Just go. She pushed the button and started the engine, then pulled out onto the street with no particular destination. The streets of Pine Bluff were pretty much rolled up for the night and it wasn’t even dark yet. A couple of fast-food restaurants were still open. The neon glow from the Sack & Go reminded passersby of the dozens of brands of beer available most any time of the day or night.
Emily wound past a row of newly built houses in an upscale subdivision on the edge of town. Ten years ago, the location had been just another field. As a child she’d felt certain that real life didn’t exist outside Pine Bluff’s city limits. Beyond those borders there had been only two things: cotton fields and sweeping pastures where cattle dozed in the Alabama sun.
Pine Bluff was nestled amid the mountains and lakes of northern Alabama. A place brimming with old-fashioned values, where folks shunned urban sprawl and big-city troubles.
Until one of those would-never-happen-here problems found its way to her hometown.
Drive; don’t think. Breathe, slow and deep.
The cotton fields on either side of the road gave way to fields of tall corn some partially harvested already. The change prodded a vague recognition.
County Road 18.
She slowed at the turn that would lead tohishouse. Not that she’d actually intended to show up at his place at this time of the evening. But why not? She wasn’t afraid of him.
What more could he do to her? Kill her? How did you kill someone who was dead already?
After making that final turn, she parked on the side of the dirt road next to a cluster of shady maples. The narrow, curvy road wound through the woods at the base of the mountain, finally reconnecting with 18. There wasn’t another house for as far as she could see. The red Firebird was parked in front. He was home. His first night outside those prison walls.
She thought about those seconds this afternoon outside the courthouse when he’d stared right at her from across the street. He didn’t look that different. There were small changes; his hair was shorter, his skin paler. He looked heavier or maybe just more muscled. There was a scar that hadn’t been there before. On his left cheek.
But the eyes were exactly the same.
Her fingers clutched the steering wheel as she recalled the way that silvery gaze could reach right inside her and make her feel totally lost. He’d been very good at making her feel vulnerable and helpless ... and needy.
She’d fallen in lust with him at sixteen. No one in the world had known except Heather. Emily’s best friend’s crushes had fluctuated between Keith Turner and Marvin Cook, both football players, with their lettermen jackets and massive egos.
Not Emily. Nope, she’d picked a guy who’d barely managed to survive his senior year. He’d missed nearly as many days as he’d attended. Austin had a bit of an ego himself, but his vast charm had rendered most females blind to its presence. Emily’s father had considered him a thug.
Em, you stay away from that boy. He’s trouble.
She’d known it was true, but that hadn’t kept her from fantasizing about him. After all, fantasies were supposed to be about the forbidden.
A detail as simple as the way his clothes had fit made her heart beat wildly and her foolish adolescent hormones surge. The T-shirts that had molded to his body, the faded, tattered jeans that had wrapped his lower anatomy, were nothing short of sinful. Everything about him, the way he talked, the way he moved, all of it, had been designed for sex appeal.
He would slide those dark sunglasses into place and spin out of a parking lot in that racy red Firebird and she would long to go with him. To have the wind rushing through her hair ... to have him put his hand on her bare thigh and foster all those forbidden sensations that just breathing in the same airspace as him had the power to ignite.
She remembered the way his lips would tilt when he smiled. That sexy curl that no mere woman, much less a teenage girl, could hope to resist. He’d teased her, flirted with her ruthlessly. Each time, she’d turned her back on him. Pretended not to notice. She’d been a good girl; she hadn’t associated with boys like him outside her fantasies.
At first he’d laughed at the way she ignored him. Then it became a sort of challenge to him. See just how far he could go before she turned tail and ran.
Once they’d even kissed.
At the movie theater he’d sneaked up behind her and put his hands over her eyes. She’d whirled around to face the culprit. He was the last person she’d expected to see. He’d never gotten quite that close before, never once touched her. Shock had frozen her to the spot when their gazes collided and his fingers lingered against her hair. Something had shifted in her small world as he’d stared into her eyes. She had known in the deepest recesses of her soul that she was about to be kissed.
It was her first.
His lips had met hers and she’d leaned into the incredible sensations ... had reached her arms around his neck and let her trembling body rest against his strong, lean one. He’d kissed her long and deep, used histongue in ways she’d only read about. His palms had cupped her face, those long fingers threaded into her hair. A kind of heat she’d never before experienced had flowed through her, settling between her thighs.
As if the voice of reason had suddenly kicked in, he’d drawn away, winked, then walked off without so much as a word. She’d been humiliated. Even that infuriating episode hadn’t made her stop wanting him.
A deeper shadow fell across the driver’s side window and jolted her back to the present. She looked up, blinked. He stood right outside her open window.
Fear exploded in her veins.
How could she have not heard his approach?
Her brain issued all the appropriate flight commands, but her hands ... her fingers refused to act.
