She couldn’t really recall what she said after that. It was idle chatter on her part, though she asked a few pertinent questions, then soaked in the information Hudson offered about himself to dissect later. She learned that he had just finished his first year at Oregon State University in business, as had Zeke. They were both heading back to school in a couple of months, and Zeke was spending the summer working for his dad’s auto parts business, while Hudson was working on his father’s ranch near Laurelton, one of the far western suburbs outside Portland.
Becca herself was playing gofer at a law office, delivering coffee, making photocopies, answering the phones during lunch hours. She was due to start school at a local community college because she didn’t have enough money to leave home just yet.
After their “chance” meeting, Hudson called Becca. She could still remember how sweaty her palms had been on the telephone receiver. He asked if she wanted to go with him to see some mindless comedy at a local movie theater, and she jumped at the chance. All she recalled of the film was Hudson’s profile and some equally mindless conversation about the staleness of the popcorn, the lack of fizz in the sodas. And the fact that he called her out.
“You followed me to Dino’s the other night,” he said as he drove her to her parents’ house.
She shook her head violently and tried like hell not to blush, to give herself away. Oh, Lord, she just didn’t have the flirting thing down yet. Maybe she never would. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do.” He flipped on his blinker and turned the corner at the end of her block.
“No, really—”
One side of his mouth lifted in that grin that alternately made her want to kiss him and shake him senseless.
“I just wanted a pizza.”
“You passed three pizzerias on the way from your house to Dino’s.”
So he knew where she lived. That warmed her inside. “I wanted a special kind.”
“Pepperoni is pretty special, all right.”
“Dino’s is the best. And your ego’s running away with you.”
He had the audacity to laugh as he pulled into her driveway and cut the engine, leaving the silence broken by crickets and voices emanating from the neighbors’ backyard where, from the sounds of laughter and conversation and the thin layer of burning charcoal drifting over the fence, they were hosting a barbecue.
“You’re right, okay?” Becca admitted. “I knew you’d be there.”
“Glad we got that straight.”
“So now you think I’m a stalker.”
“I think…it was an excellent ploy.”
“God. Ploy.” She cringed inside.
“I’m sorry I didn’t think of it first. I could have been learning all your favorite spots and following you around instead of having to wait for you.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“No.”
“Did you tell Zeke you thought I was following you?” she asked with sudden horror.
“I don’t tell Zeke much,” he assured her.
“Renee, then.”
“I don’t confide in my sister, either.” He reached across the car to touch her nape. Tiny tingles of anticipation ran up her neck and she knew she was in trouble. “What kind of guy do you take me for?”
“I really don’t know, do I?”
“Wanna find out?”
They stared at each other for long moments. Becca could feel her pulse beating slow and strong. “Maybe…”
Then she climbed out of the car and hurried into the house before she could make a bigger fool of herself. She told herself the ball was in his court and it was up to him now—dreadfully afraid he would let her down. But he didn’t. He called before she fell asleep that night and made a date with her for the next day.
Two weeks later he kissed her good night outside her door and she was lost all over again, telling herself that she was falling in love and not trying very hard to fight the rush of adrenaline that slipped through her bloodstream whenever she thought of him.
She thought about making love to him. About what it would feel like. And she knew she couldn’t wait long.
She was right.
A couple of nights afterward they came together on a blanket laid out under the stars, far from the lights of his parents’ ranch house, kissing and touching and sighing and then the heat…the incredible heat and desire that caused her to throw away any lingering doubts as easily as stripping him of his T-shirt and jeans. Even now, almost twenty years later, she remembered that first time, the tautness of his body, the strain of his muscles as he moved over her, the firm warmth of his lips as she opened to him. What little pain there had been when he’d first entered her had quickly disappeared in the rapture and need of her first time. Her first love. It was glorious. Heart-stoppingly incredible. She wrapped herself around him and squeezed her eyes tightly shut and swore she would make him hers forever.
Now, thinking back, her tea cold, the dog asleep on the couch near her, the picture of the Madonna statue still starkly visible on the folded page of the newspaper, Becca knew what a fool she’d been. A schoolgirl creating silly fantasies of a perfect life with a perfect man. On this Valentine’s Day, she knew the folly of the whole perfect-man thing. Come on. How naive had she been? “Pretty damned,” she told herself while she scratched Ringo behind his ears and he made happy little grunting sounds without raising an eyelid.
That summer had raced by with the heat and intensity of a prairie fire stoked by hot winds. Becca and Hudson spent every night they could making love: on the sandy shores of the creek while their fishing poles and bathing suits were strung forgotten on the banks; on a blanket in the hayloft with the horses snorting in their stalls below; in the backseat of Hudson’s car or in his bed when his parents were gone and the window was open to let in the soft summer breezes and thrum of bats’ wings.
They couldn’t get enough of each other as the months bled together. They spent time with other friends, of course, and Zeke, Hudson’s best friend, seemed to always be hanging around, though as the weeks passed, he became distant and the relationship between them seemed strained. At the time, Becca had thought her relationship with Hudson had somehow made Zeke uncomfortable. Later she learned that it was Jessie’s disappearance that still affected the one-time best friends.
Jessie, always Jessie.
Now Becca picked up the paper again gingerly, as if its very touch could harm her in some way. She scoured the article once more. There was no mention of the sex of the remains. Nothing more than the bones’ discovery. But they had to be Jessie’s, didn’t they? Had to be.
You should call someone.
She put her hand on the phone. Picked up the receiver and pressed it to her ear. It rang in her hand and she nearly dropped it. For a wild moment she thought it was Jessie, calling from her opened grave.
For the love of God, Becca, get a grip!
“Hello?” she said, clearing her throat, determined to shake off her case of nostalgia and nerves.
“Becca? Rebecca…Sutcliff? Rebecca Ryan, in high school?”
Her fingers clenched around the receiver. She knew his voice. Damn, but she’d just been thinking of him! Hudson Walker. Her lunatic pulse jumped as it had all those years ago and she inwardly chided herself. “Yeah, Hudson, it’s me.”
“Good. Uh…how’ve you been?”
“Great,” she lied. “Fine.” As if he’d