His eyes remained fixed on the road. “My ex-wife.” Wow. She had not seen that one coming. “How did you two meet?”
“In college.”
“And were you—”
“Look, Beth, I’d rather not talk about it, okay?”
She watched him work his jaw, his mouth a thin line.
“Okay.”
The deep rumble of thunder filled the silence. Beth peered out the darkened window. “Might rain.”
“Looks like it.”
Great. Now I’m resorting to the inanities of weather. She snapped her mouth closed and took a deep breath of moisture-laden air.
The first fat drops of rain began to fall as they arrived home. Inside the house, the darkness was lit only by the warm glow of a small lamp.
When Luke paused in the hallway to retrieve a stray piece of mail that had fallen from the side table, she plowed straight into his broad back.
It was like touching naked flame. She sprang back. “Sorry.”
“How are you holding up?”
His concern and silent scrutiny undid her.
It could have been the way his eyes caressed her face, the gruffness of his voice, the way he sensed all those hidden feelings she tried to bury. Or his incredible vulnerability behind an almost impenetrable wall of control. And here she was standing a bare inch away and practically aching to reach out and smooth those creases hovering across his brow. “I’m fine. Just not very tired.”
“Do you want a drink?”
“Okay.” Inside, her heart was doing a dance on her ribs. “I’ll be down in a moment.” She went to the stairs, gave him one brief glance then went up to her bedroom.
Dressed in a pair of loose drawstring linen pants and a blue tank top, Beth paused at the top of the stairs. Below lay an abyss of darkness, punctuated only by the candles on the coffee table, their familiar fragrance drifting through the ground floor. The flames danced and teased, as if they knew their purpose was to calm and soothe but deliberately doing the opposite.
She took a deep breath and descended. Luke’s long legs stretched out on the floor, crossed at the ankles. His back was cradled by the leg of the couch and in his hand he absently twirled a half-full wineglass.
Swiftly she crossed the room and tugged the curtains apart. “You should really see the sky—it’s great on a night like this. See?”
Through the inky blackness, past the fence line, the river rippled and tossed with the wind. In the distance a brief glimpse of stars glittered, tiny diamonds in indigo velvet, before the rolling black storm clouds gradually engulfed them.
“Here comes that rain.”
“Yep.” Luke poured some more wine then gestured to the spot beside him. She sat, took the glass he offered then sipped in silence. And slowly, the lull of the alcohol, the slashing rain and the flickering candles began to work their magic.
With a gentle snort, Beth shook her head.
“What?” Luke said.
“Your aunt.” At the questioning curve to his eyebrow, she added, “She really loved Gino, didn’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Beth sighed. “My parents missed out on so much.”
Luke watched her contemplate the fabric of her pants, as if they provided an answer only she could decipher.
“Tell me,” he said softly.
She shot him a brief glance from under her lashes then focused on her hands, linking her fingers together. Here is the church, here is the steeple …
“Oh, just …” She gestured with a shrug. “It’s nothing.”
“Not nothing.”
When her expression tightened, Luke sensed the remnants of something more, something worrying enough to make her shift uncomfortably and straighten her shoulders.
Then she took a deep breath and began to speak.
“I was seventeen and just out of high school while my mom worked two jobs. Then one day, in the middle of fourth term, she booked us on a flight to Perth with money I knew we didn’t have.”
She stopped abruptly, letting the silence swallow her confession. Luke remained still, allowing her time to reveal the pieces of her past.
“I had no money, no life and barely a functioning parent,” she eventually continued. “For once I wanted to be normal, to travel, to experience new things.” He could almost hear her wistfulness as she recalled long-forgotten dreams. “I should’ve said no but she was so excited. She never got excited about anything, not since my dad left. I couldn’t—” she hesitated, then finished lamely “—bring myself to rain on her parade.”
I was just a naive teenager, Beth reminded herself. Wanting an adventure. An escape from the endless boredom of my life.
Her mouth tilted at the memory. She’d locked her past tightly away and she could try to convince herself that Luke’s appearance had forced the memories to surface. But the truth was, her very existence had already begun to turn the key. Now the door gaped wide-open.
Yet her slowly blossoming trust continued to war with a lifetime of secrets. She could feel the warm burn of his eyes and braced herself for the breathlessness and panic to set in. It was there, buzzing faintly in the background, but way less urgent, less dark than before.
That meant something. It had to.
“I was in an accident and people died, my mother included. So about a year later, I met a guy. He seemed nice and I liked him. I was eighteen and of course, you fall in love with every guy you date, right? So one night, after we … uh, were in bed—” she swallowed, embarrassed “—he told me he was a reporter, that he’d been trying to track me down for weeks and could I give him an exclusive.”
From the corner of her eye she could see Luke’s still profile. The dim light and deep shadows cast his features into sharp angles, doing nothing to hide the flint in his eyes or the tightening of his jaw.
She didn’t want to take that step backward, to delve into that pool of loss, betrayal and the inevitable vulnerability that failure had brought her. The past was dead and gone but still had the power to humiliate. Just as she felt a mild panic attack well up in her chest, she recalled the tiny bits of memory she’d shoved away—the irritation on Jack’s face when she’d slammed out the door, the hurtful revelation that cut like tiny shards of glass. And the sickening realization she would never truly be able to leave the past behind. She had to get out before it completely destroyed her.
She straightened her back against the hard couch leg. The panic attack faded as she went on. “So, there you go.” She drew a stray curl behind her ears with a firm hand. “That’s why I don’t trust anyone.”
When he reached for her, she pulled back. “Don’t.”
He ignored her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Don’t what?” he murmured. “Don’t touch you? Or don’t care that you’ve been hurt?”
She buried her face in his chest, her answer muffled. “Both.”
“Too late.”
As they sat there on the floor cradling each other, she felt the tight constraints of her past begin to crumble.
“You’re into touching a lot, aren’t you?” she muttered against his shoulder.
“Yep.” She closed her eyes as his fingers went into her hair. God, that felt good. “Get used to it.”
After an eternity of her against the