Revenge (16 page)

As Max slid onto a stool, Wanda appeared, her platinum hair piled high on her head, her smile steadfastly in place. “What can I getcha?”

“beer. Anything you've got on tap.”

She rattled off a list. He chose one and soon she returned carrying a sweating mug with a full head.

“Jenner's not with you?” she asked, trying not to look disappointed.

“Not tonight.”

“Tell him not to be a stranger.”

“I will.”

Wanda moved away and Max took a long swallow from his mug. He just wanted to forget. But try as he might, he couldn't shake the image of Skye from his mind. He concentrated on the music, an old Waylon Jennings song, but he couldn't help thinking of Skye and how she'd matured into the most beautiful woman he'd ever met. A doctor. Despite the bad taste in his mouth when he thought of her decision to leave him, he couldn't help feeling a grudging respect that she'd gone after what she'd wanted. Yep, she was a woman like no other.

He glanced up at the mirror over the bar and caught Jimmy Rickert's gaze. The guy was short and thin, with eyes that darted quickly from one spot to another. If it wasn't for the fact that Jimmy loved beer so much, Max would have believed him to be on coke or speed or some other drug. Their gazes clashed and Jimmy turned quickly away with a guilty look. Which was no surprise. Jimmy Rickert, a known snitch, was guilty of all sorts of crimes. He'd been thrown into jail for being drunk and disorderly more times than Max would want to count. It was no wonder there was something unnerving about the little weasel.

Max took another swallow of his drink, decided he couldn't stand the smoky atmosphere and loud music another minute and threw some bills on the counter. He walked outside and felt the warmth of the summer night clear his senses.

Why couldn't he stop thinking about her?

Maybe because things had never been cleared up between them. Maybe because there were too many things left unsaid. Maybe it was time to clear the air.

He slid into his pickup and drove with a singular purpose in mind—to have it out with her.

He drove straight to Doc Fletcher's old apartment house. Her Mustang was parked in the driveway and the windows on the ground floor of the building were warm patches of lamplight, softly beckoning. Max cut the engine and didn't wait until reason overcame his irrational need to see Skye again.

This was crazy.

But he couldn't drive her out of his mind.

She'd used him, betrayed him, taken a payoff and left town. And he needed to find out why.

“Hell,” he grunted. His jaw clenched so hard it hurt, he jumped out of the pickup. His long legs made short work of the parched lawn. It was time to end this. Once and for all. One way or another.

He took the porch steps two at a time, nearly tripped over a slinking gray cat, then pounded on her door.
Come on, come on!

Within seconds, the porch light blinked on and she was staring at him through one of the narrow windows flanking the door. The beveled glass distorted her image a little, but she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever met.

The door opened a crack, as much as the chain lock would allow. “What are you doing here?” she asked, her eyes suspicious.

“I need to see you.”

“Forget it.” She tried to shove the door shut, but he wedged his toe into the small opening.

“It's important.”

“It didn't work out the last time, remember?”

“Let's try again.”

“Just like that?” she said, shaking her head, her blond ponytail whipping back and forth. “No way.”

“What're you afraid of?”

“Afraid?” she repeated. “Believe me, Max, you don't scare me.”

“I need to talk to you.”

She hesitated and for the first time she let her gaze lock with his. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“Probably.”

“That's not an answer.”

His fingers curled into fists of frustration. “Look, this isn't easy for me.”

“Then don't keep coming back.”

“I just want to clear the air. Is that too much to ask?”

He heard her breath sweep into her lungs and saw her bite down on her lip. For a heartbeat, she didn't say a word. The sounds of the night—traffic flowing sluggishly through the town, muffled music from the restaurant down the street, a dog barking from somewhere in the neighborhood, crickets chirping noisily from their hiding places—thrummed through his mind.

“I don't know if I want to.”

“Sure you do,” he insisted as if he could read her mind. “Come on, Skye. Let's just do this and get it over with.”

Again she looked into his eyes and this time she threw up her hands. “Call me a fool.” She unlocked the chain and stepped aside. He followed her into the kitchen where the smells of floor wax, disinfectant and pine cleaner greeted him. Wallpaper had been stripped from the walls and several different trial colors of paint had been brushed near the windows.

She stood near the sink and waited, one foot tapping impatiently, her heart pounding, her mind racing into dangerous territory. What was he doing here? She'd been certain that after the last time—after she'd slapped him and bruised his sensitive male ego—he'd never be back again. It had been over a week ago, but here he was, saying he wanted to talk, when he looked ready to explode. He radiated a tension, that same innate sexuality and restlessness that had attracted her years ago.

He'd aged well, the weathering of his skin and honing of his features adding to his masculinity. He was harder around the edges—tougher. And he was standing in the middle of her kitchen. “What did you want, Max?”

“Answers.”

“Okay, but first I'll need questions.”

He didn't miss a beat and his eyes narrowed on her. “Why did you leave?”

She wrapped her arms around herself as if to protect her middle. Or was it her heart? “Why do you care now? It's been seven years.”

He grabbed a kitchen chair, swung it around and straddled it. Resting his arms on the back, he stared up at her with those sea green eyes she'd always found so erotic. “I didn't get the letters until a few weeks ago.”

“Letters?” she repeated. “Plural?” Something wasn't right. “But I only wrote one. What do you mean you didn't get it?”

“I found them both—the one from you and one from my father—in a file.”

“But—” If Max hadn't received the note she'd written him, if he hadn't known that she still cared about him when she'd left town, if...but all that was crazy. Of course he'd known! He had to have. As for the letter from Jonah, what did that have to do with her? “Look, Max, I don't understand. I wrote you a letter before I left town. I think it explained everything pretty well. And now, after seven years—”

“Why did you leave the letter with my father?” Max demanded, not moving from his chair but looking as if he might spring from it at any moment.

“I didn't...” Her throat worked soundlessly for a second as she remembered handing over the letter, sealed in an off-white envelope. She felt her legs might suddenly give way. “I—I gave it to my mom to pass on to you.”

The lines around Max's mouth grew white. “Seems it got detoured. She must've given it to Jonah.”

“No, she wouldn't...” But the words died in her throat. Irene Donahue had always trusted Jonah McKee. He was her employer, her friend, her benefactor and, Skye suspected, the secret love of her life.
Oh, God!
Skye felt the hot blade of betrayal turn in her gut. Irene should have known better. Oh, Lord, this explained so much. “I wondered why you never called...” She shook her head, not daring to trust him. “Then I heard that less than a year later you were marrying Colleen Wheeler.”

“She was pregnant.”

Pain ripped a hole in Skye's heart.
Pregnant with Max's child!
Colleen had given him what she would never be able to offer—the greatest gift of all.

The skin of his face grew taut over his cheekbones. “I went a little crazy when you left, Skye,” he admitted, standing and kicking the chair out of his path as he crossed the room. The chair banged into the wall. “I didn't understand how you could just walk away, and one night I went into town and got myself rip-roaring drunk. Colleen was at the Black Anvil. She offered to drive me home. We didn't make it. I spent the weekend with her, trying to forget you. It didn't work, of course.” He was close enough to her that she saw the striations of green mixed with the blue of his eyes. “I still thought about you all the time, half the time missing you, the rest of the time cursing the day I'd met you. It didn't matter, though. Colleen told me she was pregnant and I married her. I thought a child would make things right.” His eyes were dark and desperate, his breath warm as it fanned her face. “Hillary was born about eleven months later.”

Skye could barely breathe. “Eleven, but—”

“Colleen lied.” He snorted at his own foolishness. “It seems I have this problem of trusting women. Believing them. By the time I figured out that she'd tricked me, we were already married and then she really was pregnant.”

Skye stared up at him and her fingers tightened over the hard edge of the counter. Sick inside that anyone would use a precious baby as a ploy, a trap, Skye saw the agony etched on Max's face, knew that she was responsible for some of that pain. “I—I'm sorry.”

“So am I,” he vowed.

She swallowed hard as he leaned closer, his face looming above hers, the streaks of gold in his brown hair gleaming in the lamplight.

“I've missed you, Skye. I tried not to. Hell, I fought it, but the bald-faced truth of the matter is that I've missed you.” Strong arms slipped familiarly around her waist. He drew her close, pressing his lean body against hers, and his lips, full of promise and tenderness, found hers. The kiss was slow and sensual and awakened old emotions in Skye—emotions she'd locked behind closed doors, emotions so intense they frightened her. She knew that kissing him was dangerous, but she couldn't stop herself.

For so many years she'd dreamed of the day when his lips would find hers again, and though she'd shoved those dreams deep into her subconscious, they had lingered. His body was hard and lean, his muscles straining beneath his jeans and shirt. She closed her eyes and let go.... The world beyond them seemed to mute and blur.

When he lifted his head, she swallowed back a lump in her throat. “I've missed you, too,” she said, wishing she could lie to him, throw him out, tell him that she didn't want him. But she couldn't. Passion, dark and unwanted, sped through her blood, and though she knew wanting him was crazy, her traitorous body responded, tamping down the warnings screaming through her mind.

His lips crashed down upon hers again, and in one swift movement he lifted her into his arms. He didn't ask for her acquiescence, just carried her through the living room and beyond the sun porch to the small Victorian bedroom she'd lived in for less than two weeks.

Sweeping in through the open window, a breeze stirred the curtains and starlight gave the room a hazy glow.

Max stopped at the bed and they tumbled together onto the old hand-pieced quilt. Skye let herself go, closing her mind to the doubts and worries that plagued her. The night surrounded them in the darkened bedroom, and as he kissed her eyes, her cheeks and her neck, she felt her skin heat. Tiny impulses of desire swept through her blood, clouding her judgment, making her moan. She felt her shirt being slipped over her head and the magic of his fingers as he caressed her flesh.

His breath was warm, his hands rough and callused as they reached beneath her bra, bringing her breasts over the cups, rubbing hard thumbs over the nipples.

“I wanted to forget you,” he whispered across the proud dark points. Warm, moist air swirled around her nipples and she arched upward, her fingers winding through his hair as she guided his head down toward a straining peak. “But I couldn't.”

Sensations, hot and wild, streamed through her bloodstream as he unhooked her bra and hungrily suckled her ripe breasts, holding each soft globe between his hands. “I need you, I want you,” he whispered.

His hands slid down her ribs to her waist and lower still. With maddening deliberation, he delved deep beneath the waistband of her jeans. She bucked up to meet him as his fingertips grazed the elastic of her panties and the suddenly damp curls at the apex of her legs.

He pulled off her jeans and stripped her of bra and panties, his hands everywhere, tracing her spine, caressing her buttocks, searching deep in the darkest of warm places. Sweat beaded on her forehead and glimmered on her breasts. Still he suckled, drinking from her, teasing her, while hot hands explored every inch of her.

Skye's mind was spinning wildly, her breath coming in short gasps. She writhed beneath him as he touched her, and she wanted more of this man who had haunted her dreams and shadowed her days, this man she had loved above all others, the only man to whom she'd given herself body and soul.

She felt a heat building within her, a hot fire, stoked by his deft fingers. She arched upward at the moment of release, the heavens seeming to rain shooting stars behind her eyes as she cried out his name.

Only then, after she lay sweating on the coverlet, her breathing still rapid, did he guide her hands to the bulge beneath his jeans. Only then did he seek his own release.

Her gaze locked to his, she opened his fly and slid his jeans and shorts off his long, down-covered legs. He wasted no time, but pinned her back on the bedding. Sudden worry shadowed his gaze. “You're sure about this?” he asked.