took out a key and went to the back room, where she’d locked her confidential work files. She found them, carried the folders into the kitchen and spread the information out on the counter.
Then she picked up the phone and dialed.
“Okay, I’m home,” she said when the line was answered. “And I’ve got the information you need. Are you ready?”
Chapter Fourteen
Evan knew he shouldn’t go back to Meredith’s house.
He knew, even as he turned the car onto Lake Shore Drive and headed across town, that it was a mistake.
What they had was in the past and, considering the fact that they couldn’t even talk about it at all without arguing, it was going to have to stay there.
But he was drawn to her. Not as the boy was drawn to the spunky cheerleader, but as the man was drawn to the woman. She was the realization of everything he’d ever wanted in a woman and hadn’t been able to find.
The only problem was that they had a past.
And that was precisely why it was so foolish of him to be retracing his steps down that path right now, parking outside the house she’d lived in with her parents, walking up the same walk, over the same cracks that had been there for years, going to the same door that would open to reveal the girl of his dreams.
Somehow he had to convince her of that.
He wasn’t quite at the door yet when he caught sight of her through the window. She was sitting on a bar stool in the kitchen, the phone to her ear, poring over what looked like maps spread out on the counter.
Evan stepped back and watched her for a moment. He remembered the way she’d pushed that chestnut-colored hair back off her face, and the way the front of her hair bent from being constantly pushed back or tucked behind her ear.
He smiled when she laughed into the phone and tossed her head back.
She was so pretty.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, or what he hoped to achieve. Maybe to talk himself out of going to the front door. But the more he watched her, the closer he wanted to get to her.
She ran a pen down the paper and spoke into the phone, looking very serious. At one point she stopped, frowned and looked through another pile before triumphantly producing whatever it was she was looking for.
He’d seen her like this in the library of Showell High School and in the offices of Hanson Media Group. Meredith was a woman who took great pleasure in a job well done, whether the job was a term paper, a report or finding a telephone number someone had asked for.
He found that brand of concentration particularly endearing on her.
When she hung up the phone and started to collect her papers, he didn’t even take the time to think things through. He just strode to the door and knocked.
For several moments he stood there, wondering if she’d heard and if he should still turn and leave as if he’d never been there.
He’d almost convinced himself to do just that when she opened the door.
“Evan!”
A thousand things ran through his mind. A million explanations, a billion apologies. But it all boiled down to one salient point.
“I was a fool.”
She looked puzzled. “What?”
He stepped toward her, and she opened the door and stepped back, allowing him in. “I had no idea what I was giving up when I left here.”
“Evan, have you been drinking?”
He laughed. “Not a drop. In fact, I’m more sober than I’ve been in years.”
She closed the door and stood her ground, even when he took another step toward her.
He looked down into her beautiful face and wished he could erase every stress line he or his family had put there. But then again, he liked the gentle lines on her face. He liked the new maturity there. He liked everything about the way she looked.
“I didn’t know how to betray my father, and the only way I could think of to avoid betraying you was to leave. To remove myself from the equation altogether. I thought you’d be better off. And I honestly thought—” he sighed “—I thought you’d forget all about me in no time and that it wouldn’t matter.”
She swallowed. “I never forgot.”
He shook his head. “Neither did I. And that was the worst error in judgment I made. Because I also thought that someday I’d forget, too. Everything everyone says about young love—that it’s fleeting, that you remember it later with a smile and a little embarrassment but no heartache, that it never lasts. All of that was untrue.”
Her eyes were shining with unshed tears. “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”
“I know, but not talking about it isn’t working, either.”
“I know.” She sniffed.
“Look, you can tell me to go to hell.” He gave a dry laugh and shook his head. “I wouldn’t blame you one bit for that. But I at least want you to understand that, whatever my stupid and misguided reasons for leaving, I never ever stopped loving you.”
He heard her breath catch in her throat. “Then why did you stay away? Why, when you realized how you felt, didn’t you come back? Or contact me somehow?”
“Because all I knew was how I felt and that I’d let you down. I couldn’t imagine that you would be willing to talk to me.”
She shook her head.
“And honestly, Meredith,” he went on, “I could imagine, all too easily, that you’d moved on and forgotten us.”
“You didn’t have much faith in me.”
“No,” he said firmly. “I didn’t have much faith in me. And, hell, I didn’t deserve it.”
They stood looking at each other in silence for a long, shuddering moment.
“No,” she said at last. “You didn’t.”
He accepted that.
He had to.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “I just wanted you to know the truth.” He started to leave.
“Why?” she asked behind him.
He stopped and turned back to face her. “What?”
“Why did you want me to know the truth? Why now, after all this time? In fact, why now after the nonconversation we had about this earlier tonight?”
“Because even though we’d like to be mature people
