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He blew out a breath.
“You didn’t even warn me with a stinking phone call.” Outrage fired in her chest and sizzled in her veins. “You vanished and Jack was dead and your family was shattered and you didn’t care.”
“Of course I cared,” he snapped.
“If you cared, you wouldn’t have left. Now you’re back and you’re what? A hero? The prodigal returned at last? Sorry you didn’t get a parade.”
“I didn’t expect—”
She rolled right over him. “Two years. A few postcards to let your parents know you were alive and that was it. What the hell were you thinking? How could you be so heartless to people who needed you?”
He scrubbed both hands over his face as if he could wipe away the impact of her words, but Lacy wasn’t finished.
Her voice dropping to a heated whisper that was nearly lost beneath the moan of the icy wind outside, she said, “You broke my heart, Sam. You broke me.” She slapped one hand to her chest and glared at him from across the room. “I trusted you. I believed you when you said it was forever. And then you left me.”
Just like her mother had left, Lacy thought, her brain firing off scattershot images, memories that stole her breath and weakened her knees. When she was ten years old, Lacy’s mother had walked away from the mountain, from her husband and daughter, and she had never once looked back. Never once gotten in touch. Not a phone call. Or a letter. Nothing. As if she’d slipped off the edge of the earth.
Lacy had spent the rest of her childhood hoping and waiting for her mom to come home. But she never had, and though he’d stayed, Lacy’s father had slowly, inexorably pulled away, too. Lacy could see now that he hadn’t meant to. But his wife leaving had diminished him to the point where he couldn’t remain the man he had once been. Her family had been shattered.
And when Sam convinced her to trust him, to build a life with him and then left, she’d been shattered again. She wouldn’t allow that to happen a third time. Lacy was stronger now. She’d had to change to survive and there was no going back.
“You know what? That’s it. I’m done. We have to work together, Sam,” she said. “For however long you’re here. But that’s all. Work.”
“Damn it, Lacy...” His features were shadowed, but somehow the green of his eyes seemed to shine in the darkness. After a second or two, he nodded. “Fine. We’ll leave it there. For now.”
She was grateful they had that much settled, at least. Because if he tried to apologize for ripping her heart out of her chest, she might have to hit him with something. Something heavy. Better that they just skate over it all. She’d had her say and it was time to leave her scars alone.
“And what about what just happened?” he asked, and she wondered why his voice had to sound like dark chocolate. “What if you’re pregnant?”
That word sent a shiver that might have been panic—or longing—skating along her spine. “I won’t be.”
“If you are,” he warned, “we’re not done.”
Another flush swept through her, heating up the embers that had just been stoked into an inferno. “We’re already done, Sam. Whatever we had, died two years ago.”
Her whisper resounded in the room and she could only hope he didn’t read the lie behind the words.
Because she knew, that no matter what happened, what was between them would never really die.
* * *
Two days later, Sam was still thinking about that night with Lacy.
Now, standing in the cold wind, staring up at the clear blue sky dotted with massive white clouds, his brain was free to wander. And as always, it went straight to Lacy.
Everything she’d said to him kept replaying through his mind and her image was seared into his memory. He’d never forget how she’d looked, standing there in her robe, eyes glinting with fury, her mouth still full from his kisses. The old Lacy wouldn’t have told him off—she’d have hugged her anger close and just looked...hurt.
What did it say about him that this new Lacy—full of fire and fury—intrigued him even more than the one he used to know?
Being with her again had hit him far harder than he had expected. The feel of her skin, the sound of her sighs, the brush of her lips on his. It was more than sexual, it was...deeper than that. She’d reclaimed that piece of his heart that he had excised so carefully two years before. And now he wasn’t sure what to do about that.
