She didn’t realize there was a tear on her cheek until she felt Lucas’s thumb wiping it away.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry,” he murmured. “I thought you might like it.”
“I do like it,” she whispered, gripping the slender volume more tightly.
“Rachel...”
“I have a life, Lucas. I received a college degree, established a successful career, made a home for myself in Atlanta. I have friends. Goals. I almost got married once.”
“Almost?” he murmured, his lips moving against her temple, his breath warm on her skin.
She shivered, and she couldn’t blame the reaction on the cool December morning air. “I changed my mind. But my point is, I moved on. I left Honoria—and you—in the past. I’m not the same person I was fifteen years ago.”
“Neither am I.”
“No.” But she was still fascinated by him. Still drawn to him in a way she couldn’t explain and could certainly not deny.
He kissed her cheek. Her jaw. Turned her face toward him and brushed his lips over hers.
She was tired. Confused. Emotionally battered. She told herself she shouldn’t be carried away under those circumstances, that this was a time for caution. Distance.
Lucas removed all remaining distance between them by pulling her into his arms and covering her mouth with his.
Rachel’s arms went around his neck, all rational thought escaping her.
So much for caution.
9
IT WAS CHILLY in the shelter. Even through the cotton quilt, the stone floor was cold and hard and bumpy beneath their knees. Rachel’s jacket bunched around her, and she still held the book of poetry in her right hand, which dangled behind Lucas’s head.
She was aware of those trivialities, just as she noticed the smoothness of Lucas’s leather jacket, the faintly citrusy scent of his aftershave, the ragged edge to his breathing. She stored all the details in her mind, knowing she would replay them endlessly later.
His hands swept her body, plucking impatiently at her heavy clothes, finding pulse points that raced beneath his touch.
He released her mouth and buried his face in her throat, holding her so tightly she could hardly breathe.
“Rachel.” Her name was a groan. Deep. Hungry. Almost angry.
Perhaps he resented as much as she did that they could still feel this way about each other. Still want each other so badly even though they knew how much pain they could cause each other.
She had hurt him. She knew that now. If everything he’d told her was true—and she had no reason to believe it was not—he’d been alone and bewildered, suspected of something he hadn’t done, trapped by a jealous woman’s lies and a small town’s gossip. Turned away by his own father. And when he’d called Rachel, who had promised to love him forever, she had hung up on him.
No wonder he’d felt he had no choice but to leave town.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice thick with tears. “I should have given you a chance to tell me what happened.”
“No.” He lifted his head, his hands gripping her shoulders. “Don’t start blaming yourself now. As you said, you were young. And everything around you was falling apart. To be honest, I’m relieved that you didn’t think me a murderer as well as a philanderer.”
“But if I’d known...”
“What would you have done? Would you have told your mother you were in love with the guy she believed had killed her son?”
“I...”
“If Packer had found out that Lizzie lied about my alibi, if he’d known that you and I had been seeing each other secretly and that Roger had found out about it, if he’d learned that I told Roger I would kill him before I let him take you away from me, I would probably be in prison today.”
“If I had talked to you that night when you called, maybe you wouldn’t have left town,” she murmured.