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JACK RAISED THE ax and brought it down in one smooth movement.
Crack!
The impact rippled through his arms and shoulders. He raised the ax again, along with the piece of wood it was now buried in, and slammed it down on the tree stump. The wood split and the two pieces clattered to the ground. He bent to retrieve them, then added them to the woodpile.
This was what he needed, he thought. Mindless physical labor. Just the thing to focus his energy and get his mind off the bizarre horror show this family gathering had become.
He and Meg had broken the news to the girls together in a gentle, straightforward manner. They’d explained, in terms the children could understand, that Uncle Pete had had a heart attack, though privately Jack had his doubts about that.
Sweet, sensitive Nora had wept, seeking solace in her mother’s arms. Little Daisy had popped her thumb into her mouth and patted her sister’s back soothingly. Marie had asked if Uncle Pete was in heaven. Knowing what his own answer would have been, Jack had let Meg handle that one.
Though the temperature had dipped into the low forties, he’d managed to work up a sweat and had discarded his denim jacket. He wiped his face with the tail of the old gray S.U.N.Y. Binghamton sweatshirt he couldn’t bear to part with, though it was worn and faded and ragged at the shoulders where he’d hacked off the sleeves. He had a hard time getting rid of anything that reminded him of his brief college days, that giddy period of discovery and new love. With Meg.
He straightened his back and raised his eyes toward the house. And cursed.
“I’ve come to give you a hand with that, my friend!” Winston hollered, waving as he strolled across the lawn. He was the epitome of the well-heeled outdoorsman in glaringly new Timberland boots, corduroy slacks, and a plaid wool jacket over a pine-green turtleneck. A hunter’s cap with earflaps completed the rugged ensemble.
Jack’s fingers tightened around the handle of the ax. He muttered, “Just what I need—Eddie Bauer, Esquire.”
Winston stopped in front of Jack and took in his progress. “You should have told me we needed to replenish the firewood. I’d have come out sooner.”
“There’s plenty of wood in the house. These logs aren’t even seasoned.” He set another one on the stump. “Just something to do.”
Whack!
Winston said, “I suppose it’s difficult for someone of your inclinations to remain idle for long.”
Jack looked at him “My inclinations?”
“Your predisposition for manual labor. You know.” Winston flexed his arms. “Earning one’s bread by the sweat of one’s brow. Good honest toil. The backbone of our economy.”
What a condescending jerk. Could this guy hear himself? What did he think Jack did for a living, lay railroad track? Get on back to the house and your adoring fiancée.
“I don’t need any help,” Jack said.
“Nonsense.” With a glance at Jack’s bare, sweat-sheened arms, Winston stripped off his jacket and cap and tossed them on the woodpile, though his breath was smoking. “So.” He rubbed his palms together. “Is there another ax?”
“Nope.” With the counselor looking on, shivering visibly now, Jack split two more logs.
He detected an unspoken agenda behind Winston’s offer of help, something that went beyond mere boredom or the desire to lose himself in hard work. Jack hadn’t exactly seen sparks flying between Winston and Meg—although that might have been his own wishful thinking. He knew Meg had always admired his own easy physicality. He was pretty sure it turned her on.
And the counselor knew it. Jack could have laughed. It was suddenly all so clear. This Daniel Boone display was for Meg’s benefit. Winston would show her he was every inch the manly man her ex-husband was. Well, far be it from Jack to stand in the way of this touching courtship display.
“On second thought, why don’t you have a go at it?” He handed over the ax to a beaming Winston and watched him select a log.
“I must admit, you’re a tad more experienced at this than I.” Putting his back into it, Winston sheared a thin chunk off the side of the log, losing control of the ax in the process. It skidded off the stump and pierced the ground an inch from his foot.
Jack leaped back a step. “Uh, that puppy’s sharp, Winston.” He’d just put a fine edge on it with a whetstone.
“My word.” An embarrassed flush colored Winston’s face.
Taking pity, Jack showed him how to hold the ax, how to swing, and how much pressure to exert. After a couple of tries, Winston began to get the hang of it. He pushed up the sleeves of his turtleneck and positioned another log.
The guy might be middle-aged, Jack admitted, but he was far from flabby. His snug sweater revealed a trim, athletic torso.
Jack asked, “What do you do to stay in shape?”
Winston gave a final whack to the log. It separated neatly and he replaced one piece on the stump to split it. “Tennis, downhill skiing, and of course, golf.”
“Of course.” Plus fooling around with my wife. Don’t forget that.
“Do you golf, my friend?”
“Never tried it. Meg and I went downhill skiing once, but it seemed like a lot of waiting around for the lift and not all that much actual skiing. Plus it made me nuts clunking around in those damn boots. Cross-country’s okay. Mainly I’m into mountain biking, and there’s this local baseball league I play with. Winters I do some boxing at a gym.”
“Well, that’s great. The important thing is to stay active. It’s the key to health and longevity.”
Jack restrained himself from adding that taking up with a woman young enough to be your daughter didn’t hurt, either.
He hated the strained bonhomie he and Winston were struggling to maintain. Yesterday evening he’d practically strangled this guy in an instinctive, primitive display more suited to cell block D than a holiday get-together. But like it or not, this man was going to be his children’s stepfather. Jack was going to have to learn to get along with him. For everyone’s sake. May as well start now.
“Listen,” he said. “I was way out of line yesterday. I had no call shoving you around like that. For what it’s worth, it’s not my usual style.”
“It’s forgotten.”
Jack looked at him, surprised by the counselor’s obvious sincerity.
Winston smiled grimly. “Emotions were running high all around. If I’d stopped to think, I wouldn’t have interfered the way I did. Though I don’t believe any of us were stopping to think at the time.”
Except Pete, Jack thought. Pete had planned out that little scene for the greatest possible destructive potential. Poker-faced, hoarding his little secret like a royal flush, just waiting to spring it on Jack—and Meg.
Winston added, “No one can say you weren’t provoked. It’s not my way to speak ill of the dead, but in this case...” Idly he planted the ax blade into the end grain of a log and twisted it out again. “I’d venture to say no one will truly mourn Pete Stanton’s passing.”
“That’s a safe bet.”
Winston met his eyes, his own serious. “I do care for Meg. I want you to know I’ll be good to her and—” He stopped abruptly, obviously wary of stepping on Jack’s toes again.
“And to the girls,” Jack finished for him. “It’s all right. I know what you mean. I guess I’m a little... proprietary where my kids are concerned.”
“You have a right. I admit I’m a little clumsy at this extended-stepfamily business.”
Jack sighed. “Join the club. I guess we’ll get the hang of it sooner or later.”
Yesterday he’d had the counselor comfortably pigeonholed as a snooty, supercilious, patronizing jerk—an assessment that had left Jack feeling smug and even slightly heartened. He couldn’t imagine Meg committing the rest of her life to someone like that.
Apparently neither could she. Belatedly he realized Winston Kent was more than a walking joke in a Brooks Brothers sport coat. The man had depth, maybe even character. Which didn’t mean he wasn’t snooty and supercilious and patronizing, only that those traits weren’t the sum total of his personality. Jack still didn’t like him, but he was beginning to see why Meg did.
He found that train of thought less than cheering.
“Lemme have that.” He took the ax from Winston and hefted the fattest log onto the stump. For the dozenth time he wished he were home in his empty apartment in Ithaca—or better yet, holed up at the pub, brewing that new red ale he wanted to try.
Winston watched him work for a minute. “May I ask you something personal, Jack? If it’s none of my business, just say so.”
Jack sank the ax into the log. “Ask me and I’ll let you know.” The ax came free with a squeak.
“Why did you keep your... checkered past from Meg?”
Another ax stroke. Jack yanked the blade out of the log. “Why do you think?”
“I imagine you were afraid of losing her.”
“Bingo.” The log finally split and Jack centered one of the halves on the stump. “I’ll be the first to admit I made some mistakes. Stupid mistakes.”
Winston said, “I myself feel honesty is crucial to the success of a relationship.”
Jack stopped to wipe his face on his shirt. A wicked idea began to take shape. He felt the devil inside him strain at its leash. “Well, see, that was my one big mistake, Winston, what you might call my fatal flaw. My lack of honesty. That’s what broke us up, me and Meg.” Even as he thought about his plan, his conscience rebelled. He couldn’t do this, not even to Winston.
“I was under the impression your marriage failed because of your disinclination to settle down in a meaningful career and provide a stable income,” Winston said, brow furrowed.
Yeah, I can do this. Jack unhooked the devil’s leash and set it loose. “Oh, that was part of it, sure,” he said. “I don’t know what Meg has told you, but that stability business was just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem was that she demands total honesty—I mean total—and I guess I always fell short.”
“You lied to her?”
“It wasn’t so much lying as sins of omission, if you know what I mean.” Jack directed his gaze at the wood he was splitting, careful to keep a straight face.
“No, I don’t believe I do.”
“Well, Meg wants to know what’s really on your mind. ‘Constructive criticism,’ she calls it. She demands to have all her faults pointed out, every little imperfection. It’s the damnedest thing. And forget about insincere flattery. She can spot that a mile off.”
“I never got the impression she was like that,” Winston said.
“Oh, she doesn’t come right out and say it. And I guess that’s what tripped me up. If I’d just known what she expected at the outset, maybe we’d still be together.” Jack shook his head ruefully, scrubbing a hand over his mouth to stifle a grin.
Winston still wasn’t convinced. “If she’s so intent on this constructive criticism, why doesn’t she criticize me?”
“For what?”
He appeared to ponder that. “Well, I really couldn’t say.”
Jack threw up his hands. “Well, there you go.”
“So. She wants total honesty,” Winston mused.
“Total. She sees anything less as, well...” Jack turned away, presumably too overcome by shame to face his companion. “As unmanly. To her, a real man doesn’t hold anything back, no matter how petty or even cruel it may sound. Of course, she’ll act all affronted when you do it, but that’s just an act. You want to know what I think?” He glanced around as if to ensure their privacy, and said sotto voce, “I think it turns her on.”
Winston’s eyes widened and Jack nodded meaningfully.
“My word. What kinds of faults does she want pointed out?”
“Well, let’s see... She thinks she has fat thighs.”
“Meg?”
Jack shrugged. “Women. She wants constant reminders to exercise more and work off the saddlebags. Oh, and those moods she gets in once a month? You know what I mean...”
“Oh. Yes.” They shared a masculine chuckle over that.
Jack said, “Well, when she’s all hormonal, mopey and depressed, she wants you to snap her out of it. You’ve got to tell her you just won’t tolerate the whining and self-pity. And don’t forget to get on her case about all that hair twisting she does.”
He pursed his lips. “Yes, that is mildly annoying.”
“And that’s just the kind of thing she wants to hear, to help her break the habit. Only don’t say ‘mildly.’”
“And, too, there’s the matter of her language,” Winston said.
“Her language?”
“Well, I’m sure you know Meg occasionally uses words that have no place in a lady’s vocabulary. I’ve managed to overlook it, but I’ll have to say something to her before she meets Mother.”
“Why wait? The sooner you deal with it, the more she’ll respect you.”
Winston nodded briskly. “I’ll speak to her straightaway.”
Jack slapped him on the back. “All I can say is, don’t make the same mistake I did. My friend.”
*
“I’M A CAT!” Daisy cried, pulling her lather-covered hair into twin spikes on the crown of her head.
“What should I be?” Meg asked, working the shampoo into a froth on her own head. A delicious scent enveloped her—wildflowers and almonds if the label on the shampoo bottle was to be believed. She and her three-year-old shared the big old claw-footed tub in the spacious bathroom.
“Be a dog. No! Be a dwagon!”
“A dragon! What kind of ears does a dragon have?”
“Big scawy ones.”
“I think I’ll need some help with that.”
Meg bent her head and allowed Daisy to shape her sudsy hair into two long globs that flopped over her ears.
Meg said, “Is my hair too long for this?”
“Nooo... it’s just wight! You’re a scawy dwagon.”
“Should I breathe some fire?”
Daisy giggled. “Yeah! Bweave fire!”
Meg took a gigantic breath, her eyes bulging ominously, and made a production of blowing “fire” at her bath-mate. Daisy squealed in delight and splashed at the monster.
“Shall I save you from the dragon, Daisy?” a voice from the doorway asked.
Meg whipped her head around to see Jack closing the door behind him. For an instant she had the ridiculous urge to fold her arms over her breasts. “What are you doing here?”
His grin was unrepentant as he ambled toward the tub. “Saving my daughter from a fire-breathing dragon, of course. I’m the white knight, remember? Your hero.”
She remembered. Something flashed between them before she averted her face, something that squeezed her heart painfully.
“I knocked,” he added, “but I guess you didn’t hear me over all that splashing and fire breathing.”
“I scared the dwagon away,” Daisy announced. “Like this.” She slapped the water vigorously.
“Oh, so you’re the hero. Or heroine, I should say.” He squatted by the tub. “You put out the dragon’s fire.”
“As you can see, we have everything under control,” Meg said tightly. “You can leave now.”
“Nonsense. I’ll help rinse you off.” His grin said he was confident she wouldn’t make a scene in front of Daisy. The worm.
Suds slid down Daisy’s forehead, and she started to blink and rub her eyes. He caught her hand.
“Careful, sweetheart. This isn’t baby shampoo. It’ll sting your eyes.” He swiped the lather off her forehead and reached up to slide the showerhead out of its bracket. It was the convertible hand-held kind connected to a hose. He tipped his daughter’s head back and carefully rinsed the shampoo out of her hair, shielding her face from the spray with his big hand.
He told her to stand and gave her chubby little body one last quick rinse, then lifted her out of the tub. As Meg watched Jack wrap their youngest child in a thick white towel, she wondered fleetingly what her next baby would look like. Winston had never been married and wanted at least one child. That was fine with Meg, who’d always loved being a mother. But she couldn’t imagine bearing a child who didn’t have Jack’s curly hair or expressive blue eyes.
He rubbed Daisy briskly with the towel, blotted her hair, and ran a wide-toothed comb through it. “There you go,” he said, “one squeaky-clean dragon slayer. Marie’s in your room. She’ll help you get dressed.”
Clutching the big towel around her, Daisy scooted through the doorway and down the hall, giggling. “Mawie! There’s a dwagon in the tub!”
Only then did it occur to Meg that he’d done this on purpose—engineered a way to be alone with her, something she’d actively avoided all morning and most of the afternoon, and had hoped to avoid for the duration of this hellish holiday weekend.
He closed the door. She heard the lock click.
She sat up straighter and reached for the shower-head before he could commandeer it. “Goodbye, Jack.”
He slid his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked casually to the tub. He was wearing that old, sleeveless Binghamton sweatshirt that should have gone in the trash bin years ago. He looked pumped, the muscles in his arms standing out in sharp relief. She recalled then that when she’d last seen him, he’d been heading outside to chop wood.
He said, “Why so nervous? I don’t bite.” He squatted by the tub again and casually dragged his fingertips through the water. “Want me to hotten this up for you?”
She didn’t respond, knowing full well that his preferred method of “hottening up” her bath had nothing to do with adding warm water. She turned on the faucet and adjusted the spray, then tipped her head back and rinsed her own hair, thank you very much.
Belatedly she realized her arched position afforded her ex-husband quite an eyeful. She held the shower-head with one hand and finger-combed her wet hair with the other to get all the suds out. If she’d had a third hand, she’d have clapped it over his eyes.
“Stop staring at me,” she demanded.
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He smiled the kind of smile he never would have bestowed in Daisy’s presence.
“You have no shame.”
“Just figured that out, did you?”
She directed the spray at his face. Laughing, he turned off the water, rendering her weapon useless. He pulled his soggy shirt off over his head and shook his wet hair in her face.
“I mean it,” she said. “What if Winston finds you in here?”
“You expecting him?” He tossed the shirt in a corner.
“Maybe.”
She was a lousy liar, and he knew it. “You think there’s room in this big old tub for the three of us?” He reached for his belt buckle.
She grabbed his hand. “Don’t you dare!”
He relented and picked up the bar of soap instead, wetting it and rolling it in his hands. His chest was wider, his stomach harder, his shoulders broader, than she remembered. Under the dark hair that fanned out from the middle of his chest, his skin had a residual summer tan.
He said, “Remember when we used to take baths together?”
She didn’t want to remember. “I’ve already washed.”
“You can never be too clean.”
He replaced the soap in its dish and glided his hands over her stiff back. The stark pleasure of his touch sent her resolve into a tailspin. He was kneeling now, his warm breath wafting over her, mingling with the fragrant, steamy air. Gradually she felt herself relaxing.
“We used to wash each other, remember?” He moved to the arm nearest him, soaping and stroking it with those long, strong fingers. “I’d do your back and you’d do mine. And we’d move on from there, inch by inch, until I was hard as a post and you were—”
“Don’t,” she pleaded, remembering all too well the baths and showers they had shared. They’d teased each other far past the point of simple foreplay until the need was almost painful, a deep, grasping hunger that pulsed like a heart, there where she needed him most. It had been a game, a mutual challenge to see which of them would beg for it first.
He’d had enormous control. Despite her determination, she would almost always break down first, clutching him, opening to him, shamelessly pleading. Anything to feel him inside her. And he would smile that wicked smile and, more often than not, torment her for another few excruciating minutes before giving her what she needed.
“You do remember,” he murmured, reaching for her other arm. She closed her eyes, shielding her thoughts, knowing he could read her all too well.
She let her arm go limp. He lifted it, caressing it with his soap-slick hands, working the lather along her fingers and between them, before lowering her arm to the water.
He said, “Some things, it’s hard to forget.” When she didn’t respond, he went on the attack and asked, “How about you and the counselor? You ever get dirty while you’re getting clean?”
Her eyes snapped open. “You have no right to ask that.”
“You’re right. Answer it anyway.”
As if she’d give him the satisfaction.
Unfortunately, she didn’t need to. One look at her face triggered a smile of pure male arrogance.
“I didn’t think so.” He soaped his hands once more. “At least there’s one thing you’ve done only with me.”
He started to wash her breasts, as casually as you please. She seized his wrists, sitting up straighter. “Jack...” He ignored her protest, gliding his hands slowly over her skin, following her contours.
She felt drugged by his touch, making it difficult to remember why she shouldn’t let him do this. Gently he twisted free of her hold and set her arms at her sides. She left them there.
“Lean back,” he said, and exerted mild pressure until she was lying against the slope of the tub, submerged to just above her waist. He rinsed his hands and rolled a towel to cushion her head, then lifted her arms to rest on the sides of the tub. Her engagement ring clicked on the porcelain, a less-than-subtle reminder.
Oh yeah. That’s why I shouldn’t do this.
“Let me pamper you,” he said.
“Is that what you’re doing?” she asked dryly.
He met her gaze directly with the hint of a smile, an expression at once candid and mysterious. Her pulse jumped and she stifled a whimper of longing.
Two years.
Too damn long.
She shouldn’t permit this. She mustn’t permit this.
She was an engaged woman. Jack no longer had a claim on her.
But he wasn’t acting as if he had a claim on her. He was beguiling her, seducing her. And heaven help her, she was allowing it.
He picked up the soap again and she let her eyes drift shut. One minute. Maybe two. Then she’d stop him.
Her breath caught when she felt his slippery fingers sliding up the sides of her breasts and closing over them, carefully molding the soft flesh. Her mouth parted and her breathing grew shallow. She fought the urge to sigh, to arch into his touch.
He stroked her chest and shoulders, her sides and her sensitive armpits, always returning to her breasts. Her nipples were pinpoints of pure sensation, but he ignored them. He came close, though, and closer still with each sure stroke, making her quiver in anticipation.
She looked down to see her small breasts just filling his hands, his thumbs and fingers bracketing the stiff, aching peaks. Her pent-up breath escaped in a ragged sigh and she moved restlessly, sloshing water out of the tub.
He asked, “Did I hurt you?” A sham question, she knew, calculated to strip away the illusion that she was unaffected, unreachable.
“No,” she whispered, meeting his gaze with a frank, if silent, plea. Urging him to call on his own self-control. Lord knew she didn’t have the strength to stop him.
He seemed to contemplate her unspoken request, studying her face for long moments, his hands still cupping her. Finally he leaned forward, slowly, so slowly. She felt his heat, drew the intoxicating essence of him deep into her lungs. He smelled of fresh sweat and hard work, a clean, healthy, masculine scent.
His breath teased her before he touched his lips to hers. The first delicate contact electrified her. It was airy. Almost weightless. Yet somehow more intimate than his bold touch. He angled his head as if testing the shape of her mouth, plucking at it lightly with his mobile lips. She struggled to remain still, chagrined by her weakness, both enthralled and terrified by this power he had over her.
Her agitated breathing made it feel as if he were tugging at her breasts, though his hands remained still. Every little movement sent a jolt of raw sensation through her.
He seemed unconcerned by her lack of response. He continued the dizzying, exploratory kiss, making no move to deepen it. She trembled with the effort to keep from pulling him down and devouring his mouth.
At last, just when she thought she’d reached the limits of her endurance, he sealed his lips over hers, then captured her burning nipples between his fingers. She leaped half out of the tub with a sharp cry, the sound smothered by his mouth. She continued to moan helplessly, clutching at his arms as he pinched and plucked and tormented the sensitized buds.
Finally, when her moans had turned to breathless pants, he lifted his head and stared into her eyes. Only I can do this to you, they seemed to say. In this way you’ll always belong to me.
He held her gaze as his hand slowly glided down her abdomen and beneath the surface of the water. She lay quiescent and yielding, her body half-supported by the warm water, her defenses lulled by a drugging, dreamlike lethargy.
His fingers pushed into the tangle of hair and traced the shape of her feminine mound. Her legs opened for him, an involuntary response she didn’t try to fight. His fingertips slid over the swollen cleft and she gasped, her body bowing sharply. It was practically more than she could bear, the sensation so refined, so exquisite, it was close to torture.
He parted her. “You’re so wet,” he murmured, stroking the slick furrow, his fingers surprisingly cool in contrast to the warm water. Her hips rocked in time to his rhythmic caress. His eyes darkened, the blue of the iris a thin ring around the distended pupil.
She was mesmerized by those eyes, by the smooth, sinewy movement of his shoulder and arm as he touched her. She felt him probe and stretch the opening, and two fingers began to burrow into her. They felt thick and rough and unyielding. With a whimper of pleasure she gripped the sides of the tub and levered herself up to give him better access.
He lifted her near leg over the side of the tub. His fingers twisted, testing the slippery passage. “You’re tight,” he breathed. “You’re so tight, honey.”
His eyes searched hers, seeking the answer to an unspoken question. Finally he asked, “Has the counselor been neglecting you?”
This wasn’t the time for lies. “We haven’t... we’ve never...” She almost laughed at his dumbfounded expression. “We’re... waiting until we’re married.”
He shook his head with a little smile of wonder. “You live long enough, you see everything.”
She detected a good dose of masculine satisfaction along with the incredulity. She had a stinging comeback all ready, but then he started doing wondrous things with his thumb while those long, talented fingers advanced and retreated, and she couldn’t remember what she’d wanted to say. Within seconds her climax loomed, just out of her grasp.
She panicked. This illicit act was nothing short of betrayal. Infidelity. She was violating one of the cornerstones of her personal value system.
Jack must have sensed her misgivings. He leaned in close and smoothed her wet hair off her face with his free hand. “Don’t fight it, Meg. Let it happen.”
She whipped her head from side to side, whether from passion or fear, even she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was an unholy mixture of both.
He persisted, “I know you. The more you fight it, the more explosive it’ll be when it happens.” His smile was both amused and salacious. “Which I personally have no problem with, though you might end up screaming the house down.” He kissed her open, panting mouth. “Come on, honey. Come for me.”
“Don’t make me do this. It’s wrong...”
She didn’t realize she’d said the words aloud until she felt Jack’s hand go still, though her body still writhed against it. He just stared at her for a long, charged moment, then withdrew his fingers. He eased her leg back into the tub and stood. His erection strained the fly of his jeans.
Shakily she sat and wrapped her arms around her knees, battling a witch’s brew of emotions: shame, self-loathing, and remorseless yearning. Her body still hummed and pulsed, though release was no longer in the picture.
She stared straight ahead. In her peripheral vision she saw him yank on his shirt. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he muttered, his tone more bitter than droll.
“Did I invite you in here? Either time?”
He didn’t answer but leaned down to drag his fingertips across her chest. “You’ve got that raggedy flush you get when you’re aroused. Better give it a few minutes before you go out and face the guy you’re saving it for. Unless you want him to wonder what you’ve been up to without him.”
She hugged herself tighter. “Get out,” she snapped, her voice hoarse with unshed tears. She sensed his eyes on her, sensed his hesitation. Her chin trembled. She would not break down in front of him. She’d shown enough weakness for one day.
“Go, Jack. Please.”
He sighed. “We’ll talk later,” he said quietly.
When she didn’t respond, he crossed to the door, opened it a notch to peer into the hallway, and slipped out.
Her eyes squeezed shut and hot tears streaked down her face. “I was over you, dammit,” she whispered. “Over you!”
If she said it enough, maybe she’d begin to believe it.