Betraying Innocence (4 page)

“See if you can’t find a good Chinese place that delivers around here.”
He gave her a wink and followed her mom out the door.

Ana watched
her parents climb into the Mercedes and bump out of the driveway, taillights fading away in a cloud of billowing dust.

Eager to begin a whole day of absolute freedom, Ana ran back inside
the moment they were out of sight and slammed the door behind her. She bolted upstairs for a quick shower and a change of clothes. She took her time selecting a pair of white shorts and a mint-green top that matched her eyes. She brushed out her hair and applied a small coat of make up before bounding downstairs.

She got all the way to the truck before remembering she hadn’t checked the coffee machine. She ran back inside, turned the machine off, loc
ked and double-checked the back door, locked the front door, checked it, then bolted into the driver’s seat.

The leather was warm beneath her bare thighs. The wheel felt both familiar and unfamiliar under her grasp. When she turned the key in the ignition, it
roared with power. She was grinning by the time she eased onto the road.

There were only six houses on her block in a neat
rectangle. They were the only houses away from town, surrounded by towering trees and untamed forest. Closer toward town, the trees became more distant, more evenly spaced. The gravel melted into smooth asphalt and grassy hills. The saltbox houses became quaint little townhomes and colonial houses. But before she could get there, she had to take care not to hit any moose, deer, or the speeding black Firebird that zipped right through a stop sign.

“Son of a…!” Ana slammed down on the brakes. “Maniac!” she screamed through her open window. She had half a mind to chase the
asshat down and maybe run him over a few times,
just
to teach him a lesson. Instead she took a deep, calming breath, regained her composure and reminded herself that she was a mature adult now and some jerkwad wasn’t worth the risk of putting a dent in her father’s truck. Simultaneously, she pondered if that rule applied to blood smears on the tires. But as tempting as the thought was, she eased back to her calm place. 

In town she parked in front of the only grocery store, slash pharmacy,
slash post office and law office, and killed the engine. She climbed out and actually meant the smile she offered those passing by. Suddenly the cheery faces weren’t as creepy as they had been the day before, because it was a beautiful day, the town looked like something out of a TV show and she had twenty-four hours to play pretend. There was a skip in her step as she strolled into the shop. She grabbed a little yellow basket from the stack next to the door, slung the plastic straps over the crook of her arm and began her stroll through the aisles.

Along the way she picked up a loaf of bread, some lettuce and cheese. She headed towards the back to the deli. Passing by the makeshift law office, she paused at the raised voices that seemed to fracture the peace blanketing the rest of the store.

Two men stood on either side of a metal desk, heads close as they argued over a mountain of papers. Both looked to be about the same age—late forties, early fifties—but one, the lawyer, Ana assumed, was neatly groomed, dark hair slicked back, face freshly shaven. The other was rumpled with a full decade’s worth of beard darkening his haggard face and gray streaking through his greasy, dark mane. In one hand, a half-empty bottle of whiskey sloshed with every unsteady sway, spilling amber liquid across the laminate. The untidy one seemed to be saying something that had the lawyer turning a pasty white, edged with gray, like he was about to puke. The other man’s reaction must have been what his companion was hoping for, because he kept jabbing a finger at the man and talking in a gruff voice scratched with time and alcohol abuse.

“
I’ma gonna do it, Peter!” he was saying, hitting the desktop with every angry blow of his bottle. Ana was surprised the bottle didn’t shatter.

“Take it easy, Randy,” the
lawyer said, hands up pleadingly. “We can talk about this!”

Crack!
The bottle hit the table with a force that made Ana’s eyeballs rattle. “I don’ wanna talk about it no more! Thirty years this Halloween—”

The
lawyer took that moment to look up and catch Ana watching. His eyes widened. He straightened up quickly, smoothing his hands down the front of his suit. He offered Ana what he probably thought was a charming smile, but only looked forced and sickly in her opinion.

“Can I help you?” he said.

Ana shook her head. “No, thanks.”

Neither man stopped her when she hurried away, basket bumping into her thigh. She glanced back only once as she rounded an aisle, just to see if they were still watching. They were. A chill shot down her spine and she quickened her pace, only to slam headfirst into a
nother moving figure. Her basket toppled out of her grasp, hitting the top of her feet and spilling its contents across the ground. Firm, warm hands grabbed her upper arms, steadying her and keeping her from following the basket to the floor.

“Easy there
.”

Oddly
breathless, Ana untangled herself from the hold. Her gaze shot over her shoulder at the two standing by the desk, still watching.

“Hey.” A hand grabbed her elbow and shook her, jolting her back into reality and the person in front of her
, the basket at her feet and the people rushing around her, trying to get by.

“Oh!”
She swooped down to gather her things. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t…” she trailed off as her companion knelt down with her, turning her basket over. “You!”

Rafe gave her
his most devastating grin. His tawny eyes danced, a multitude of different hues of brown twinkling beneath the florescent light. He raised a hand and swished back the rich, dark fringes off his brow. They fluttered back into place the moment his hand fell away. Ana balled her fists to keep from brushing them aside herself.

“What are you doing here?” she snapped instead.

“Well, hello to you, too,” he returned smoothly. “Fancy running into you here … at a
grocery
store.”

Ana ignored the jab, pinching her lips against the fiery retort burning on her tongue.

But he didn’t seem to mind that she was shooting fiery daggers at him with her eyes, continuing on easily. “I was kind of hoping to see you again. I’ve thought of nothing else since our …
talk
last night.” How did he make
talk
sound so dirty?

Ana
snatched the packet of cheese from his helping hands. “Didn’t I tell you to leave me alone?”

He ran a pink tongue over his teeth, very poorly concealing his
enjoyment at her discomfort. “You know, I don’t quite recall that. I do however recall how shamelessly you were asking me to drop my pants.”

Ana gasped, but not nearly as loud
ly or as outragedly as the two biddies squeezing by with their little baskets full of bananas and prune juice. Ana was horrified speechless. She couldn’t even find the sense to shut her mouth, which was hanging somewhere down to the ground as they eyed her with clear disapproval.

“
I can’t believe you just did that!” She whipped her head around to gape at him. “What is wrong with you?”

He scrunched up his face and scratched his chin
thoughtfully. “Wasn’t that you? I could have sworn it was.”

“No!” she hissed, pitching the loaf of bread into her basket with a little more force than was necessary. “
That was not me! That was probably your … your
friend.
Now everyone in town is going to think I tried to … to get into your pants!”

“Two old busybodies
do not a town make,” he recited. “Besides, I saw the look in your eyes last night. You were secretly hoping they would drop.”

She stared at him. “There is something wrong with you.”

He shrugged. “You’ve got no one to blame but yourself. You compromised my virtue, ogling me so seductively in my most vulnerable state.”

Ana snorted, dumping the lettuce back into her basket and climbing to her feet. “I think you managed to do that just fine before I came along, and I wasn’t ogling
. You shouldn’t have been naked in my backyard in the middle of the night.”

His smirk was frightening, sinful and dangerous. It was the leer of a wolf when he knows he’s got his next meal cornered. Slowly, a beautiful work of art unfolding, he rose until he loomed over her, a dark figure radiating seduction. He towered over her, a solid six feet that forced her head back. His
golden eyes, dark with something that zapped all the moisture from her mouth, bore into hers hungrily. 

“Do you have another place in mind where you would rather see me naked in the middle of the night?” His voice was the low purr of a very large cat.
“I would be happy to give you a close, personal showing of any part—”

Heat rushed up Ana’s neck and
filled her cheeks. “You have problems!” Afraid she would melt into a puddle of embarrassing goo, Ana quickly added, “You have a girlfriend!” before he could think to finish his torture.

“Tina?”
He grinned. “She’s not my girlfriend. We’re…” He rubbed his chin, something he did a lot when he was thinking. “Friends of sorts.”

Something about that wasn’t nearly attractive. If anything, the offhanded way he said it, completely turned her off.

Ana took a step back, then side stepped him. “Thanks, but I’m not interested.”

He let her take two steps away from him before calling after her, “The offer is ongoing for whenever,
tigress.”

She stopped and whirled on him, snarling, “My name isn’t
tigress!”

His teeth flashed in a broad smile. “I know.”

Her fingers tightened around the plastic basket handles. “Then stop calling me that!”

He slicked his tongue over his bottom lip, slow
and sensual.
I won’t look! I. Won’t. Look!
Yet her gaze followed the slow, smooth glide and her stomach clenched.
Damn it!

“Would you prefer
mi
Rosa?”

Ana blinked, surprised out of her tempted agony. “What?”

He closed the space between them with a single step. “It’s your name isn’t it? Roseanna?” He rolled the
R
, she noted, so her name literally came out a low, husky drawl the way Hispanic people pronounced it — Rrrrosannaaa. Damn if it didn’t sound sexy as all sin rolling off his lips.

Her eyes widened. “How did—?”

“Oh, I know plenty about you.” He stepped lazily around her in circles, caging her in like small prey in the sights of a panther. “Roseanna French from Toronto, Ontario. Only child of Caroline and Richard French. Owner of Bitzy—”

“Mitzy,” she corrected without thinking.

His grin broadened as if she’d just proven his point. “Mitzy.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he squinted at her. “What kind of name is Mitzy for a male cat anyway?”

Too offended by the insinuation, she didn’t think to ask how he knew
the gender of her cat.

“It’s a perfectly normal name,” she retorted
defensively. “The kind a little girl would give her pet kitten if she didn’t know
she
was actually a
he
and her parents didn’t have the heart to tell her until it was too late.” Which probably explained why the cat was so grumpy all the time. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

His teeth flashed in an enormous smile. “That’s adorable.”

Her cheeks burned. “Shut up!”

He laughed.

“How do you know any of this anyway?” she demanded.

He stopped in front of her and
set a finger mere inches from her lips. “A magician never reveals his secrets.”

Ana glowered, batting his hand away. “You mean a stalker
.”

He shrugged carelessly. “Tomato
. Tomäto.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean anything,” she said
definitively, hating that she actually felt like she’d lost some unspoken challenge between them. It felt worse because all she knew about him was his name and that he was impossibly gorgeous and unbearably arrogant. “You could have heard all that just walking into town.”

He jerked a shoulder again. “
Possibly, but it’s going to drive you nuts trying to figure it out.” And it really was.

She straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “I have to go. It wasn’t a pleasure.”

“I’ll see you around,
mi Rosa.”

Her teeth gritted together. “My name is Ana
. Just Ana.”

His
eyes twinkled down at her. “Not when you’re blushing like that, which you do a lot around me I noticed.”

She tried not to add to the blush she could feel
rising in temperature beneath her skin, but it was impossible when he kept staring at her with that daring smirk on his face.