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  Out in front, everything was pretty much under control. She worked the register, bussed the counter and tables during the lunch rush. On a Saturday, lunch would usually go late. Things didn’t start slowing down until around three, and since Mia wasn’t fussing, Charlene stayed on without a break until closing at five.

  At home, she changed into a white shirt and a fresh pair of jeans and prepared for dinner with Irma, who knocked on her door at six sharp. Her aunt stayed for three hours, during which she was pleasant and complimentary and held Mia every chance she got. Not a single harsh word crossed her lips and she didn’t ask any questions, except about harmless things: “How’s the diner doing?” and “This zucchini is so fresh. Do you get all your groceries right here in town?”

  After the meal, Irma insisted on helping to clean up. “It’s the least I can do after this delicious dinner you’ve prepared just for me….”

  She complimented the house. “So charming. And I love the picture window looking out on the deck.” Ruefully she asked, “Do you miss that big white house you grew up in?”

  Charlene thought, You mean the one I sold to fight you for custody of Sissy? But she didn’t say that. It seemed too cruel a thing to say to this new, strangely sweet Irma. “Sometimes. But I love this little house and I still have my memories of the other one. And I can look at it anytime, just by crossing a bridge and walking down Jewel Street.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Irma said, “that you had to sell that house. It’s a regret of mine, that because of me you lost your family home. A regret among many, I must admit….”

  Wow. Never in this lifetime had Charlene imagined she’d hear her aunt Irma admit to regrets. She said, “Well, it’s gone now. And I’m fine right here.”

  The evening seemed almost as surreal as the breakfast at the B&B had been—surreal, but not quite so nerve-racking. Charlene was actually beginning to believe that her horrible aunt had really changed. She had to constantly remind herself to keep her guard up. Surely the bad Aunt Irma that Charlene had always known was bound to resurface. Nobody changed this much, this fast.

  But it was the new, sweet, good-natured Irma who said good-night at nine.

  Alone, with Mia asleep in her crib, Charlene considered getting out that old phone bill and making a few calls. But it was after nine and it seemed a little late to be calling up strangers to ask them if maybe they knew her missing sister.

  Then again, maybe after nine was a good time to call. Catch them off guard, possibly reach a real person where last summer she’d only gotten recorded voices instructing her to leave a message.

  She started dialing.

  It was pretty much last summer all over again.

  The rude guy somewhere in San Diego said the same thing he’d said back in July. “Wrong number.” And the phone went dead.

  The second and third San Diego numbers, she got automated answers—the kind you get on a cell phone—and left a message. The one with the area code she didn’t recognize was no longer in service. She dialed the last number, the one in San Francisco. A young-sounding female voice answered on the third ring.

  The girl said she didn’t know any Sissy. “Hold on. I’ll ask Dwayne. This is his phone.” There was mumbling as she talked to someone on her end. Then she came back on. “Dwayne says no. He doesn’t know any Sissy, either.”

  Charlene had the presence of mind to ask, “Who’s this?”

  “Zooey. Sorry, can’t help ya.” And she hung up.

  Charlene tried not to be discouraged. She made notes about each of the calls and decided she’d try them all again later. Maybe someone new would answer, someone who could help her, someone who knew Sissy.

  And next time she’d have a little speech planned. She’d tell them who she was, say she was looking after Sissy’s baby and she really did need to get a hold of her sister. She’d ask for their help. Even really crabby people sometimes softened up when you asked them for help.

  Still, it was discouraging. Why, any one of those people might know Sissy. And wouldn’t it be just like her wild-child sister to warn them all not to tell Charlene anything?

  Maybe Tanner would have better luck. He found people for a living, after all. He’d know what to say to them to get the information he sought.

  She kicked off her shoes, fell back across the bed with a hard sigh—and thought of Brand.

  Where was he right now? What was he doing?

  Was he maybe out on a date with some nice, pretty woman? Some woman who didn’t make a federal case of it just because he kissed her?

  She sat up, reached for the phone again and punched up his number through her received calls. Funny about that thumb of hers. It started dialing, fast, before she could tell it to stop.

  He picked up on the second ring. “Hello, Charlene.” Of course he would know it was her. If not by instinct, by his caller ID.

  “Okay,” she grumbled. “So you’re home.”

  “That’s right.” She could hear the reluctant smile in his voice.

  “Tell me something…”

  “Depends.”

  “On?”

  “Ask the question. We’ll see.”

  She went for it. “Have you got some nice, friendly woman over there at your house, someone who’s waiting patiently for you to get off the phone and pay attention to her?”

  “What do you care?”

  Since he hadn’t answered her question, she felt totally justified not answering his. Instead she said, “I was kind of thinking you’d show up at your mother’s this morning for breakfast….”

  “Miss me?”

  “Okay, that’s enough. You don’t answer my question, you just ask one of your own. Is that like a lawyer thing?”

  “No. And all right, Charlene. There’s no woman here.”

  “You’re alone?”

  “Miss me?”

  “Oh, damn it. Yes.”

  A tiny silence, then, “I’m alone.”

  “Oh,” she said, and wasn’t sure what to say next. So she was quiet. They were…quiet together. She listened to him breathe. How pathetic was that?

  He spoke first. “You got something you want to say to me?”

  She did. She just…couldn’t quite frame the words.

  He said, “Charlene?”

  All she could manage was a sigh and a soft, formless, “Huh?”

  “I’ll come over.”

  It was the place where she was supposed to tell him no, the place where she was supposed to remind him that they were only friends and they would never be more, that she was learning to forgive him, but no way that meant he would end up in her bed or anything. And it most certainly didn’t mean she would ever learn to love him again.

  Too bad, at that moment, there was only one word in the entire world.

  She said that word. “Yes.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Six minutes later Charlene heard his soft knock.

  Barefoot, every nerve in her body humming, she padded to the door, pulled it wide and there he was, dressed in cargoes, a white T-shirt and a battered pair of moccasins, looking just like the man she loved, the man she’d been waiting for, lonely for, hurting for…

  For such a very long time.

  She went into his arms without a word, without so much as a murmur of protest, without hesitation. Eagerly.

  Hungrily.

  She lifted her mouth, and his lips came down on hers, hard.

  He took that first kiss. He claimed it, his tongue licking along the seam where her lips met. She surrendered and opened for him with a yearning cry. His arms banded tight around her as his tongue swept her mouth.

  Her knees went to jelly. She was melting into him, her hands stroking his broad back, his narrow waist, the lovely, hard bumps of his spine.

  Oh, he did feel so good.

  He always had.

  Though he was…different now.

  Not taller, but…bigger. Broader than he’d been all those years and years ago. There was more depth in
the wide shoulders, more muscle in the hard chest.

  He lifted his mouth—just a fraction. She surged up to capture it again. He whispered, “Mia?”

  “In bed.” She speared her spread fingers up into his thick, golden hair and pulled his head down.

  He didn’t resist, but took her lips again with a guttural moan.

  Fine with her.

  Oh, yeah. No problem. He could have her lips. He could have everything, all of her.

  For tonight, anyway. For now…

  In the back of her mind alarm bells were ringing. But not all that loud. She knew very well she shouldn’t be doing this.

  But right then she just didn’t care.

  He walked her backward as he kissed her, into the entryway. He caught the door with his foot and swung it shut, reaching behind him to turn the dead bolt.

  She had hold of his shoulders. He felt so good, so warm, so hard. She pushed her hips up into him, to feel him wanting her, to show him how eager she was to be his.

  Again.

  After so long.

  Too long.

  An eternity.

  The past, somehow was right there with them—and not the sad, awful past of betrayal and loss. Uh-uh. Before all that. Back when Sissy was the sweetest little sister around, when Sissy and Charlene had living parents who loved them, when this man in her arms was a gentle, sweet, loving boy.

  A boy who adored her. A boy who said there was no one in the world like her, a boy who made her feel so naughty and so good, both at the same time.

  Oh, the past…

  The good past, the kind and loving past…

  It was all around them now, pulsing inside her very heart. It was the blood in her veins, the sweet tears of happiness filling her eyes…

  Brand caught her face in cradling hands. He lifted his lips from hers again, the twin fringes of his lashes parting, revealing those eyes she could never forget. His thumb brushed a stray tear from her cheek. “You’re crying. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Not anymore. Never again…”

  She laughed, a happy laugh, slightly husky with desire. And then she sniffed. “It’s okay. Really. This is good crying.”

  He seemed unconvinced. “Good crying?”

  “Just…kiss me, okay. Just kiss me and hold me and—”

  He took it from there, covering her mouth again, wrapping his arms around her, lifting her feet off the ground. She twined her own arms around his neck, and he carried her that way, kissing her as he went, into her bedroom, where he let her slide slowly down his body until her feet touched the floor.

  She sat on the edge of the bed and caught his hand, urging him to come down with her.

  “Wait,” he whispered, pulling free to whip his shirt off over his head and kick off his moccasins. His cargoes rode low. She could see the waistband of his red boxers.

  She reached out. “Oh, let me help…”

  He gave her the sweetest, most tender of smiles. “I like a woman who pitches in.” One step and he was right in front of her. She took him by the sides of his hard waist and pulled him even closer, opening her thighs to accommodate him.

  Glancing up, she found him looking down, his eyes low-lidded and gleaming, his mouth a little swollen from kissing her. She slipped the metal button from its hole and tugged his zipper down. It made a lovely, sizzling sort of sound. And then she took a handful of khaki in either hand and guided those cargoes over his lean hips. They dropped to the bedside rug.

  He obligingly stepped free of them and made a move to climb onto the bed with her.

  She put a hand—flat—on his hard, hot belly. “Not done yet.”

  He gave a low, oh-so-sexy chuckle. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Carefully she pulled the elastic waistband of the boxers out and over his erection. He took it from there, skimming them down and off.

  She sat back on her hands and looked at him, standing there, totally naked in front of her.

  Such a beautiful man, lean and muscled and tall. And fully aroused. Clearly wanting her….

  So much the same as the boy she’d once loved.

  And yet, so different.

  The past washed over her again. She drowned in it, remembering…

  That first night he came to her parents’ house for dinner. She was fifteen and he was seventeen. He wore slacks that were too short for him, and he’d slicked his longish hair down to make it behave, but still a cowlick escaped and stuck straight up at the top of his head. He spoke so carefully and considerately to her mom and dad, wanting, she knew, to reassure them that, though he was a Bravo, he wasn’t like his crazy oldest brother or his wild younger one.

  Oh, yes. A special night, that one. The night she realized she loved him with all her hopeful young heart.

  And a few months later…

  The two of them, making love for the first time in the back seat of that old Chevy he used to drive, so awkward and eager, fogging those windows up, totally in love, swept away by young lust….

  She’d never doubted they would get married. She’d known he was the one for her. He’d sworn he felt the same—that she was the girl he wanted to spend his life with. He used to tell her so, in the miracle of those first two years they were together, how he loved her, how there was no one but her in the whole world for him.

  Then he graduated and went to junior college down in Rocklin and slowly, though she didn’t want to admit it and even pretended it wasn’t happening, she felt him pulling away—oh, he was still her guy, they went out every weekend. But something was…different.

  It wasn’t the same.

  And then she lost her parents and knew she was losing her sister, too. She’d needed him so then. Needed him to stand beside her. To take her hand. To be her husband as they’d always said eventually he would be, to stand up before the judge and say that Sissy would have a two-parent home, a home better than the one Aunt Irma and Uncle Larry would provide, because it would be a home that was filled with love….

  “I know that look. Damn it, Charlene.”

  She heard Brand’s voice and realized she was staring blankly into the middle distance. Blinking to clear the sad memories away, she made herself meet his eyes. “This is insane. What are we doing?” When he only shook his head, she added, “I just…I don’t know what I’m doing here. With you.”

  “The hell you don’t.” He bent over her, took her by the shoulders and pulled her to her feet. Then he framed her face in his hands again, the way he had a few moments ago, out in the entryway. “Think about it. You hated me for ten years.”

  “Exactly. That’s what I mean….”

  “Hated me, Charlene.” His warm breath caressed her face and his scent surrounded her. She felt weak inside, at his touch, at his very nearness. He said it again. “Hated me. For a decade. You know what they say, don’t you? The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. Try and tell me you’ve ever been indifferent to me.”

  She marshaled a reply—no easy feat, with him so close and so…naked. “No, I’ve never been indifferent. But hatred isn’t love. All your fancy arguments can’t make it so.”

  “Damn it. Don’t give me this crap. You called me tonight.”

  “You’re right. But that doesn’t mean I love you—or that I ever could love you. I just want that clear between us, okay? Not anymore, Brand. Never again….”

  He closed his eyes, as if her words were arrows, wounding him. Then he brought his face that fraction closer. His lips hovered above hers and all she wanted was for him to kiss her again.

  He whispered, “Okay. Clear on that. You don’t love me. What about the rest of it?”

  “The rest?”

  “Tell me how you don’t want me.”

  Okay, he had her there. At that moment, with him standing naked before her, staring right in her eyes…

  Well, she just couldn’t squeak out that big of a lie. She opened her mouth. All that came out was, “I…” She had no clue where to go from there.

  And he refused to b
ack off about it. “Just do it. Just say it. I don’t want you, Brand. And I’ll go.”

  She only shook her head as her yearning made a soft heat low in her belly, a lovely, lazy, melting sensation.

  “Okay, then.” His eyes said he understood perfectly what he did to her, what he made her feel. “You want me.”

  “Yes.” She gave him the word, half in bitterness, half in the soft, yearning whisper of desire.

  “Let’s go with that, then, why don’t we? With how much you want me. Let’s not get it all bound up with…complicated emotions. We want each other. You called me. I came over. You’ve made it real damn clear that you’re not in love with me. Still, there’s no reason we both can’t have…what we want.”

  But there was a reason. No matter what he said. If she took him to bed, it would change what they were to each other. Was she ready for that?

  She had no idea. And that meant she should…argue some more, say something tough and un-flinching. She should push him away, ask him to please get dressed and go.

  But, oh, what she should do and what she wanted so bad that wanting had a taste and a scent and a hard, hot feel…

  Those were two different things.

  And he was making it worse. Or better.

  Or…whatever.

  He was kissing her, light kisses, nipping, arousing kisses, down over her jawline, along the side of her neck. She shivered.

  And she sighed.

  He trailed a hand over the curve of her shoulder and inward, laying his palm, so lightly, against her breast. Even through her shirt and bra, her nipple seemed to rise to meet him.

  She moaned, half in excitement and half in weak protest. “Not fair…”

  “Too bad.” He licked her neck, one long, slow stroke. And he blew where he’d licked, so she shivered in delight.

  She couldn’t help herself. She really had to touch him. She grasped his bare shoulders, sighing at the pure pleasure of the contact, loving the sleek, hard feel of him as that taunting hand of his left her breast and began undoing the little white buttons down the front of her shirt.

  It should have been so simple, shouldn’t it?

  To put a hand over his, to tell him, Stop.

  One word, one quelling touch of her hand on his. Nothing to it.