With all his focus trained on what she’d said and not said, on what he’d done and wished he hadn’t, Tristan drove straight through the intersection of White Birch Lane and Beauford when he should have turned right. Half a mile farther on he realized his error and pulled over. Waiting for a gap in the traffic, he beat himself up about missing the turn. And while he was at it, he beat himself up some more for making such a hash of his first meeting with Vanessa Thorpe.
Sure she provoked him. Everything about her had needled him long before he came face-to-face with her kick-gut beauty. But did he have to react to every goading statement, every challenging eye-meet, every disdainful lift of her chin?
Did he have to kiss her?
The hell of it was he didn’t remember making a choice. One second they were going at it, biting verbal chunks out of each other’s hides, the next he had her backed against the wall tasting the provocation of her lush lips. And the hell of that was how swiftly her taste had aroused his hunger.
He’d wanted so much more than one quick bite. His hands had itched to touch that distracting dip in her chin, to feel the creamy softness of her skin, to pull her tight against his body.
He could blame the long day, his lack of sleep, the edgy turmoil of returning to Eastwick, but in the end he could only hold himself responsible. He’d let her get to him.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
The flow of traffic eased and he checked his mirror just as a champagne colored convertible whizzed by. He didn’t have to see the vanity plates to know it was her. Everything on the list of possessions they’d sparred over this past year was indelibly printed on his brain.
He hadn’t planned on following her any more than he’d planned on kissing her, but as he steered into a gap in traffic Tristan had a hunch that this would turn out a whole lot more fulfilling and less frustrating than that ill-conceived meeting of mouths.
“I’m so glad you suggested this,” Vanessa said.
This was to meet by the water at Old Poynton, where the breeze drifting off Long Island Sound tempered the warmth of the late afternoon sun; where breathing the fresh marine air cooled the edgy heat of Vanessa’s temper … a little.
And you was Andy Silverman, who’d suggested the outdoor walk-and-talk when he’d called earlier to change plans.
Andy had grown up in the same Yonkers neighborhood as Vanessa’s family, and she’d recognized him as soon as he commenced working at Twelve Oaks, the special-needs facility that had been home to her younger brother for the past seven years. They met regularly to discuss Lew’s program and his progress, and Andy had become more than her brother’s counselor.
Now she counted him as a friend … the only friend who knew and understood Lew and the difficulties posed by his autism.
“Tough day at the country club?” Despite the light-hearted comment, she felt a serious edge to Andy’s sidelong look. “You want to talk about it?”
“Haven’t we just done that?”
They’d talked about Lew, as they always did, and about why Andy had cancelled their trip to the city. Storms, like today’s, were one of several triggers that upset Lew’s need for calm and routine order.
“Your brother has bad days all the time,” Andy said now. “You’re used to that.”
No. She didn’t think she would ever call herself used to Andy’s autism or his most difficult, sometimes violently damaging, days. But she conceded Andy’s perceptive point. He knew there was more worrying her today than Lew.
“I’m not sure you want to hear this,” she said.
“Hey, I’m a professional listener.”
That made her smile. “Do you charge extra for out-of-hours consultations, Dr. Silverman?”
They’d reached the end of the promenade. Andy paused and leaned against the stone wall that separated the walkway from the beach. He folded his arms across his chest. His open face and calm expression were part of what made him so good at his job. “Go ahead and spit it out. You know you want to.”
Not so much want to as need to, Vanessa silently amended. Her gaze shifted beyond her companion, tracking two windsurfers as they rode a gust of air across the clean blue surface of the Sound. Then one of the surfers slowed, faltered, and toppled into the water, his charmed ride on the wind over.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had such soft landings,” she mused out loud.
“You’ve lost me.”
With a small sigh, she turned her attention back to Andy and his invitation to spit it out. “It’s Tristan Thorpe.”
Andy tsked in sympathy. “Isn’t it always?”
“He’s here. In Eastwick.”
“For the trial? I thought that wasn’t till next month.”
“He’s here because he thinks he’s found a way to beat me without going to court.” All semblance of relaxation destroyed, Vanessa paced away a couple of steps, then swung back. “Which he hasn’t, but that won’t stop him making trouble.”
“Only if you let him.”
She laughed, a short, sharp, humorless sound. “How can I stop him? He has it in his head that I’m a nasty sly adulterer and he’s here to prove it!”
To his credit, Andy barely blinked at that disclosure. She supposed, in his line of work, he heard all manner of shockers. “That’s not a problem if there’s nothing to substantiate.”
“Of course there’s nothing to substantiate!”
“But you’re upset because people might believe that of you, despite your innocence?”
“I’m upset because … because …”
Because he believes it. Because he kissed me. Because I can’t stop thinking about that.
“My point exactly,” Andy said, misinterpreting her stumble into silence. “Your friends know you well enough to not believe whatever he might put about.”
“My friends know. You know. I know,” she countered hotly, “but he’s always thought the worst of me. Now he believes I’m not only an Anna Nicole Smith clone who took advantage of a susceptible older man, but I kept a lover on the side to share my ill-gotten spoils.” She exhaled on a note of disgust. “I don’t even know why I’m surprised.”
Andy regarded her closely for a long moment. “He’s really got you stewing, hasn’t he?”
Oh, yes. In ways she didn’t want to think about, let alone talk about. She’d let him kiss her, she’d breathed the scent of him into her lungs, and then she’d raised her hand, for pity’s sake, when she despised violence born of temper and heated words and uncontrolled emotions.
“He got me so riled,” she said with quiet intensity, her stomach twisting with the pain of those long-ago memories. “I wanted to hit him, Andy.”
“But you didn’t.”
Only because he stopped me.
She could still feel the steely grip of his hand, the pressure of his fingers wrapped around her wrist, and the need to lash out raging in her blood. And the worst of it? Not the loss of her treasured gift but the acknowledgment, on the hour-plus drive up here, that she hadn’t been lashing out at him but at her fickle body’s unexpected and unwanted response.
“I told myself not to let him get under my skin. I invited him into my home when I wanted to slam the door in his