“What?”
“Billie told me she’s never met him.You and he want it that way?”
Oh, God forgive her, she didn’t have the strength to say it.Not now.Not today.“It seemed like the best decision at the time.”
“A kid needs a dad.”
“Billie and I are getting by.”
“She deserves more than just getting by.”
“That’s why I brought her home.”
“Home?”His mouth curled into a cruel twist.“I’m surprised you’d still think of Orchard as home.”
“I grew up here.”
“And left.”
And left.It always came back to that.“I’m sorry,” she said, wondering how many times she would speak those exact words.“I never meant to hurt you.And you were right, this morning.I never did think about what my leaving would mean to the bank.You had all those responsibilities.I should have handled the situation differently.”
“Yeah, a note would have been a nice touch.Maybe you could have left it on the church steps, weighed down by your bouquet and the engagement ring.”
However well deserved, his sarcasm hurt.She didn’t flinch, but had a bad feeling her pain showed in her eyes.She looked away.“I meant that I should have told you about my doubts when they first occurred to me.I should have talked to you.I apologize for that.”
“I don’t care enough to be angry or enough to forgive you, so seek your absolution elsewhere, little girl.”
She stood up and planted her hands on her hips.“I am not a child.”
His gaze raked her from the top of her head down to her sandal-clad feet.“You might not look like one, but you’re still acting like one.Saying ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t mean a damn thing to me, Jane.What are you really here for?”
“I’m going to be living next door.We have to—”
“We don’t have to do anything.”
He straightened and glared down at her.Fire burned in his brown eyes—flames born of pain and suffering and a desire to exact revenge.She wanted to run—it had always been her way of facing problems—but the time for running was long past.She’d returned to Orchard because she needed Adam to forgive her, and because her daughter and her daughter’s father deserved to know each other.But to get to that, she and Adam had to lay the past to rest.A high price for a family, she saw now.
“You used to frighten me,” she said, fighting the urge to retreat and holding her ground.“But not anymore.Not your temper or your demands or your—” Her gaze dropped to his mouth, then back to his eyes.“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Is that what this is about?”he asked, taking a step closer to her.
Back up, her mind screamed.Her muscles tensed to respond to the message, but she stiffened and remained in place.“What do you mean?”
“Don’t play games, Jane.”His gaze traveled over her face,then stopped at her mouth.“Years ago you wanted pretend passion.A boy, not a man.Is that why you’ve come home?To see if the woman likes me any better than the girl did?”
“No.I never—”
He reached out and grabbed her arms.Before she could catch her breath, he pulled her up against him.Her breasts flattened against his chest as he clutched her upper arms and trapped her hands between them.
She braced herself for the fury, fully expecting to pay a high price for her defiance.She waited for rage and violence.Instead it was the impact of coming up against her past that caused her to sag against him.
Her sharp intake of air was silenced when his lips touched hers.He kissed her hard, punishing her with the pressure, moving back and forth quickly, without consideration for her pleasure, or even comfort.Before she could protest or even begin to pull away, the kiss softened.Slowly he withdrew, until they barely touched.Familiar, she thought, as his lips brushed hers.Familiar and welcome and wonderful.
The soft contact enticed her.He teased, allowing their lips to join, then withdrawing until only the air whispered against her sensitized mouth.Instead of holding her trapped, his hands began to rub her arms, moving from shoulder to elbow.Against her palm, his heart beat steady, the pace gradually increasing to match the rhythm of her own.
Men had kissed her, she thought as he swept his tongue across her bottom lip, but those memories paled by comparison with the reality of Adam’s touch.He had been her first, her only lover.It had been his kisses that had given rise to young passion.But that girl had grown up, she realized as she opened for him.He no longer frightened her that way.
Despite her parted lips, he continued to trace a wet line around her mouth.First the outside, then the inside, teasing, tempting, but never entering.A low moan escaped her.She shifted back far enough to free her hands, then slid them up his arms, across his shoulders and around him until she could hold him close.Her fingers reached the coffee-colored silk of his hair.Sensibly short strands tickled her fingers.
