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She’d be bustling around in her crowded bookstore, looking trim, taut and fabulous. Hair swept up in a tousled twist. Skillfully understated makeup. Elegant gold earrings. Busy, happy, fulfilled Liv!
“Sean who?” she’d say. Then her eyes would widen, recognition dawning as she looked past the beer paunch, or whatever other defects he’d developed that had rendered him harmless. “Oh! I’m terribly sorry, I just didn’t recognize you!” she’d say, oh so sweetly. “Howareyou?”
This was not the current scenario. Her eyes kept dropping, darting up, trying to reconcile this man with the Sean of her girlhood memories. He’d been dimpled, laughing, gorgeous. A sinuous young panther on the prowl. The embodiment of dangerous male sexuality.
That succulent golden boy had become a grim, inscrutable man.
Faded jeans and a green T-shirt showed off a long, powerful body that seemed thicker, denser than she remembered. His face seemed carved out of something hard. Longish hair blew loose and shaggy around his face in the hot gusts of air. Sun glinted off the bronze ends. A diamond stud flashed bright rainbow fire in his ear.
His eyes were keen, shadowed. No twinkle. No dimple. No flash of white teeth. He looked tempered, and tough. Harmless, her ass.
He looked about as harmless as a long, sharp knife.
She had to tear her eyes away and look at her feet before her lungs would unlock and suck in a shuddering gasp of badly needed air.
Wow. He had a flair for the dramatic entrance. Deliberate or not, it was effective, how he’d framed himself in a fire-blackened brick arch of the turn-of-the-century brewery she’d converted into her bookstore.
Backlit by sun slanting through the arch, wreathed with billows of smoke, he was like a rock idol taking the stage. Accepting the adulation of his screaming fans as his right and due. He smiled at her, and she crossed her arms over tingling breasts. No, not like a rock star.
More like a fallen archangel, guarding the gates of hell.
“What are you doing here?” she blurted. “I thought you’d left. Everyone said—” She stopped, realizing how much her words revealed.
Bleak amusement flashed in his eyes. “My brothers and I keep Dad’s old place up behind the Bluffs for occasional weekends, but we all live in the Seattle area now.” He hesitated. “So don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’m not worried.” Embarrassment sharpened her voice. “So did you just come to gawk? Quite a spectacle, isn’t it?”
He looked around. “Yes, it is.”
“Must be a real satisfaction to you.” She regretted the words instantly. Everything that came out of her put her at a disadvantage.
His eyes flickered. “Not in the least,” he said quietly. “I never wished you anything but the best.”
Her vertebrae stacked, clickity-click. That snotty bastard. After all the horrible things he’d said to her, he dared to get up on his high horse and make her feel in the wrong. “Isn’t that sweet,” she snapped. “I’m so touched, but that doesn’t explain what the hell you’re doing here.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and it took all her willpower not to stare at his ropy, powerful forearms. His long, graceful hands. The bulge of his biceps, distending his T-shirt sleeve. “I heard about the fire,” he said simply. “I wanted to make sure you were OK.”
She swallowed back an unreasonable quivering in her throat.
“This place…” She gestured around with her hand. “This used to be my brand new, fabulous, beautiful bookstore. Did you know that?”
“Yeah,” he said, his face somber. “I did know that.”
“Some reptilian asshole burned it down,” she said. “On purpose.”
He nodded. “That sucks. You’ve got no idea who—?”
“None.” She struggled with the quiver in her throat. “I assume it’s T-Rex, though. The weirdo who’s been sending me the e-mails.”
His eyes sharpened. “Who’s T-Rex? What e-mails?”
“I’ve been getting e-mails for the past few weeks,” she explained wearily. “I call him T-Rex, just to call him something. Declarations of love, comments on what I’m wearing. He’s been watching me. Up close.”
“You told the police about the e-mails?” he asked.
“Of course,” she said. “What could they do? There was nothing particularly threatening in them. Just, you know, slime.”
“Did he leave a note today?” he demanded.
