As everyone went back to work, he tapped the eraser end of a pencil on his desk and thought about Anne. He couldn’t help himself. Heck, a toddler could have pushed him over using a pinky finger when he’d first seen her last night.
She’d challenged him to be better from the very first time she’d met him, and in the E.R., he could still see the summons there in her eyes. Those brown eyes the exact shade of her shoulder-length hair. He was glad she hadn’t fiddled with the color like so many women did these days. He’d always liked the natural sheen and what he could only describe as the nutmeg color. She’d matured … in a good way. In high school she’d been a little too bony for his type. Now she’d added a few pounds and had smoothed out all the angles.
He laughed inwardly. Her bod wasn’t what had always attracted him to her. It was her straightforward approach. Her honesty. He scrubbed his face and remembered the day she’d first spoken to him at track practice in eleventh grade.
“You’re full of it, Lightfoot,” she’d said. “You’ve been letting everyone think you’re part Native American, but you’re name’s either English or German. I looked it up.”
No girl had ever challenged him before. He’d swaggered up to her and glared right into her face. From her unwavering stare, he knew she’d seen through his bravado.
Though Lightfoot made a great name for Whispering Oaks’ top league hurdler, and having people think he had Native American ancestors made it even cooler, he was as white bread as they came, and she’d called him out on the prevarication.
“I’ll pay you ten bucks to keep that to yourself.”
“I don’t take bribes, but I’m good with secrets.”
Boy was she ever good with secrets. A week to the day before Brianna, his girlfriend and Anne’s best friend, had been diagnosed with leukemia, he’d let slip a huge secret to Anne—how he felt about her. And to make matters worse, he’d kissed her. They’d been horsing around after watching a Star Trek DVD one Saturday night at her house. Bri hadn’t been feeling well and he’d taken her home early. Looking back he should have realized Bri hadn’t been feeling well for a few weeks, but he’d been oblivious, even looked forward to spending some time alone with Anne. What a jerk he’d been.
After the movie, imitating Captain Kirk and Spock, he’d placed splayed fingers on Anne’s face and asked, “May I join your mind?” Good sport, as always, she had giggled but let him and he’d sworn she’d communicated one thing through those soft doe eyes—kiss me.
So he did. Jack pressed his mouth to Anne’s in a tender first-kiss fashion. Her lips were soft and moist, just as he’d expected. She didn’t pull back, but she went still. He shouldn’t push things, what about Bri? Ignoring that thought, he kept kissing Anne, eager to explore more, though taking things slow, he felt her shoulders relax.
Anne’s hands pressed against his chest, a signal to stop, but not before she kissed him back. Jack broke it off searching her eyes for a clue, and saw a mix of shock and held-back longing.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she said, with a breathy whisper, her nostrils flaring faintly.
“I’m sorry.” Was he really sorry he’d shared the sweetest kiss since junior high with Anne? He was positive there was something between them just waiting to be unlocked. He knew she felt it, too.
“She’s my best friend.” Her hand flew to her mouth, as if to erase the kiss.
He stared at the floor. “You probably don’t think much of me as a boyfriend.”
“Right now, I don’t know what to think.” “I better leave,” he said, refusing to regret what they’d done. He’d shaken her up, felt the pull between them. It wasn’t his imagination.
Their kiss had been loaded with potential—he couldn’t get it out of his mind all weekend and, on Monday he’d seized the moment.
Jack spotted Anne between classes, heading for the science building. He swept in before she noticed him, grabbed her wrist and tugged her behind the ancient oak tree in the center of the campus. He’d thought about doing this all weekend, no matter how rotten an idea it was. He needed to kiss her again.
Like a man possessed, he leaned her against the gnarly bark, hands on her shoulders, and kissed her full-out. Firm and deep, he explored the lips he’d thought about for two days. She dropped her books, and once again she matched him kiss for kiss.
Once he’d planted the kiss he’d dreamed about, and only because he heard some howls and comments from other students, he let up.
He would have been damned proud of that kiss, seeing her dazed and breathless, pupils dilated, eyes wide, but confusion distracted him. Shame edged its way in. How was he supposed to handle this? Damned if he’d apologize for doing what he’d wanted for months, he said something he shouldn’t have and walked away.
A week later Brianna’s mysterious illness got a diagnosis and it turned their world upside down. Nothing else seemed to matter. Anne had never mentioned their kisses again. Under the circumstances he sure as hell wasn’t about to bring them up, and their easygoing friendship had never been restored.
Honor mixed with guilt and disappointment could make a guy do crazy things, like after Bri died, he took off in the opposite direction for Europe instead of heading to Oregon to where Anne was. And life had a way of throwing those mistakes in your face. He’d lost his good buddy Anne, the girl with all the possibilities, and he hadn’t come close to falling in love with anyone since.
There were a million things he’d like to talk to Anne about, but he didn’t have a clue how or where to start. He knew he owed her an apology for the crazy mixed messages he’d given her, and for that bomb he’d dropped just before Bri had died. And if her reaction to seeing him was any indication, he wasn’t sure she was the least bit interested in seeing him again.
Jack grimaced and noticed a couple students with raised eyebrows watching him deep in his battling thoughts. He homed in on the ringleader—a girl whom he suspected had a crush on him.
“Amy, are you ready to read your essay?” He used his benevolent teacher voice, the kind that usually got good results. She shook her head with hummingbird speed.
All curious gazes went back to the desks.
After he visited Kieran Grady that afternoon in the hospital, maybe he’d pay a visit to Beverly … and Anne.
“Lucas, we understand. You’ll get home as soon as you can. What’s a few more days?” Anne said, sitting at her mother’s bedside mindlessly running her toes over the dog’s bristly brown coat. Lucas was undergoing some army discharge testing in Washington, D.C., and kept extending his ETA. “Dad’s doing as well as can be expected considering how banged up he is. I talked to him yesterday and I’ll go see him tomorrow. Mom’s doing fine, too. She’s resting right now. You want to talk to her?”
Beverly lay sprawled on her bed, pink-casted arm elevated above her heart on pillows, and with Bart, her rescued Rhodesian Ridgeback who was too big for the bed, laying dutifully on the rug. With the body of a boxer on steroids and a face more in line with a lab, he was one good-looking doggie, and the newest family addition since their official empty nest.
“I don’t want to wake her,” Lucas said.
He’d been evasive whenever the topic of conversation turned to how he was doing. The last few times they’d spoken, Anne had gotten the impression he wasn’t being completely honest about something. “She’s not really asleep. Here she is,” Anne said, gently pressing her mother’s shoulder.
“Anne!”
She smiled at the sound so clear in her mind. Lucas’s tone had transported her back in time.
“It’s