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Was that a note of accusation in his voice? She cleared her throat. “You had dozens of people to speak to... I decided I was one too many.” She paused, searching for the right words. “I’m sorry, Wynn. So very sorry. Shandy had her whole life ahead of her. It’s desperately unfair.”
His smile was bleak, no humor at all. “Life is rarely fair. I thought you would have learned that by now.”
The edge of sarcasm told her to flee, but her feet wouldn’t move. They were blocks of ice that might never thaw again.
When she shivered hard, Wynn took her elbow. “My God, you’re freezing.” He glanced at her legs, making her gut twist in a strange rush of feeling. “Shandy wouldn’t have wanted you to get hypothermia.”
“I should go,” she said, feeling the pull of his arrogant sexuality after all these years.
“No.” He spoke the single syllable without inflection. “I need to talk to you. We’ll go to my house. That black SUV is mine. It’s unlocked. Get in, and I’ll be there in a moment. I’ll bring you back later to get your car.”
The staccato words rolled over her, creating a haze of incredulity. “Why would I have any reason to do that?” she asked. Now her own voice was snippy and sarcastic.
Wynn’s expression turned icy, his eyes shards of broken sea glass. “You owe me, Fliss. This is important.”
Before she could respond, he walked away, stopping to chat to others who had come to pay their respects.
Wynn Oliver couldn’t make her do anything. All Felicity had to do was get in her car and drive away. A couple of things stopped her. One, she was curious. And two, he was right. She did owe him in a weird sort of way. And she had carried that guilt for fifteen years.
She crossed the hillside toward the narrow, graveled lane where the cars were parked. As he had promised, Wynn’s doors were unlocked. Felicity got in and groaned in relief. Though the temperature inside the car wasn’t much warmer than out, at least she was sheltered from the wind and the rain. She hated pantyhose, but she had worn them today, despite the fact they offered little protection from the elements.
Wynn’s car smelled like him. It made no sense really. The boy Felicity had known certainly hadn’t been able to afford expensive aftershave. Even so, the faint masculine scent held traces of olfactory memories that softened Felicity’s mood. No matter how badly things had ended, at one time she had been Wynn’s adoring lover.
She rubbed her legs, wondering how soon feeling would return. If she had gone straight home, a hot shower and comfy sweats would have blurred the harsh edges of this unpleasant day.
Yet here she was.
Fifteen minutes later, the driver’s door opened, and Wynn slid into his seat. He brought with him the aroma of nearby evergreens and rain. When he shot her a sideways glance, Felicity stiffened.
His jaw worked. “Thank you for coming,” he said gruffly. “I didn’t know you and Shandy were still close.”
“I wouldn’t describe it as close,” Felicity said carefully. “We exchanged Christmas cards. And emails occasionally. I got a birth announcement. She did share her diagnosis with me. I saw her once at the hospital. She was so damn brave, and yet I know she worried about the baby.”
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.”
He put the car in gear and pulled out in a flurry of gravel. From the cemetery, Wynn’s house wasn’t far as the crow flies. But the roads to access it were winding and narrow.
Felicity held on to the door handle as they climbed higher. The lane was rutted from recent heavy rains. They lurched from side to side. Their progress continued. The vehicle was equipped to handle much worse.
After they bounced jarringly into one Grand Canyon–sized pothole, Felicity rubbed the center of her forehead where a headache brewed. “You’re rich,” she muttered. “Why don’t you fix this?”
Wynn jerked the wheel and narrowly missed an even bigger hole. “The road deters unwanted visitors.”
“Ah.”
At last, they reached an iron gate with a code box. Wynn punched in a handful of numbers, waited for the gate to slide back, then pulled onto a paved driveway.
“Thank goodness,” Felicity said. “I think I cracked a tooth back there.”
Wynn chuckled, though the sound was rusty. As if he hadn’t laughed in a very long time. “You always were a smart-ass.”
Felicity winced inwardly. She didn’t like talking about the past. She much preferred concentrating on the here and now.
When Wynn’s house came in sight, she smothered a gasp. It was magnificent. Somehow, a parcel of land had been carved out of the forest. The house sat like a regal monarch—slate roof, copper guttering, enormous rough logs probably reclaimed from a site out west from the look of them.
“It’s gorgeous, Wynn,” she said. And just the thing for an unapologetic recluse. “How on earth do you clean it?”
He shifted the gear into Park. “Why is that always the first place women go?”
