if she’d heard the name, or—which was more likely, since she was practically deaf—sensed something, the dog Annie came padding across the room to thrust her white muzzle under Alex’s hand. After receiving her expected ear fondle and neck hug, the old Lab collapsed with a groan at Alex’s feet and went instantly back to sleep.
That was where they both were some time later when Eve returned from the Rafting Center.
She opened the back door a crack and peeked through it, then, seeing Alex was alone, came to claim the chair at the empty desk next to hers. She slouched into it and spun it around with a noisy creak to face Alex.
“Hey,” she said, with a poorly suppressed grin. “Your visitor take off?”
“Yeah,” Alex said, rousing herself. “So, how’d it go with the Las Colinas kids?”
“Great. Everybody had a ball, as usual.” The grin blossomed. “Bobby got dunked.”
“No way.”
“Oh yeah, way. Twice, actually—he’d just managed to climb back in the boat when he went over again. The kids loved it. Randy got some great footage.”
“Nice.” Alex produced a grin in return, though her heart wasn’t in it.
In the silence that followed, Eve rotated her chair back and forth with that annoying creaking sound, and finally said, “So, the dude with the glasses. You said he’s Matt’s brother? Sure didn’t look like a cop.”
“Cop? Oh, no, no, different brother.” Alex waved a hand dismissively, hoping Eve would take the hint from that and leave it alone. The last thing she felt like doing was explaining Matt Callahan’s family to Eve. The last person she wanted to talk about in any way was Matt Callahan.
He was the last person she wanted to think about, too, and she knew she was going to do that whether she wanted to or not, as well.
“So, what did he want with you? I thought you and that guy were finished.”
Alex scrubbed her burning eyes with the hand she’d used to try to fend off the question. “We were—we are. It’s not—it’s nothing to do with me, actually. He just…had some questions about Matt. About the accident, and…stuff like that.”
“That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Why ask you? Why not just ask his brother?”
“It’s not that simple. He doesn’t really know Matt. He hasn’t seen him since they were little kids. Look, it’s a long story, okay? And I don’t really feel like talking about it right now.”
And instantly she thought, Damn, why did you do that? You know Eve’s going to have her feelings hurt.
And yes, now she was looking like a kicked puppy. Which she really didn’t deserve.
“Sorry,” Alex said gruffly. “Hey, you know me. I just…really don’t want to talk about it. Okay? I’ll tell you all about it later, I promise.”
“Well, you better,” Eve said sternly, then grinned as she levered herself out of the chair. “Hey, the guides are getting together at The Corral to toast Bobby’s double dunking. You coming?”
“I…dunno. I have a killer headache and a bunch of paperwork to do here before I can call it a day. You go on. Maybe I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Okay.” Eve paused at the door to look back at her, head tilted. “Hey, Alex.”
“Yeah?”
“He’s not thinking about coming back, is he? Your ex? I mean, you’re not thinking about taking him back?”
Alex gave a short hard bark of a laugh. “Oh, hell no.”
“Well, good. Because the guy ran out on you, right? I mean, I remember how it was. It was pretty rough around here for a while.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Alex said with a flip of her hand, as if she were swatting at a fly. “Matt Callahan and I are ancient history.”
Eve hesitated, then nodded. She gave the door frame a slap. “Okay. See you later. I’ll save you a cold one.”
For a few minutes after she’d gone, Alex sat without moving. Then, slowly, she swiveled to the desk and reached for the phone. Picked it up. Held it for a long time, then put it back in its cradle without dialing the number she still remembered, even after five years.
Just as she remembered the words they’d spoken to each other then. Words she didn’t want to remember. Words that made her cringe to remember.
“Ah, jeez, Matt. Don’t do this.”
“Do what? It’s not like I’m asking you to run off and get married tomorrow. Just talk about it. Why’s that so hard? We’ve been doing this—whatever it is we’re doing—for five years. Don’t you think it’s about time?”
“Doing what? What’ve we been doing? Seems to me we’ve been fighting for five years! So now you want to get married?”
“Yeah, and what is it we fight about? I’ll tell you what we fight about—we start to get close, and you get scared, so you do something to screw it up.”
“I don’t! That’s bull—”
“Sure you do. Every damn time things start to get really good for us. Just because your mother messed up your head—”
“Don’t you dare blame my mother for this!”
“Why not? She’s managed to convince you every man’s a jerk like your father, leaving her cold when he found out she was pregnant. Well, I’m not your father, okay? I’m not a jerk. We’ve been working together, sleeping together—hell, we’ve been best friends—for five years, you should know that by now. We’ve got a good thing going. Or it could be good, if you’d quit trying to ruin it. It’s no big secret how I feel about you, I tell you often enough. So, now I’m asking you.” He paused to give her a hard, burning look. “Do you love me?”
Do I love you? The question was a white-hot fire burning inside her head. Somewhere inside the fire was the answer she feared even more than she feared losing Matt. The answer she couldn’t bring herself to grab hold of or even look at, as if, like some mythical curse it would sear her eyes blind, or turn her to stone.
“It’s…complicated,” she mumbled, her face stiff with pain.
“I don’t see what’s so complicated about it. You either do, or you don’t.”
She’d turned away, then. But she remembered Matt’s face…tight-lipped, stubborn as only he could be. And his hands…their movements jerky and hurried as he packed his climbing gear.
Cory heard the ruckus before he saw it, as soon as he entered the foyer of the rec center. He was able to follow the sounds of mayhem to their source, the indoor basketball arena, where, from
