“There are new people, too,” she added, glancing at him. “And some old. I ran into Pia yesterday, along with your sister.”
Although she was watching carefully, nothing about his expression changed.
He seemed to sense her scrutiny and frowned. “What?”
“I thought you’d have something to say about her.”
“Pia? Why?”
“Because she’s here. Because when I first found out I was pregnant, I came back to tell you only to find you in bed with her.” She held up her hand. “Sorry. That’s not truce material. You’ll tell me that I left and you could see whoever you wanted. That will hurt my feelings, then I’ll yell and we’ll fight and I’m tired of fighting. At least for tonight.”
“You don’t need me here for this conversation, do you?”
“Apparently not.” She sighed. “I do have a question about her, though.”
“Pia?”
She nodded. “In high school, she was really horrible, right? Mean and bitchy and not someone you’d leave a small child with?”
“She wasn’t the nicest person.”
“Good. Then it’s not my imagination. Because she was totally different yesterday. Friendly and nice. It was so unexpected, I felt like I was having an alternate-universe experience. I started to wonder if I was remembering the past wrong or something.”
“You’re not.” He hesitated. “I didn’t sleep with Pia.”
Liz was sorry she’d brought it up. Apparently Pia wasn’t the only one to have bitchy moments. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. We were at a party, I was missing you and lonely and mad. I’d been out with her a couple of times, I took her home, but I was too drunk. Nothing happened.”
All this time later, she found herself wanting to believe him. “Ethan, it was a long time ago.”
“I didn’t sleep with her,” he repeated.
Information that shouldn’t make a difference, but still loosened a knot inside of her.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome.” He picked up his wine. “I know why you left, but I wish you’d stayed to talk to me.”
She shrugged. There was no way that would have happened. “You went back to college and forgot about me.”
“I never forgot.”
There was something about the way he said the words. Something about his dark gaze. She felt herself drawn to him, or maybe she was drawn to their past. Ever since she’d gotten the e-mail from her niece, her life had been crazy and confusing and she hadn’t had a chance to catch her breath.
“You swore you’d never stay here,” she remembered, to distract them both. “After college, you were going to see the world.”
“It didn’t work out that way.”
“The injury?”
He stared at her. “You know about that?”
Ethan had entered college on an athletic scholarship. He and Josh had always planned to take the racing world by storm. They would compete together, sharing the victories. They’d planned back-to-back Tour de France wins, arguing about who would be victorious that first year.
In college Ethan had been hurt enough that he never had the chance to race competitively.
“I wasn’t reading the paper searching for your name, if that’s what you’re asking,” she corrected. “But I heard what happened. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “That was a long time ago. I finished college and came home to sulk.” One corner of his mouth turned up. “Not that I would have admitted it at the time. Then my dad died unexpectedly. My mom fell apart. Everyone looked to me and I had to make it right.”
Which sounded like him. Even in high school he’d been a steady kind of guy. Not that rejecting her had made him hero material.
She told herself to let that go, at least for now. Tonight was about getting to know each other again so they could be friends and deal with Tyler.
“You took over the business?” she asked.
He nodded. “Learned it from the bottom up. Took me a while to figure out I liked building things. Then I started with the windmills.”
“And the rest is history?”
“Something like that.”
“You could have walked away,” she said. “But the thought didn’t cross your mind, did it?”
“No. You know me-it’s all about family. The Hendrixes’ place in our town’s history.” His tone was filled with both humor and pride.
He’d been like that before, she remembered. Proud of his heritage and amused by it at the same time. Back in school, he’d claimed he was different from his father, but he was wrong. When push came to shove, he worried more about the family reputation than doing the right thing.
She probably should have resented him for that, but she couldn’t. It was who he was. It was like resenting feathers on a bird-a waste of time. He was who he had always been-a basically good guy with a few faults.
Their eyes met. Something crackled between them. Awareness, she thought, feeling a sense of yearning she hadn’t felt for years. A wanting that was based on both what she knew had been possible once, and a sense of loss. She’d carried emptiness around for so long now. A dark hole where her love for Ethan had once lived.
There had been other men who had tried to claim her heart, or at least her body and her attention. Occasionally she’d had relationships. With Ryan, she’d done her best to convince herself she was in love-but she’d been wrong. There had only ever been Ethan.
He’d been the one who had made her believe, both in herself and in possibilities. With him, she’d been able to imagine a place that wasn’t Fool’s Gold. They’d talked about going away together, about a future. He’d told her that he wanted to marry her.
She felt a sudden unsteadiness, even though she was sitting. As if past and present had somehow become entwined. She knew that wasn’t possible, that she and Ethan were incredibly different people. That any feelings she had were the result of the wine and the stress and maybe how good he looked sitting across from her.
He swore under his breath. “Don’t,” he breathed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
Instead of answering, he rose and circled the bar. She came to her feet without being prompted. They were standing so close, she could feel the heat of him.
They stared at each other, a sense of the inevitable growing. Of being unable to escape, and knowing she didn’t want to. Then his hands were cupping her face, drawing her to him. She went willingly, pressing herself against him even as his mouth claimed hers.
The kiss was hot, insistent, erotic. His mouth was firm and tender, better than she remembered and she had thought she’d remembered it all. Her arms went around him as she held on.
They pressed together, hard to soft, male to female. He was thicker, broader. A man now. A man who pulled her close and tempted her with a kiss that tore at her soul.
Their tongues tangled in rediscovered erotic yearning. He tasted of the wine and of himself-flavors that were impossible to resist. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss, leaned into him, wishing she could crawl inside. He dropped his hands to her hips, his fingertips lightly touching the curve of her butt. Without thinking, she pushed her hips toward him in an age-old invitation. Her belly came in contact with something hard and thick and dangerous.
Sexual need exploded. It crashed into her with no warning and left her breathless and hungry. Desire poured through her, liquid heat that stole her strength, her will and her common sense. Knowing he wanted her, knowing what he would feel like inside of her, was too much.
Maybe it was the past she couldn’t seem to escape, or everything that had happened in the last couple days. The emotional ups and downs that left her unable to think things through. All she knew was that she wanted Ethan
