been sixteen when they’d first discovered sex together, in this very house the summer he’d been staying at the place when his great-aunt and -uncle had been away. Jericho had actually discovered sex a year earlier with the cute cheerleader whose name he couldn’t remember, but he’d been Laurel’s first. A first had turned to a second, third and so on until his father’s murder two years later.
Things had changed big-time between them then.
Everything had changed.
But he damn sure remembered Laurel’s name.
Every inch of her body, too. A reminder that Jericho told to take a hike.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“And you’re leaving so I can take care of it.” But then he got a bad thought. Really bad. “Did you have something to do with the guy in the SUV who ran into me? Let me rephrase that. Did your scummy father have anything to do with it?”
Because Laurel wasn’t the sort to get her hands dirty. She just associated with the lowlifes who did.
Her eyes widened and she shook her head. “Someone tried to hurt you?” And yeah, it sounded like a genuine question from a concerned, surprised woman.
“Is your father responsible for my bloody shoulder and bashed-up truck?” he pressed.
It wouldn’t have been Herschel Tate’s MO to be so obvious. He was more a knife-to-the-back sort of guy. Too bad Jericho had never been able to pin any crimes on him. Especially one big crime.
The murder of Jericho’s own father.
Twenty years later, the pain of that still cut him to the bone. And that pain spilled over onto Laurel because she’d refused to see the truth or help him put her murdering father behind bars.
“I don’t think my father was involved with anything that happened to you tonight.” Laurel shook her head again. “But I can’t be positive.”
Well, that was a first—having her admit that her precious daddy could do anything wrong. But Laurel didn’t elaborate. She hurried past him, and for a moment Jericho thought she was leaving. Instead, she came back from the kitchen with some paper towels that she pressed to his shoulder.
Jericho eyed her. Her nursing attempt put her fingers in contact with his bare skin. “How’d you get here?” he snapped. “Did your father or somebody else drop you off?”
Though he couldn’t imagine why Herschel would do that. The hatred Jericho felt for the man was mutual.
“No. My father doesn’t know I’m here. No one does. I parked behind your barn.”
Since he had a big driveway and side yard, there was only one reason to park behind the barn. To conceal the vehicle. Jericho couldn’t think of a single good reason for her to do that, but since he was a cop, he could think of some bad ones.
“Start talking,” he insisted.
Laurel didn’t do that, though. She kept dabbing at the cut. And more. Now that she was this close to him, Jericho could see her bottom lip tremble a little. He could also see that the whites of her eyes had some red in them.
Had she been crying?
“Your hair’s longer,” she said, her breath hitting against his neck right next to the hair she was apparently noticing. “It suits you.”
That earned her a flat stare, and to end the little touching session, Jericho snatched the paper towels from her. “Are you really here to chat about my infrequent trips to the barbershop?”
“No.” She moved away from him, repeated her answer and tucked a strand of her own loose hair behind her ear. “But we need to talk.”
“So you’ve said. Well, start talking. Jax is waiting on me to come back to the station so we can go after the guy who hit my truck.”
Jericho made sure he sounded impatient enough. Because he was. But Laurel didn’t seem to be in a hurry to start this conversation that he didn’t exactly want to have. So, Jericho started it for her.
“If you’re here on your father’s behalf—to try to make some kind of truce or deliver a threat—I’m not in a truce-making or threat-listening kind of mood.”
“It’s not anything like that.” Laurel paused, pulled in her breath. “It’s about...marriage.”
Jericho went still. The woman sure knew how to keep him surprised. After all, Laurel was already married. Or at least she was supposed to be. But now that he had a better look at her left hand, she wasn’t sporting a flashy diamond or a wedding band.
She followed his gaze to her ring finger and shook her head. “I didn’t go through with the wedding. I called it off.” Laurel looked up at him, clearly waiting, as if she expected him to ask why.
He’d rather eat a magazine of bullets first. But if the gossip was right, Laurel was supposed to be married to one of her father’s rich lackey lawyers. Considering that she, too, was an equally rich lackey lawyer, it was no doubt a match made in some place other than heaven.
“Look, Laurel, like I keep saying, this isn’t a good time—”
The rest of what he was about to remind her just stopped there in his throat when she opened her hand, and Jericho saw the small blue stone. She’d obviously been holding it for a while, because there was a mark on her palm.
“You remember what this is?” she asked.
Yeah, he did. And while it would seem petty to deny that, Jericho nearly went with petty.
Nearly.
“It’s the rock we found on the banks of Mercy Creek twenty years ago,” he supplied.
“We went walking there after we, well, afterward.” Laurel tipped her head toward the bedroom, to the very place where she’d lost her virginity to him. “We found the two rocks. They were almost identical in size, shape and color. We’d never seen rocks that color before, so we decided it was some kind of sign, maybe even good-luck charms.”
Jericho couldn’t remember if he’d paid his electric bill this month, but he remembered that twenty-year-old conversation with Laurel. Every blasted word of it. And he knew that silly teenage notions of signs and charms like that came with a price tag attached.
“You said we’d each keep one, and that this rock could be a marker of sorts. Payment for any favor down the road. Anything,” Laurel added. “In all these years, I’ve never used it because we said it should be for something very important. And we’d know just how important it was because we’d used this marker.”
Jericho nodded. “I figured that’d come more in the form of a favor, like buying you a horse or something. Or if you needed me to whip somebody’s butt for messing with you.”
And then it hit him. What this visit might really be about. “You don’t think we’re going to make the same mistake again of having sex?” he asked.
“A mistake,” she said under her breath. Not exactly an
