Willowleaf Lane (16 page)

“You didn’t do it.”

He jerked his gaze to hers. “Didn’t do what?”

“Didn’t supply drugs or steroids to your teammates.”

Something surged inside him, something bright and heady, but he couldn’t take time to examine it right now.

“The charges
were
dropped,” he pointed out, feeling oddly breathless.

She made a dismissive gesture. “Yes, after six months and a grand jury indictment. But the grand jury was wrong, weren’t they? You were innocent.”

A tangle of emotions threatened to choke him. She believed him. Sweet Charlotte, who had been his friend long ago, whose father had been so very kind to him.

He wanted to grab her right there in her kitchen and kiss her fiercely for looking at him out of those shining eyes, for daring to believe he wasn’t everything awful and ugly the world had said he was for nearly two years.

“Why would you say that?” he asked hoarsely, a bid for time as he honestly didn’t know what to say.

“Gut instinct,” she answered, her voice pitched low. “I’ve known you for a long time. That was the part that always bothered me about the case against you. You saw firsthand how substance abuse destroyed your mother. I always had a tough time understanding how you could supply illegal drugs to others, after surviving your childhood and seeing the devastation personally.”

“I was addicted to painkillers, Charlotte. I never denied that. After my shoulder injury, I tried to play through the pain but discovered it was so much easier to throw a ball ninety-five miles an hour again and again with a little Percocet on board. And then a little more and a little more—and before I knew it, I was taking five or six at a time and couldn’t play without them. Yeah, I went through rehab but since I was an addict myself, why is it such a leap to think I would have a problem supplying steroids and painkillers to others?”

“I don’t believe it. Pop never believed it either, for what it’s worth.”

It was worth more than he could ever tell her, but he couldn’t seem to get the words out past the sudden lump in his throat.

“So the question of the hour. How did that very large supply of drugs end up in the trunk of your car in the Pioneers parking lot? And why didn’t you defend yourself to the grand jury? Your pleading the fifth was as good as a confession in the minds of many people.”

He wanted to confide in her, to spill every ugly detail he had pieced together in the year since Jade’s death but long habit held his tongue.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she finally said when he remained silent.

“Nothing I could say, then or now, would have made a difference. I had no proof of anything and...several innocent people would have suffered if I had voiced my suspicions.”

She leaned against her kitchen counter, and he again felt breathless at the warmth in her eyes, a look he never dreamed of seeing there. He felt as if he had been walking alone in the high desert for months, thirsty, starving, slowly freezing to death, and she had just held her arms wide to welcome him to wander inside by her fire.

“You were protecting someone else. Of
course.
I should have known. Oh, Spencer. Has anybody ever mentioned you have a very bad white knight complex?”

“You’re crazy,” he murmured, but somehow the husky words came out more like an endearment.

“I’m beginning to agree,” she said, her voice thready.

He had no choice in the matter. Not really. He had to kiss her. In the space of a breath, he moved to her and lowered his head. With a sigh, she kissed him and her arms around his neck felt like a benediction.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A
BREEZE
SCENTED
with pines and some kind of night-blooming flower fluttered the curtains at her window but he was barely aware of it, lost only in the wonder of her kiss.

Was it only that morning that he had kissed her last? It felt like eons ago, another lifetime. How had he forgotten the taste of her, honeyed and luscious, how perfectly she fit against him, the funny little way she had of splaying her hands across his back as if she didn’t quite know what to do with them?

He wanted to shove aside the rinds and bowls, knives and cutting boards, to lift her up onto the work island and bury himself inside the succulent wonder that was Charlotte Caine.

“You are just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted,” he growled.

“It’s the fruit,” she murmured, her voice low and her skin a luminous, delectable pink. “I like to, um, sneak a taste here and there while I’m prepping.”

“It’s not the fruit. It’s all you.”

He kissed her again and she tightened her arms around him, kissing him back with an enthusiasm that humbled him. What had he possibly done in his life that made him worthy of being the recipient of this kind of heated response?

He kissed her until both of them were trembling, until his body was a hard, heavy ache, desperate for completion.

With an oath, he wrenched his mouth away from her and rested his forehead on hers. “I need to go, before I won’t have the strength to leave.”

She stared into his eyes, and he saw a tangled jumble of emotions there. Foremost among them was a fierce, naked yearning. He wasn’t sure anybody had ever looked at him that way. He already wanted her frantically. Seeing that answering hunger just about sent him tumbling over the edge.

“You don’t have to. Go, I mean,” she whispered.

The implication of her words rocketed straight to his gut, and his mind went blank for just a moment. When she kissed him, her mouth soft and sweet and warm, he gave in to what felt like perfect, beautiful inevitability.

He still meant everything he had said that morning, every reason not to do this. But she trusted him. She believed in him. He couldn’t hold back the tide of emotion and need pouring through him because of it.

He deepened the kiss, pressing her back against the counter, devouring her.

“Bedroom?” he growled, long moments later.

She pointed vaguely through a doorway, and he refused to think about the wisdom in what he was doing, he let all the hunger inside him take control. Mouth locked with hers, he swept her up in his arms. He opened the first door he came to and luck smiled on him when he found an airy, feminine room dominated by a queen canopy bed.

He was vaguely aware of lowering her to the bed and following behind, and then all he could think was the sweetness of her mouth, the sexy little noises she made, the heat of her arms around him and her curvy, mouthwatering body beneath him.

* * *

T
HIS
COULDN
’
T
BE
happening.

Was she really here, in her frilly, flowery little bedroom, with Spence Gregory? The moment seemed hazy, unreal. Yes. It was him. That was definitely his tongue tangling with hers, his hard thigh nudging between hers, his hand...oh.

They shouldn’t be doing this. Some tiny corner of her mind kept whispering that, telling her that this was a huge mistake, but she ignored it. She was on fire. Every touch, every caress, sent sensuous flames licking through her, and all she could think about was
more.

She arched against his thigh through the layers of skirt and slacks and sparks exploded, a shiver coursing through her as he began to work free the buttons of her blouse. Oh, mercy. Why hadn’t anybody told her how very incredible it felt to have his hand against the bare skin of her abdomen? The caress that morning had been so fleeting she hadn’t really had time to appreciate it but now his fingers trailed slowly across her body and she wanted him
everywhere.

She didn’t want to think, to analyze why he was here, after he had pushed her away that morning. For now, she only wanted to feel.

Her bra unclasped in the front, and he seemed to have the necessary skill to work it free. And then she lay exposed to him and she shivered, suddenly fearful. Though she had dropped five bra sizes and two cup sizes, she was still big. A memory pushed into her subconscious that had to do with him and her breasts, something ugly and dark.

He didn’t seem to mind. He made a low growl in his throat she took for approval, and she shoved the half-formed memory aside. And then he moved his thigh between her legs and more of those delicious sparks shot out. She pushed against the delicious pressure a little and then a little more. Okay, now she was beginning to see what all the fuss was about.

It was all too much suddenly. His mouth on hers, his tongue stroking her, the hard muscles surrounding her. She was close to something she couldn’t have explained, pressure building and building, and then his thumb brushed her nipple, his tongue slid along hers, and she exploded, wave after wave of delicious pressure carrying her under....

When she finally caught her breath, she found Spence staring at her, his eyes glittery and dark.

“That was...wow,” she managed to say, her voice ragged.

“Funny. That’s exactly the word that came to my mind.”

“Um, what is a girl supposed to say after that?
Thanks
hardly seems...adequate.”

He continued staring at her, his hand sliding away from her. What had she done wrong?

“Doesn’t that...usually happen?” she asked, feeling extremely stupid.

He cleared his throat. “A guy certainly hopes so. Any decent guy will make sure of it. Several times, if he can.” He edged back a little, hazel eyes locked on hers. “You’ve done this before though, right?”

She couldn’t answer. The words just wouldn’t come. So to speak.

At her silence, he continued to stare at her. She might as well have told him she liked to drop-kick puppies in her spare time. The abject shock in his expression made her want to yank the quilt over her head.

“I’m a freak. I know.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to say it. I can guess what you’re thinking.”

She sat up, hooked her bra closed and began working the buttons of her blouse.

He seemed almost openmouthed with surprise. “How can you be—”

“The opportunity never came up, okay?”

She didn’t know when she had ever felt this humiliated—and that was saying something, all things considered.

He looked rumpled and gorgeous, and she couldn’t believe five minutes earlier her hands had been under his shirt, splayed on the warm bare skin of his back. She remembered that incredible moment of flying and she wanted more.

“Why not?”

She sighed. She really, really didn’t want to talk about this, not when she was all loose and relaxed and feeling wonderful.

“I was fat, Spence. You have to remember. So fat you couldn’t even bear to go to a girl’s choice dance with me.”

“Whoa. What?” He raked a hand through his hair, and she saw genuine confusion in his expression. “I remember something about a dance, and you backed out at the last minute. You were sick or something, right?”

Okay, happy feeling gone. “Right. I backed out.”

He frowned at her tight tone. “Isn’t that what happened?”

“Technically, yes. I canceled.”

“What else happened?” he demanded. “If I did something, I’d sure as hell like to know.”

Okay, apparently she could slip a notch further down on the humiliation scale. She was going to have to talk about the darkest moment of her adolescence—with the architect of her shame.

All the remembered pain and hurt washed back, inky, bitter.

She couldn’t have this conversation with him here in her bedroom, where a few moments ago they had been tangled together so deliciously on her bed.

Without another word, she slipped from the bed and walked back to her living room. After a pause, he followed her.

Oh, how she suddenly longed for the days when men still wore hats. It must have been so easy to just hand a man his hat when a woman was done with him and send him on his way.

“I really don’t want to talk about this right now. It happened years ago.”

“Why didn’t we go to that dance together, Charlotte? Tell me.”

He wasn’t going to stop. Having grown up with six older brothers, she knew that implacable tone of voice and knew he wouldn’t rest until he had wormed the information he wanted out of her. She might as well just tell him, get it over with.

“Fine,” she finally said. “We didn’t go to the dance because I...I heard you.”

He gave her a blank stare. “Heard me what? Can you be a little more specific?”

Amazing how one moment in time could have such a lasting impact on a person’s life. She had the entire conversation memorized, burned into her brain as if etched there by a soldering iron.

“It was after school, two days before the dance. Thursday afternoon. You were working at your other job at the hardware store.”

It had been a gorgeous April day, she remembered, one of those rare spring afternoons when it seemed the long mountain winter was finally done.

She knew he had a baseball game at another school the next day so she wanted to talk to him Thursday to work out all the details of their date. Though she had looked for him all that day at school, their schedules hadn’t coincided.

She had been so excited, she remembered now, beyond thrilled. Dreams sometimes did come true! Spence Gregory had actually said yes when she had summoned every nerve she possessed (and several she didn’t) and asked him to the final girl’s choice dance of his high school career.

He was graduating in a month and was already close to signing to play major league baseball. This was her very last chance.

She had built up so many plans for that one dance, had invested way too many unrealistic expectations, including the secret, most cherished dream, that he would see her in the awesome new formal dress she’d bought in Denver and declare undying love for her.

She had decided at fifteen that loving somebody who only wanted you for a friend was just about the most painful thing in the world, and she had been desperate to come up with a way for him to see the real her.

“And?” Spence asked now, and she jerked her mind back to the present, to find him watching her with an impatient sort of curiosity.

“I needed to talk to you about what time I was picking you up for the dance. Well, what time my friend Patty was picking you up. We were doubling with her and Matt Barnes, and since she had a driver’s license, she was driving.”

He doesn’t care about that,
she told herself.
Get to the miserable part.

She let out a breath, amazed at how this memory still burned, years later. “When I showed up, Mr. Litchfield told me you were in the stockroom unloading a new delivery.”

She could almost feel that moment, the metallic and rubber scent of the hardware store, the squeak of her shoes on the old wood floor, the cramped, tight aisles.

“You were talking with Ronnie McCombs.”

He blinked. “Wow. There’s someone I haven’t thought about in years. Wonder what he’s doing now.”

“He joined some kind of survivalist cult a few years ago and moved to Montana, last I heard.”

“The guy always was a bit of a whack job, as I remember. He was a good team manager but used to drive me crazy, always wanting to know every detail about my life. Parties I went to, classes I was in. He called me a couple years after high school to see if I could get him a job with the Pioneers but I had to tell him I didn’t have that kind of pull.”

She wondered if Spence had any idea of all the people who had wanted to be like him. Even in high school, he had an air of command that drew people to him, made them instinctively want to be around him. She wouldn’t have been surprised if Ronnie McCombs had only taken a job at the hardware store in order to hang out with Spence.

“So what did Ronnie McCombs have to do with us not going on a date?” he asked.

She sighed. So much for hoping he would be sidetracked enough to forget what had originally started the whole conversation.

“When I walked to the stockroom, neither of you noticed me. I overheard him asking who was taking you to the girl’s choice dance.”

Even after all these years, the pain could still slice sharply.

He frowned. “I told him, didn’t I?”

She wanted to make something up, something benign and relatively harmless but couldn’t think quickly enough—and besides, he sounded as if he genuinely wanted to know what happened. Maybe it would be cathartic to tell him, sort of like a stomach being pumped after taking poison.

“Oh, yes. You told him you were going with me. You were quite nice about it but Ronnie laughed and said,
‘Big fat Candy Caine? Why are you going out with that cow? Man, she’s so big her feet don’t get wet when she showers. Be careful, man. A guy could suffocate in that rack.’
”

Yes, she had the whole conversation memorized. He could make of that what he wanted.

“He said that? What an ass. I hope I decked him.”

She couldn’t say anything. Everything would have been different if Spence
had
punched Ronnie—or at least stood up for her. They were friends, after all. She had helped him get a passing grade in English class for four years running. She would have thought that meant something.

“Okay, I didn’t deck him.” His expression shifted from annoyed to embarrassed as he correctly interpreted her silence. “That doesn’t explain why you had to back out of our date, just because some weird little prick made a rude comment.”

She picked up a pillow and hugged it to herself, unable to speak. Good grief. Why had she ever started on this excruciatingly uncomfortable conversation? She should have enjoyed her first real orgasm and just kept her mouth shut about her inexperience. If she had, by now said inexperience wouldn’t have been an issue.

“That’s not everything, is it?” he asked, wariness in his voice, as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the rest.