Erin drew up sharply as Zander’s hand closed around hers. She lifted her chin, meeting his gaze as he smiled down at her from what seemed like a great height. “You ready to do this?” he asked, as if he wasn’t simply walking her across a lawn, but running through enemy territory.
“I’m good,” she said, appreciating the illusion for what it was. Look, see? The two ex-friends making up, look at how happy they are, happy and normal and not just about to leave each other again forever, whatever, it’s over, who cares. She smiled more fiercely. “Do I look okay?”
“You look great.” The words were automatic, but they bolstered Erin anyway, because she realized that she probably looked the same as she always did in Zander’s eyes. He’d had no idea how much she’d labored over her makeup back when they were dating, piling it all on only to wipe the vast majority of it right off again, so she didn’t look like some sort of clown. He’d never once told her she needed to do anything different with herself. He took her however she showed up. And today—well, today she barely had any makeup on at all. Mascara and funerals didn’t mix in the best of cases. Mascara, funerals, and coming face-to-face with the ex-boyfriend you’d screwed over four years ago was a recipe for cosmetics disaster.
But still. Even Zander would notice if she had runny black lines streaking her face. And he’d tell her, too.
They made their exit, smiling, chatting, steadily walking through the crowd of mildly curious onlookers, and Erin managed to get out of the house and down the long sidewalk, approaching her car before she realized how…awkward this all was. She had basically told Zander that she wasn’t interested in his help. That he’d done all he needed to do, that she’d gotten the information she’d wanted. But what was that information, actually? She couldn’t remember much beyond Zander’s stormy gray eyes, his locked-up jaw, his beautiful mouth tightening into a frown—
“Erin?” She heard the voice as if from far away, and she blinked up at him, confused as he gestured to the row of vehicles lining his street. “Car,” he said, when she didn’t immediately respond. “Which one is yours?”
“Oh! Oh. Sorry. It’s the blue Beetle, right at the end of the…” Fumbling, she reached for her purse. And her fingers brushed empty space. Her purse wasn’t there.
“A Beetle?” Zander asked, scandal clear in his voice. “All the cars in the world you could buy, and you bought a VW Beetle?”
Her purse was in her car. Of course it was in her car.
Erin sighed and started walking. “It gets great gas mileage and I can park anywhere,” she said. And yup, sure enough, she spied the tiny clutch purse exactly where she’d flung it, on her front passenger seat.
“This it?” Zander asked from behind her, and she turned around to him resolutely, all bright eyes and happy smile.
“Yup! Thank you so much for talking with me,” she said. “I really appreciate you—”
“Where’re your keys?” Zander, ever one to cut to the chase, narrowed his gaze on her.
Erin smiled more determinedly. “In my car,” she said. “In my purse right there.” Surrendering to her better sense, she caved. “I don’t suppose you’d mind lending me your cellphone to call Triple A? I have a membership.”
“Of course you do,” Zander said. He leaned down to peer through the glass, then ran his fingers along the edge of the window. He glanced back at her, shaking his head. “You don’t need Triple A.” He reached into the pocket of his khakis and pulled out something that could have belonged to Inspector Gadget. Then he unfolded it. And unfolded it again.
“What’s that?” Erin asked, letting the doubt leak into her voice. “I don’t really see how this helps—wait, what are you doing?”
“Relax. Consider it a souped-up butter knife.” Zander peeled back the lip of the rubber edge of the Beetle’s window, then slipped the flat of a very long, thin blade into the narrow space. His entire body tensed as he concentrated on the task at hand, and Erin allowed herself just to gaze at him, unconcerned with what he thought. He wasn’t paying attention to her, after all. He was focused on the car, on the lock he had no chance of picking, on the—
Chink.
Zander straightened, grinning, and popped open Erin’s car door.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Erin scowled first at him, then at her door. “Anyone could have opened that!”
“Well, not just anyone,” Zander said, but his smile didn’t lessen any.
“This is what they taught you in the army?” She couldn’t help it, she sounded like a kindergarten teacher.
He shrugged. “This, I already knew. The army only perfected it.”
“Well, I mean, thank you, of course.” Erin felt ill at ease all over again, with Zander looming so close. “I mean, I really appreciate it and I also appreciate you talking to me and—what?” She frowned up at him. He’d said something, but she’d talked right over his words. “I’m sorry, what?”
Zander shook his head. “I said, give me ’til tomorrow night. I can come over with the intel—the information you need. I’ll have maps, hotel information, rental agencies…” He skewered her with a look. “I don’t suppose you have any of that, right?”
“I was going to get it,” Erin said defensively.
“Well, now you don’t have to,” he said. “I’ve got to do something tomorrow. Might as well be this.”
“Zander, I…” She paused, her mind full of too many things to say and no way to say them. No way to thank him again without running the risk of falling apart. No way to tell him how sorry she was without sounding like a broken record, a useless broken record that he’d put on the shelf years ago.
The pause went on a little too long. Zander’s mood shifted, his tone turning just a touch harder. “Erin, you got something else I should know about? Something you’re not telling me, for whatever stupid reason you’ve created in your head?”
“What? No!” Just like that, anger zipped through her. “You know, forget about it. Don’t bother coming over tomorrow. I’ll ask someone else for help.”
“Someone else.” The skepticism in Zander’s voice was palpable, which just served to irritate her further. “Someone else like who?”
“Someone else like…like my boyfriend,” Erin snapped, instantly warming to the idea. After all, the fake boyfriend story had worked for her housemate Anna, why couldn’t it work for her? It wasn’t like she was some sort of troll. She could have a boyfriend. She should have a boyfriend. And as far as Zander needed to know, she did have a boyfriend. And he was awesome. “He’s not a trained soldier or anything, so I didn’t want to make him worry. But suddenly it seems like a much better idea than bothering you. So forget I asked.”
“A boyfriend.” To her surprise, Zander didn’t snap back at her. He barely missed a beat, in fact, smiling down at her as his eyebrows drifted up. “Your boyfriend know you came all the way out here today?”
Erin stiffened. “Of course he did. Why wouldn’t I tell him?”
“No reason at all.” Somehow, he’d shifted closer. How had he been able to get closer? They were just standing beside the open door of her VW, where she was inches away from freedom, but now all of the air seemed to have been sucked out from between them, with nothing left but memories, memories too sharp in Erin’s mind to ignore. Zander’s lean, lanky body against hers, his fingers in her hair, skimming her skin, tracing every minute curve and dip of her breasts, her waist, her hips, her legs, her—
“But I’m still going to get you that information, Erin,” Zander said, his voice now low, almost hypnotic. “So you still don’t need to worry your boyfriend about it. Besides,” he said, when Erin made to protest, “how would he feel about that, knowing you went and looked me up, when all the time he was just sitting there, completely out of the loop on something that clearly has you all jacked up. You think that would go over well?”
She blinked at him, anxiety streaking through her, which made no sense, since it was anxiety about a completely nonexistent boyfriend. And there was Zander, as smug and self-assured as he always was, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking even before she knew it herself. “Fine!” she said. “Fine. I do need the information, so thank you in advance. I’ll see you, um, tomorrow, then. I’ll make dinner or something.” As soon as she said the words, she wanted to call them back. “I mean—”
“Dinner sounds good,” Zander said, cutting her off, his grin going a little broader. “I’m always up for food. Your boyfriend going to be there, too?”
“What? Oh. No, of course not.” Erin felt her cheeks flush, and prayed Zander couldn’t tell in the bright sunshine. “I mean…he has to work late tomorrow. At the office.” There, that sounded good. Not only a boyfriend, but a boyfriend who worked in an office, and who worked late. A very conscientious boyfriend, then. Someone looking to get ahead. Probably someone who didn’t make her heart pound in frantic confusion so intense it bordered on fear, even when they weren’t doing anything but standing next to each other. Someone who didn’t make her breath uneven and set her hands trembling, just by the fact that he was so big, so close, so real that every one of her nerve endings was sitting up and taking notice. A nice boyfriend. A safe boyfriend.
She was really beginning to see the allure of this whole fake-boyfriend thing, and gave Zander one last smile. “So I’ll see you tomorrow…wait. What are you doing?” Zander had placed one hand on the roof of her car, the other on her door. He was leaning down toward her, and there was nowhere for Erin to go. He was warm and vital and his gaze was searing hot, and Erin found herself staring at his mouth, a mouth she suddenly wanted so badly that her own lips parted, her breath ragged in her throat.
“Don’t you think we should get this thing between us out of our systems, then, Erin?” Zander murmured. “Before it becomes something you do need to explain to your boyfriend?”
“This…thing?” she asked, and honest to God, she meant to raise her hand and place it on his chest to push him back, to stop him, only when her fingers connected with the solidity of Zander’s abs through the thin cotton shirt, her eyes almost crossed. “We don’t even like each other anymore,” she said faintly.
His words were so quiet she barely registered them. “Who said we needed to like each other? It’s just a kiss.”
For some reason, that made infinite sense. Without saying another word, Erin stood on her tiptoes and it still wasn’t enough. Zander met her more than halfway, though, not reaching down, not forcing it, just leaning in close enough for her to feel his breath against her face. Then his lips came down on hers.
The heat that blasted through Zander was so intense that he was glad for the grip he had on the bright-blue roller skate Erin called a car. He’d known this was coming the moment she’d put her hand in his and allowed him to drag her across the yard and out into the street where they could actually be alone, without the covert stares of everyone with an ounce of James blood in their veins. Some of the stares had been amused, some of them had been worried, some of them just curious. But none of them mattered now.
The taste of Erin’s mouth made his pulse go apeshit as every muscle in his body clenched. She’d intended the kiss as a quick good-bye, he knew. She’d been a master of the quick exit four years ago, quivering with anger and outrage and shock. But this time, Erin was shaking in an entirely different way. This time her breathing was as ragged with need as his was. And this time Erin did make a sound, and it cut right to the core of him, her fingers gripping his shirt as she gave a low, almost desperate moan.
Boyfriend, his lily-white ass.
Zander let go of the car and reached for Erin, hauling her up against him. She would have squeaked if she could draw breath, but the wide skirt of her dress didn’t prevent her legs from parting, her body from arching. Because he didn’t have a death wish, Zander lifted her over the part of his body that was so hard and ready to go that he’d probably explode if the breeze shifted, and instead pulled her against his chest, her breasts soft and round and perfect against him, her fingers suddenly in his hair, her mouth open and giving as much as she took, even—God—even shuddering hard when he pressed his tongue inside and claimed that much more of her.
They both seemed to realize at the same time the insanity of what they were doing in broad daylight on a public street. They jerked apart, Zander letting Erin slide down the length of his body before he could stop himself. She gasped and the relevant part of his anatomy twitched in urgent response.
“Wow, sorry,” Zander said, though he wasn’t at all, not really. Not when Erin looked so dazed, so hot. So hot for him. He liked that more than he would have thought possible. “Are you—”
“No, it’s okay!” she said quickly, her words little more than a squeak. “It’s been a long day, you’re exhausted, you didn’t expect…we didn’t expect…it’s fine.” She nodded again, more firmly this time. “As you said, we had to get that out of our systems.”
“We sure did,” Zander drawled, shifting to give her space as Erin ran her hands compulsively down her dress, through her hair, managing to make herself look even more disheveled. She didn’t hear the sarcasm in his words, so he cut her a break. Sort of. “I should get back,” he said, now stepping away from the car. Erin impulsively reached out before catching herself, then clasped both of her hands together.
“Yes, of course. I’ve already taken so much of your time today.” Her words were too fast, too wobbly, as if she felt that if she just stuffed enough syllables into the empty air between them, that space could never be crossed again. “Thank you, Zander. I really appreciate it.”
“No problem.” He smiled, studying her as he drank in every reaction, every sigh and tremor. “And there’ll be more tomorrow. What time should I come over?”
“Tomorrow?” Erin blinked, a new blush rising up her pale cheeks. “Oh, right. There isn’t any need for that, Zander, seriously. You could just as easily call, or email or—”
“No.” Zander shook his head. “I’m coming over with the information you need. We’ll eat, we’ll talk. Trust me, Erin. You’re going to want what I have to give you.”
He watched as Erin digested that, noting when she recovered, squared her shoulders, and gave him a wide, everything’s-just-fine-here smile. A little late for that, sweetheart. “Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll be home by six?”
“Six works great.” He stepped back then, finally, giving her enough space to get into her car. It only took her two tries to get the keys in the ignition, and damned if he didn’t like that, too. She gave a little wave and was gone, and he double-checked his own reactions. The tug on his heart was definitely still there, but it was different now. It didn’t piss him off as much as jack him up. And his body’s reaction was definitely loud and clear.
Shit, this was a lot more complicated than he expected it would be. That kiss—it was like a drop of water on a hot stove. He wanted more. He needed more. And if driving over to Erin’s house would get it for him, he was on board with that. Setting aside the fact that he wouldn’t just be there to talk her out of her clothes. He needed to talk her out of going anywhere or doing anything that involved her parents. No how, no way. There were trained experts who could handle that sort of shit far better than some wide-eyed girl with a suitcase full of money and no real understanding of danger. What had her parents been thinking, calling her?
Her parents. What the hell? The first time he’d asked about them, she’d told him they were some sort of college professors, so dedicated to their jobs that they dropped her off at her grandmother’s every summer, and that’s why she’d spent the season out on the cape. And then, when he’d kept it up, she’d told him she only had her grandmother, that her parents had died. Died, for God’s sake. She’d made them sound like monks mixed with mental giants, devoting everything to the pursuit of their academic goals right up until they’d crashed their car on one of their trips. He’d bought it, too, hook, line, and sinker. What kind of idiot did that make him?
“Wondered if you’d actually make it back here.”
He’d somehow meandered his way to the front porch, where his sister was holding her little girl. Lexi looked at him with huge, tearstained eyes, as if he was the reason for all the troubles in the world. Women. “What happened to her?” he asked.
Karen shrugged. “She learned for the first time that boys don’t play fair.” She regarded him over the girl’s white-blonde hair. “So what was up with you and Erin, anyway? Mom swears she had no idea why you two broke up, that Erin just went poof after that whole mess with the cops. Dad refused to talk about it, and you were gone, and then nobody ever wanted to bring it up again. She said she didn’t even realize Erin was still on her email list until she spotted her at the funeral.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that.” Zander slung himself down onto the steps, more willing to face his sister’s company than to go back in to all of those people. He felt the little girl’s eyes on him as he did so, but at least the kid didn’t start crying again. “Mom handled it well, though.”
“That’s what Mom does.” Karen watched him for another thirty seconds, but when Zander didn’t speak, she groaned. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re not going to tell me what happened between you two?”
“Dude, that was four years ago. Water way the hell under the bridge.”
“I saw the way she looked at you. That water is nowhere even close to reaching the bridge yet. It doesn’t even know there’s a bridge coming up.”
“Yeah, well.” Zander shook his head. “What about you guys? Mom? Are you going to be okay? Is there anything I should be doing while I’m stateside? I’m not sure when I’ll be back again.”
“Oh, like you’ve spent a ton of time darkening our door over the past four years, right.”
“Hey, I stayed in touch.” And he had, too. He hadn’t wanted to come home, that much was true. But he’d done all the rest of it. Skyped, wrote, even texted when he could. People had a need to talk, and he’d listened to them. Listened and learned, figuring out what was being said and what wasn’t, what people needed to share and what they wanted to hide. Listening was a tactical skill not much discussed in army manuals, but it’d become one of Zander’s best abilities, and it was one he’d honed to good effect. He hadn’t expected to need it here, back in his own home, surrounded by his own family, but he did. There was just too much coming at him at once, stuff that he knew he’d want to remember. He’d store up all the words and play them back later, when he had nothing but empty sky above him and a few thin layers of cloth between himself and the hard earth.
Man, he missed all of that, too. Hell of a thing that he felt more comfortable lying on some rocky strip of desert than he did sitting here on his own front porch, with the knowledge that a hot shower, a warm bed, and all the food he could ever want was his, the moment that he asked for them. But there you had it.
And then there was his father. Zander shifted his position, staring out at the yard he’d had to mow twice a week, every week, with neat, military precision. Those same lines were in evidence today, and he wondered for the first time who’d taken over that job.
He wasn’t ready to process his father’s death quite yet, he knew that. It would come, he was sure, long after the theater of the funeral and the burial had passed, the people and the cheese trays and the chatter. Then he and his dad would go at it one last time, probably under that same empty sky somewhere, when he was lying on some cold-ass patch of dirt.
He was okay with that. He’d waited his whole life to come to terms with his dad. He could wait a little longer.
“He was proud of you, Zander.”
As usual, Karen knew how to cut to the heart of the matter, and as usual, she did so with the finesse of a tank. “Yeah, well.” Zander stood up again, stretched. “Guess we’ll never know the truth about that.” He passed by Karen, pausing to run his fingers over Lexi’s riotously curly blonde hair. “You keep your eye on those boys, Lexi,” he said. “The only reason they don’t play fair is because they never know what you’re going to do next.”