sternum, a deliberate move to torture her? Her hands gripped the steering wheel as she passed the little turnoff that would, could, loop her around and send her in the opposite direction.
She watched the loop fade in her rearview mirror. And sighed.
Oh, come on. This was not like her. Sarah Whitehouse did not run from problems. Sarah Whitehouse faced them, dealt with them, solved them. No matter what. So…so…she would go home, change out of these hot jeans, run a comb through what there was of her hair, and simply ignore Dean Parrish.
One hand clamped around the steering wheel, the other found its way to her mouth, where she started to chew on a hangnail. Wrecked was the only word to describe how she’d felt after Dean’s abrupt departure, the night before her senior prom. After a while, though, she’d forced the unhappiness into a tiny cubicle in the farthest recesses of her brain, like an unwanted Christmas present you don’t know what to do with but you can’t return, so you stuff it up in the attic, forgotten, until some fool goes up there and unearths the damn thing and then brings it downstairs, setting it on the coffee table like it’s some great find.
Thank you, Jennifer, Sarah thought on a sigh as she pulled into her driveway and caught sight of the unfamiliar pickup parked in front of the house. Thank you so much for reminding me of what I’d worked so hard to forget.
Not that any of this was Jen’s fault. Who knew?
She sat for a long moment, staring out the driver’s side window at what was obviously Dean’s truck. This was no beat-up number on its last legs. Wheels, whatever. The color was understated enough—a dull silver, like her mother’s pewter candlesticks on the living room mantel—but it clearly had enough bells and whistles to make even the fussiest boy happy. Either he’d done very well or he was in hock up to his butt.
A sudden crack of thunder startled her; she peered up at the clouds, which had been playing round-robin with the sun all day, then glanced back at the truck. Then her house.
Not yet. She just couldn’t. She’d…just go check on the new pups first. Yeah. Good plan. She pushed open the door to the Bronco and hopped down.
The door crashed shut behind her; she held her breath. After a few seconds, when no crowd appeared, she let out her breath in a little huff, then headed across her front yard toward the kennels, the wind whistling in her ears.
The idea of seeing Dean again was wreaking more havoc with her gastrointestinal tract by the second. Right now, the last thing she wanted was to be anywhere near Jennifer’s wedding, let alone be in Jennifer’s wedding. An event she’d been looking forward to, despite her grumblings, until about six hours ago. Now, she’d rather eat Aunt Ida’s okra-and-ham-hocks casserole three times a day for the rest of her life—
“Sarah?”
The voice was deeper, the edge harder. But it was his. Still gentle. Still featherbed warm. And ingenuously seductive. And the instant she heard it, she knew she was in seriously deep do-do.
Cursing fate, she turned, her arms tucked tightly against her chest. She couldn’t get a real good look at him; the light was fading quickly as the storm approached, and he stood on the porch at least thirty feet away. One hand, she thought, was braced against a white trellis laden with blueberry-hued morning glories, now tightly closed and flinching in the ruthless wind.
Apparently, however, he could see her just fine. “Good Lord!” he shouted over the wind. “What the hell happened to your hair?”
That these should be the first words out of his mouth, after all this time, came as no surprise. What was startling, though, was that it was as if no time had passed at all. There he stood, like he had hundreds of times before when he’d been waiting for her to get back from school or shopping or whatever.
But it was very different, even so.
Instinctively, almost protectively, her hand cupped her head. “What’s wrong with it?” she called, simultaneously annoyed and pleased at his reaction. “It turn green or something since I last looked in the mirror?”
He shook his head in slow motion. “Not green. Gone.”
“Oh, right.” She shrugged. “It got to be a pain. So I chopped it off.”
Dean now descended the porch steps, one hand anchored on the banister, each step deliberate, careful, as if he knew she was a breath away from bolting. The wind whipped dust and leaves in Sarah’s face, so she still couldn’t clearly see him, even as he came closer. When he’d narrowed the gap to five feet or so, he stopped, blatantly staring at her. The debris finally ceased its assault long enough for her to stare back.
“You’ve changed, too,” she said, crossing her arms again to support her roiling stomach.
He smiled, but it wasn’t real steady, she didn’t think. “Yeah. Guess you’re not the only one with shorter hair.”
He fidgeted with his hands, like a little boy giving a speech in front of his class, then slipped them into the pockets of pleated-front chinos. That was something, right there: a new pair of jeans was about as dressed up as Sarah had ever seen Dean get. The pants were topped by a conservative knit shirt in a remarkably unconservative shade of aqua, stretched across shoulders and a chest that had broadened nicely over the years. Another blast of wind made her squint.
“You…look good.” She had to say something. And it was true.
Dammit.
Another smile, this one perhaps a little more relaxed. “You, too.” Now he added a brief chuckle. “Crew cut and all.”
“It’s not that short—” She clamped her mouth shut, her face tingling from his knowing smile, the gentle teasing she’d forgotten how to handle. She used to encourage it, though. And give it right back.
Why couldn’t she take her eyes off his face?
Which was older, of course. But…more mature, too, which was not the same thing. Age, perhaps, had sharpened features that might’ve seemed severe save for the smile she knew came so easily and often to his lips. Well, used to, anyway. His hair seemed lighter, but she couldn’t tell if the streaks were sun-bleached or premature gray, blended as they were into the moderate style that hooded the tops of his ears, curled over the top of his collar. Age, again—and an overdose of sun from summers of lifeguard duty—had bestowed the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, a faint bracketing around his mouth.
Time and gravity had wrought the physical changes. What had brought about the maturity, she had no way of knowing. But it was there, settled into his eyes. Even their color seemed more intense, like everything else about him, the gold-green she remembered now deepened to the color of damp moss.
She saw wisdom, she thought. Understanding. Maybe a little regret, but that might be wishful thinking. But what she didn’t see—happiness or contentment or even satisfaction—she found threatening in some vague, unexplainable way. Not vague at all, though, was an almost irrepressible urge to skim her fingertips down his cheek. To see if he smelled the same. Felt the same.
Tasted the same.
Her heart now fairly thundered in her chest.
His smile had faded in the wake of her extended silence. He glanced away for a second, then let out a short, nervous laugh. “Damn, this is awkward.”
“You
