With a faint sigh, she straightened, ran a hand through her long, dark hair, and turned toward the doorway.
Her heart nearly stopped when she saw the man standing there, watching her with narrowed, expressionless eyes.
This sharp-edged, hard-eyed, dangerous-looking man was not the passionate young rebel she’d fallen in love with in this shelter, she thought as she lifted a hand to her pounding heart.
But she had no doubt that he was Lucas McBride.
LUCAS THOUGHT he was hallucinating.
Or dreaming.
Rachel stood before one of the window openings, bathed in the pale, cool light of the December morning, huddled into a denim jacket that didn’t conceal her willowy slenderness. Her dark, past-shoulder-length hair gleamed in the watery sunlight. He remembered how he’d once loved to bury his face and hands
in it.
She looked exactly the way he remembered her.
It was like stepping into the past, and being dealt a blow to the heart.
And then she turned and looked at him, and he saw that this was no dewy-eyed, shyly eager, naively trusting, eighteen-year-old girl. This was a woman who’d known grief, hurt, betrayal, disappointment. The innocence and eagerness were gone from her dark-chocolate eyes—as, God knew, they were long gone from his own, if they’d ever existed there.
She was still beautiful.
Her eyes widened in surprise and a touch of what might have been fear when she saw him. He watched as instant recognition crossed her face. Maybe he hadn’t changed outwardly as much as he’d thought, since Emily and Rachel had both known him so quickly.
Inwardly—well, his youth had been left in the past, along with his dreams and optimism.
It appeared Lucas was going to have to be the one to speak since Rachel seemed stunned into silence by his appearance. He thought it was a minor miracle that his voice came out fairly normal.
“Hello, Rachel.”
Her mouth moved. No sound emerged.
He took a step forward. “You are the last person I expected to find here today.”
If he’d known she would be here, would he still have come? He didn’t like the cowardly way his silent answer made him feel.
“Lucas?” Her voice was a mere thread of sound.
He nodded, unable to force a smile. “It’s been a long time.”
Stupid thing to say, he thought irritably. But nothing else had come to him.
“Yes.” She lifted a hand to her throat, as if to force strength into her voice. Fine tremors shook her fingers.
Hell, was she afraid of him?
He shoved his hands into the pockets of the black leather jacket he wore. “I didn’t know you were in town. I heard you’d moved away.”
He could almost see the willpower it took for her to regain her composure, to lift her chin and speak clearly and coolly. “It’s my first visit back in a long time. I have family business to attend to. I’m certainly surprised to see you here.”
He’d left in the middle of the night. Without telling her goodbye. He saw the accusations reflected in her eyes, and he reacted with guilty defensiveness. What had she expected from him? The one time he’d tried to communicate with her after her brother’s death, she’d refused to talk to him.
Had she wanted him to grovel? Had she expected him to beg her to believe him innocent of everything being said about him in town?
He had thought she’d known him better than that.
“I came back to see my sister.”