a long time ago, Dylan’s grandmother had given him a bag of marbles. He’d loved playing with the small, colorful glass balls, had spent hours organizing and sorting them. Then Prince Lance had come over, yanked the bag from Dylan’s hands, and dumped them on the sloping driveway. The marbles had scattered everywhere, and no matter how quickly Dylan tried to scoop them up, they just kept rolling away from him. With sickening clarity, he remembered the sound of Lance’s laughter.
But when his grandfather had caught them fighting, it had been Dylan who got the belt.
Now he studied Bethany through the blue glow of the dashboard lights, the shadows playing against the soft lines of her face. Silky hair cascaded down her shoulders, looking more sable than brown. She’d brushed it, he noted, and wondered if Lance had ever done the task for her. Like he had.
A long time ago.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
“Home,” she started, but he saw the second awareness dawned. Her home was a crime scene. “Maybe a hotel.”
“The media will be crawling all over you there,” he said. “You’ll be safer at my house.”
Her eyes flared. “Your house?”
He didn’t stop to think. “It’s isolated, secure. No one would find you there.”
And he really was out of his mind.
She just stared at him. And when she spoke, her voice was soft but cutting, classic Bethany. “That was me on the patio this evening. That was me you practically accused of killing your cousin. It’s too late to pretend you’re on my side.”
No matter where he stepped, they always landed in the same place. “I’m not the one pretending, Bethany.”
She didn’t defend herself as he wanted, didn’t take the bait. She just frowned. “It’s late, I’m tired, and I don’t have the energy for your games right now. Please. Let me go.”
“My God,” he said in a deceptively quiet voice, the one that masked all those sharp edges slicing him up inside. “You’re really just going to sit there and act like that night on the mountain didn’t happen?” He’d told himself he wasn’t going to bring it up, but the fact she was pretending it never happened pushed him over the edge. It happened. She’d come alive in his arms, twisted and turned, begged. “We didn’t even use birth control, for crissakes. I could have gotten you pregnant. Would you have even told me?”
The car was dark, but he saw the color fade from her face, saw her wince.
“I can’t have children,” she said. “You know that.”
The pain in her voice almost made him turn back. Almost. “Are you sure about that?”
She stared at him a long moment before answering. He waited for one of her ice walls to slide in place, but her expression remained naked, bleeding. He could hear the edge to her breathing. And slowly, slowly, fire came back into her eyes.
“Do you enjoy being cruel?” she asked in a cracked voice.
“It’s a legitimate question. We had sex. If there’s any chance—”
“It was a mistake!” she surprised him by shouting. “It was one of those heat of the moment—”
He went coldly still. “Don’t.”
He didn’t know whether it was the edge to his voice or the fury he knew hardened his expression, but something dangerously close to fear flashed in her eyes. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t sit there and insinuate you didn’t know what you were doing. You wanted me every bit as much as I wanted you.”
For a moment he saw the same heat in her gaze, that glaze of passion that had haunted him for so long. But then, finally, at last, a Bethany ice wall slid into place, and she angled her chin. “That doesn’t make it right.”
He wasn’t going to let her do it. Wasn’t going to let her use the heat between them as a weapon against him. “Quit trying to make everything black or white,” he bit out. “It wasn’t premeditated. It just…happened. We were stranded. You needed someone, and I was there.”
A shadow crossed her face. “It was wrong.”
It took effort, but somehow he resisted the urge to reach across the seat and put his mouth to hers, prove what she tried to deny.
Instead, he let an insolent smile curve his lips. “I thought it was pretty damn right.”
“Dylan—”
“But don’t worry, angel, when I think of that night…” which he tried not to “…I don’t see you naked or hear the way you cried out my name, I see the morning after, waking up alone in that big cold bed. I may be a slow learner, but sledgehammers like that usually do the trick.”
“Then there’s nothing left to say, is there?” she asked in a voice devoid of all emotion.
Because he wanted to crush her in his arms, he released the locks. “Go.”
She did. Without looking back, she pushed open the door and let in a blast of cold, then stepped into the night and vanished in the darkness.
Just like always.
B. B. King belted out the blues, but with only ten minutes until Shady’s called it a night, few remained to listen. Two of the three pool tables stood deserted. Only one poor soul remained at the bar. The smoke was actually beginning to clear.
“You know this breaks every rule in the book,” Zito said, running a hand over his scruffy face.
Dylan polished off his scotch and dropped the empty glass on top of a heart carved into the battered wood table. “Depends upon whose book you’re talking about.”
“Since when have I given a damn about any book but my own?”
That’s exactly what Dylan was counting on. After he’d followed Bethany to a hotel, he’d tried to go home and put her out of his mind, but quickly realized climbing Mount Hood blindfolded would be easier.
He needed to know what had gone down in that interrogation room. He knew Zito’s partner, knew the man’s knack for going for the jugular. And it had killed him to wait outside, to not know, to imagine. Had they broken her? Had they made her hurt?
“No one’s making you stay,” he reminded the detective.
Zito made a show of picking up his microbrew and drinking deeply of the local favorite, all the while his speculative, too-seeing gaze trained on Dylan. “Don’t tell me the champion of the underdog is standing by the woman who killed your cousin? Beauty doesn’t equate innocence, son.”
“You think she did it?” he asked as blandly as he could.
Zito shrugged. “Chances are.”
“Evidence?”
Zito reached for a cigarette. “Mostly circumstantial at
