was a strong man. A man who loved life, who had never let anyone or anything cut him down or hold him back. She’d fallen in love with that strength, that vitality, probably before she was even old enough to understand those qualities. And later, in high school, it was that love for him that had left no question in her mind as to who she wanted to be with, who would be her first lover.
She’d been Mitch’s first, too. Sure, she knew he’d kissed a couple of other girls on occasional dates before she had dared to profess her feelings. But Molly knew, beyond a doubt, that Mitch spoke the truth when he’d sworn that night on a blanket along a stretch of Lake Michigan beach, under a full sky of stars, that Molly was his very first. His first and only, he’d vowed.
They’d dated through his senior year and then Molly’s while Mitch started college in Boston. And in their last summer together—before Mitch went for his second year at Boston and Molly joined the Academy as her father had done—they’d made grandiose plans for their future, even dared to speak of marriage a few times. But Mitch had wanted to finish school first so he could afford to buy her a real ring. Even back then Molly had wondered if there was more to Mitch’s holding off than the cost of a diamond ring, because he knew her well enough to know that she would never have worn something as precious as a diamond.
Then, through their grapevine of friends, Molly had learned of Emily Buchanan, a girl Mitch had met during his second year of college. Molly had learned he was bringing his new girlfriend home during the Christmas break, and she’d made it a point to escape Chicago for the holidays, leaving her father on his own and heading to the slopes with friends just so she wouldn’t have to see or speak with Mitch. And when she returned to the city to start her new life as a patrol officer with the CPD, Molly had vowed she was through with Mitch, through with the dreams and the hopes. She’d returned his few letters unopened, and didn’t respond to any of the phone calls he’d placed to her father.
And then, three years later, when she’d heard the news of Mitch’s marriage to Emily, Molly had at last come to the painful conclusion that it had never been a matter of Mitch not being ready for marriage all those years earlier. It had never been a matter of timing, or money for an engagement ring. It had simply been a matter of her not being “the one.”
Even so, it hadn’t been easy seeing the pictures in the papers and the magazines over the years as Mitch’s reputation grew in Chicago and the architectural world. Harder still to look at that one photo in which he’d posed with his new wife on his arm at some Chicago high society event. Emily had been everything Molly wasn’t—tall, elegant, poised; not some tomboy down the street Mitch had grown up with, pitching stones at old factory windows and racing their matching CCM bicycles through trash-cluttered back streets.
No, she certainly hadn’t been “the one,” Molly resolved yet again as she watched Mitch stand and cross the dimly lit room to the fireplace.
There was no missing the way he favored his left leg, the slight limp seeming uncharacteristic of his obviously sturdy, muscular build. Molly was reminded of the crash ten months ago that could very easily have claimed his life. She should have been used to the guilt she felt now; after all, it had plagued her ever since she’d heard about the accident and hadn’t made the effort to see Mitch. Not that she would have necessarily been allowed in to see him at the hospital or even been able to find out the location of the safe house if she’d tried. And not that she would have known what to say if she had.
She watched him throw another log onto the fire. A burst of sparks sprayed out and up the flue.
“I…I’m sorry, Mitch,” she murmured now. “I’m sorry about the accident. About…your wife.” The words sounded flat, even though she’d meant them.
His back was to her, but she could see the rigid tension that straightened his spine then and tightened his shoulders. And when he turned to her again, there was no mistaking the pain that darkened his face. He rubbed at the gold wedding band, and Molly couldn’t help thinking it was a completely unconscious habit of his.
In the uncomfortable silence that fell over the room, Molly tried to imagine the kind of loss he’d suffered. Yes, she’d lost her mother years ago to cancer, but she’d been only four, too young to have known her, too young to fully comprehend the loss.
And then, just as quickly as it had appeared, the dark pain in Mitch’s expression was gone again, as though maybe she’d only imagined it. The wall came up and masked his features in a way only Mitch could manage.
Molly remembered the first time she’d seen him do that—so skillfully construct walls around his emotions. They’d been ten years old when they’d found his dog at the side of the road, killed by a car. Mitch had carried the collie in his arms the whole six blocks home, and it was only days later that Molly had at last seen him cry.
That memory, and many others, flashed before her mind’s eye as Mitch stared back at her. Only when he cleared his throat was she able to return to the present.
“Where’s your car?” She lowered the ice pack and tried to draw herself to the edge of the couch. Another cruel wave of pain surged through her head, and the room threatened to spin again. “About a mile back, at the side of the road,” she answered, remembering the long, cold walk. “I, um, I underestimated. Ran out of gas.”
“Well, you can’t leave it there. With this snow, the plows’ll be through at least once tonight,” he said, turning from the fireplace. “I’ve got a spare tank. I’ll drive you out there.”
SOME OF THE COLOR had returned to Molly’s face before they’d left the house, and she seemed to have regained her equilibrium. But from the moment she’d reholstered her gun and pulled on her anorak and boots, she’d been silent. Even now, in the passenger seat of Barb’s Blazer, she said nothing, only stared out the windshield into the mesmerizing swirl of snow.
Mitch could only imagine her thoughts as he backed the vehicle out the drive and nosed it south along Lakeshore Drive. Was she remembering as well? No, Mitch thought, more likely she was thinking about the years that had separated them. Was it resentment that turned down the corners of her mouth now? he wondered as he snatched another quick side glance. Was it bitterness and anger, harbored over the years because he’d never been able to offer her an explanation?
In spite of the sickly green glow of the dash lights, her features appeared soft and innately feminine. Still, her angular profile had maintained that strong, almost fierce look of determination he’d always remembered. The loose ponytail that drew up her dark hair revealed the delicate curve of her neck, leading to the regal jawline—the same jawline he’d so often watched jut out with that unparalleled Sparling stubbornness.
Another glance and he caught the determined chin, the tight yet exquisite lips, the fine, straight nose, the subtle hollow below her cheekbone, and those gently arched eyebrows. But even with his gaze directed out to the mounting storm beyond the windshield once more, Mitch could see Molly’s eyes. They had long since been burned into his memory—exquisitely wide, and dark…almost black, like a bird’s, Mitch had often thought.
In the confines of the vehicle, it was impossible not to remember the early days of their relationship: the summer evenings at the drive-in theater, when he’d sneaked the same side glances at her and hoped to sneak a kiss as well. The late-night drives home, and then sitting outside her father’s house with the porch light still blazing. That’s where he’d kissed her the first time, at 1:00 a.m. on May 16, in the front bench seat of his father’s old Plymouth.
It hadn’t mattered that he’d kissed other girls before then; with Molly it had felt like the first. From the moment he’d leaned across the seat, buried his fingers in her thick hair and drawn her mouth
