She watched, dumbstruck, as he adjusted his clothing with the same control he did everything else, then he sat back and looked at her, his eyes full of question and mystery.

“It was good seeing you, Leah,” he murmured.

Then he climbed out of the car and slammed the door.



J.T. STOOD ALONE in the parking lot, the cool spring rain washing over him as he watched Leah’s taillights disappear into the damp night. She had turned toward the big, warm house waiting for her a few miles to the west. The house that over the past twelve years she’d made a home. A place not unlike the hulking house she’d grown up in. He’d visited both places only once and had known instantly that he didn’t belong in either. Just as he’d known that Leah hadn’t belonged in either his father’s rusty trailer or the shabby, no-star motels he’d recently called home.

But if there was one thing he’d come to understand during his thirty-two years—and especially in the past year and a half—it was that outer trappings had very little to do with basic human wants and needs. And if the past thirty minutes were any indication, he wanted…needed Leah on a level he couldn’t begin to understand. All he knew was that he had to explore what it was. If for no other reason than to tuck her and whatever existed between them neatly into the past, where so far it had refused to rest.

Water dripped down over his face, soaking his T-shirt, running over his jacket, but still he couldn’t bring himself to move. What he’d experienced with Leah before had been profound. But what had passed between them a few minutes ago had shaken him to the bone. He hadn’t had sex in a car since he was eighteen. And, curiously enough, it had been with Leah. He’d been a hairbreadth away from taking what Leah had just so generously, hungrily offered. Had known such a ferocious desire to bury himself in her sweet, hot flesh that in that one moment everything else had emerged irrelevant.

Even his freedom.

His gaze cut to a car entering the parking lot from the opposite direction. A white and blue cruiser emblazoned with the words Toledo City Police Department. J.T. shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, then turned and made his way toward his bike. He heard the cruiser slowly pass by him, then continue on as he put on his helmet. He watched as the officers turned at the end of the lane then he straddled the wet Harley. He was less than a mile away from the city line. The cruiser exited the parking lot onto Secor Road, then disappeared from site. But the significance of his reaction to it lingered on, pounding against J.T. much like the rain.

If he’d needed a reminder of how much he was putting on the line by coming back to Toledo, by staying in one place for longer than he knew to be safe, the innocuous drive-by was it. While the cruiser and the officers in it hadn’t been looking for him, they might be tomorrow. Or the day after that. Which didn’t leave him much time to accomplish what he needed to.

The powerful bike started up with a quiet roar, echoing the emotions pulsing through him. So much at stake. With no guarantees. But he needed to find out if she was a bored middle-upper class housewife seeking a bit of fun with a bad boy from her younger days. Or if Leah Dubois Burger loved him. And he wasn’t leaving until he found out.




3


“I NEED THAT PERMISSION SLIP for the class trip today. And I can’t find my blue volleyball shorts.”

Leah squinted against the early-morning sun slanting in through the French doors as she stacked thinly sliced pieces of turkey breast onto a whole-wheat slice of bread. Bread that she had picked up at the market the night before last. Bread that had been the cause of long, restless nights filled with yearnings for a man she shouldn’t be yearning for.

“You can’t find your volleyball shorts because they’re in the laundry room waiting to be washed.” She tore lettuce apart and added it to the sandwich. “And what class trip?”

“You didn’t wash my shorts?”

Sami finally stepped out of the glare of the light. It never ceased to amaze Leah that an eleven-year-old girl could have so much to be angry about. Her daughter’s blue eyes flashed and her light brown hair seemed to crackle with electricity.

“No,” Leah said carefully, cutting the sandwich into two even halves then putting it into a baggie. “I didn’t wash your shorts, Sam. And you didn’t answer me about the trip.”

Her daughter continued to ignore her question, turning on her heel and stalking to the laundry room just off the dining area. Leah put the sandwich into a backpack along with a pear, carrot sticks and a juice pack and watched Sami pick through the laundry basket for her shorts. The navy blue material was wrinkled but otherwise unsoiled.

“I can’t possibly wear these!” Sami cried.

Leah stretched her neck, looked at her watch and asked again, “What class trip?”

Sami glared at her, stalked back across the kitchen to the crowded desk built into the cabinets, then fished out a slip of paper in among the bills. “This one.”

Sami slapped the paper onto the counter into a dollop of mustard then stalked from the room. Leah read the slip as she wiped the mustard from the back of it. It seemed two weeks ago her daughter’s History teacher had requested permission for Sami to go on a class trip to the Toledo Museum of Art. Leah was pretty certain she didn’t remember her daughter saying anything about the trip. And she’d gone through the bills stacked on her desk two nights ago and hadn’t seen the slip. But considering her own state of mind as of late, she couldn’t bring herself to lay the blame completely on her daughter. To say she hadn’t been on top of things recently would be akin to saying coffee was black.

Speaking of coffee…

She stared longingly at the empty carafe on the counter behind her, then winced at the sound of her daughter’s bedroom door slamming.

Leah briefly closed her eyes, trying to remember that it wasn’t all that long ago that she and Sami had been best friends. Well, okay, not best friends. But there had been a level of respect and trust and warmth there that Leah had once shared with her own mother.

Now it seemed she could do nothing right in the eleven-year-old’s eyes. If she breathed, she was doing it wrong. And on some days she found herself teetering between wanting to lock the girl in the basement or run away entirely.

Of course, she’d known the exact moment when the tides had turned. The night nearly a year and a half ago when she had sat Sami down and told her that she and her father were separating.

And the reason for their separation had been the very man who was causing her distraction now.

Two days had passed since she’d run into J. T. West at the market. Two days since he’d climbed into her car and she’d remembered all at once what it was be like to just…be. To feel like a woman. Not somebody’s mother. Not somebody’s daughter. Not somebody’s ex working toward reconciliation. Then she’d practically mauled him in the front seat.

It had been two days since she’d heard from him and was left to wonder if he was still in town. Two days since she’d told herself that nothing had really happened between them. They’d merely kissed. Nothing more. Nothing less. And there was nothing wrong in that because, technically, she and Dan weren’t reconciled yet. They were still divorced. He didn’t live in the house.

And her arguments weren’t making a dent in the enormous guilt that coated her insides like thick, black tar.

Leah squeezed her eyes shut. Worse than the guilt, though, were thoughts of J.T. that could be called nothing but carnal. And burned in her mind was the memory of his face when she first caught sight of him in that supermarket. At that moment it had seemed like barely a day had passed since she’d last seen him, rather than sixteen long, brutal months. Months when she’d tried to pick up the pieces of her broken heart and her broken life and glue them back together, even though she was convinced there wasn’t enough superglue in the world to handle the monumental job.

She slowly licked her lips, remembering that when she’d kissed J.T.’s mouth her desire had skyrocketed, dampened not at all by the time that had passed, by everything that had happened between then and now. If anything, she wanted him even worse now than ever.

And for two full nights she had twisted and turned in bed, wanting him with an intensity that left her breathless.

“I’m borrowing your blue sweatpants for the game.”

Leah blinked Sami’s angry face into focus. Her daughter narrowed her eyes at her as she shook the pants in question. The jersey pants were part of a lounge set, not true sweatpants, but she wasn’t up to arguing the point that Sami had at least two pair of acceptable shorts tucked away somewhere in her own dresser drawers.

Leah signed the permission slip then put it in the front zipper of the backpack. She handed the pack to her daughter. “Fine.”

“You’re not driving me to school this morning?”

The day was warm and sunny. The elementary school Sami attended wasn’t a third of a mile away. Yet she normally did drive her daughter.

She turned and gathered her own lunch, which consisted of a tuna salad. “No, I’m going in the opposite direction. I have an early class.”

Sami sighed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you have to go to school. School is for kids. And you’re not a kid.”

Like she needed to be told that.

But shortly after Dan had left, while she’d still been trying to figure out her affair with J.T., she’d decided she wanted to go back and finish the business degree she’d given up when she’d married Dan and had Sami.

“Maybe you’ll understand when you’re older,” she said. “You’d better get going or you’ll be late.”

“I can’t wait until Dad comes back so this house can get back to normal,” Sami mumbled, then grabbed her sweater from the coatrack near the front door and slammed out of the house.

Leah stared after her, suppressing a full body shudder. Normal? She wanted to ask her daughter what exactly constituted normal. Leah living her life strictly for her husband and child? Making sure jerseys and shorts were clean, appointments kept, the gas tank full so she could run errands to pick up their things, do their errands, take them to school and to work?

It appeared she and Sami were overdue for another talk. Not that she thought it would make a difference. Leah had the sinking sensation that her daughter and she would never see eye to eye again.

She grabbed her own jacket and shrugged into it while holding her books and lunch and juggling the keys to lock the door after herself. The Lexus SUV sat in the driveway instead of the garage because Sami had decided to paint her bike and the still-wet bike in question was sitting where Leah’s car usually sat.

She opened the back door of the car and dropped her lunch and books onto the seat, then she slid into the driver’s seat. She started the car, her gaze drawn to the passenger seat where J.T. had sat two nights before. But he wasn’t sitting there now. Instead a small white bag bearing the logo of a nearby bakery along with an extra-large cup of coffee and a single peach-colored rose sat in the middle of the seat.

Leah’s heart turned over in her chest as she breathed in the aroma of fresh pastry and coffee filling the car. The sound of a motorcycle motor pulled her attention to the street behind her. Was J.T. there? Was he watching to see her reaction to finding his little surprise? She didn’t see anything but the regular morning activity of neighbors leaving for work, kids walking to school, the newsboy delivering newspapers.

She knew a moment of anticipation so overwhelming her thighs trembled.

J.T. was still in town….

And the prospect of seeing him made her hot all over…and more than a little scared.



J.T. SAT PARKED UNDER A TREE and behind a minivan a half block up and watched Leah scan the street, undoubtedly looking for him. He knew from having gotten some idea of her routine the past week that she had an early class this morning. And after watching her light go on and off every half hour between eleven and one before he’d headed home last night, he suspected she needed a jolt of caffeine this morning. Seeing her daughter storm from the house, glare at the closed door then stalk off, told him his efforts were likely doubly appreciated.

J.T.’s fingers tightened on the handgrips of the old bike. Of course the surprise had been more than a thoughtful gesture. In truth, he’d wanted Leah to know that he was still there, and that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Since kissing her again after so long, and discovering that the explosive attraction that had originally drawn them together was still there, he realized that his mission might take more time than he’d thought. It was going to be a challenge to dig deep beyond that molten attraction and see if something more substantial, more significant, more binding existed. And time was what he intended to give himself. Despite the deep craving that burrowed inside him every time he thought of her, saw her, what he needed transcended the physical.

They’d gone that route before. And it had left them both standing right where they were now. Leah divorced and considering reconciling with her ex-husband. Him wanting her so badly he had night sweats. And both of them wondering what if.

Basically it left them nowhere.

Leah backed out of the driveway of her mammoth brick colonial-style house and drove in the other direction. An older man wearing a wool housecoat opened the door to the house in front of him, bent to pick up his morning paper, then stared at J.T. with open curiosity and suspicion.

J.T. gave him a small nod, started up his bike, then turned around and went in the opposite direction from where Leah had gone, the morning air brisk against his skin, the sun making him squint.

Not ready. Completely in the dark. Ill-prepared. All three descriptions fit where he stood right now. When it came to relationships, his experience was between zero and nil simply because never in his life had he had the chance to learn the art. Lord knew his father, Delbert, had done all he could. As the son of a mechanic, Delbert had grown up without much use for a dictionary and more than a handful of words. And he’d raised his own son the same way, making J.T. forever the outsider when they traveled from town to town in search of a better job, a better life. To J.T.’s way of thinking, the only time they had achieved that goal was during that brief stretch the summer of his eighteenth year when he’d met fiery, sixteen-year-old Leah and had been given his first taste of the woman who would haunt him from then on.

J.T.’s mind circled back to his father. Del hadn’t said one way or another whether he approved of J.T.’s decision to go on to college when he was offered a scholarship, but J.T. had suspected he’d been disappointed his son hadn’t followed in his footsteps and became a mechanic. And the old man had merely nodded when that road had became a dead end two years later, leaving a young woman dead, sending a falsely accused J.T. on the run and destroying any future he might have imagined for himself.

Over the course of the next ten years he’d ridden from place to place, never staying anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time, a way of life his father’s own traveling had well prepared him for. In the beginning he’d worked various minimum-wage jobs to cover his expenses, but that required lying about his social security number, his name. Then he’d rented a room from an old man, not unlike his father, who had taught him carpentry. And he’d found the perfect job for a man who couldn’t afford to stick around long. A free agent, he was paid a flat fee, erasing any need for uncomfortable questions about his past and his identity.

He smoothly shifted gears, resisting the urge to increase his speed when traffic opened up. Considering his resistance to ending up a mechanic, he was surprised to find he liked working with his hands. More than that, he enjoyed the feel of a virgin piece of wood under his fingers, watching as it slowly told him how to cut it, then gave in to his will and became furniture that was not only functional but bore the mark of its original beauty.

Not all that unlike the way Leah opened up under his hands, freeing the girl he once knew as spunky and smart and gutsy, afraid of nothing. Passionate, greedy, demanding. So unlike the Leah of today whose eyes were devoid of any emotion at all and whose movements seemed automated, uninspired.

She had once told him that she loved the feel of his rough skin against hers….

J.T. set his jaw. Of all the women he’d been with in his life, including the one that had ended up stealing his freedom, he had yet to determine what it was about Leah Dubois Burger that touched him so profoundly.

But if there was one thing he planned to do before leaving Toledo, Ohio, it was not only to unearth if she felt the same way about him, but whether or not she could accept who he had become.




4


“MEET ME AT TEN TONIGHT.”

Leah stood outside her car in the University of Toledo parking lot later that day, the midday sun warm against her face, her fingers trembling as they held the small piece of paper that had been under her windshield wiper. The longing that had been burning through her veins for the past week sent a warm shiver careening through her body. J.T. had written the name of a small bar and where it was just outside the western city line. He hadn’t signed his name. But she didn’t think any of the twenty-year-olds in her classes had left her the note. No, it was definitely J.T.

She stuffed the paper into the pocket of her slacks then unlocked the door to her car and climbed in, sitting for long moments staring through the window.

She swallowed hard, the sound loud in the confines of the closed car. She couldn’t go. Wouldn’t.

Her watch chimed off the hour and she absently glanced at it. It took her a moment to register that she was due to meet Dan at the therapist’s office in half an hour, the one time a month when they met at lunchtime as opposed to after five.

She picked up her cell phone, lightly rolling her thumbs over the numbers. She’d never cancelled a session before. But how could she possibly go and face her ex-husband and the counselor feeling the way she did?

And how did she feel?

Flustered. Needy. Alive. Like the woman she’d once been who hadn’t expressed her sexiness through lingerie hidden under her clothes, but in everything she did.

Stupid.

She blinked at the last word, her movements even more sluggish than they’d been recently. Hadn’t she gone this route before? Hadn’t she put everything on the line for a man who had a history of disappearing? Who offered her nothing beyond the moment, only the here and now? Hadn’t she sacrificed her marriage, her relationship with her daughter and the only way of life she had known for a few hours of escape in another man’s arms?

She reached to slip the cell phone back into her purse and it vibrated. She looked at the display. Her sister, Rachel.

Leah idly considered not answering.

Rachel was a year younger and a whole world happier than she was. In two months she’d be marrying the man of her dreams. A man with a past even darker than Leah’s was, but a heart as big as Ohio. All you had to do was look at Gabe Wellington to see how much he loved Rachel.

Had Dan ever looked at her that way? She briefly closed her eyes, trying to remember. No, he hadn’t. Maybe. Way back in the beginning.

“For a minute there I thought you weren’t going to pick up,” her sister said when Leah finally answered just before the call would have rerouted to voice mail.

I wish I hadn’t. “Class ran over.” Liar.

“What are you doing for lunch?”

She glanced at her watch again though she didn’t have to. She knew what time it was every moment of every day, if only because it seemed to drag by. “I have to be at the counselor’s in twenty minutes.”

“Oh.”

Leah caught the flat tone of her sister’s voice as she said the simple word. “And that would mean what, exactly?”

A pause then, “You don’t sound like yourself. What’s going on?”

Rachel. The smarter of the two sisters who had not only made it through college, but had gone on to law school to become an attorney and a city councilwoman.

Sometimes Leah hated her.

But she’d always love her.

“Nothing. I guess I just didn’t sleep well last night. And Sami read me the riot act this morning for not washing her volleyball shorts.”

“And you’re going to counseling like that? May be you should cancel and meet me for a margarita.”

Leah sighed and relaxed slightly into the driver’s seat, wondering if the muddled emotions crowding her chest would ever leave. “I can’t tell you how good that sounds.”

“So do it then. And meet me at Carmel’s in ten.”

Leah opened her mouth to refuse but Rachel had already hung up.

She absently pushed disconnect and stared at the cell for a long moment. She’d never canceled a session before. Surely this one time couldn’t do any harm.

She called Dan’s office first only to learn he’d already left.

Maybe she should go. Dan was probably already on his way, if he wasn’t already there. Either way, he would have his cell switched off.

She dialed the therapist’s office next and told the assistant she couldn’t make it but that she’d be there for their regularly scheduled meeting.

She disconnected, put the cell back in her bag, then pulled it back out again to switch the receiver off, routing all incoming calls directly to voice mail. The instant she did it, she felt ten pounds lighter, though it did nothing to stop the moths fluttering around in her belly.

Oh, boy, did she ever need this margarita.



“GABE WANTS ME TO MOVE into his place after the wedding,” Rachel told her from where she sat across from her at Carmel’s Mexican Restaurant.

Leah fingered the coarse salt lining on her extra-large margarita glass then licked her finger. She’d never been much of a drinker and knew from experience that she wouldn’t be able to drink more than a quarter of the concoction before her, but somehow it made her feel better to sip from a mammoth glass than a smaller one.

“And the problem is?”

“The problem is I just bought my own house, had it completely renovated and just moved into it three months ago. I don’t want to move again.” She sipped at her own margarita then crossed her arms on top of the table. “Besides, the thought of living in the mausoleum he calls home gives me the creeps.”

Leah cracked a halfhearted smile. “It can’t be that bad. The Wellington place is a part of Toledo history.”

“Then Gabe should turn it into a museum or something.”

Leah didn’t know much about the Wellington estate beyond the sweeping grounds and the towering castlelike spires. She’d fished for an invitation from her sister once or twice, but it sounded like Rachel spent as little time at the house as possible and was trying to find ways to get out of going to the dark manor instead of inventing reasons to have to be there. “It’s not all that much bigger than where we grew up.”

“Yes, but our house is different. Even when it was just Dad and us there, it still seemed…I don’t know, like home.”

Leah cocked her head to the side and considered her pretty sister. “Don’t you think that’s how Gabe feels about his house? Especially since he doesn’t have any family left?”

Rachel ran her fingers through her short, spiky brown hair and made a face. “God, I knew I’d live to regret you seeing a therapist. You’re even starting to sound like one. The next thing you know you’ll be diagnosing my condition and prescribing me Xanax or something.”

Rachel glowered at her, making Leah glad that she could forget about her own problems for a precious stretch of time and focus instead on her sister’s. Why was it so much easier to fix other people’s problems than your own? Maybe because the emotion factor didn’t figure into the equation. Maybe because as an outsider your opinion was a little more objective.

Maybe because you knew that your own problems were easily solved and you were purposely ignoring them for that very reason.

Rachel narrowed her eyes at her. “Uh-oh. I know that look. What’s going on?”

Leah blinked. She’d forgotten that Rachel had been the first one to pick up on her affair with J.T. nearly a year and a half ago. And here she was having an escapist drink with the only person who could finger what was going on.

“Actually,” Rachel continued, “now that I think about it, you’ve been acting strangely for a few days now.”

Leah cleared her throat. “I have not been acting strangely.”

“Yes, you have. It’s been taking you forever to answer the phone. Usually you pick up on the first or second ring. And even when I do get you, you sound distracted and absentminded.”

Leah shrugged, her gaze darting around the restaurant before returning to settle on her sister. “Maybe there is something going on. And maybe there isn’t. I don’t know. I haven’t quite figured it out yet myself.” She stared at her drink. “Would it be all right to say that I’m really not up to talking about it right now?”

“Is it Dan?”

Leah wished she were anywhere but there in that one moment.

No, scratch that. Despite everything, she wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. If she were back at the house, she’d be climbing the walls until Sami came home from her volleyball game after school. If she had gone to the counseling session, she’d be sitting next to Dan trying to work out a situation her mind wasn’t completely on right now. And if she was with J.T….

Well, he wasn’t much of an option, was he? Even though his gift of a coffee, a roll and a rose that morning and his note this afternoon told her he was nearby, she didn’t know how to get in touch with him. Not that she would. It was just that knowing being with him wasn’t an option helped.

Marginally.

She shifted in her seat. “I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Rachel was silent for a few moments as she studied her, then her gaze cut to the approaching waitress.

“Saved by the food,” her sister said, offering up a smile.

Leah smiled back at her and moved her glass so her salad could be put down in front of her.

Within moments they were alone again. Leah speared the crisp lettuce with forced enthusiasm while Rachel did the same across from her.

“I know I can be a little pushy sometimes,” Rachel said quietly.

Leah raised her brows in feigned shock.

“Cut it out.” Rachel chewed a bite then swallowed. “I suppose what I’m trying to say is that, well, you know I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk, don’t you?” she said quietly, her hazel eyes steady.

Yes, she did know that. And that simple knowledge calmed the edginess in her, however slightly. But how could she talk about what she had yet to understand?

Leah nodded, feeling ridiculously close to tears. “I know. Thanks.”



IT WAS NEARLY TEN-THIRTY and there was no sign of Leah.

J.T. sat at the end of the long bar, his fingers wrapped around a still-full beer bottle that was growing warmer by the minute. In the corner the jukebox played an old Johnny Cash song while at the two pool tables four men traded shots, the winners destined to play the owners of the next quarters on the nicked lips of the tables. J.T. had seen his share of drinking holes and this one was better than most, but not as good as some he’d been in.

He’d long ago discovered that a different set of rules existed in bars. No matter who you were, where you came from or whom you were there to meet, it was your business, as long as you didn’t start any problems for others and paid your tab. And if you said just enough to make you friendly, but not too much to make others curious, your face was forgotten as soon as the other men turned their backs, making you just another guy looking to knock back a few brews after work.

J.T.’s gaze slid back toward the door as another just such guy walked in.

He stared down at his beer.

He’d been aware of the odds of Leah’s not showing. But he had still hoped she would come. He needed to talk to her. And the only way to do that was in public. Because when they were in private…well, suffice it to say he had a hard time keeping his hands to himself and they didn’t get much talking done. As for this particular bar as his choice of public places, well, he’d wanted to make anonymity attractive to her. If he’d chosen a restaurant or someplace closer to her home then the risk of her running into someone she knew would have been high.

But he admitted that perhaps he had jumped the gun a bit when it came to timing. He should have waited a little longer before suggesting they meet.

The only problem was he couldn’t wait. The more time that passed, the more he wanted to have Leah. In his bed. Writhing under his body. Her thighs spread wide for him as her back arched up to meet him. Every second that he wasn’t able to do that ticked by like an eternity until the next second and the next eternity. He felt like he could have died and been reborn at least ten times since he’d rolled back into town. He threw himself into his work refurbishing the old Victorian farmhouse a few miles from the bar, but had to pace himself lest he work himself right out of a reason to stay in the house.

The door opened.

Another faceless man entered.

J.T. picked up the beer bottle and swallowed deeply from it, barely registering that it was warm and tasted like deer piss. He put it back down, fished a couple of bills from his pocket then stepped toward the jukebox. It looked like his only options were to go back to the empty farmhouse or stick around here and get stinking drunk.



LEAH WRAPPED TREMBLING fingers around the doorknob to the Lantern’s Light Tavern and slowly pulled, entering the bar before she could change her mind again. She’d approached the bar no fewer than five times only to head back to her car parked around back. At one point she’d even driven halfway home before hanging a U-turn and coming back to the bar….

Coming back to J.T.

She’d spotted his bike right out front so she knew he was still there. Although she couldn’t really figure out why. Dan would never have waited more than fifteen minutes for her before leaving. She shivered at the change in temperature and temperament, wondering how long J.T. would have waited. Another fifteen minutes? A half hour? An hour?

All night?

She still had on her slacks and blouse that she’d worn that morning. She hadn’t wanted to make a fuss for fear that Sami would pick up on what was going on. As it turned out her daughter had been too wrapped up in her own drama, something to do with her best friend siding with another girl during the volleyball game. Much telephoning between the three girls ensued. When she’d left, Sami seemed to have patched everything up with her best friend, Courtney, and she’d been sprawled across her bed talking about a new boy at school. She’d barely given her mother a halfhearted wave when Leah had told her she was going to Aunt Rachel’s to help her sort through some stuff for the wedding.

And now here she stood, in the middle of a dimly lit bar, her ears filled with the sound of glass clinking, beer being poured and pool sticks hitting cue balls, looking for a man who compelled her to do things she knew she shouldn’t. Looking for J.T.

The sound of a few guitar strums floated on the alcohol-infused air. She looked in the direction of the jukebox and found J.T. bending over it, his back to her.

Her heart lodged tightly in her throat.

J. T. West filled out a pair of jeans like no man she had ever known could. The worn, faded denim was slightly loose around his slender waist and fit him snuggly around his hindquarters, making her fingers itch with the desire to run them down the soft cotton, probing the steel-hard flesh beneath.

He slowly turned, as if sensing her presence, her stare. Leah felt frozen to the spot as her gaze flicked up the denim of his shirt, catching sight of the tanned, hard chest at the neck before staring directly into his simmering golden brown eyes.

In that one moment everything but this moment ceased to exist for her. The bar. The worries of her class. The complaints of her sister. The concerns of her daughter. All she could hear was the thump of the bass in the song and her own heartbeat. Her palms and other, more intimate, parts of her body grew wet, her breasts tightened and her lips longed for the feel of J.T.’s mouth on hers.

Neither of them moved for long, long moments. Then, finally, J.T. pushed from the old-fashioned, upright jukebox and crossed to hold his hand out to her.

Leah gazed at his large, callused fingers and the dark hair kissing his forearms, then blinked back into his eyes.

“Dance with me?”

Leah’s hand shook so violently she was sure J.T. could see it as she slowly placed it in his. A hot, hot shiver rode through her body as she wondered why she felt that accepting his invitation meant so much more than just a dance….




5


LEAH SMELLED OF THE SUBTLE SCENT of gardenias and one-hundred-percent sweet, hot female.

J.T. slowly tugged her until she stood mere millimeters away. The very tips of her breasts brushed against his chest. The insistent throbbing of his manhood pulsed almost painfully, full with desire for this woman who’d haunted him throughout so much of his life. He rested his right hand on her hip, fighting the urge to press her to him until nothing separated them but their clothing.

It had been so long. Too long. But to give in to his craving to claim her now would only take them where they had already gone. And he wanted more, so much more.

“You waited,” she said quietly next to his ear.

He tightened his grip on her hand and led her in the slow dance, using every ounce of self-restraint he had to keep from rushing things. “I waited.”

He caught the scent of something evocatively familiar. The smell of lemons. And immediately he was transported to the first time they’d ever danced, fourteen years ago on one steamy summer’s eve. The entire campsite had gathered for dinner at the pavilion and the park owners had brought in a country band to entertain those who wanted to make a night of it. By midnight most of the campers had gone back to their trailers or tents, leaving just a few behind.

He and Leah had been two of them.

And she’d asked him to dance.

J.T. closed his eyes now, breathing in the lemony scent of her hair. He found it incredible that she still used the same shampoo that she had way back then. Found it incredible that the mouthy, straightforward, gutsy teenager she had been had turned into the hesitant, self-doubting, fearful woman he now held.

She took her hand briefly from his and wiped her palm on her slacks then returned it to his grip, her smile wavering before she turned her head in the other direction.

What had happened during their years apart to make her change? Or had she changed at all? Was his memory painting a picture of her that he wanted to see but that had no basis in reality? Was this Leah the real one?

No. He had only to think of their brief, unexpected, white-hot affair a year and a half ago to know that the Leah he danced with now was not the woman he’d once known. He knew that because for a brief, exciting time she had turned back into that young woman who had the world and everything in it at her beautiful feet. The judge’s daughter whose only care in the world was how to satisfy her own curious appetites. And J.T. had been the first man she’d welcomed between her toned thighs.

“Josh, I…”

Every muscle in J.T.’s body tightened.

It seemed forever since anyone had used his given name. And since warning Leah against it the last time they’d met, she hadn’t used it, either. No, he hadn’t told her the reason he went by his initials now instead of the name he’d been called his entire life. She’d merely accepted that it was something he couldn’t share.

That she was using the name now told him he wasn’t going to like what he was going to hear.

“Shhh,” he said, drawing her closer.

He heard her breath catch and felt her breasts heave slightly against his chest. He suppressed a groan. Did the woman have even the slightest idea how she affected him? Did she know that right now he wanted her so badly he was nearly bursting with his need for her? Did she know that not a day went by that he didn’t think about her, remember how it had been between them and hunger after her with an intensity that left him powerless to concentrate on anything but the memory of her?

He put his boot between her shoes and nudged her legs apart, naturally filling the gap with his thigh. She gave a small gasp as his taut muscles rested against her swollen womanhood. Oh, yeah, he knew she wanted him. She always had. It was the one weakness he could use against her.

The problem lay in that he didn’t want to use anything against her. Especially not her own betraying emotions.

“I was just remembering the first time we ever danced,” he whispered in her ear, teasing the delicate shell with his breath and watching a shiver wash down the delicate cord of her neck, coaxing tiny bumps over her arms. Her neatly trimmed blonde hair seemed to tremble with the reaction he was inciting in her. “Do you remember, Leah?”

She didn’t indicate one way or another if she’d heard.

J.T. stared at a spot beyond her, allowing the pImages** of that long ago summer to take over. “I remember the heaviness of the air right before it rained later that night. I remember the sounds of the singer’s voice and the chirp of the crickets. The smell of straw and your hair.” He pressed his chin against the side of her head. “The way you looked up at me, so hungry, so confident.”

Leah went briefly still in his arms.

J.T. tightened his grip on her. “And I thought to myself, ‘This is a woman who knows what she wants. And I’m going to give it to her.”’

“I wasn’t a woman, I was a girl.”

J.T. pulled back slightly. “No, Leah. You were a woman.” He grinned. “I’m convinced that you’ve been one since the day you were born.”

The song drew to an end and Leah attempted to pull away. J.T. didn’t allow her the escape. The advantage of his having fed so much money into the jukebox was that he knew which songs would play next.

He brushed his cheek against her hair. “Then you kissed me,” he said quietly.

She dropped her gaze to stare at the front of his shirt, then seemed unsatisfied with that and looked restlessly around the bar. “You kissed me, if I remember correctly,” she said so quietly he nearly didn’t hear her.

He shook his head as the next song finally clicked on. “No, Leah. You kissed me.” He pressed his lips against her temple, resisting the urge to re-create the moment. But in order to re-create it, she would have to make the first move. Just like she had back then. “You kissed me as if you couldn’t help yourself.”

“That…that was a long time ago.”

J.T. pulled back enough to stare down into her eyes. “Was it? Because right now I’m feeling like it was five minutes ago.”

He watched as her pupils dilated in her dark eyes. Oh, yes, he could tell she was feeling the same way. Yearning for that carefree moment when they’d first explored their burning attraction for each other. But his telling and her admitting were two completely different things. And he knew she wasn’t anywhere near confessing how she felt. And he also suspected he knew the reason why. Hell, he spent half his time asking himself what it was that he felt for her. And the other half wanting her so badly he throbbed with the power of the need.

She licked her lips. J.T. visually inhaled the movement, knowing it was the prelude to a kiss.

But rather than leaning toward him, she pulled away. “I…I shouldn’t be here. I’ve really got to go.”

J.T. resisted the urge to hold her still, to prevent her from leaving. Instead he released his hold on her and watched as she clutched her purse closer to her side and moved toward the door.

He was losing her and he didn’t know how to stop it.



LEAH KNEW A DESPERATION to escape so intense her knees shook. It wasn’t fair that J.T. had come back. It wasn’t fair that he was reminding her of times better off forgotten. It wasn’t fair that he made her want him so fully that she felt she’d die if she didn’t kiss him, feel him, make love to him…now.

She moved toward the door to the bar as quickly as she could, short of running. She shouldn’t have come here. It had been foolish to think she could tell J.T. that she couldn’t see him again. Look into his eyes and utter the words, “It’s over. I’ve moved on with my life and it’s time for you to do the same.”

Instead she hadn’t hesitated to step into his arms for a dance, her hand in his, their bodies slowly swaying seeming the most natural thing in the world.

“We fit.”

She remembered J.T. whispering words to that effect on the very night he’d reminded her of. He hadn’t been saying the words to her. Rather it had seemed he’d been talking to himself, his voice so full of wonder and conviction that they’d reverberated through her, changing her life forever.

She pushed the door open and took deep gulps of the chilly spring night air as if she’d just run a marathon. Changing her life forever. What a childish, stupid thing to think. Fine for a sixteen-year-old experiencing her first real brush with puppy love. Ridiculous for a woman of thirty with an eleven-year-old daughter.

She wondered what Dr. McKenna would say if she told him. Would he tell her that her reactions to J.T. were some sort of pre-middle-aged grab at what used to be? A return to the past, to less troubled times? A time when she didn’t have adult responsibilities and all that went along with them?

“Leah.”

Her step faltered at the sound of her name on J.T.’s lips. He’d followed her. Somewhere deep inside she’d known he would. And somewhere near that knowledge was also the relief, and the grief, that he had.

She swiveled toward him, the air and distance between them allowing her a measure of sanity. “I can’t see you again, J.T.”

He squinted at her in the near darkness, his face stern as if carved from granite. “You’re not seeing me now.”

Leah’s throat felt so tight she was surprised her breathing didn’t sound like panting. “I’ve seen you twice in the past three days.”

“I need to talk to you.”

She shook her head adamantly. “That’s what I told myself. That’s the reason why I came here. To talk. But we don’t talk, J.T. We never talk. Whenever we’re within touching distance both of us seem to lose the ability to speak.”

“We’re talking now.”

She laughed humorlessly and backed a short ways away, feeling an almost magnetic pull toward him and fighting it for all she was worth. “It doesn’t count. We’re just talking about talking.” She shook her head and clutched her purse to her stomach as if the action could keep her from moving toward him.

“I’ve moved on with my life, J.T.,” she said, somehow finding the words she’d rehearsed all afternoon, then during the drive out. “I’m back in school. I’m going to counseling with my ex-husband in the hopes of reconciling. And my daughter…well, my daughter needs me to be there for her.”

He was silent for a long moment, making her wonder if she’d said the words at all. And if she had, if he could understand what they meant.

“And you?” he asked quietly. “What do you need, Leah?”

No fair. It wasn’t fair for him to ask her that question.

He slowly held up his hand up. “What do you want?”

She turned toward her car parked around the back of the lot, out of view of passing traffic. She hadn’t done it on purpose, but it seemed that everything connected to J.T. was done in secret. Was bad. Forbidden.

“I want you to leave me alone,” she whispered.

But she hadn’t said it loud enough for him to hear. Rather the words had been for her ears only, as if some frightened part of her believed that by saying them she could make them so.

She rounded the building, nearly ran into a Dumpster, then rounded it, getting her keys from her purse.

“I didn’t quite make out your last words.”

Leah didn’t realize that J.T. had grasped her arm and turned her to face him until she was staring up into his too handsome, too rugged face.

“I said that I want you to leave me alone.”

Her heart crashed against her rib cage, the sound of her own words like a knife to her chest.

“Do you?” he asked. “Because if you do, I’ll leave town right now. Tonight.”

Leah felt like she’d never take an unlabored breath again. Standing there looking into a face made familiar by all the times she’d seen it in her dreams, nurtured it in her mind, she wanted the exact opposite of what she was saying.

She licked her lips several times. “Yes. That’s what I want.” The words grew quieter with each she said until the last one was nearly silent.

They stood like that for long moments, neither of them saying anything, both of them staring at each other, only the sound of passing cars on the other side of the building and the exhaust fan from the back kitchen breaking the utter silence of the night.




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