by Madeline Ash
It swung open, severing Jed’s breath.
In the doorway, a woman knelt to pick up a tray of takeaway coffees from the ground. “Okay, okay, you got me,” she said, eyes on the cardboard tray as she stood. Her other hand held a several paper bags. “I bought muffins, too. Stagger the hugs—a girl can only handle so much appreciation.”
When her friends didn’t answer, Dee’s eyes darted to the couch then rapidly swung to the figure in the room that didn’t belong.
Jed stared into stunned blue eyes.
Tension seized his gut.
Dee. No mistaking her. Choppy, dark hair flicked back from her ears, offsetting chunky black-rimmed glasses. Her lips were red, as were her stockings. A navy and black checkered dress embraced her curves, buttoned neatly across full breasts and halting mid-thigh. She wore army boots and a tartan scarf folded around her neck.
Possibilities spun his head. She’d forgotten him. She’d resent him, spurn him. He shoved away the image of her laughing and throwing her arms around him. That was a fool’s hope. However she reacted, he’d deserve it.
The coffees hit the floor.
“That can’t be you.” A cracked sound, forced from her lips with anguish in tow. Her hands hung by her sides.
He said nothing as her expression struck a hollow in his chest. Shock. Dismay. Betrayal. Each wielded a blow, pounding him. When her chin puckered with the threat of tears, he became a weak man.
He looked down.
There was nothing he could say, should say, not yet.
The woman knelt at Dee’s feet, wiping coffee off her boots with a tissue. She scowled at Jed before turning to her partner. “Sweetheart?”
“On it,” the man said, moving to Jed’s side.
“Don’t,” Dee said hoarsely. “I’m the only one allowed to overreact.” And so, she fled across the room and through one of the doors, slamming it behind her.
*
Dee couldn’t breathe. She yanked off her scarf and tugged at the top buttons of her dress. With a thundering heart, she opened the window, sat on the edge of her bed and heaved in air.
Jed.
In her apartment. He needed ten times the space to contain everything he’d been to her.
Her hands shook. After all this time, he still made her tremble.
The sight of him had stripped her of control. Her body shut down while her mind burst with reaction.
He was alive. Safe. Here.
Being here meant he’d searched for her, found her. He was here for a reason. She couldn’t imagine why. For years, she’d held hope that he’d find a way to contact her, come back for her, but in college she’d forced herself to give that up and move on.
Ten years. Who the hell waited ten years to track someone down? Dee pressed the heel of her palm against her forehead, holding down hurt. A man who wasn’t here to pick things up where they’d left off, that was who.
Her mind stumbled back to the sight of him standing in her kitchen, a hand braced on the counter, dark eyes locked on hers. Features older, gorgeous and unreadable. He’d worn that reserved expression when she’d first met him. The new kid, giving nothing away until he’d gauged his audience. Once again, he was on the outside.
A bag had sat at his feet. Still a traveler, a nomad without roots.
The bedroom door opened, closed, then her darling friend was sitting close, thigh pressed against hers. “Dee.” Alexia took one of her hands. “What’s going on?”
Dee shook her head, staring at the window.
“We’re confused.” Alexia’s grip squeezed. “Do you want Parker to kick him out?”
She shook her head again. She couldn’t risk Jed not coming back. She needed a minute to get her head around his sudden appearance, but once she did, she’d have words with him. Loud words and lots of them.
“Are you sure? You had a bit of a reaction out there.”
“I’m stupefied,” she said, numbly. “I don’t think I’ve ever been stupefied before. Take a photo of my face. I’ll want to laugh later.”
Alexia sighed. Then she held up her phone and clicked. “You go beyond schadenfreude, you know.”
“Text it to me.”
After a moment, Dee’s phone pinged in her pocket. Weakly, she asked, “Did my coffee survive?”
“No. We lost all three cups.”
She could have used the pep. But sugar was a close second. “Muffins?”
“Total loss. They’re all soggy.”
Dee sniffled and tilted her head. “Soggy with caffeine?”
Alexia paused. “Eew, but yes. I’ll bring one in if you explain.”
Dee pressed her thumb and index finger against her eyebrows, sliding the pressure outward. “I was in love with him when I was sixteen. Like, I’d finished the crush and infatuation stages, and was honest to God in love with him.”
“So that was a decade ago. There’s more to this than your first love.”
She finally met Alexia’s concerned gaze. “He left suddenly—I hadn’t heard from him since.” Until minutes ago, she hadn’t known whether he was even alive.
“You’ve never mentioned him.”
“I wanted to move on.”
“Have you?”
Deep down, she was hung up on the guy she remembered. She shook her head, helpless. “I seem to have a clingy heart.”
Alexia made a sound of sympathy. “So what do you want to do? Parks and I will have to head to the airport soon.”
“I want a big hug and a promise that you’ll call me when you land.”
Smiling sadly, Alexia wrapped her up tight and held on. Dee blinked back tears. She adored that her friend came back to LA for work, but saying goodbye time and again was a painfully unfair trade-off.
Pulling back, Alexia said thickly, “And Jed? What’s the plan?”
“Tell him to wait.”
She looked skeptical.
“I’m shocked, not in danger. It’s fine.”
And so Dee listened as Alexia and Parker collected their luggage from the spare room and wheeled it across the floor. They spoke in murmurs, putting shoes on and using the bathroom. Then Dee’s door opened again.
“Parks says bye,” Alexia said from behind her, and a wet paper bag landed on the bed. “I love you. And please don’t eat that.”
“I love you, too,” she said, reaching for it.
When the front door clicked closed, Dee accepted that instead of being alone to suffer best friend withdrawals, she had to deal with the vagrant in her living room. She sat for another few minutes, picking at the muffin and pretending it was tiramisu. She listened to the tread of Jed’s shoes as he paced. If he’d changed, he’d probably be impatient and think she was overreacting.
If he hadn’t, he’d wait out there all night.
Finally, she emerged.
Jed’s shadowy gaze engulfed her from the right. He stood by the bookshelf, a copy of one of her bound scripts in his hand. He put it back and faced her properly, looking understated in black jeans and an olive shirt. Pain chewed up his features.
“I didn’t give you any warning.” His deep voice was audible testosterone. “I’m sorry.”
She inhaled and raised her chin. “I couldn’t prepare.”
“I know.”
“It’s been a long time.”
“It has,” he said.
“So long that I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
His eyes moved across her face, pained. He didn’t answer.
“Why are you here?” She moved to the kitchen and faced him from behind the counter. She fiddled with the handle on the silverware drawer, but kept her spine straight. Her stupefaction was building into distress. “Why now?”
“Let’s not do that yet.” His accent was still a strange amalgamation. She’d not met anyone who sounded so pieced together. Hearing it made her stumble, an old sound in a new place.
She asked, “Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Still on the run?”
>
“No.” That was firm.
She eyed his bag pointedly. “But still on the move?”
“Yes.”
He was the same, but so different. Same hair, heavy and inky, now dragged back into a bun with a pencil skewered through. Same body, now a man’s build, tall and solid and strong. Brown eyes, brows, and lashes, all thick with darkness. Same features, just rougher around the cheeks and jaw, and those lips, lord help her, still as plush as ever.
As he looked back at her, Dee felt the same heat swell inside her, the urge to draw him close. The itch to strip the shirt from his shoulders and the jeans from his hips. But she was different now too, and knew well what it meant to satisfy those urges. Short-lived pleasure followed by a rejected heart and an empty bed.
“When are you leaving?” she asked.
Confusion skidded down his brows.
“You didn’t tell me last time. I couldn’t brace myself. Now I want to know when you plan on leaving.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know. You’ll just disappear when the moment’s right?” An unfair question, but she couldn’t help it.
Jed stiffened. “Right had nothing to do with it.”
She knew that. But the relief of seeing him again made her feel so exposed that anger rushed in to her defense. “Avoiding all contact usually means no regrets.” Her mouth tasted bitter. “Is that why I never heard from you?”
Features tight, he shook his head.
“Then why? What happened?” She set her hand on the bench, not sure what to hope. There were no positive possibilities. “Did that man follow you?”
Instantly, his gaze sharpened. “What man?”
“The French guy.”
He frowned. “No one followed us.”
“Then why didn’t you let me know you were okay?” Dee’s throat grew tight as anger collided with hurt. “You knew how I felt about you. I thought—God, the things I thought.” The nightmares had twisted tighter, bleaker, as time had passed with no word.
In witness protection, hidden once again. But not safe, never safe.
Kidnapped, with Ellie too scared to call in an abduction.
Dead. Killed by the hand of his father.
“I couldn’t put you at risk.” Jed hardly moved. “Apparently my father had tracked us down, so we had to go. I didn’t want to drag you into something I didn’t understand. I couldn’t do that to you, even knowing that you were hating me.”
Remembering the hurt and rage that had consumed her, she said, “I was hating you.” She crossed her arms, glaring. “And loving you. Missing you was the worst. I didn’t think I’d ever breathe easily again.”
Regret swamped his gaze. “I never meant to hurt—”
“Oh, shut up and let me be angry for a minute,” she said, pulling off her glasses and wiping the lenses. If she saw the wounds on his face, she’d soften. Better if she couldn’t see him at all. “I’ve been left behind by everyone I’ve loved, you know. No one means to hurt me. There’s always an infuriatingly valid reason. But it still hurts.”
He stayed silent. Big blob that he was.
“I was scared for you.” So many sleepless nights. “I figured you’d find a way to let me know that you were okay. When you didn’t, I feared so many things.”
Silence but for her shaky breath.
“You never told me you were on the run. I could have helped.”
They both knew she couldn’t have helped.
“I blamed myself. I knew I should have done something that night. But I just drove home.” She heard him inhale so she rushed on. “I’m probably overreacting, but my best friend just left and I won’t see her for months. You didn’t even have the decency to show up earlier, so I’d have her around when you disappeared again.”
The blob started getting closer. She heard his footsteps, the creaky floorboard as he passed her grandma’s rocking chair. Resolutely, she kept her glasses off.
“Anything could have happened to you. All these years I thought…anything.”
“Dee.” He was right in front of her. She could feel him, smell him. “I’m so sorry.”
“You told me you’d stay,” she accused, voice small, holding back tears of confusion. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see him, Jed was here, the toes of his boots touching hers, and now she knew he was alive and safe and had chosen not to contact her for all these years.
“I am sorry.” His arms came around her, one palm pressing against her back and the other rising into her hair. Dee put a hand to his chest, closed her eyes, and let him hold her. Breathing in, his smell took her back to the days of longing and friendship; of sitting in the cafeteria, aching for him to get out of class, the beautiful gypsy that always settled beside her. Sometimes he’d lend her his jacket and she’d fold it up under her chin, his fresh pheromones driving her wild.
Wildness tore through her now. Giving her body ideas. Stirring up cravings from long ago. Heat bloomed between her thighs at his hand on her spine, willing it to slide lower, grasping tight and drawing her close. She could feed off the clingy heat of memory; allow it to slather this encounter with decade-old desire.
Or she could be sensible and acknowledge there was a decade of change between them.
“I don’t forgive you,” she mumbled against his shirt.
She felt him nod.
“But you smell nice. And I like your bun.”
“Thank you.” There was a smile in his words. “I like your apartment.”
“When are you leaving?”
He hesitated. “I’m not sure. But I’m in charge of my life now. I won’t disappear again, I swear it.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll book the closest accommodation I can find. I’ll take you out for breakfast, if you have time, and we can talk.”
“No. Uh-uh.” She shook her head, pulling back. She slid her glasses on, primarily so that she could regard him sternly over the frames. “I have a spare room. You’ll use it.”
He frowned. “I can afford a hotel.”
“I’m not being generous. I don’t want to sit up all night wondering if you’ll really turn up for breakfast.”
He glanced around the apartment. “You’re sure?”
Dee crossed her arms again.
His mouth twitched. “Okay.”
“The bathroom is between the bedrooms,” she said. “There’s a door on either side. You’ll lock yours tonight.”
He looked affronted. “I’m not about to sneak—”
“You’ll lock your side tonight.” She wasn’t taking any risks. “My body doesn’t realize it’s been ten years and we’re different people now.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t know who you are now, Jed, so I’ll try to check my fantasies at the door. But I’d appreciate your cooperation.”
He hesitated, then shook his head. A smile cut deep into his cheeks. “God, Dee, you haven’t changed.”
“Not true.” Attraction crackled across Dee’s skin as she moved passed him, saying, “I’m capable of caution now. And I’m not afraid to use it.”
Chapter Two
‡
Dee leaned back in her chair, staring at her laptop screen, and forced herself to concentrate. Restlessness churned through her, born of the day’s emotional upheaval, but she couldn’t burn it off until she’d finished this rewrite.
The ending was changing. Now Adam and Emma find each other again—and part ways almost immediately. A lost love could remain just that, even if the hearts reunited. The characters had beaten the odds by meeting again. The odds refused to be beaten further by allowing them timeless love.
It wasn’t harrowing like her other scripts. It was disappointing. Potentially anticlimactic.
Realistic.
Some relationships roared with energy until the end. Some fluctuated, petering out only to flare with new vigor. And some went out entirely, because people changed and a perfect match became nothing but a memory.
She didn’t know who Jed had become—whether she had missed the chance to love him.
But she was prepared for the worst.
*
The apartment smelled like her. Sweet, warm, with a hint of hairspray. Jed put his duffel bag in the corner of Dee’s spare bedroom and rolled his shoulders, feeling tension pinch beneath his blades. When he’d arrived in Los Angeles early this morning, he hadn’t expected to be in her home by evening.
Nor had he expected her to undo him, after all these years. Her open, expressive face. Those intelligent blue eyes. The emotion she bared simply because she felt it. He’d hurt her. At the time, fleeing east into Nevada in his mum’s beat up car, the miles of dry flat planes had been fodder for a sorry soul. Forehead pressed against glass, he’d tortured himself by imagining Dee’s reaction to finding him gone. Her undoubted pain had intensified his own. Guilt had eaten him to the marrow.
Now, he didn’t need to imagine. He saw how his desertion had marked her.
Betrayal that dug deep ten years on, and anger, born of a decade of worry.
He wasn’t here to hurt her again.
Jed stretched out on the bed and gazed at the ceiling, a hand beneath his head. Dee had handed him clean sheets, given the grand tour with a wave of her arm, and then retreated to her desk to flesh out an idea. She’d suggested he make himself at home for the next hour or so—in his room, with the door closed, and silently, please.
Jed shifted, kicking off his shoes. He’d give her space, let her clear her head. She wouldn’t be able to help him wound up. Silence came easily to him and simply being here made him feel at home. He hadn’t felt this at ease in a long, long time.
He hadn’t felt this force of desire in exactly that long, either.
He remembered how Dee had tested him, just being near. He’d felt scarcely contained, surging with the sexual intensity of a maturing teen. He’d wanted every inch of her, from the day he’d met her. But after a lifetime of changing friends with every letterbox, he hadn’t wanted to risk Dee to hormones.
Later, he’d excused the sheer potency of lust on inexperience. Made sense, since he’d never felt anything like it again. Now he knew.