No Surrender. Sara Arden

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ thought about them a lot. The group, the way they used to be. Herself, Lynnie, Sean, Eric and Rachel. But now Lynnie’s brother, Eric, was with Rachel. That wasn’t really a surprise either. They’d been best friends since they were in diapers. It was kind of a natural progression.

      Kentucky was happy for them, but there was still an empty place inside her where Lynnie used to be.

      And Sean, God, Sean.

      She shook her head at her own train of thought, as if that would shake him out of the spot he occupied in her brain. He didn’t belong there, never had. Yet still, he had his own room in her head. He always had. She’d never wanted to take anything from Lynnie, but she couldn’t help the way she wanted Sean Dryden.

      She’d dreamed about him the way little girls do members of boy bands. Until it had turned to something earthier in her teens. Something more carnal. He had been her ultimate fantasy. She’d played scenarios out in her head all the time then. Scenarios that involved meeting him under the bleachers after football practice to make out. Or playing Seven in Heaven or Truth or Dare at some party. But Seven in Heaven had been her favorite for a while. If they were locked in the dark together for seven minutes, they were expected to make out. He’d kiss her, touch her, and she’d get to touch him and it would all be okay because it was just a game.

      She’d even dreamed that Lynnie would break it off with him and he’d come to her for solace. Sometimes that one made her hate herself because she was wishing to break something that could never be broken or should never be broken for her own gain.

      Kentucky rationalized it by saying that it was only in her head. She never acted on it. Never actively wished for bad things. It was more of a passive sort of wishing. Not that it was any better, but it helped her sleep at night in those first years, when she’d wanted him so much she could taste it.

      When they’d gotten engaged, Lynnie and Sean, she’d known the rightness of it. Accepted it. She’d managed to stop thinking about him every day. But sometimes she still felt that familiar tug in her belly, the tingle between her legs when his hand would brush hers, or she could feel the heat of his body when he sat next to her.

      She knew it was pathetic, but that didn’t stop her.

      Now Lynnie was gone, and in a way, she guessed Sean was, too.

      It was late on a sticky July afternoon when Kentucky Lee was sure the moonshine cherries she’d been eating while hanging out on the deck of the Shooting Star Honky-Tonk had conjured a ghost.

      Sean Dryden, looking as hollow and broken as he had the day of Lynnie’s funeral, sat down in the chair next to her. Its old rusted metal base creaked under his weight, but he didn’t seem to notice. A day’s growth of beard shadowed his handsome face. He had a bottle of her locally sourced—homemade—shine in his hand.

      He looked like hell.

      And still, he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen in real life.

      She offered him a cherry and he offered her a sip of shine.

      “I didn’t think that was your speed.” Kentucky pointed her chin at the moonshine.

      “It’s not really, but it’s good for what ails you. Isn’t that what your grandmother used to say?”

      “She sure did.” Kentucky nodded.

      “I like that about you.”

      “What?” She looked up.

      “No small talk. No accusations wondering why I’m not out playing flyboy.” He said this last bit derisively.

      “Playing flyboy? I think what you do is a little more important than that.” As a special ops pilot, it was his job to get operatives in and out of war zones. To move undetected through enemy airspace and ensure the safety of his team and everyone aboard his Black Hawk.

      And to destroy whatever operational targets had been provided.

      “That’s just it. You’re the only one.”

      “I’m sure that’s not the case.” Everyone was mostly in awe of what he did, at least the parts he could tell people about.

      “You’d be surprised.”

      At the expression on his face, she was reminded of the day of the funeral and all the she-wolves looking to take him down like prey. “So why are you home?”

      He wrinkled his nose. “Mental health days.”

      “You only got a few days before. It was inhumane. I’m glad you got some more time.” There was no way he could’ve been expected to deal with his loss in the week he’d been given at home before he’d had to return to duty.

      “I’d have rather spent it on a beach somewhere. That would be some real mental health recuperation.” He took another swig of shine.

      He was so hard, so angry. She couldn’t blame him for it either. Kentucky knew she would be, too.

      They passed the bottle back and forth between them a couple of times and sat in a companionable silence for a long moment.

      She tried not to think about the heat that burned her fingers when their hands brushed as he handed her the bottle. Or that his firm mouth had been where her lips were, that it was almost like a kiss. It was the closest she’d ever get to something like that with a guy like him.

      Guilt surged and washed over her desire, tamping it down to some small, inconsequential thing. But the flame still burned, flickered like a newly lit candle. Kentucky exhaled heavily.

      “I just can’t do it.” He tossed back some more moonshine. “It’s stifling here.”

      She turned to look at him. The chiseled ridge of his clenched jaw, the stiff set to his broad shoulders, the tension that thrummed through him like a live wire. Kentucky wished she could ease his pain.

      And her own.

      “I know, right?” She pursed her lips. “I’ve never been like them. Like you.”

      “Me?” Sean pushed the bottle toward her. “What does that mean?”

      “You know, the kind who fits in.” She shrugged.

      “You fit in more than you know. You don’t have to hide who you are to be special, Kentucky.”

      Part of her wanted to argue with him, to deny any of the more tender things that could hurt her. But this had been part of her fantasies. That he always knew who she was.

      And wanted her anyway.

      She swallowed. “Yeah, well, you know.” Great. That sentence didn’t even make any sense. Kentucky shrugged again. “I can do that, too. Shine a light on things you’d rather not see. Like Lynnie’s death.” She fixed him with a hard stare. “It wasn’t your fault.”

      He looked away from her. “Yes, it was. There are things you don’t know, Kentucky.”

      “Like what? Like you made the road slick? You made her brakes fail? It was a terrible accident that СКАЧАТЬ