“It’s sad but no longer painful. And as strange as it might sound, I’m somewhat relieved for Blakeley because she was almost too young to remember him. We live close to Jay’s parents, though, and that gives her a grandfather and a connection to the paternal side of her family.”
“What about your parents?”
“My mother died the year I got engaged. My father hadn’t been in our lives for a long time.” He hadn’t been the stick-to-it kind and had walked away from them before Devan turned thirteen. She was forgetting what he looked like, too, but there were times she felt his itch for adventure, for passion.
That’s the last thing you need to think about.
She gestured to a chair. “Would you like to sit down?”
“I’d better not,” he replied. “I may get too comfortable and forget that my mother is due home soon.”
Devan couldn’t help touching her fingers to her lips. “You couldn’t sound less like yourself, Mead. It’s…strange.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I guess it’s ten times harder on you.”
“No, I mean tell me about me. Us. What were we, Devan, really? I sense something.”
What could she say? Confess that he’d been the man to jump-start her heart, that he had been the one—not her fiancé—to release that passion she’d been keeping locked tightly inside her? No, in this case, his lost memory was a blessing.
“It was a long time ago,” she replied.
“Not that long. You’re quite young and, at the risk of frightening you again, dare I say lovely. And despite what I see in the mirror, I’m not a total relic. How long could it have been?”
“I’d rather hear about you. What was recuperation like?”
“Six weeks in intensive care. Two—no, three operations. Another few months in the hospital. More in some clinic where people taught me what arms and legs were supposed to do, followed by even more time with a barrage of head doctors.” Mead took a step closer to her. “What do you see when you look at me? Frankenstein’s monster?”
Mesmerized by his voice as she was by his dark brown eyes, she admitted, “Hardly. But you look terribly sad…and you were never that. No Regrets Regan is how you referred to yourself.”
“We were lovers.”
His words held such conviction, Devan’s throat locked trapping her with her own mixed emotions. “No,” she rasped. She glanced down the hall, worried that Blakeley would hear some of this.
“The truth, Devan.”
“Mead…it was one night.”
“For some people that can be enough. If it’s all they’re given.” He shook his head, his gaze once again moving over every inch of her face. “I wish I could remember. I’ve been trying every minute since yesterday. How did we part?”
“You went away. Exactly as you said you would.”
“Did I say goodbye?”
Dear God, he was torturing her. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Did I break your heart?”
“You couldn’t, you never asked for it.”
Mead’s eyes narrowed. “I was going to come back to you.”
The air left her lungs in a brief, mirthless laugh. “Ah…no. Promises and commitment weren’t for you.”
“Then I was an ass.”
In her weakest moments, Devan had imagined having this conversation. But that was restricted to late at night, on the worst nights when she lay alone and lonely in her bed; when her memories refused to let her sleep and her body ached with the need for someone as hungry as she.
As she saw curiosity become desire in Mead’s eyes, she realized he had seen that…and was going to kiss her. Yes, her soul whispered.
Just as he started to reach for her, someone knocked at the storm door. Startled back to reality, Devan launched herself across the room. Her heart pounded anew as she recognized Officer Billy Denny on the front stoop.
“Mrs. Anderson,” he said as she opened the door. His gaze shifted to Mead. “Everything all right?”
“Why, yes, Officer Denny. Is there a problem?”
“Well, your neighbor saw a stranger outside of your house and when she saw him follow you inside, she was concerned you were in danger. She’d heard about the trouble in the park.”
Devan glanced around him and saw Bev Greenbriar stretching to see what was going on. The old busybody, she fumed to herself; she knew perfectly well who Mead was, and by morning this was going to be all over town.
“That’s very kind of her,” she said with a forced smile. “But as you can see, everything is fine. Mr. Regan was just apologizing again for yesterday and checking to see if Blakeley is okay.”
“Fine. Would you like a lift home, sir?” the young cop asked. “I’d feel better if you’d allow me. We had a rabies incident today, and you’d best not take any chances that some infected critter might cross your path or something in the park.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Mead replied. At the door, he met Devan’s apprehensive gaze. “Thanks for being so understanding.”
“It was good of you to stop by,” she said with equal formality.
As soon as he was outside and he and Officer Denny were heading to the car, Devan locked the storm door and shut and locked the inner one. She didn’t want to take any chance that Bev would have the nerve to charge up here to fish more information out of her, while rude Jacque defiled their pumpkin display.
But as she leaned back against hardwood, she knew that wasn’t why her heart was pounding, or why her face was feverishly hot.
Touching her fingertips to her lips she closed her eyes. What had she almost done?
Exactly what she’d promised herself she would never do again.
Chapter Four
“I promise, Laureen, I’ll talk to him about starting his motorcycle under your bedroom window and waking you and the birds.” Lavender rolled her eyes as Devan entered Dreamscapes. “Okay. I’ve got customers, hon, gotta go now. Make love not war. ’Byee.”
Hanging up the phone, thirty-four-year-old Lavender Smart swept her wild mane of flaming red hair and purple extensions from her face and noisily purged the air from her lungs. “Is it happy hour yet?”
Devan gave her a droll look as she shifted the thigh-high rabbit yard ornament by the door to keep it open. “Please. Not only is it barely past eight in the morning, but half this town is Baptist. Keep it down.” However, she’d recognized the name of her partner’s neighbor, Laureen Moyers. “Is Rhys in trouble again?”
“Heck, yeah. How can she complain about having a cop right next door adding to her personal security?” Lavender finished tying a green Dreamscapes apron over her jeans and favorite kitten T-shirt with the slogan, I Am Leo, Hear Me Roar.
“Oh, I imagine it has something to do with your active love life and her comatose one.” Devan recalled that fifty-something-year-old Mrs. Moyers was a widow three times over and only months after moving in and getting to know her highly critical neighbor, Lavender had had the poor judgment to suggest to her that each spouse had seen their demise as the preferred escape from the woman. Ever since that Laureen had taken exception to whomever Lavender invited to share her bed with…and there had been several invitees. To Lavender the opposite sex was like a candy store: too many choices to settle on just one.