And she didn’t want to die in less than three days.
Jack McGowan lit a cigarette as he strolled toward his venerable Studebaker. It was an old car, prewar, and ran like a top. His mother wanted him to buy a newer one, something with a little more style, but he was resisting. Just as he was resisting all the plans they’d made for him.
Hell, he wasn’t the only man who was having a hard time settling down after a war that had been over for four years. And he hadn’t even served—they’d told him he was too valuable as a war correspondent to waste his time in uniform.
But now the war was over. The battles had faded, and he was stuck back in the states, covering society weddings.
He needed to get the hell out of there. And in truth, he’d asked for this assignment This wasn’t a cafe society wedding, this was a merger between a shady businessman and one of his patsies.
And Lou Abbott was stuck in the middle, the perfect pawn.
She’d changed so damned much he couldn’t believe it He’d known her all his life—at one point his parents and the Abbotts had been friends. She’d always been around—a scrawny, long-legged kid with braids hanging halfway down her skinny arms, a tomboy with her heart in her eyes. He’d called her Spider when she was twelve and taller than Jimmy.
She and Jimmy had been inseparable, best buddies from the moment they first met There were times when he’d almost been jealous of that Particularly when he’d come home toward the end of the war and found she’d grown up.
She’d been seventeen then, and her coltish look had filled out into a prematurely voluptuous beauty. She’d still had that wild, boyish, mischievous streak, but it had matured along with her lush body.
And so had the powerful crush he’d always known she harbored for him. But she wasn’t watching him anymore, she only had eyes for Jimmy.
If she’d been a year older they would have married before Jimmy shipped out. If Jimmy had been a year younger the war would have been over before he was sent overseas, and he’d be alive today, the kid brother who’d always been some kind of anchor for Jack.
Lots of “ifs.” But Jimmy had died, and something had happened to Lou. Some light had been turned down, so low it was barely burning. If she married a lying bully like Neddie Marsden that light would go out forever.
The last time he’d seen her had been a little more than a year ago. Jimmy had been dead for two years, and he’d been avoiding coming home, avoiding the terrible truth that if he came back without Jimmy he’d know that Jimmy wasn’t coming back. But his mother had gotten sick, and he hadn’t been able to put it off any longer, and he’d come back...and gone to see Lou.
She’d been in the garage behind the house, alone. Mary was in school, Elda was a clubwoman, and only Hattie was there in the kitchen, looking at him out of her warm brown eyes as she sent him to find Lou.
Lou had always been surprisingly good at machinery, and she was bent over the engine of her blue roadster, frowning with concentration, and he stopped and watched her covertly for a moment Thinking about what Jimmy had lost.
Thinking about what he’d thrown away.
And then she saw him, and her face lit up with a smile, and she dropped the wrench she was holding and ran toward him like the tomboy she’d once been.
And then she stopped short of flinging herself in his arms, remembering. Remembering too much.
“Hi, Jack,” she said. He’d dreamed about her husky voice—long, erotic dreams that made him feel as if he was betraying his kid brother.
“Hey, Lou,” he said. “I wanted to come by and see how you were doing.”
“I’m fine. College is great, I’ve got a new car, and—” Her bright voice faded, her face crumpled, and she threw herself into his arms.
It hurt more than he could have imagined. For three years he’d held his emotions in check, and now Lou’s sobbing brought it all back. He missed his brother, damn it He missed him like hell.
He didn’t know how he managed to end up kissing her. It just happened. The feel of her warm, soft body against his, the swell of her breasts, the scent of perfume and flowers and the hot sun. And Jimmy was dead, and Lou was alive, in his arms, and he just kissed her.
And she kissed him back. It was no sisterly kiss, no closemouthed, Hollywood kiss simulating passion. He tipped her head back and kissed her hard, and she answered him with awkward, desperate passion. As if she knew their chances were running out and she was scared.
He didn’t know what had broken their embrace. Maybe it was the distant slam of a car door, maybe it was the wind, maybe it was his guilty conscience for trying to steal his kid brother’s girl. All he knew was that she’d shoved him away, a look of such grief and horror on her face that his desire had vanished.
And that was the last time he’d seen her until tonight, when he’d conned his way past Hattie and gone to her bedroom, planning to leave a note for her, only to find her sleeping like a baby in her rumpled wedding gown.
He should have left He should never have gone to her bedroom in the first place, and once he saw she was there he should have slunk away like a junkyard dog.
But she’d looked like Sleeping Beauty, and he’d wanted to kiss her awake. She looked like every dream he’d ever had, everything he’d wanted and given up on long ago. And instead he’d taken a seat by the window and watched her as she slept.
She was a fool to marry a heel like Neddie Marsden. For three years Jack had been trying to prove that Marsden’s company had siphoned off illegal profits from the war effort, and gotten rich by doing it Gotten rich from the blood of America’s fighting men. And old man Abbott, who’d never liked the upstart McGowan boys, had gotten rich, as well.
Now he was trading his older daughter...for what? For more money? For protection? And Lou, with the life almost gone from her huge, beautiful brown eyes, looked as if she’d given up fighting.
