She’d never seen anything like the picture that greeted her eyes now.

She barely noticed the motorcycle; all she could do was stare at the man astride the low-slung, snarling beast.

He was dressed like a walking advertisement for some rebel motorcycle gang, and he looked like the personification of everything she’d been fascinated by as a girl, but had been too terrified to go near. That hadn’t changed much, she thought, as she became aware that her heart was racing in her chest.

He didn’t seem to fit in here in Santiago Beach; this was a sun-and-surf town, and he was a splash of the wild side.

The wild side.

Suddenly she knew. With an instinctive certainty she couldn’t question, Amelia knew.

Luke McGuire was back in town.

Dear Reader,

The 20th anniversary excitement continues as we bring you a 2-in-1 collection containing brand-new novellas by two of your favorite authors: Maggie Shayne and Marilyn Pappano. Who Do You Love? It’s an interesting question—made more complicated for these heroes and heroines because they’re not quite what they seem, making the path to happily-ever-after an especially twisty one. Enjoy!

A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY continues with Her Secret Weapon by bestselling writer Beverly Barton. This is a great secret-baby story—with a forgotten night of passion thrown in to make things even more exciting. Our in-line 36 HOURS spin-off continues with A Thanksgiving To Remember, by Margaret Watson. Suspenseful and sensual, this story shows off her talents to their fullest. Applaud the return of Justine Davis with The Return of Luke McGuire. There’s something irresistible about a bad boy turned hero, and Justine’s compelling and emotional handling of the theme will win your heart. In The Lawman Meets His Bride, Meagan McKinney brings her MATCHED IN MONTANA miniseries over from Desire with an exciting romance featuring a to-die-for hero. Finally, pick up The Virgin Beauty by Claire King and discover why this relative newcomer already has people talking about her talent.

Share the excitement—and come back next month for more!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

The Return of Luke McGuire
Justine Davis

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For the girls who, like me, always fell for the bad boy…

and were lucky enough to marry a reformed one.

JUSTINE DAVIS

lives in Kingston, Washington. Her interests outside writing are sailing, doing needlework, horseback riding and driving her restored 1967 Corvette roadster—top down, of course.

A policewoman, Justine says that years ago, a young man she worked with encouraged her to try for a promotion to a position that was, at that time, occupied only by men. “I succeeded, became wrapped up in my new job, and that man moved away, never, I thought, to be heard of again. Ten years later he appeared out of the woods of Washington State, saying he’d never forgotten me and would I please marry him. With that history, how could I write anything but romance?”

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Chapter 1

It wasn’t nearly as tough being a bastard as it used to be.

Luke McGuire knew that, knew that if he’d been born a hundred, or even fifty years ago his life would have been a much bigger nightmare. But the unexpected letter he held made long-buried memories rise again, memories of the nightmare his life had indeed been.

He stared down at the scrawled lines that filled the page of three-hole notebook paper. He glanced again at the envelope, addressed only to his name and the small town of River Park; if Charlie Hanson didn’t know everybody in town, he might never have gotten it.

He wasn’t sure he didn’t wish Charlie had never heard of him.

He shoved a hand through his wind-tangled hair, pushing it back from his forehead. He was going to have to cut it or start tying it back soon; the thick, dark strands were getting in his way. Not that seeing any better changed the plea the letter contained.

He could just toss it, he thought. After all, if River Park had been a little bigger, or Charlie a little less efficient, it could have wound up in some dead letter file, since there was no return address on the envelope. So he could throw it away and go on pretending blissful ignorance.

Except he’d read it. He’d read it, and he didn’t know if he had it in him to ignore the plea it contained.

His little brother was in trouble.

Little Davie. The child who had been the only good thing in his life so long ago, the only person who ever looked at him with pure, honest love shining in his eyes.

Little Davie?

Luke caught himself with a wry chuckle as the math hit home. Eight years. David would be fifteen now. Hardly the wide-eyed, innocent child he remembered.

Especially the innocent part, he thought with a grimace as he read the letter once more.

Guilt rose up, sharp toothed and ugly. He’d known what he was leaving David behind to face. He’d hoped the fact that his brother was the wanted son would make things different for him, that having a father there to defend him would make it all right.

Maybe it had only gone sour in the six months since David’s father had died. That made sense; their mother would never be openly cruel to him while Ed Hiller was alive. Not when he was her meal ticket. But she had a thousand ways to be quietly, subtly cruel, covering it with feigned concern, even wearing the mask of affection to hide the emotional whip.

He felt a flicker of sympathy for the man who had been as much of a father as Luke had ever known. It had been Ed who had lectured Luke—gently—on not living up to his potential, Ed who had told him he was smarter than his grades were showing, Ed who, seeming to sense Luke was on the verge of bolting, pressed him hard to finish school. Ed hadn’t loved him the way he loved his blood son, but he’d been kind, and fair, which meant more to Luke than Ed Hiller could ever have known. He felt a brief flicker of regret that he had never told the man he was grateful.

And now that man’s son was crying out for Luke’s help. Wanting, of all things, to come and live with him. And Luke had done enough running of his own to realize that David was in full stride.

He got up and walked to the window of his cabin. It was the smallest of the five on the property, but Luke had taken it eagerly. It also had the best view of the river. At night he could hear the rush of the water and pretend he could hear the rough and tumble of the rapids just downstream. It was all he needed. It was all he wanted.

He heard the crumple of paper and realized he was clenching his fist around David’s letter. It wasn’t his problem, he thought. He didn’t have to deal with it. Which was a good thing, since he’d sworn to never set foot in Santiago Beach again, and nothing had happened since he’d left to change his mind.

He would just throw the letter away. Pretend it had never reached him.

He finished crumpling it up, feeling the oddly sharp dig of one of the corners of the envelope against his palm.

Not for anything or anyone would he go back to Santiago Beach. Not even for the boy who had made those last years survivable.

“Hey, McGuire! You comin’ or what?”

The voice of his friend and partner Gary Milhouse was a welcome interruption.

“Yeah,” he called out. “On my way.”

Good idea. Half a pizza and a beer or two, and he would forget all about it. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do anyway.

He stuffed the letter in his pocket and walked right past his wastebasket. He would burn it later, he thought. That way it wouldn’t be lying around to taunt him.

Maybe three beers.

Amelia Blair watched the gangly boy heading toward her bookstore. His hair moved loosely on top of his head, where it was long and bleached a white blond. A darker, medium brown showed beneath, where it was shaved short. A baggy shirt and baggier pants flapped as he crossed the street. He was walking—almost strutting—in that self-conscious way teenage boys had when they were trying to be adult but were still in the imitation stage, before it came from the inside.

She knew she tended toward worry anyway, but she was certain her concern about her young friend was warranted. He’d changed so much from the open, natural boy she’d met when he’d first come into her bookstore four years ago. And the change had not been for the better.

The buzzer on the door announced David’s arrival in the cultured tones of Captain Jean-Luc Picard; she’d adapted the sound effects from Star Trek and rotated them daily. They were a big hit with her younger customers—some of whom stopped in daily to see who would be talking—and even made the older ones smile.

“Hey, Amelia.”

He sounded normal enough this morning, she thought. “Hello, David. How are you?”

He shrugged. “Hangin’ in.”

Amelia nodded, knowing he usually wanted to leave it at that. She couldn’t blame him; the subject of his father’s recent unexpected and sudden death in an accident was still new, and he was still raw and aching.

He made a show of looking at the books in her front display rack, but since his taste ran more to science fiction, she doubted he was really interested in the bestsellers and her own personal choices. She knew it took him a while to work up to really talking to her, and she’d found the best approach was to just welcome him and wait.

After a moment he stopped fiddling with the latest political exposé and stepped over to the counter. He leaned his elbows on it and finally looked at her. “How was kickboxing today?”

She smiled. “Tiring. We’re working on punch-kick combinations, and it’s tough.”

“Bet it’ll take out a bad guy.”

“That’s the idea, anyway,” Amelia said. She’d signed up for the classes three years ago in the hope they would help her feel less…timid. She was at home in her world here, amid her books, but outside, she was never quite sure of herself. She had resigned herself at twenty-five to being forever a mouse, with mousy brown hair to match, but now, at thirty, she was determined to at least be the bravest mouse she could be.

As a side benefit, it had impressed David, who had decided she had to be fairly cool to be taking kickboxing. After that, the relationship had grown rapidly.

“I wish my mother would change her mind and let me take lessons,” David said.

Amelia hesitated. She doubted that was likely. Jackie Hiller seemed to run her son’s life with a heavy hand, allowing him only the extracurricular activities she approved of.

Of course, she also doubted Mrs. Hiller knew about the new friends David had acquired. Loud, obnoxious, frequently nasty and purposely intimidating, the group of about five boys had already gained an unpleasant notoriety in Santiago Beach. From what Amelia had seen they were all hotheaded, which unfortunately made them very attractive to a boy still angry about his father’s death.

“Maybe if you got a part-time job and offered to help pay for the lessons?” she suggested, thinking that something physical, like kickboxing, might be just the thing David needed to release some of that anger. And the part of the program that dealt with mental and emotional control couldn’t hurt.

But David snorted aloud. “It’s not the bucks. Hell, she spends it like crazy. She just wants me to do wussy stuff like piano lessons. And during the summer, too!”

“Well, even Elton John had to start somewhere.”

David looked at her blankly. “Who? Oh…he’s that old guy from England, right?”

She smothered a sigh and nodded, wondering how a boy only fifteen years younger could make her feel ancient. “He’s lasted in the music biz for decades now because he can play the piano.” Well, that was stretching it a bit, but it made her point. And she liked Elton, even if he was more of her parents’ generation.

“Yeah. Well. I still hate it.”

She grinned at him then. “So did I.”

He blinked. “You did?”

“Yep. My mother made me practice for two hours a day, then I had to play for my father when he came home.”

“Bummer,” David said with an eloquent shiver. “But I won’t have to do it much longer.”

“Talk your mother out of it, did you?”

“Not exactly.”

Something about the way the boy said it set alarms off in Amelia’s mind. “What, exactly?”

David looked at her, then looked away, then looked sideways back at her again. Her worry increased, but she reined it in, telling herself to remember that he had to take his time, but he eventually opened up.

“I’m going away,” he finally blurted out.

“Away?”

“To live somewhere else.”

This startled her, but she knew if she peppered him with questions he would clam up. So she settled on one thing she knew was true. “I’ll miss you,” she said simply.

He looked startled, then pleased, then he blushed. She knew when he felt his cheeks heat, because he lowered his head again.

“Where are you going?” she asked, careful to keep her tone casual.

He didn’t raise his head. He tapped his fingers in a restless rhythm. Took a deep breath, let it out.

“I’m going to live with my brother,” he said in the same kind of rush.

“Your brother?” She was genuinely startled now.

“Yeah. Luke. Luke McGuire. My half brother, really. You don’t know him, he was gone before you came here.”

No, she didn’t know him. But she knew of him. It was hard to live in Santiago Beach and not know of the town bad boy who had departed the morning after the high school graduation he’d barely achieved and never been back. Luke McGuire might have been gone for better than eight years, but his reputation had lingered.

“I didn’t realize you were in touch with him,” she said carefully. “You never mentioned him before.”

“He’ll be coming to get me soon,” David said.

Amelia noticed he hadn’t answered her directly, but didn’t belabor the point. “When? Do I have time to get you a going-away present?”

Again the boy blushed. “I…don’t really know. Not yet, anyway. But he’s coming. I know he is.”

For a moment David sounded like a child waiting for Santa Claus, and she wondered if the arrival of the brother was as much a fantasy. She also wondered, as she had before, if the phantom brother wasn’t part of David’s problem, if because some people expected him to be just like his troublemaking brother, it had become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

David met her gaze then, his jaw set and his chin up. “You’ll see. So will my mom. She can’t keep him away, even though she hates him.”

Amelia considered that. Ordinarily her response would have been something soothing, assuring the boy his mother surely didn’t really hate his brother. But she had met David’s mother, knew that Jackie was very conscious of appearances and hated to be embarrassed. Given Luke’s reputation and what the woman had no doubt gone through raising him, she could easily believe there was no love lost between the two.

“It must be difficult, if he and your mother don’t get along, but you want to go live with him.”

“She doesn’t know about it. Yet,” he added, his expression turning mutinous.

“Does she even know you’ve been in touch?”

“No. Yes.”

Well, Amelia thought, there’s a teenage response for you. She waited, knowing David would explain if she just waited.

“I mean she knows I wrote to him, but she stole my first letter before the mail lady picked it up. I found it in the trash.”

Amelia smothered a sigh; she couldn’t think of anything more likely to make an already resistant teenager downright stubborn. But it wasn’t her place to pass judgment on his mother’s parenting skills.

“So you wrote again?”

He nodded, a little fiercely, the blond hair flopping in time with the movement. “Couple of weeks ago. And I took it to the post office myself. I even bought the stamp myself, ’cause I know she started counting the ones in her desk. She puts a mark on the next one on the roll. She thinks I’m too dumb to figure that out.”

Amelia couldn’t imagine living that way. Her parents might have been older and a bit fussy in their ways, but she had never had to live with this kind of subterfuge and mistrust.

“And what did your brother say?”

“He hasn’t answered. Yet.” This time the “yet” was in an entirely different tone, one of stubbornly determined hope. “I think he’s just gonna come and get me. He doesn’t have time for writing letters.”

“He doesn’t?”

“Nah, he’s too busy.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m not sure, but cool stuff. He’d never have some boring job or wear a tie or nothing like that.”

“But you don’t know what he does do?”

“No. But he’s not in jail, like my mom says!”

Amelia’s breath caught. “Jail?”

“She just says that. She’s always said it, that he was probably in jail somewhere. She’s always sayin’ bad things about him.”

Amelia felt an unexpected tug of sympathy for the absent Luke McGuire. “You were young when he left, weren’t you?” she asked gently.

“I was almost eight.” He sounded defensive. “I remember him really good. He was really cool. He used to take me with him places, unless he was with some girl. And sometimes at night, you know, when I was real little, when I couldn’t go to sleep, he’d sneak in and read to me.”

And there it was, Amelia thought. The birth of a reader. Somehow she never would have expected the inspiration to be the disreputable Luke.

Primed now, David kept on, extolling the virtues of his long gone half brother.

“And he’d bring me stuff, not stuff you buy, he didn’t have much money, but stuff like a neat rock, or a feather, that kind of thing. I’d put it away in my special box—” He stopped suddenly before adding sourly, “Before my mother found it and threw it all away.”

Amelia sighed again. She herself had had a collection of leaves she had pressed and dried, all the different ones she could find. Her mother hadn’t liked having them around, she thought they were dirty, but Amelia loved to look at them, and that was all that had really mattered; the collection had stayed.

Thanks, Mom, she whispered silently, as she often did to both the parents she still missed so much. And never had it mattered less than it did at this moment that they hadn’t been her biological parents.

“People say he was kind of a…troublemaker,” she said carefully; she didn’t want to join a chorus, but she did want to know if David was utterly blind to any faults his brother had.

“Yeah, he got in some trouble.” The boy said it with a kind of relish that made Amelia nervous; she wondered if this was the key to David’s new friends, who seemed to find—or make—trouble wherever they went. “He was no nerd like my mom likes, he had fun, he went out at night, hung with his buddies, and they did whatever they felt like. Didn’t pay any attention to stupid rules.”

Or laws? Amelia wondered. She tried to remember any specifics she’d ever heard about the wayward Luke, but all she could call up was the general impression of a teenage boy gone wild. What she did know was that David appeared to be heading in the same direction; there was far too much of a gleam in his eyes when he spoke of the older brother he clearly admired. And while she could appreciate—indeed, she’d been pleasantly surprised and touched by—David’s childhood recollections of another side of his brother, she was afraid it was the wild side he was trying to emulate.

Perhaps his mother had the right idea, after all.

“—window broken out, and some of that disgusting graffiti sprayed all over!”

“How awful,” Amelia agreed as she rang up Mrs. Clancy’s gardening magazines.

“Those boys are getting out of hand,” the older woman said ominously. “It was bad enough when they would harass people on the street, blocking the sidewalks, riding those awful skateboards so fast they could kill a person if they knocked them down, which they nearly did many times. But now this…somebody should do something!”

Somebody being somebody other than herself, Amelia guessed. Mrs. Clancy was of the speak-loudly-and-let-someone-else-carry-the-stick school. She was a formidable, large woman in her late sixties, with silver hair she was proud of saying hadn’t been cut since she was sixteen, and if she had ever known what it was like to be young and bored in a small town, she’d clearly forgotten.

Diplomatically, Amelia changed the subject to one she knew the woman could never resist. “Going for that prizewinning rose again next year?”

The woman’s eyes lit up. “I’ll beat that Louise Doyle yet, you just wait and see.”

Mrs. Clancy chattered on as Amelia slipped the magazines into a bag. “I wish you luck,” she said as she handed them over with a smile. “I always love walking by your garden.”

That much, at least, was true. And Mrs. Clancy left the store happy, and would return next month as usual. Amelia had once wondered why she didn’t subscribe and save herself the trip, but soon figured out that this was the only time the poor woman had away from the recently retired Mr. Clancy, and she wasn’t about to give it up.

Amelia glanced at the clock; she was five minutes past closing. Not unusual for her, but tonight she was a bit tired; she’d had her kickboxing class early this morning, and this afternoon she’d gotten in several shipments of books to be shelved, and handling it all herself was getting wearing. But she wasn’t sure she wanted to hire someone, she liked her quiet times in the shop when she could actually read herself—it was hard to recommend sincerely a book you hadn’t read—and she was getting by on only Sundays off, even with the long hours. By opening at ten and staying open until eight, she managed to serve everyone fairly well and had enough down time during the ten hours the store was open to get some other things done, although she still came in an hour or more before opening to deal with things that took uninterrupted concentration.

But dealing with those heavy cartons of books was a different matter than mental exercise, and tonight she was tired.

She went through her closing up ritual quickly and almost thoughtlessly; she’d done it so often she thought she could do it in her sleep. The register was totaled out and locked, the back door closed and secured, and she decided to put off cleaning the restroom until tomorrow morning. She picked up her small purse, flipped out the lights and made her way to the front door.

She was turning to lock it from the outside when she heard the sound. A low, throaty growl that sounded almost more animal than mechanical. She chalked that bit of anthropomorphism up to her weary state as she turned to look; it was a motorcycle, that was all.

All?

The word echoed in her mind as she stared. A motorcycle, yes. But she’d never seen anything like the picture that greeted her eyes now, riding out of the twilight. The bike was big and sleek and shiny black, but she barely noticed it as it cruised past, growling as if in protest at the slow pace. All she could do was stare at the man astride the low-slung, snarling beast.

He was dressed like a walking advertisement for some rebel motorcycle gang, except that the declarations of affiliation were missing. Plain, unmarked black leather jacket and boots, black jeans, and a pair of wraparound, black framed sunglasses with mirrored lenses. She thought she caught a glint of gold at his left earlobe. His hair was nearly as dark as the bike, and more than long enough to whip back like a mane in the wind of his passage. His face was unshaven, but not bearded, and beneath that his skin was tan, as if he spent a lot of his time outdoors. Probably on that monster, she thought a little numbly.

Instinctively she drew back in some alarm; she didn’t want to draw the attention of this intruder. He looked like the personification of everything she’d been fascinated by as a girl but had been too terrified to go near. That hadn’t changed much, she thought, as she became aware that her heart was racing in her chest.

She noticed a duffel bag fastened to the rack behind the seat of the bike. Was he traveling, then? Did he just travel about the country as the spirit moved him, like some fictional character in a weekly action show or something? She nearly sighed aloud.

She caught herself and smothered the familiar yearning to be something other than what she was. The words to an old song came to her, something about a man who was the wrong kind of paradise. This man would be just that for a woman. For this mouse of a woman, at least, she admitted, knowing herself too well to think she could ever even begin to handle a man like that.

As he went past the store she saw a helmet—also, of course, gleaming black—hooked to the back of the bike, and wondered if he ever bothered to wear it, or if he just carried it in the hopes of talking himself out of a ticket in this mandatory helmet state.

She thought she saw his head move slightly, but if he glanced her way at all, she couldn’t tell behind the mirrored glasses. She doubted it; there was nothing to draw his attention. She couldn’t imagine what it would take to interest such a man. The bike had California plates, but he didn’t seem to fit here in Santiago Beach. This was a sun and surf town, and he was a splash of the wild side.

The wild side.

Suddenly she knew. With an instinctive certainty she couldn’t question, she knew.

Luke McGuire was back in town.

Chapter 2

Santiago Beach hadn’t changed a bit, Luke thought. Oh, there was some new development around the edges, some new houses and the occasional strip mall, but the downtown district hadn’t changed at all. It was still the quaint, villagelike, tourist-attracting place, the main drag with the incredibly hokey name of Main Street, that had bored him to distraction. Everybody seemed to think living near the beach was the dream life for any kid, but it hadn’t been for him.

No, it hadn’t changed much at all. He had, though. He had to admit that. Not, he amended with an inward grin, that he resisted gunning the Harley’s engine on occasion, just to break the smothering quiet. That it also turned heads, made people either gape at him or eye him suspiciously—or even with shock, like the woman outside the bookstore—was just a side benefit.

But down deep, he was no longer the kid who had done that kind of thing just for thrills, just to build on the reputation that had already begun to snowball. Now he did it for…what? Nostalgia?

Lord, nostalgic at twenty-six, he thought with a rueful twist of his lips. Back then, at eighteen, you thought anybody on the far side of thirty was decrepit, and now you’re thinking people can still be young at forty.

He wondered if at thirty he would push that back to fifty, then at forty to sixty, continually pushing the boundaries back so that they were a safe distance away.

And he wondered if just coming back here was making him lose his mind. He never thought about this kind of thing at home. Of course, at home his thoughts were focused mainly on how to keep himself and everyone else alive through the next adventure. He rarely thought about Santiago Beach at all; in his mind, his past consisted of the last eight years.

But it was amazing to him how quickly he relapsed, just from seeing the old, familiar things, all in their old, familiar places. The faces might be different—although some had looked familiar—but the effect they had on him was the same. He immediately felt cramped, trapped, and he found himself wondering if his favorite secret hideout, the place no one had ever found, was still there.

The urge to turn the bike around and head for the high country was tremendous.

But he couldn’t. He had to find Davie first, make sure he was all right. He’d wrestled with it for days, but now that he’d decided, now that he’d arrived, he wasn’t going to turn tail and run until he’d done what he’d come here for. He really wasn’t that kid anymore, desperate and weary of fighting a battle he could never, ever win.

He’d learned well in the past eight years. He’d learned how to depend only on himself, learned how to take care of himself, and most of all, he’d learned how it felt to win. And he liked it.

He wasn’t going to let this place beat him again.

She wouldn’t have sought her out, Amelia thought, but now that Jackie Hiller was right here, she should say something. She would never betray David’s confidence, but she was worried. Especially if she was right about that dark, wild apparition she’d seen riding down Main Street.

The image, still so vivid in her mind, gave her a slight shiver. She knew she’d grown up within the boundaries of a strict childhood and been further limited by her own natural shyness; men like the one on that motorcycle had had no part in her life. But if that were indeed Luke McGuire, Amelia could easily see how David had built his half brother up into an almost mythological being in his mind.

She shook off the odd feeling. Jackie was coming out of the community center, and Amelia wondered if she had been giving one of her speeches. That was where Amelia had first met her a couple of years ago, at a meeting of the local Chamber of Commerce, where the woman had earnestly, passionately, almost too vehemently, pitched her views on the problem of teenage pregnancy. For a decade now she had been giving lectures at local schools and communities on the subject, and from what Amelia had heard, she was quite zealous in her crusade.

The woman was dressed impeccably, as usual; Amelia didn’t think she’d ever seen her without perfect makeup, tasteful gold jewelry and medium heels. Her dress was tailored yet feminine, and looked very expensive. Her hair was perfectly blond, exquisitely cut and looked equally expensive. In all, a package Amelia doubted she could ever put together; she had the money, but not the time. Not time she wanted to spend on that kind of production, anyway.

But that wasn’t what she was here for. Steeling herself, she waited until Jackie finished speaking to a woman outside the doors of the center, then approached.

“Mrs. Hiller?”

Jackie turned, an all-purpose smile on her face. It changed slightly when she saw Amelia, apparently recognizing her as someone she had met before.

“Amelia Blair. Of Blairs’ Books.”

“Ah, of course!” Her greeting was effusive and, for all Amelia could tell, genuine. “How nice to see you again. I’ve been meaning to stop in and see you.”

Amelia blinked. She had? As far as she knew, the woman had never set foot in the store before; whatever her reading tastes were, if any, she satisfied them elsewhere.

“I wanted to talk to you about carrying our new newsletter,” Jackie went on. “I understand you have several teenagers who come in regularly?”

“Yes,” Amelia said, recovering. “Yes, I do.”

“It’s free, of course. And I’m sure you’ll want to help in getting out such an important message.”

Amelia couldn’t argue about the importance of the message, but she didn’t like the assumption that she would agree, sight unseen.

“I’ll be happy to take a look at it and get back to you,” she said, refusing to be swept up by the woman’s polished energy. She might be a mouse, but she could be a stubborn one if she had to be.

There was only the most minuscule of breaks in the woman’s demeanor, as if she’d heard a tiny blip she hadn’t expected. But she went on as if nothing had happened. “Fine. I’ll get one to you. I’m sure you’ll be able to find space for it.”

Jackie turned to go, as if assuming Amelia had only approached her because she had willed it. As if Amelia couldn’t possibly have had a reason of her own.

“Mrs. Hiller, I needed to talk to you.”

She turned back. “Oh?” Not quite looking down her nose, she waited.

“About David.”

Jackie smiled. “Of course. I’ve also been meaning to tell you I appreciate the way you’ve encouraged him to read. I don’t approve of some of the things you’ve picked, but I suppose reading anything is better than nothing.”

How on earth, Amelia wondered, did she make an expression of thanks insulting?

“You’re right, it is better,” she said, carefully picking her words. “It’s important that kids learn to love reading, and the only way that happens is for them to read things that interest them.”

She could see the disagreement rising to the other woman’s lips and continued quickly to forestall it.

“But what I wanted to talk about is not David’s reading. It’s…his brother.”

The practiced smile faltered. Something hot and annoyed flickered in the cool blue eyes, and Amelia wondered rather abruptly if the man on the motorcycle had blue eyes, too.

“Why on earth,” Jackie finally said, “would you ask about him?”

“I just…” Amelia stopped, wishing she’d thought this through before she’d done it; it was going to be very difficult not to give away David’s secret. But she didn’t have to; Jackie was on a roll.

“That boy,” she said firmly, “was a hellion from the day he was born. I tried my best, but I’ve never seen a child who got into so much trouble so often and so young. I couldn’t turn my back for a minute or he’d be into mischief. And later it got worse. He became incorrigible. It’s a miracle we all survived.”

“I see,” was all Amelia could manage.

“Oh, I know what David’s probably told you. He’s built Luke up into some kind of idol, and he won’t see reason about it. I’ve had to be extra hard on David so he doesn’t turn out like Luke did.”

“And how is that?” Amelia asked, curious to see how much truth there was to David’s assumption that his mother hated his brother.

“Useless, troublesome, wicked and hideously embarrassing,” Jackie said baldly. “But he’s my cross to bear, much as I would like to deny he exists. And the sooner David gets over this silly moping around and mooning over a brother who isn’t worth it, the better.”

Well. That answers that, Amelia thought. And felt another pang of sympathy for the much-maligned Luke. “I’m sure a lot of David’s mood is because of his father,” she said, purposely changing the subject.

“It’s been six months,” Jackie said. “It’s time to move on.”

Startled at the woman’s bluntness, Amelia said cautiously, “I don’t think that’s something you can put a timetable on. Everyone has to grieve in their own way.”

If this was Jackie Hiller’s way of grieving, Amelia thought as the woman abruptly remembered an appointment and stated she had to go right now, it was rather odd. And the woman seemed to have no idea how deeply David felt the loss of his father.

Amelia acknowledged the hasty goodbye and the promise to drop off the newsletter, and only after Jackie had taken a couple of steps did she think to call out to her.

“Mrs. Hiller? What does Luke look like?”

The woman’s expression was nothing less than sour. “He looks,” she said, “like his damned, black-Irish father.”

The woman turned on her Ferragamo heel and walked swiftly away, as if in a hurry to leave the topic behind her in more ways than one.

His damned, black-Irish father…

The image of the man on the motorcycle came back even more vividly now. It all fit.

As did something else. That man had been at least in his mid-twenties. Jacqueline Hiller looked to be in her late thirties, although she could be a well-maintained forty-something. Not that she would want to hear that, Amelia was certain. But that meant that if the man on the bike was indeed Luke McGuire, he must have been born when Jackie was very, very young. And that he’d still been at home when Jackie had begun her crusade.

She wondered how it must feel to be the reason your mother campaigned like a zealot against teen pregnancy.

“Look, Davie, I’m really sorry about your dad. He was a good guy.”

David nodded, his mouth tightening.

After one of the longest nights of his life, when his gut had tried hard to convince his head he should go home, Luke had waited down the street from the old house this morning until David had come out. And he had to admit, the boy’s joyous greeting had been gratifying. He’d barely recognized his little brother, but the boy had had no such problem. He supposed it was because he’d already been eighteen when he’d left and hadn’t changed all that much, whereas David had gone from small child to teenager.

“He liked you,” David said.

“I liked him, too.”

“He never said bad things about you, even after you left. Not like Mom.”

Luke sighed. “I’ve been gone eight years, and she’s still riding that old horse?”

“Sometimes I tell her to shut up.”

And I’ll bet that goes over like a busted paddle. “Hey,” he said aloud, gripping his brother’s shoulder, “don’t make trouble for yourself. You don’t have to defend me. Not to her.”

“But if I don’t, nobody else will,” David said. Then, brightening, he added, “But you’re here now. You can tell her to shut up.”

Luke laughed. “Yeah, I suppose I could.” He wouldn’t—it wasn’t worth it—but it seemed to make David feel better. “But if you don’t mind, I’ll wait a while. I’m not sure I want her to know I’m here yet.”

“I didn’t tell her,” David said. “I didn’t even tell her you were coming.”

“Were you so sure I would?”

The boy nodded. “I knew you’d remember what it was like here. I did tell some people, though.”

“Oh? Who?”

“My friends, some of them. Snake, anyway.”

“Snake?”

“Yeah, like in the movie about New York being turned into a prison, remember?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“And Amelia.”

Luke lifted a brow. “Amelia? Who’s that, your girlfriend?”

David blushed. Luke’s mouth quirked; that was a stage he was glad to be long past. “Nah,” the boy said. “She’s too old. She’s thirty, I think.”

Ancient, Luke silently agreed with a rueful smile; his own thirtieth wasn’t all that far away.

“She’s a little quiet,” David went on. “You never know what she’s thinking. But she’s cool. Even takes kickboxing lessons. She runs the bookstore downtown.”

A memory flashed through his mind, of riding down Main Street last evening, just as it was starting to get dark. And of a woman, almost huddled in the doorway of the bookstore, as if she feared he would ride right up onto the sidewalk and grab her. That surely couldn’t be the “cool” Amelia….

“What happened to old man Wylie?”

“He retired. Amelia’s folks moved here and bought the store, and she worked there. Then they died, and now it’s hers. She’s cool,” he repeated. “She gets me good stuff to read, not that junk they make you read at school. You can talk to her, about anything and she really hears. And she talks to you, not at you.”

“Definitely cool, then,” Luke agreed; there had been a time in this town when he would have been pitifully grateful to find someone like that.

“She lets me talk about Dad,” David added, looking away and taking a surreptitious swipe at his eyes that Luke pretended not to see. “Mom doesn’t want me to ever bring him up. But Amelia says I should talk about him, that it’ll help.”

Another point for her, Luke thought. A big one.

David looked at his brother hopefully. “Want to meet her? I told her you’d come, but she wasn’t sure.”

Luke wasn’t sure he wanted to meet anybody in Santiago Beach, but the cool Amelia had a few things in her favor. She apparently listened to David, something their mother never did; he doubted that had changed much. She had acknowledged his right to grieve for his father, something else he apparently wasn’t getting at home. And most of all, she hadn’t lived here when Luke had, so she didn’t know him.

“All right,” he agreed at last, and David yelped happily. It was fairly close so they walked, although Luke guessed David was itching to ask for a ride on the bike. Later, he thought; that would be just about right to send the old lady— Lord, she had always hated being called that—over the edge.

David was so excited he couldn’t just walk; he ran ahead, heedless of the people dodging out of his way. Luke watched his not so little brother—the wiry David was only about four inches short of his own six feet—with a wry amusement. Once he’d been the same way, in a hurry in a slowed-down place. And if people had stared at him, or yelled at him, so much the better.

Nobody yelled at him today. No reason to; he was strolling along at the same snail’s pace as everyone else. But they still stared. About half of them, anyway. He’d shed his riding gear for an unobtrusive pair of jeans and a blue T-shirt, so he knew it wasn’t his clothes. And he didn’t recognize them all, the gapers, although some of them brought back flashes of unwelcome memory. But then, he supposed a lot more people in Santiago Beach had known him—or of him—than he’d known himself. It had been one of his missions in life back then, to make sure of that.

“C’mon, Luke! Hurry up!”

He watched as David waved him on, trying to get him to pick up his pace. He did, slightly, but these days he got most of his need for speed taken care of elsewhere.

He’d caught up to David when they reached the bookstore. He noticed the display in the front window: a beach scene with real sand, a surfboard propped in one corner, a towel, a bottle of suntan lotion, sunglasses and, of course, a book open beneath a small umbrella, with others stacked beside it. As if the reader had just paused for a cooling dip in the ocean.

He barely had time to admire the cleverness of it before David yanked the door open, and before even stepping inside, he was yelling.

“Amelia! He’s here! I told you he’d come, I told you!”

The woman behind the counter turned just as Luke stepped inside. It was her. The frightened rabbit of a woman who had been so intimidated by his mere presence last night.

Several things registered at once.

She wasn’t old.

She was average height, maybe five-five.

Her hair was an unremarkable medium brown, cut short and tucked tidily behind her ears.

She was dressed plainly, in black slacks and a white blouse with black piping, with a simple gold chain at her throat.

She had the biggest eyes he’d ever seen, the same medium brown as her hair.

And those eyes were staring at him as if he were some kind of apparition.

“It was you,” she whispered, in a voice so soft he was sure he wasn’t supposed to have heard it.

She’d known who he was last night? How?

Before he could ask, David had. “Whaddya mean?”

“I saw…him last night. On a…motorcycle.”

“Isn’t it cool?” David enthused.

“I suppose,” the woman said cautiously.

“I want to ride on it,” David said with a sideways glance at Luke.

“I’ll think about it,” Luke said, never taking his eyes off the woman who was looking at him with such…trepidation. There was something familiar about her expression, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. “If you remember why we’re here and introduce me.”

“Oh! Sorry. This is Amelia. Amelia, my brother, Luke.” Then he looked at Luke, puzzled. “Why’d I have to do that if she already knew who you were?”

“Because it’s good manners,” Amelia said. David grimaced.

“Because,” Luke said, “it shows you’re an adult, not a kid.”

“Oh.” That explanation clearly appealed to him. “Okay.”

“Amelia Blair, I presume,” Luke said, turning his attention back to her.

“I…yes.”

She lowered her eyes, sneaked another glance at him from beneath her lashes, then looked away. And suddenly he had it; she was looking at him like the good girls used to in high school, half-scared, half-fascinated. They had seemed to fall into two categories back then: those who were both frightened and intrigued in varying ratios, and those who simply looked down on him from the lofty height of their uprightness.

He’d tried to avoid all of them, although those who were intrigued had been, on occasion, persistent. But even then, he’d known they were after him for all the wrong reasons. He’d had his own battles to fight and had no interest in being a pawn in someone else’s.

Not, he thought as she stole another sideways look at him, that that would be a problem with the quiet Ms. Blair. She looked more likely to run from him than after him. Once he’d taken a twisted pleasure in the effect he had on good girls. Now he wasn’t sure how he felt. It was hard, he realized suddenly, to think that way again. To put himself back in the place he’d once lived, in the mind-set he’d once developed to survive. Maybe he’d come further than he’d thought.

Ms. Blair was too tense and far too serious. But she got points from him for caring about David and for thinking David needed more attention to his grief than he was getting.

“David’s been…telling me a lot about you,” she said, sounding more than a little awkward.

“Has he?” Luke said, wondering what the boy could possibly have said, after eight years with no contact at all between them.

“He told me you taught him to like to read.”

Startled, Luke looked at his brother. “You did,” David said. “When you used to come in and read to me. I read every night now.”

Reading had been his favorite—and sometimes his only—escape when he’d been under his mother’s roof. He’d tried to pass that along to David, but he’d had no idea it had worked so well. “I…that’s good,” he said, not sure what else to say.

“Amelia gets me the best books,” David said, smiling at her. “Sometimes she even loans her own to me, if I can’t buy them.”

“Speaking of which,” Amelia said, sounding glad to be back in familiar waters, “the newest in your science fiction series came in. I just put them up.”

“Cool!” David raced toward the back of the store without another word.

“So,” Luke said when David was out of earshot, “has David been the only one telling you about me?”

“I… What do you mean?”

He shook his head. “I’m disappointed, Ms. Blair. You mean I’m no longer the hot topic in Santiago Beach?”

She seemed to consider that. Then she surprised him, a tiny grin lurking at the corners of her mouth as she said, “I’m afraid you’ve lost a bit in the gossip standings after eight years.”

So the mouse had a sense of humor, he thought. But before he could comment, David was back, his book clutched in one hand, a crumpled five-dollar bill in the other. Amelia gave him his change and offered a bag, which David declined, stuffing the book in a pocket of his baggy pants.

“Come on, Luke, I want my friends to meet you.”

Luke, who was still looking at Amelia, noticed something change in her expression, saw two worry lines appear between her brows. Afraid he would be a bad influence on David’s friends? he wondered. If she was, she was also no doubt too polite to say so.

As David dragged him away, Luke found himself wondering just what his brother had told her about him that made her look so relieved as they began to leave. There had been a time when he had reveled in rattling the cages of people like the quiet, reserved Amelia Blair; now her wariness simply bothered him. He’d gotten out of the habit of dealing with it, and he didn’t like the idea of having to relearn how.

David kept up a steady stream of chatter as they walked down the street. Luke tried to pay attention, but it was hard, back here in the place where so much of the history he’d thought was well behind him lay in wait to ambush him around every turn.

But when they encountered a group of five boys who looked about David’s age, maybe a little older, he gave himself a mental slap; there was something about this group that warned him to be alert. Not that there was anything particularly different about their looks—the haircuts, the pants like David’s and the reversed baseball caps were omnipresent these days—but there was something about the way they walked, the way they whispered among themselves, the way they looked him up and down so assessingly, that made him watchful. And also made him wonder again just what David had been saying about him.

Somehow he doubted it was that he’d taught his little brother to love to read.

Chapter 3

Amelia shelved four copies of the latest courtroom thriller, the last books in the box. That left her only two boxes to go, she thought as she stretched her back.

The door buzzer announced a customer, and she stepped out from behind the rack of books. Her heart leapt, then stilled, and for a moment she didn’t know why. When she realized it was because the man who had come in was dressed all in black, she blushed in embarrassment. When she saw that it was eighty-year-old, silver-haired Mr. Hodges, her color deepened. Thankful she could pass it off as exertion, she went to great him, wondering how on earth one sighting and one brief encounter with a man could have such an effect. This just wasn’t like her; she’d gotten over her fascination with bad boys long ago. She had taken her mother’s warnings to heart and had thought herself the better for it.

She got the autobiography Mr. Hodges had ordered from her office, where she’d set it aside when it had come in.

“Looks like a good one,” she said as she rang it up. “But I still think you should write your own, Mr. H. Nobody could top your adventures.”

She meant it, too. The man had been a bona fide World War II hero, medals and all, and after the war had become a stunt pilot of some renown. She’d seen photographs of him in his younger days, and he’d been quite the looker, in his flying jumpsuit, boots and a daredevil grin that still appeared on occasion.

“Ah, nobody’s interested in the ramblings of an old man like me.”

“That’s not true!” she protested. “I would be. Lots of folks would. I bet even Hollywood would be interested.”

Mr. Hodges chuckled. “You’re a sweetheart, Amelia. And named after one of my childhood heroes. If I were twenty years younger…”

She laughed, as the ongoing joke between them required. But there was, as always, that tug of…not sadness, but a sort of wistfulness that she had been named after the adventurous, if reckless, Amelia Earhart, yet had none of her nerve or courage.

It wasn’t until after he’d gone that Amelia wondered if it had been something more than the black clothing that had put her in mind of Luke McGuire. If perhaps that daredevil grin, and the reckless glint in the eye that went with it, hadn’t been part of it, since Luke had his own lethal version of both.

And his eyes, while blue, weren’t at all like his mother’s. Where hers were a pale, icy color, Luke’s were deep and rich and vivid, the color of water reflecting the sky on a crystal clear day. And the scar beside his left eye only added to his daring appeal. As did the earring he wore. He was—

She cut off her own thoughts, stifling a tiny shiver, irritated with herself for feeling it. David’s brother was simply a man who rode a motorcycle. He’d been dressed perfectly normally when they’d come in yesterday.

And he’d still set her pulse off on a mad race, she admitted ruefully. As if the normal clothes were a disguise, one that she could see through, down to the leather-clad biker he really was.

She wondered if Jackie Hiller had known something David didn’t when she’d told her son his brother was probably in jail.

He shouldn’t have come.

He’d suspected he would regret it before he’d even left River Park, but he hadn’t thought it would happen quite this soon.

Now that he was here, David had apparently broadcast it to the entire town. He couldn’t get angry with his brother, he hadn’t told him not to say anything, simply because he hadn’t thought of it. He was too long out of that kind of thinking.

But he was learning again fast. Every time he ventured out, he was the focus of far too many eyes. He’d dodged his mother so far, didn’t know if she even knew he was here yet—but he was sure someone would tell her soon enough, if they hadn’t already.

Heck, Mrs. Clancy had probably been on the phone immediately after this morning, he thought as he sipped at his coffee.

Just down the block from the single motel in town, where he’d taken a room, was a doughnut shop. He’d never been in there as a kid—candy had been his sugar hit of choice—so he’d hoped it might be a reputation-free zone. And it had been; the owner didn’t seem to recognize him when he ordered a simple black coffee.

And then Mrs. Clancy had arrived. Of all people.

It had taken her a moment, but he knew the instant she put it together by the way her brows lowered sharply and she pulled down her glasses to peer at him over the frames.

“You!”

He thought about trying to deny it, but it seemed pointless with David telling the world he was here.

“Good morning, Mrs. Clancy. Nice day.”

“Don’t you nice day me, you…you hooligan!”

That’s me, Luke-the-hooligan-McGuire, he thought wryly.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

He kept himself from making a comment about it being a free country, knowing it would only aggravate her. Funny, once that would have been his highest goal, to aggravate this particular woman.

“Getting coffee,” he said instead.

It seemed to aggravate her just as much. “Don’t be flippant, you know perfectly well what I meant.”

“I came to see David.”

The brows lowered even farther, and the glasses went back on her nose. “Does his mother know you’re here?”

Interesting phrasing, Luke thought. And he said with intentional emphasis, “I have no idea if my mother has any idea I’m here.”

“She isn’t going to like this.”

“That’s her problem. If she stays out of my way, I’ll stay out of hers.”

The woman’s mouth tightened, although he’d thought it was already about as sealed as her mind. “So where are you causing your trouble now? Or have you been in jail where you belong?”

Startled, he nearly splashed hot coffee on his hand. Seconds later he told himself he shouldn’t be surprised at all; what else would they think, this town that had been so damn glad to see him leave?

“I think it would take prison to satisfy you,” he said, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. “You buying doughnuts, or just entertaining the staff?”

Only then did she seem to notice the shop owner and his assistant watching them with great interest. Flustered, she gave her order and told them rather sharply to step on it, she didn’t approve of who they allowed in here. Luke turned to make his escape but stopped at the door and looked back at her. He wasn’t quite sure why he said it, but it was out before he could stop it.

“You know, you’re one of the few people in this town who has real reason to hate me, and I’m sorry for that.”

For an instant she looked taken aback, but the frown reappeared quickly. “Just leave,” she said. And with a shrug, he did; he hadn’t expected anything else.

He started down Main Street, and by the time he’d finished his coffee, it was clear that anybody who recognized him was of the same mind as Mrs. Clancy; they remembered only the worst about the kid he’d been and assumed that he’d either ended up in jail, or should have.

At first he laughed it off, but when he finally tossed his empty cup in one of the plentiful trash containers that were new since he’d lived here, he was feeling a bit beleaguered.

So let them think what they want, he told himself. They will anyway. What do you care? It’s not like you give a damn about any of them.

And the next person he came across, he would just let them think the worst. Maybe he would even help them along, fulfill their grim expectations. It was probably the nicest thing he could do for them, let them be so utterly smug about how right they’d always been about that McGuire kid, how they’d always known he would come to no good.

He heard distant chimes and reflexively checked his watch. The clock on the tower at the community center and library had been chiming the hours away for as long as he could remember. It was just after nine, and he wasn’t supposed to meet David until ten, so he continued his stroll down the street he had admittedly terrorized on occasion. He’d raced his old, beat-up Chevy up and down, radio blasting, just to see the heads turn. He’d set off cherry bombs to watch people scatter and done his share of spray-painting graffiti here and there. It all seemed pretty tame now, but fifteen years ago it had been rowdy stuff.

By Santiago Beach standards, it probably still was, he thought. What would blend into the bigger picture in a big city stood out glaringly here in the sleepy seaside village the Chamber of Commerce kept touting.

Of course, he’d taken the blame for a lot of things he hadn’t done, too, but nobody believed that. Even his mother. Especially his mother. He’d finally given up on proclaiming his innocence to her when he realized it didn’t matter what he said, that he was guilty before he even knew what he was accused of.

He shook his head sharply, trying to rid himself of the unwanted memories. He hadn’t come here for this, to wallow in old misery. He’d given that up long ago. He was here to help David, if he could. And that was what he should be concentrating on.

He just wasn’t sure how to go about it. There was no point in trying to talk to his mother; she’d never listened to him in her life. But he had to know just how bad things were for his brother.

He saw the bookstore up ahead and wondered if he’d subconsciously been heading there all along. It did make sense, he thought; the tidy Ms. Blair seemed to be the adult whom David was closest to.

Except that the store wasn’t open yet. The lights were on, but he couldn’t see anyone inside, and the sign said ten o’clock. Right when he was supposed to meet David.

He turned to look out at the street where it curved to head down to the beach and the pier, thinking. He should have asked her yesterday, except that David had never been far away. Maybe he should have set up a time to talk. Assuming she would be willing, he amended; just because she hadn’t lived here when he had didn’t mean she was immune to the horror stories that apparently were still being told about him. She might not want to—

“Luke?”

He spun around on his heel, startled. Amelia stood in the doorway, looking at him questioningly. And with only the barest trace of the apprehension he’d seen yesterday.

“You’re here,” he said, rather lamely.

“I come in about an hour before opening to get set up,” she explained. “Did you…want something?”

“Yes,” he said, oddly disconcerted. “You.”

She drew back slightly, her eyes widening. They weren’t just medium brown, he saw now in the morning light, they were a sort of golden brown, rimmed strikingly with darker brown. And he realized suddenly what had rattled him; she was wearing black and white again, as if it were some kind of uniform, but this time the pants were snug black leggings, and the white was in the form of a lightweight cotton sweater that clung gently to curves he hadn’t noticed in the tailored blouse of yesterday.

“Me?”

Her voice had a hint of a gulp in it, and he registered what he’d said. “I mean, I wanted to talk to you,” he said hastily.

“Oh,” she said, still looking and sounding a bit wary.

“About David.”

“Oh.” There was understanding in her tone this time, and he could almost see her relax slightly. “Come in, then.”

He did, noticing that she didn’t change the sign to Open but also that she didn’t lock the door behind him. He wasn’t sure if she just hadn’t thought about it, or it had been intentional. The latter, no doubt, he thought wryly. It probably meant she wanted to be able to get out, or wanted somebody else to be able to get in. In case the terror of Santiago Beach went postal on her or something, he supposed.

“I have coffee in my office,” she said as she led the way.

“Thanks,” he said, ready for the jolt of a second cup; it had been a rough morning so far. “Black,” he added as he stepped in after her.

She fussed a bit with the coffeemaker on a table in the small, windowless office, which gave him a chance to look around. The place was as tidy as he would have expected, not an easy task in a small space that had to serve various functions, he guessed. The desk was small, and after placing the phone, some in and out trays, and a computer on it, there was barely room for a writing space. There were two file cabinets behind the desk, leaving the wheeled chair a bit cramped for turning room.

But the decor was a little surprising, bright with color from various prints and posters on the walls. He would have expected book-related things, and there were a couple, but there were many more adventurous themes—skiing, mountain climbing, hang gliding—all presented in a very adrenaline-inducing way.

When she turned and handed him a mug of steaming coffee, he indicated the posters with a nod. “What you do in your spare time?”

She looked startled. “Me? Oh, no. Never.”

“Then why the wallpaper?”

“To remind me that other people do those things. I admire courage.” She said it, he realized, as if it were something to be found only in those others.

“Some would say foolhardiness,” he said; he’d heard it often enough aimed at himself.

“Yes. And I suppose sometimes it’s true. But the exhilaration must be worth it.”

“Until something goes wrong,” he said.

“Yes,” she answered simply, and glanced at the wall behind him. He turned and saw, in a direct line of sight from her desk chair, a large photograph of Amelia Earhart.

“So,” he said, turning back to her, “you’re a namesake?”

“Yes. She was a heroine of my mother’s. The name hardly fits, but it gave her pleasure to honor a woman she admired. Now, about David,” she ended briskly, clearly changing the subject. “Why don’t you sit down?”

He took the chair she indicated, an antique-looking wood affair of the kind it made him nervous to sit on. But it was surprisingly comfortable, and had a spot to set down his coffee mug on the wide, wooden arms.

“I know David wrote to you,” she said, forgoing any niceties.

He appreciated the leap, since he hadn’t known quite what to ask. “I didn’t even know he knew where I was.”

“He told me you sent him birthday cards.”

Luke nodded. “But I never put an address on them. I knew my mother would throw them away.”

She didn’t react, didn’t look shocked or surprised. He wondered if it was because she already knew his mother’s tricks, or maybe she didn’t find them presumptuous. “He must have guessed from the postmarks,” was all she said.

“That’s how he addressed it, just to me in River Park. If the place was any bigger, I might not have gotten it.”

“Where’s River Park?”

“In the Sierra foothills. Near the gold country.” He studied her for a moment. “How bad is it?”

She didn’t pretend not to understand; he appreciated that, as well. “He’s horribly unhappy over his father’s death. It’s so devastating to lose a parent at that age. And for a father and son who were so close, it must be even worse.”

“I wouldn’t know, I never met mine,” he said casually. “I don’t even know what he looked like. My mother isn’t one for family photos.”

It didn’t really bother him anymore. There had been a time when it had almost made him crazy, but that was long ago. He—

“He looks like you.”

He stared at her. He slowly set his coffee mug down. He shifted in the chair. “What?” he finally said, certain he couldn’t have heard her right.

“Or you look like him, I guess is more accurate.”

“And how the hell,” he said slowly, “would you know that?”

“Your mother told me.”

He’d made a big mistake, a huge mistake. There was no way he would get a reasonable answer about David from someone close enough to his mother that she would even speak of the loathsome Patrick McGuire. He set down his mug and stood up.

Her brows furrowed. Unlike Mrs. Clancy’s, they were delicately formed and arched. “What’s wrong?”

“When you report back to my mother, give her my love,” he said sarcastically.

“Report?” She looked genuinely puzzled. “I barely speak to her. Why would—” She broke off, as if suddenly understanding what he’d meant. She stood up, meeting his gaze steadily. “Luke, I’m not a close friend of your mother’s. I’ve only even spoken to her a couple of times. After I saw you that night, when I didn’t know it was you, I…asked her what you looked like, that’s the only reason she mentioned your father.”

It was you….

He remembered her saying it, and now this explained it. She’d somehow guessed his identity with that glimpse. He wasn’t sure how that made him feel.

“I only spoke to her this time,” she went on, “because I was worried about David.” Her mouth twisted. “She didn’t seem to care.”

“Now that’s the mother I know and love,” he quipped.

She cocked her head sideways as she looked up at him consideringly. “You don’t sound at all bitter.”

“I’m not. Not anymore. I don’t have time.”

“David said you were busy.”

He blinked. “He did?”

“I thought it was just…little brother talk about a big brother he idolizes.”

“Idolizes? He doesn’t even know me anymore.”

“But he’s built you up into an idol of mythic proportions in his mind. You’re his hero, Luke. Especially, I’m afraid, for all the trouble you got into here.”

Luke sank back into the chair. “Damn,” he muttered. That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Nobody knew better than he how hard it was to get off that path once you’d started.

“He’s taken up with some new friends since his father died. They’re…”

“Troublemakers,” he supplied when she stopped. “Like me?”

“I don’t know exactly what kind of troublemaker you are,” she said, “but I do know that these boys are getting worse. They haven’t physically hurt anybody yet, but it’s only a matter of time. And David’s starting to think like them.”

He didn’t bother to disabuse her of the notion that he was still a troublemaker. He’d vowed to let the people in this town think what they would about him. It was David who mattered now.

“He gets too far down that road, it’ll be hard to stop him.”

“It’s a self-destructive path,” she said. “Who knows where he’d end up.”

Luke propped his elbows on the wooden chair arms, steepled his fingers and looked at her over the top of them. “In jail? Or worse? I believe that’s the assumption. And I should know.”

For a moment he thought she was going to ask him what he should know about, jail or assumptions. But she didn’t, and he figured she’d decided for herself. And although her quiet, reserved expression never wavered, he had little doubt as to what she’d decided, just like everybody else in Santiago Beach.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“Do?” How about rattle that restraint of yours? he thought, and blinked in surprise at himself.

“About David.”

He steered his attention back in to the topic at hand. “I don’t know. Talk to him, I guess.”

She looked about to speak, then hesitated. He waited silently, wondering if she would have to be coaxed, or if just setting the lure of silence would be enough.

It was. Finally.

“I…it’s hard to get kids his age to buy ‘Do as I say, not as I do,’” she said, watching him warily.

Think I’m going to jump you for painting me with this town’s brush? he wondered.

And yet, he had to admit it stung a little, that she assumed along with the rest of Santiago Beach that he’d continued to be up to no good since he’d left. He opened his mouth, ready to tell her that he’d changed, that he wasn’t the same reprobate kid he’d been, that he’d made something of his life, that he’d—

The next person he came across, he would just let them think the worst…fulfill their grim expectations. It was probably the nicest thing he could do for them….

His own vow came back to him, made just minutes ago. And he shut his mouth. Let her think what she obviously already did. Why should she be any different?

He leaned back in the chair. Steepled his fingers again. “I’ll take that as evidence you don’t think he should come live with me.”

“Is that really what he wants?”

He shrugged. “It’s what he said in his letter. He hasn’t mentioned it since I got here.”

She studied him for a moment, still giving nothing away. Then she said quietly, “Do you want him to?”

He expelled a long, slow breath and jammed a hand through his hair. That was an answer he didn’t have. “I don’t know. Davie…well, he’s about the only good memory I’ve got from here. I don’t want him to go through the hell I did, but…my life isn’t the best for a kid. Especially a screwed-up one. I’m gone a lot, days at a time.”

If she wondered what he did that called for that, she didn’t ask. “You…could change that. Couldn’t you?”

There was something about the way she was looking at him that prodded him to say flippantly, “Go straight? Perish the thought.” Oddly, for a split second she looked hurt, and he regretted the jibe. “Look, I’m worried about him, but…”

“You don’t want the responsibility?”

She didn’t say it accusingly, merely in the tone of a normal question. Which he supposed it was. “I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of responsibility.”

“Then why did you bother to come?”

“Not,” he said sourly, “to be reminded at every turn what a total waste my life has been.”

“It can’t be a total waste.” Her voice was unexpectedly gentle, and it seemed to brush away his irritation. “You have a brother who adores you. That’s worth a lot.”

He couldn’t deny that.

He couldn’t deny the odd feeling that having those eyes of hers look at him with softness instead of suspicion gave him, either.

Luke walked out her door at five to ten, and Amelia was glad she had at least a few minutes before she had to open. She was going to need every one of them to recover.

She was exhausted. Just sitting there talking to Luke McGuire, pretending it was a casual conversation between two people with a common concern, had worn her out. It wasn’t her shyness, after years of work she’d overcome that to a great extent. But never in her admittedly sheltered life had she ever talked at length to a man like this one, a man with a reputation, a man with a past.

A man who was worried about his young brother, she corrected herself. A man who was honest enough to admit he wasn’t prepared to take that brother on, yet cared enough to come some distance to find out how bad things really were.

Perhaps she needed to reassess her opinion of him.

Perhaps, she thought wryly as she forced herself to get ready to open, she shouldn’t have developed an opinion of him at all before she’d met him. Although, if she’d waited until she’d first seen him, riding down the street last night, who knew what kind of opinion she would have formed.

Speaking of honesty, if she was going to match his, she had to admit that when she’d been younger and under the watchful eyes of her parents, it had been easy to suppress any of the more turbulent urges she might have had. Such as those brought on by the wilder boys in school. She was finding it much harder now to deny she found bad boy Luke McGuire fascinating and unsettlingly attractive.

But he still frightened her. In a way that was so bone deep she didn’t even know where it came from. It was more than just the warnings her mother had given her, more even than trying to avoid trouble. It was something, she supposed, based in whatever quirk it was that made her an introvert rather than an extrovert.

But whatever it was, it kicked into high gear around Luke.

She tried to stop thinking about it; she didn’t usually dwell on her shortcomings in dealings with men. But this morning she hadn’t even managed to finish writing one check to her distributor, and now it was time to open. She put her pen down to mark the page in the notebook-style checkbook, then walked across the store. She flipped the sign in the front window to Open and went to unlock the front door, only to find that she’d never relocked it after letting Luke in.

Rattled? Not me, she muttered to herself.

She’d barely made it back to the checkout counter when the door announcement sounded. She’d forgotten to change it; it was still Captain Picard, when today was supposed to be Data. She pulled herself together, put on her best helpful smile and turned to greet her customer.

Her smile wobbled.

David’s friends. All five of them.

And one of them had a knife.

Chapter 4

Luke had watched the five boys strut away, recognizing the cocky walk and the smart mouths all too well. Those guys were trouble waiting to happen, and they were going to suck David down with them if things kept on.

The group had come upon them as they were about to sit down at one of the picnic tables in the park by the pier to eat and watch the ocean. By now Luke had a pretty good idea of how much—and in what way—David had talked him up to them. On this second encounter they were still assessing, calculating, silently asking just how tough he really was.

He had their number now, and he had shifted his stance slightly, just enough to signify readiness for anything. He had selected the obvious leader, the one they all watched to set the tone, to make the first move. The one who, Luke noted cautiously, had his right hand buried in the pocket of his baggy cargo pants. Some kind of weapon, Luke was sure, and hoped it wasn’t a gun. He had kept his gaze steady, level, and his face expressionless. And he stared him down. Not in a way that made it a threat the boy would have to respond to or lose face, but in a way that said, “It’s up to you how this goes.”

At last the boy had backed off, although Luke wasn’t sure it was for good, and had led his little troop away.

“Nice guys,” Luke muttered now as they sat down.

“They’re my friends,” David said, jaw tight with a stubbornness Luke recognized; it was like looking at the face in the mirror when he’d been that age.

“What about your old friends?” Luke asked, knowing he had to tread carefully here.

“They’re boring, man. They don’t do anything cool.”

“Mmm.”

Thinking, trying to decide what to say to that, Luke selected a French fry with great care. When he’d offered an early lunch, David had wanted fast food, saying his mother didn’t allow it very often. And he got so tired, David had added, of the stuff the cook fixed.

The cook. And, according to David, live-in help as well. His mother had obviously gotten where she wanted to be. He wondered cynically if Ed Hiller’s life insurance paid for it.

“It’s hard to keep good friends,” he said finally. “But it’s harder to find good new ones, because you just never know about people at first.”

“You still have friends from school?”

Zap. He’d missed the jog in the river on that one.

It’s hard to get kids his age to buy “Do as I say, not as I do….”

Amelia’s words came back to him then, and for the first time he realized what a genuinely untenable position he was in with his brother. How could he tell him what to do when, at the same age, his own life had been such a mess?

“No,” he admitted. “But most them weren’t real friends. I mean, they were buddies, guys you hang with, do stuff with, but…that doesn’t necessarily make them friends. Not real ones, good ones.”

David frowned. “What’s the diff?”

At least he was listening, Luke thought. Now if only he could think of what to say. “Friends help you out. They don’t try and make trouble for you, or suck you into any. They don’t rag on you if you don’t want to do something.”

David was watching him, his expression changing, a hint of disappointment coming into his eyes. “You sound like Mom, always lecturing me.”

Luke sucked in a quick breath; that was not a comparison he relished. His mouth twisted. “Whew. Nice shot.”

“I was waiting for ‘Friends don’t let friends drive drunk,’” David quoted.

“Well, they don’t, but I’m sorry, Davie. I didn’t mean to lecture you. I used to hate it when she did it to me.”

David smiled fleetingly at the old nickname that only Luke had ever used. “I know. I remember you fighting with her. I could hear you after I went to bed.”

“I’ll bet. It got loud sometimes.”

“I hated it.” David lowered his eyes and picked at the sole fry left in his meal. “Sometimes…I hate her.”

Again, Luke didn’t know what to say. It hardly seemed right to encourage that, but how could he blame the kid when he felt the same way? “I understand,” he said finally. “But I think…she does love you. She’s just no good at showing it.”

“I don’t think so,” David said solemnly. “She just hates me less than she hated you.”

That was such a cogent assessment that Luke couldn’t counter it, wasn’t sure he wanted to. David lifted his gaze, his eyes, so much like his father’s, deeply troubled.

“I can’t take it much longer, Luke,” he said, sounding much older than his fifteen years. “Everything’s falling apart since Dad died. He was what kept her from being really bad, but now she’s worse than ever, almost like she was right before you left.”

Luke expelled an audible breath. “Is it all her, Davie? Or is she worried about you, what you’re doing these days, those new friends?”

“She just doesn’t like them.”

“Who does?”

“Huh?”

“Besides you, who does like them?”

David looked puzzled. “I don’t know. Why?”

“Just curious.”

Silence reigned for a few minutes, and Luke let it, hoping the boy might be pondering that. But it seemed a lost cause when, after downing the last of his soda, David merely looked at him and said, “I like your earring. Wish I could get one, but Mom’d never let me get pierced, not even just an ear.”

Luke fingered the small gold paddle that dangled from his left lobe. “This is about as far as I go. I’m a wuss about needles.”

“You?” David said, clearly disbelieving. “You’re not a wuss about anything.”

“Oh, yeah, I am. I’m no hero, bro.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s nearly eleven. Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”

David swore, crudely. “Stupid drawing lesson. Like a teacher’s gonna make me be able to draw when I can’t.”

“Pretty bad, huh?”

“I suck,” was the succinct answer. “And I hate all this stuff, drawing, piano, what a waste of a summer.”

“Could be worse.”

“Yeah? How?”

“I don’t know. Ballroom dancing? Accordion lessons?”

David laughed and for a moment was the boy Luke remembered. Luke smiled as he stood up. “Go. Don’t get me in any more trouble for making you late.”

David got up, too, but hesitated, then said simply, “She knows.”

“She does?”

“Old lady Clancy called her.”

“Figures.”

“I don’t think she’s figured out yet that…you’re here because I asked you.”

“Take my advice, don’t let her,” Luke told him. “Tell her I got…nostalgic.”

David nodded slowly. “She said this morning that after my summer class I have to sit through her stupid lecture, waiting so she can drive me home. Like I can’t walk or ride my bike eight blocks.” He gave Luke a sideways glance. “I think she just doesn’t want me to see you, so she’s keeping me too busy. But I’ll dodge her somehow. I can’t be in any more trouble with her than I already am.”

Luke considered that. “I think you probably can be,” he said frankly. But then he grinned at his brother. “But I can’t. Maybe we’ll just have to make it my fault.”

David brightened considerably at that, then took off running toward the community center where summer classes were held. Luke thought about how his mother had never bothered with those for him. He’d told himself he was glad to have his summers free, to have a mother who didn’t care where he went or what he did as long as he didn’t cause her any problems.

He sat there, staring out at the water, at the picturesque cove that had such appeal for people from all over but had never been anything to him except a place to hide in a crowd. He’d always enjoyed watching the surf, had been drawn to the water, but something had seemed missing to him. He’d kept coming back, because it was so close, but the sea and sand and surf just missed reaching that deep, hidden place in him.

He wondered if David had such a place, a place he kept buried and safe, afraid he would never find what it was in the world that made his soul answer.

He wondered if their mother would smother that place in him before the boy ever had a chance to even look.

Amelia tried to contain her nervousness, but she was afraid she wasn’t doing a very good job. She tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but her idealism couldn’t quite stretch to the idea that these new friends of David’s were here to pick up some summer reading.

Especially given the way they strolled around the store not looking at any of the books, but just her. Especially given the way the one in the cargo pants with all the pockets flipped that knife around. A butterfly knife, the kind where the handle flipped closed around the blade, then reopened with a flick of the wrist, becoming deadly once more. She’d read about them when researching martial arts before deciding on kickboxing.

Open and closed, he flicked it back and forth, with the appearance of idle habit and a smoothness that spoke of long experience. And if she confronted him, she was sure he would smile innocently and tell her it was just that, a habit, that it didn’t mean anything, and why was she so nervous?

She gathered her nerve and tried to think. God, she hated being such a coward. The boy was back near the children’s section now, while the others were at various places, almost as if taking up stations. Almost as if they had a plan…

She glanced at the phone. She could pretend to be making a call and dial 911 instead. But they really hadn’t done anything yet, although she was sure waving that knife around was against some kind of law. But it wasn’t like he’d threatened her or anything, she told herself; it was only because she was so spineless that it seemed threatening.

Besides, they were David’s friends, even if she didn’t care for them, and he might never speak to her again if she called the police on them.

The one with the knife turned and headed back, flipping that blade as if it were a part of him.

It struck her then that perhaps she should try to treat these boys like she did all kids who came into her store. She could find the courage to simply do that, surely?

She drew a deep breath. She picked up the cordless telephone, thinking she would pretend to be calling a customer about a book if she had to, just so she wouldn’t seem so alone. She walked out from behind the counter, trying not to look at the boy who had taken up a position there. She glanced at the boy with the knife. Braced herself. And spoke.

“Did you know your knife is a Balisong?”

The boy looked startled; he must have thought she was too afraid to speak. She prayed he didn’t know how close he was to being right.

“You talkin’ to me?”

“Your knife. It’s called a Balisong. And that move you’re doing is sometimes called the ricochet.”

He looked down at the blade in his hand as if he’d never seen it before. Amelia walked past him to a book bay a couple of rows back. She hoped she could find it; she thought she’d seen it the last time she’d straightened this shelf…. And then she had it, the book on ancient weapons used in the various martial arts. She was sure this was it; it covered even the most obscure practices.

She found it quickly, held the page with the photo out for him to see. “Isn’t that beautiful? Look at the dragon design etched into the handle. This guy’s collection is worth a lot of money.”

The boy’s eyes flicked from the photo to the simple stainless steel model he held, then to her face.

“Nobody seems to be sure if they originated there, but it was in the Philippines that they were first incorporated into martial arts. That’s where it got the name.”

His expression was unreadable, and she wasn’t sure if she’d made things better or worse. Nor was she sure encouraging this was a good idea, but he already had the blade, and she doubted he would give it up because she—or anybody else—said so.

“There are several Web sites on the Internet about them. Even more photos of some really beautiful ones.”

Something like curiosity flickered in his shuttered eyes, as if she had done something unexpected.

Suddenly he turned on his heel and walked out. Without a word, the others followed, only one of them glancing back over his shoulder at her.

Amelia closed the book. Her hands were shaking. So were her knees. She sank down on the footstool she used for shelving books.

She hated being afraid.

But she was very much afraid she hadn’t seen the last of them.

Moments later the door opened again. God, they were back. They’d decided to come back and…who knows what. She glanced at her office, with the safety-promising lock on the door, but knew there wasn’t time. She reached for the phone she’d set on the shelf. The book slipped off her knees and fell to the floor with a thud.

“Amelia? Are you here? Are you okay?”

The phone followed the book; it was Luke. She recognized his deep voice, although there was a different note in it now. A touch of anxiety, she realized with a little jolt of shock. As if he were worried.

“Back here,” she managed to say, using the shelves as a prop to stand up, until she was sure she was steady enough to do it on her own; she would hate for him to realize what a coward she was, that five young boys had managed to terrorize her without doing a thing.

He came at a fast trot, only slowing to a walk when he saw her upright. “I saw those kids coming out from up the block,” he said as he came to a stop. “I just ran into them with David a while ago, and they weren’t my idea of kids with nothing on their minds but playing on a summer day.”

“One of them…had a knife.” She managed to suppress a shiver; in front of this man, apparently her pride outweighed her fear.

“The one with all the pockets?”

She nodded.

“Snake, David called him.”

“How…appropriate,” she said faintly.

“Too many movies,” Luke retorted.

She smiled, hoping it wasn’t as shaky as she felt. Her toe hit the book she had dropped, but before she could pick it up Luke was reaching for it. He glanced at the title, then at her, brows raised.

“I…was trying to divert him. Showed him pictures of knives like his, only fancier ones, worth a lot.”

“You deflected a hotheaded, knife-wielding teenager with a book?”

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“How about calling the cops?”

The notorious Luke McGuire, suggesting she call the police? “They weren’t really doing anything.”

“How about waving around a weapon I’m pretty sure is illegal in this state?”

She didn’t understand this; this was hardly what she expected to hear from him, this championing of law and order. “I didn’t want to make things harder on David. They know he comes in here a lot.”

“Oh.” He seemed to consider that. Then, handing her the book, added, “I guess I shouldn’t argue with success. They left, after all.”

Amelia blinked. She hadn’t thought about that. It might have been a desperate ploy on her part, but it had worked. “Yes. Yes, they did.”

“And you look like you could use a stiff drink. But since it’s not even noon, how about another cup of coffee?”

“I…yes. That sounds good. But I’ll have to make fresh.”

“Don’t bother. How about next door? They have something you like? Can you take a break?”

She hesitated, although the coffee bar next to the store made a latte she was fond of. Finally she gave in; she could afford a short break, and from the right table next door she could see any customers who might arrive anyway.

Moments later she was cradling the rich drink, thankful for the warmth despite the fact that it wasn’t the slightest bit cold out.

She looked across the table at him, intending to thank him, but her breath caught in her throat. He was leaning back in his chair, out of the cover of the table’s umbrella, and his hair gleamed almost blue-black in the sun. The glint of gold she’d seen that night—and had barely noticed in their first encounter—turned out to be an earring in the shape of a tiny boat paddle, although she supposed it must have some other significance she wasn’t aware of; she couldn’t quite picture him doing anything as mundane as rowing a boat around, or paddling a canoe. She found she liked it, although her mother had always decried the trend of men wearing earrings. Amelia found it rather rakishly attractive…if the man wearing it could carry it off.

Luke could definitely carry it off.

He was dressed today in jeans and a T-shirt with the logo of what seemed to be an outdoor equipment company. But the simple clothing did little to lessen his impact, and she realized the black leather had only emphasized what was already there. No matter what he wore, this man would never look quite…tame.

He was staring down Main Street, and she was thankful that he’d left off the concealing sunglasses, so she could see where he was looking. And so that she could quickly avert her gaze when he turned his attention back to her.

“David says you moved here when your folks bought the store,” he said conversationally. It seemed odd to her, sort of anticlimactic after the high drama she’d imbued the last few minutes with, to have a normal conversation. It took her a moment to gather her wits and answer.

“Yes. My father was a university professor. He retired to write a book and ended up owning a bookstore instead.” She smiled. “Which, not coincidentally, was what my mother had always wanted.”

“So she pushed him into it?”

Amelia laughed. “No. Neither one of my parents ever pushed the other one to do anything. They never had to. All either one had to do was say they wanted something, and the other one would move mountains to make it happen. They were crazy about each other.”

Luke didn’t react for a minute, and Amelia realized he was absorbing what she’d said as if he had to translate it into a language he understood.

“That must have been…nice,” he said at last, but she could see he was floundering, unable to relate this to anything he understood. And Amelia felt a sudden, sharp tug of sympathy for him, that something so basic and normal and necessary to her was so foreign to him.

“It was,” she said softly. “And sometimes I forget how special and rare.”

“Was?”

“My mother died four years ago. My father was lost without her, and within six months he was gone, too.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and there was no floundering this time; he might not know what it was like to live with such love, but he understood grief. “That must have been tough, losing them both like that.”

“I loved them dearly, but they would have wanted to be together. And they’d had very good lives.” She took a sip of her latte. “They were a bit too protective, I suppose. I was pretty sheltered. But I think that comes with being the only child of older parents.”

“So you were a late arrival?”

“Sort of. They adopted me when they were in their forties and realized they weren’t going to be able to have a biological child.”

He blinked, setting down his own cup of simple black coffee. “You were adopted?”

She nodded. “But they were the best parents I could ever have had. The always made me feel special. Chosen. I can’t imagine a biological child feeling any more loved than I was.”

“You were lucky.” His voice was a little tight.

“Yes, I was. Whoever my birth mother was, she did the best thing for me she could ever have done.”

“Gave you to parents who could love you.”

“Yes.”

There was no denying the taut emotion in his words. It struck her suddenly that she had indeed been lucky, luckier than some children who stayed with their natural parents. She wondered if Luke had ever wished his mother had given him up, given him a chance at loving parents. And then she wondered how could he not; it would almost have to be better than living with a mother who, to judge by her speeches, blamed his existence for ruining her life.

“I think,” she said softly, “I was even luckier than I realized.”

He looked at her for a long, silent moment. He didn’t pretend not to understand what she meant. “My mother had her reasons.”

“But none of them were your fault.”

His eyes narrowed. “Just how much do you know?”

She wished she hadn’t said it; the way he was looking at her, it was all she could do not to dodge his gaze. “I’ve heard your mother speak about the disaster teenage pregnancy can make of a life. I’ve seen you both, close enough to guess at ages. And—” she took a breath before finishing “—I can do math.”

He sat back. His mouth twisted up at one corner, and the opposite dark brow rose. “Clever girl.”

She bit her lip; she knew she should have kept quiet.

She’d meant to express compassion and had only antagonized him.

“I only meant that…she’s wrong to blame you. It’s not like you had a choice.”

“When I’d been away long enough, I realized she probably didn’t have much choice, either.”

“But she could have given you up to someone—” She stopped as he lifted a hand.

“She couldn’t. Her mother wouldn’t allow it.”

“Your grandmother?”

He laughed. “Not if you asked her. She died when I was thirteen, and she never once acknowledged I was connected to her in any way. I wasn’t her grandson, I was her daughter’s punishment.”

There hadn’t been a trace of anger, self-pity, or even regret in his tone. He had clearly dealt with all this long ago. But it made Amelia shiver. “My God. How did you stand it?”

“I didn’t. Not very well, anyway. I went a little crazy. But then, you know that.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know why you didn’t burn the entire town to the ground.”

He stared at her for a moment, then gave a sharp shake of his head. “What I don’t know,” he said, sounding surprised and more than a little rueful, “is why I told you all that.”

He drained his coffee, got up and tossed his cup in the recycle bin left out for the purpose. The conversation, it seemed, was over. She got to her feet, a little surprised that she was fairly steady; being with Luke was, in its own way, as unsettling as her encounter with David’s friends.

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