She stood her ground. “I can. Can you?”
“No.”
Her knees weakened.
“I don’t want to.” He captured a lock of her hair and drew it toward him.
“Okay,” she said, curling her hand around his wrist. “Don’t forget it. We’ll just call it what it was.”
“And what was it?”
“Two adults with hormonal needs.”
“Nothing more?”
She felt the thread of his pulse beneath her thumb, steady and strong. His skin was warm, and suddenly she was conscious of the intimacy. Quickly she released him. “Nothing more.”
“Is that all it was to you?”
“Shane—”
“Was it?” he asked again.
He overwhelmed her senses. She saw only him, dressed in a black shirt and dark denim, smelled his citrusy aftershave, heard the slide of his baritone through her ears. The only thing missing was the taste of him, and heaven help her, she craved that, too.
“We didn’t make love because we wanted it? Because it would be easier to forget to breathe than it would to be with each other?”
Needing the space, she put up a hand to stop him from coming closer. His heart thumped rhythmically beneath her palm. She grew warm, and her insides heated in response to him.
Matt knocked on the door and cleared his throat. She jumped back from Shane in relief. She was losing her mind….
Shane reluctantly let her go.
Her eyes were wide and luminous, her bottom lip damp where she’d moistened it.
After exchanging pleasantries with Matt, Angie excused them both and entered her office. Escaping? Shane wondered.
A few of his men arrived, and, needing the distraction himself, he got to work. At lunchtime, he went to the office, returned phone calls, checked his other job sites.
By the time he returned to the schoolhouse, the town’s businesses were turning off lights and flipping their open signs to the closed side.
The Chuckwagon Diner had a waiting line, and Angie’s car was the only one parked in front of the schoolhouse.
Damn it, she worked too hard. Always had. Trouble was, it irritated him as much now as it had five years ago. She thought it was about control, hadn’t seen that it was more than that. He’d wanted to provide for his wife because he’d cared.
She was painting baseboard trim when he walked in.
Startled, she glanced up, eyes wide, her mouth forming a circle of surprise. “I didn’t expect you to come back.”
“The boss of this project is a slave driver, wants me to deliver on an impossible deadline.”
“But she pays well.” She grinned.
His eyes narrowed. “And works as hard as the crew.”
She propped a hand on a hip. “You’re not nagging me, are you?”
“Not as long as you’re staying off ladders.”
“I am.”
His cellular phone rang, and under her breath Angie added, “When you’re around.”
“I heard that,” he said, exchanging a glance with her. A small smile flirted with her lips. Before he could smile back, he turned to answer the call from his sister. When Sarah complained that she’d been trying to reach him at home and the office, he explained where he was.
“With Angie? Our Angie? For real? What’s she doing back in town? Can I talk to her?”
His heart sank. In so many ways, he’d been hurt by Angie’s desertion, but so had Sarah. She hadn’t been old enough to remember their mother leaving, but the loss of Angie, so soon after their father’s death, had spiraled Sarah into a funk for over a month.
“Come on, big brother. Let me talk to her.”
Against his better judgment, he covered the mouthpiece. “Sarah wants to talk to you,” he whispered to Angie.
“Sarah?” She dropped her paintbrush, hurriedly wiping her hands on her jeans. “I’d love to.”
He didn’t hand over the phone.
Angie met his gaze and tension crackled between them. He saw her face fall as she registered his expression. “You don’t want me to talk to her.”
“No.”
“Then I won’t.”
“Sorry, sis, she’s busy,” he said to Sarah, steeling himself against the shadow of hurt in Angie’s eyes. When she’d abandoned them, she’d made her choices. He knew women were all the same, that they ran at the first sign of trouble. Angie had hurt him and—more importantly—Sarah once. He’d be damned if he’d let it happen a second time.
Angie left the room and went into her office, quietly closing the door behind her.
He told himself it was better this way.
“She didn’t want to talk to me, is that it?” Sarah asked.
“No,” he assured his younger sister. “She’s painting.”
“Then I can call her back later?”
“That’s not a good idea, Sarah.”
“Are you trying to protect me, Shane?” she demanded. “I’m an adult now, you know.”
“You’re my little sister,” he corrected her.
“If she doesn’t want to talk to me, just say so.”
He heard a mixture of pain and bravery skitter down her voice. “That’s not it,” he said.
“Then let me talk to her.”
“Did you call for a reason?” he asked, raking his spread fingers through his hair. “Money?” he guessed.
“Are you changing the subject?” she asked suspiciously. “Why don’t you want me to talk to her?”
“Sarah, she won’t be here long.”
“I can handle it, Shane. I love you, but you can’t protect me forever.”
But he wanted to, oh, how he wanted to.
“You said she didn’t leave because of me.”
“She didn’t.”
“Then I can still like her, can’t I?”
How could he forget Sarah’s tears and hurt? “It’d be easier if you didn’t.”
“Easier for who, Shane?” she asked quietly.
“For all of us.”
“Are you okay with her being back?”
“Never better.”
“Yeah,” Sarah said disbelievingly, then she relented, telling Shane she had called for more money. She’d had to buy new clothes this semester, and did he have any idea how much they cost?
Shane said he’d take her word for it, promised to make a deposit in her account and hung up the phone, his gut tight. There’d been unmistakable excitement in Sarah’s voice when she’d learned Angie was in town.
He thought of Angie’s smile earlier and the way he’d responded to it. He recalled the way they’d teamed together the other day to paint her office, in perfect harmony.
He heard her moving around in the other room, and he pictured her as she had been earlier, bent over as she painted, her behind filling out her jeans, her breasts gently swaying with her motions. He swallowed.
Even though she wasn’t intending to tempt him, Angie, just by being Angie, was insinuating herself back in his life and cracking the fortress he’d erected to keep her out. And Shane didn’t like that.
He cleaned up the project he was working on, then headed out, not planning to tell her he was leaving.
“Are you going home?” she asked.
He turned. She stood in the office doorway, her shoulder propped against the jamb, paintbrush in hand and a smudge of paint on her right cheek. She looked alluring, but tired.
A part of him wanted to march in there and help her finish the job, then send her home where she could rest. But where Angie was concerned, he didn’t dare be that noble. The other night’s kiss had nearly undone him. He’d thought he’d exorcized her, that he was no longer weak where she was concerned.
Yet he was.
“How’s Sarah?”
“Fine.”
At his clipped answer, she blinked, but tried again. “Is she doing well at college?”
He nodded tightly.
“That’s it? One-syllable answers, if you answer me at al
l?”
“What do you want from us, Angie?” he asked quietly, advancing a couple of steps toward her. He reminded himself who she really was. The woman who’d walked away from him, the woman who was leaving soon. “You waltz back into town and want to pick up where you left off. It won’t work. We went on without you.”
Her chin came up mutinously. “I missed Sarah.”
“She cried for you, every night for a week.”
Her voice was soft, trembly, when she said, “I cried for her, too.”
“I won’t let you back in our lives, Angie.”
“I never meant to hurt her. Or you.”
“Hurting me, I could have forgiven. I wouldn’t have forgotten, but I might have forgiven. Hurting Sarah…” He shook his head. “I blame myself, Angie. I knew you’d leave, just like everyone else did. I was a fool and took a chance. I had no right to do that, not to Sarah. I won’t give you a second chance.” Problem was, earlier, she’d tempted him again. It wasn’t her that bothered him as much as his own reaction.
“Would it help you to know I’m sorry?”
“Save it for a guy who’ll believe it.” He turned on his heel and didn’t look back.
Angie collapsed against the wall, exhaling in frustration. She’d thought she could work with Shane and keep the past buried, as if it had never happened. She now realized how ridiculous an idea that had been. There were too many raw wounds to pretend otherwise.
He carried emotional scars from her leaving, and he stubbornly refused to see that she’d intentionally hurt herself so he could keep his family intact. She didn’t need a man like that in her life.
Angie had loved Sarah as if she were the sister Angie had never had. That summer, she had sat on Sarah’s bed while Shane worked late. She’d painted a younger Sarah’s toenails and listened to secrets about the boys at school.
When her father demanded Angie leave Colorado, anguish had nearly destroyed her. It hadn’t been just Shane, it had been Sarah and Aunt Emma, too. Angie had left behind a town that felt like a family, a place where she’d belonged because of who she was, not because she was Edward Burton’s daughter and an heiress.
The front door slammed and a car engine roared to life.
She was alone. Again.
Through the window, she watched Shane’s taillights disappear. Snow danced in the wind, playing beneath the streetlights. Except for her car, Front Street was deserted.
She cleaned up her painting supplies, then walked through the old building, turning off lights. As she did, she noticed the fresh paint and the walls he’d started to tear down that showed the project was progressing. Shane was doing a great job. She only wished her resolve to resist him was stronger….
She changed from her tennis shoes into boots and trudged to the Chuckwagon, a place she knew would be bustling with activity. She’d be able to forget the loneliness, or so she hoped.
All the tables were filled, so she took a seat at the long, scarred bar with short aluminum stools. The tops were covered with red, sparkly vinyl, with a few gashes in the fabric. She recalled them being exactly the same when she was here five years ago.
Bridget slid a cup of hot chocolate—complete with frothy whipped cream—in front of Angie.
“Nothing better when it’s snowing, you know.”
Angie smiled her thanks, then licked at the cream. As if it were yesterday, she remembered the time Shane had stopped by Aunt Emma’s coffee shop, on his lunch break.
They’d been dating for a couple of weeks and he’d asked for a mocha latte, the only “fancy” coffee drink he knew. Angie had sprayed whipped cream all over the top, and when some dribbled down the side, she scooped it up with her finger and fed it to him. Afterward he’d admitted he’d only stopped by to see her. He’d won his first big construction bid and was anxious to share his success with her. She’d made herself a mocha latte also and they’d toasted his future. She was touched that he’d thought of her first, and he’d stolen a piece of her heart. Part of her wondered if she’d ever really gotten it back….
“Do you mind if I sit here?” Bernadette asked.
“Be my guest,” she said, grateful for the company and the interruption. “Beautiful flowers,” she added, as Bernadette placed a carnation-filled vase between them.
“Yes, they are,” she answered, rather dreamily, Angie thought.
The older woman seemed lost in thought as she fingered a pink bloom.
“Lillian Andrews makes me an arrangement each week.”
“Always the same?”
Bernadette nodded. “Pink carnations.”
Still spry at sixty-something, Bernadette wore her dark hair in a carefully coiffed bun, and her slim-fitting skirt was neatly pressed.
“Is there a reason they’re always carnations?” Angie asked quietly.
“So I’ll always remember,” she said, then sighed. She blinked several times, then patted Angie’s hand. “Enough about that.” After smiling sunnily, she added, “Now, tell me, dear, are you settling in?”
“The house is big without Auntie Em.”
“You’ll just have to come back when she’s here, then, won’t you?”
Angie intended to come back for the center’s grand opening, then stay away from Colorado—and Shane—for good. When she wanted to see Emma, Angie decided she’d fly her aunt to Chicago.
“I’ll have to pop in and take a look at the remodeling project, if you don’t mind. The town is quite excited, you know.”
“So am I,” Angie said, determinedly shoving thoughts of Shane from her mind. “I love it when I can see things progress and when I know it’s going to be so good for children. Aunt Emma was right, the town did need it. I’m just glad I can help.”
“And is Shane Masters doing the kind of job we all promised you he would?”
If they only knew how personal the attention had gotten and how much it affected her… “He’s on time and under budget so far.”
“And how are things between you and Shane?”
She blinked and sipped from the scalding drink, avoiding Bernadette’s eyes. “Shane and I were over five years ago.”
Bernadette tutted. “Is that why he was holding you the other night?”
Angie nearly choked on her hot chocolate. Maybe the town did know how personal Shane’s attention was. She hoped, though, that it didn’t get reported in Miss Starr’s “Around the Town” newspaper column. “Holding me?”
“Apparently a passerby saw you two through the schoolhouse window Friday night.”
“He was helping me down from a ladder.”
“Oh, my! Were you going to fall?”
“I was fine.” She shook her head. “Shane wasn’t convinced, though. He thinks he knows more than Dr. Johnson about amnesia and my recovery.”
“You know how these men are. Always the protector.” She sighed wistfully. “He rescued you from the storm, now from a ladder.” Her eyes twinkled.
“There’s nothing more to the story. Honest.”
“If you say so, dear.”
“You wouldn’t be Miss Starr, would you?”
The woman waved a hand in front of her face. “Mercy! Whatever makes you ask such a crazy thing?”
“You seem to have a real interest in the town’s happenings.”
“That I do. I do so love a love story, don’t you?”
“As long as it happens to someone else.”
“Such cynicism from such a young lady.”
“What about you, Bernadette? Why aren’t you involved in your own love story?”
“I was, once upon a time.”
“And…?”
She patted her hair. “I’d have him in a minute, if he’d have me.”
A part of Angie’s heart softened. “Does he know that?” she asked gently.
“No.”
“Maybe you should tell him.”
“It’s easier when you’re younger, dear.”
Before Angie could respond, Nick and Lilly Andrews ca
me in for dinner with their infant, and Bernadette reintroduced Angie to the Andrewses.
Nick held his beautiful baby, Noelle, in his arms. Noelle slept peacefully, gently sucking her pacifier in her sleep. Angie couldn’t help herself. She traced her finger across the baby’s soft cheek, marveling at her perfection. “You’re very lucky,” Angie said quietly, looking up at Nick.
“I am,” he agreed, his gaze connecting with his wife’s. Their intimacy was deep and real, leaving Angie feeling like an outsider, even though she knew Lilly and Nick didn’t mean to exclude her.
A moment later, while Bernadette and Nick were chatting, Lilly asked Angie, “How are you doing?”
“I’m recovered from the car accident.”
“I meant, how are you doing with Shane?”
Angie’s smile felt brittle. “I’ll be going home soon.”
“Shane’s a friend.”
“I know.”
“But you are, also.”
“Thank you.”
“If you need someone to talk to…”
“Dinner’s served,” Bridget said, sliding fries and a sandwich in front of Angie and a gravy-rich chicken-fried steak in front of Bernadette.
The Andrewses excused themselves after Lilly invited Angie for dinner before she left town.
While they ate, Angie picking at her fries, Bernadette brought Angie up to date with the town’s latest news.
“Perhaps you remember Jessica Majors—well, she would have been Jessica Stephens when you were here last—she’s in the family way.” Bernadette sounded quite satisfied. “That just leaves Shane and Slade Birmingham and our sheriff… Mercy. Well, it’s high time our Shane had a family of his own. He’s wonderful with his younger sister, but she’s nearly all grown up. No doubt about it, our Shane will make a good daddy. I knew the same thing about Nicholas.”
Angie rubbed at the sudden goose bumps on her arms. The idea of Shane and another woman having a baby made Angie cold.
When she left Shane and her life in Colorado, she’d known he might remarry and have a family. So why did the thought of him with another woman now bother her so much? And why was she suddenly picturing herself cradling Shane’s baby in her arms?
Angie shook her head, determined to push aside that tempting image. Her work with children satisfied her maternal instincts. Not having anyone tell her what to do made her happy.
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