have you gotten yourself into now?”
If anything was capable of reminding her of the mess she was currently in, that was. She glanced down at the dark stain on the bright white of her dress. Trust Mitch to immediately identify it correctly. Back in Jersey she’d gotten away with telling a gas station attendant she’d spilled chocolate syrup on herself.
She looked back at Mitch, whose gaze was riveted to her breasts.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No…no, I’m fine,” she said, feeling the ridiculous urge to laugh again. Now her ex-groom, on the other hand…. “Don’t, um, worry, it’s not mine. I’m as fit as the day I last saw you.”
Mitch reached up and tugged almost violently on his tie, drawing her gaze to the base of his neck. All at once, her mind filled with the image of the two of them standing in the front room of Gran’s house, him in his new suit, her standing in her bare feet staring at him proudly. It had been his first official day as an agent of the FBI. “Why, Mitch McCoy, you clean up real nice.” She’d laid on her best southern drawl, forgetting how torn she was between wanting him to succeed in what he’d chosen to do, and needing him to be there for her.
How long had it taken her to break him of the habit of fussing with his tie? Two months? Three? How many times had she smoothed his collar, only to be sidetracked by the clean-smelling expanse of his skin there, just under his jaw?
She dragged her gaze up to his, watching her guardedly. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Somehow I knew you’d still be in Manchester,” she said, her voice a little too breathless, a little too revealing. She reached for the crowbar and continued jacking up the car. “Small-town boy Mitch McCoy, who’ll die in the same spot he was born.”
She slid a glance over her shoulder, relieved to find him grimacing at the jibe. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She shrugged.
Oh, yeah, she’d known odds were she’d run into Mitch when she came back to Manchester. And she’d even admit to feeling a tingle of excitement at the prospect of coming face-to-face with him. The only problem was, she hadn’t counted on running into him the instant she rolled over the county line. Hadn’t expected to be reminded of how much she had missed him.
That was just one of those things about life: when it rained, it bloody well stormed.
She cleared her throat. “How’s, um, your father?” she asked, acutely aware that he was watching her backside.
He jostled her out of the way then knelt in front of the tire. “Fine. He’s fine.”
“And your brothers?”
“They’re fine, too.” He sat back on his heels. “Look, Liz, I’m really not in the mood for a game of catch-up. It’s been a really long day. I’d like nothing more than to get you on your way, then go home and crawl into bed.” She watched him stiffen, then close his eyes and mutter a curse. He finished hoisting the car up and methodically removed the lug nuts from the flat. Her mind turned over all the possible reasons for his reaction, then she homed in on the most likely: the mention of bed and her in the same sentence.
The warmth that had spread through her veins earlier edged up a degree or two. She rode out a delicious shiver, and tried to remind herself of the long list of reasons she had not to play with the fire flickering in front of her in the shape of Mitch McCoy. First and foremost, the fact that she had been minutes away from marrying another man, oh, not twelve hours ago.
Still, not even that impetus was enough to stop her from wanting Mitch in much the same way she’d always wanted him, despite the number of years that separated then from now.
He glanced at her over a broad shoulder. “So what brings you back to Manchester, Liz? Last I heard, you were in Chicago.”
She smiled. He might not want to play catch-up when it came to himself, but it appeared she was a whole different matter. “So you kept tabs on me. I’m impressed.” She watched his frown deepen. “I do have to say I’m a little disappointed, though. I left Chicago a few years back.”
“Let me guess. You left for Massachusetts.”
“Um, actually no,” she said quietly. “There were a couple of cities in between.” She felt inexplicably uncomfortable. “But they don’t matter. Not now.”
The crowbar slipped from a lug nut and he nearly pierced the flat tire with the pointed end.
“What is it with the dress, Liz? Is your groom stashed in the trunk, or is this style one you’ve taken a liking to?”
She inwardly winced at the below-the-belt jab. “I don’t know, Mitch. Did you see anyone in the trunk when you got the tire out?”
“Damn. Stepped right into that one, didn’t I?” He continued working on the flat tire. “You never answered my question.”
She stared at him blankly.
“What are you doing back in Manchester?”
Now that was a question. What was she doing back in Manchester? It was something she’d been asking herself ever since she realized a few hours ago that was where she was heading.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I was feeling a little nostalgic for the past, maybe?” She turned away from where he watched her a little too closely and drew in a deep breath of the damp, summer night air. “I’ll be on my way as soon as some things settle down in Boston.”
She hadn’t realized he’d moved until he stood right next to her. “These things that need to settle down—they don’t have anything to do with the blood on your dress, do they?”
She glanced at Mitch’s profile in the darkness. For just an instant, she remembered that her favorite pastime had once been staring at him. Tracing the outline of his nose with her finger…running her tongue along the fine ridge of his jaw….
She cleared her throat. “No. Well, not exactly anyway.” She wiped at a smudge on her long skirt then turned her best smile on him. “This stain really has you worked up, doesn’t it?”
He rubbed his long, slender fingers against his chin, making her fingers ache to do the same. “Yeah, well, you always did have this way of getting under my skin.”
“Yeah. Ditto,” she said, eyeing his mouth. His wide, generous mouth she had once kissed for hours at a stretch. Dipping her tongue in and out of its hot wetness. Sucking on his bottom lip then catching it between her teeth. “Guess some things never change, no matter how much you want them to.”
“Yeah.”
Her gaze slammed into his. What seemed like an eternity of unanswered questions and unacknowledged truths seemed to pass between them. Then Mitch drew away and moved stiffly back to the car, a line of quiet oaths filling his wake.
Liz straightened the strap of her dress and sighed. Truth be told, she didn’t know what she was doing back in Manchester. One minute she was punching Richard in the nose at the Beschloss estate, the next she was on her way to Virginia with no clothes, no resources, and every reason to think she wouldn’t have access to either for awhile. At least not until Rich regained
