jet-propelled trip back in time.
He’d been the town’s bad boy, the kind of young man mothers warned their daughters about while secretly harboring fantasies of their own involving the darkly handsome, street-smart kid from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. Quick-witted, handsome, cocky—all these were traits Reed McKenna possessed in abundance, traits that combined to give him that hypnotic magnetism that women couldn’t resist and men couldn’t help but admire.
Seeing him now, dressed in softly faded jeans and a white polo shirt and looking twice as handsome and even sexier, Tess couldn’t help remembering the way he’d stirred her passions. Seeing his faint blue-black beard shadow enhancing his rugged maleness, and his dark brown eyes as intensely seductive and compelling as ever, Tess felt the old familiar attraction drawing her to him again.
Get hold of yourself. You’re a grown woman, not some lovesick teenager! But even as that inner voice scolded, the years melted away and the sweat rose on her palms. Damn you, Reed McKenna! Damn your lean body and your thick, black hair and the wicked brown eyes that always seemed to be looking right into my very soul. And damn that smile of his that curled his perfect lips and drove dimples into his lean, tanned checks.
He turned and sent his smoky gaze sliding leisurely up and down the length of her. “Surprised to see me?” Another smile, and appealing lines winged out from the corners of his eyes.
“Surprised? Believe me, surprised doesn’t even come close. What are you doing here?” she asked him again.
“So that’s all you can say? Not even ‘how’s it going, Reed?’ or ‘Gee, but it’s damn good to see you after all this time’?”
It wasn’t damn good to see him, it was damn disturbing and damn perplexing, exasperating, wonderful and a host of other jumbled and conflicting emotions, all of which Tess despised.
She ran a hand carelessly through her hair, scrambling to collect her wits and raise her guard. “I see you haven’t changed. Still playing word games, still incapable of giving a straight answer.”
His look was one of practiced innocence that she recognized and responded to, despite herself. “Well, you know what they say about teaching old dogs new tricks,” he drawled.
She would not be drawn in, she promised herself, by the patented McKenna charm. “The last I heard you were some kind of federal cop in D.C.,” she said to change the subject.
His thick lashes dipped lazily. “And the last I heard you were back home running some kind of specialty bookstore.”
“Mysteries, Ltd.,” she informed him tersely, realizing too late that he’d deftly avoided answering her question by shifting the focus back on her. Just like the old Reed, she told herself, always a jump ahead of everyone. Always setting the rules.
“Mysteries, huh? Well, what do you know,” his voice held a note of mild indifference as his gaze swept the room before he sauntered toward the bathroom, opened the door and glanced in.
Tess was flabbergasted by his actions and inflamed by his arrogance. “Excuse me, but just what the hell are you doing?” she demanded, coming up behind him with her hands on her hips. He was giving the bathroom such intense scrutiny that she figured if the shower curtain had been drawn he’d have pushed it open to search the tub as well.
He turned away from the bathroom and glanced at the two queen-size beds separated by a standard hotel nightstand. “Nice room.”
“You said that before.”
His gaze wandered back to her and a bemused grin tugged at his mouth, making her feel suddenly exposed in the sundress that had seemed perfectly appropriate until now. “You always were the direct one, weren’t you, Tessa?”
She started at the sound of the pet name no one had called her in almost ten years. “You’re still impossible.”
“And you’re still angry.”
“Angry?” she muttered, detesting the way his mere presence had toppled her emotional equilibrium. “Now, what would give you that impression, McKenna? Let’s see—” Desperate for distance, she turned her back to him and stalked to the other side of the room. “Someone I haven’t laid eyes on in, what? Almost five years—” When she turned around to face him again, he had dropped down into the wicker chair that sat beside the sliding glass doors.
“Four and a half years, at the airport in Denver,” he supplied. “You were on your way to see a sick relative.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed that you remembered?”
He shrugged, but his expression told her he knew she was secretly pleased. Inside she seethed, hating him for knowing her so well and despising the fact that he could still read her emotions so effortlessly.
“Where was I?” she said. “Ah, yes, we were trying to figure out why I should be angry with you for waltzing in without an iota of an explanation. And let’s not forget the part about the wedding you conveniently forgot to attend. When was that, Reed, since you’re the one who’s so good at remembering?”
His smile had disappeared and his mouth was set in a tight line as he studied her.
“I see you can’t remember. Well, let me refresh your memory. It was eight years ago, Reed. June 15th to be exact. Three days before—” Her voice broke and she lowered her eyes to avoid looking at the face that would, if she stared at it long enough, eventually undo her.
He stood and stared out at the beach. “I was sorry to hear about your parents, Tess.”
“I lost my sister, as well,” she reminded him pointedly. Although she was dry-eyed, her heart ached.
“I know,” he said quietly. “And I’m sorry. Meredith was a good kid.”
Tess felt her heart harden at the sound of her sister’s name coming from his lips. How dare he? And how foolish was she to stand here jousting with the man who’d single-handedly destroyed her girlhood innocence and shattered her dreams?
Crossing the room purposefully, she jerked open the door and stood with one hand planted on each hip. “Angry? No, Reed, I’m not angry. But I am a lot wiser than that fawning nineteen-year-old you left standing at he altar.” Her diatribe left her breathless and the flood of heat that rose to her cheeks left her feeling weak. “I don’t know why you’re here, Reed, but I’m vacationing, and I know I’ll enjoy myself a whole lot more if I just throw you out and pretend this little meeting never occurred. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she finished with a flourish, “I’d appreciate it if you got the hell out of my room and stayed the hell out of the rest of my life!”
He stood staring at her for a long tense moment before he started toward the door. Tess held her breath, hardly daring to believe that he’d actually leave without a fight. The old Reed would never have backed down so easily.
And neither would the new Reed, it seemed, for when he was directly in front of her, he surprised her by taking her hand and pulling her out of the doorway, before pushing the door closed and leaning against it with his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“Where’s Selena?” he asked, all pretense of word games abruptly ended.
“Selena?” Tess asked, unable to conceal her
