Hidden. Tara Quinn Taylor

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СКАЧАТЬ gotten used to it. Maybe even liked it if she could get past how unfashionable it looked.

      “The fresh air’s good for him.”

      “You’re angry.”

      She turned away. Dropped the ponytail elastic on the Formica dresser top.

      “No, I’m not.”

      Turning back, Tricia met his gaze briefly, and then glanced at the blue fake-down comforter on the bed behind him, covering what she knew were sheets with such a low thread count that the only way she’d been able to make them soft was to wash them repeatedly with tons of fabric softener. The throw pillows she’d sewn herself from fabric remnants left over from her contract job as an independent alterations specialist at a Coronado dry cleaner. Behind the bed were walls so thin any insulation that might’ve been there had probably deteriorated years before, and windows whose frames were bent enough that if the wind blew just right during a storm, water would come in.

      His body, leaning against the bed, captured her attention for a second. And then she looked him in the eye.

      “I don’t understand.”

      He shrugged, didn’t ask what she meant. “It’s a long story.”

      “I can always start Blue over if I have to.”

      He gestured to the bed. “You want to sit down?”

      She didn’t. Her nerves were stretched too taut. Tricia peeked out the bedroom door, down the hall to the living room where she could see her son happily playing, his little chin raised as he stared at his idol on the screen in front of him.

      And she turned back. As much as she didn’t want to hear whatever Scott had to tell her, she had to. She loved him.

      With one hip resting on the bed just below her pillow, she kept both feet firmly on the floor, arms crossed over her chest.

      She’d once been told that her C-cup breasts were the best part of her. At the time, she’d considered the words a compliment.

      Scott closed his eyes, one bent leg pulled up on the mattress, his other foot still on the floor.

      “I had it all once.” His voice had an edge she didn’t recognize. The man she’d grown to count on was peaceful and compassionate. He was a healer. Not a hurter.

      Taylor’s babyish lisp rang out from the other room, his rendition of Blue’s theme song. Another episode was starting.

      Plastic scraped against plastic. He was playing with his hollow square color blocks, trying to fit one inside another. Only problem was, her son hadn’t quite grasped the concept that the smaller block went into the bigger one.

      “The best of everything. Best home. Best clothes. Best education.” He’d opened his eyes and was looking right at her, making her uncomfortable.

      He knew nothing about her. But this wasn’t about her.

      Silently, keeping her own counsel, she waited.

      “I had my own servants.”

      He’d said that as though it was one of the seven deadly sins. Her skin felt hot. And she shivered with cold.

      “On my seventeenth birthday, my father surprised me with a brand-new Porsche.”

      They were nice cars, though Tricia was more fond of Jaguars. Navy-blue ones. With beige leather interiors and seats that heated up at the touch of a button.

      “Alicia loved that car.”

      What? “Alicia?”

      He nodded. Tense enough that the cords in his neck framed his next swallow. “I met her in high school.”

      “Your girlfriend?” She wasn’t jealous. Had no reason to be jealous. Obviously Scott hadn’t stuck with this girl. Still, had she ever seen that warmth in his eyes when he’d been focused on her?

      “She was more than just a girlfriend.” His voice took on a distant quality, almost as though he was talking in his sleep. His sight had definitely focused inward, leaving Tricia sitting there alone.

      And yet… He was sharing this with her. That meant something.

      “How so?” she asked softly, dragging a blue-and-white throw pillow onto her lap, hugging it, pulling at the tasseled trim she’d sewn on by hand.

      He tilted his head slightly, a restless hand coming to rest on the side of his boot.

      “It sounds crazy,” he told her. “Always has, even in my own mind, but Alicia was special. Different. From the first time I met her, it’s like we connected. Suddenly everything in life made sense. I felt as if I’d been thrown from a hurricane into a rainbow.”

      Which described exactly how she’d felt when she met him. Emotion burned at the back of her throat. She felt that way about him. He’d felt that way about someone else.

      “It doesn’t sound crazy.” But this love story didn’t have a happy ending. Had the woman dumped him? For someone who was more…what? Couldn’t be richer. Meaner, then? Politically motivated?

      Or had their families been involved? Disapproved of the match?

      “Did your parents like her?” Was she rich enough for them?

      “Everyone liked her. Alicia was the only daughter of one of California’s most influential bankers. But unlike the other girls at school, her attitude wasn’t defined by her family’s wealth. She was blond, small, popular. She liked nice things. But she spent her time thinking about poetry. And social problems—how she could help people.”

      Tricia had spent most of her teenage years dreaming about clothes. But she’d volunteered at the animal shelter every weekend and during the summer. Leah had taken her there. Among the animals Tricia had found peace. Security. Unconditional love.

      “So what happened? I can’t imagine she didn’t like you.”

      His grin was slow, not fully present, but Tricia felt heat in her cheeks anyway.

      “We were pretty much inseparable the last two years of high school. We graduated. Celebrated our eighteenth birthdays that summer.”

      His was in July. Three months away. Last year had been the first she’d celebrated with him. He’d been embarrassed by the fuss she’d made—which had consisted of one new shirt and a homemade cake.

      “The third Saturday in August, just before we were due to leave for college, we took the Porsche out for a long drive along Highway One.”

      The coastal road followed the Pacific Ocean all the way up the state of California and beyond. Tricia and Leah had run away for a couple of weeks one summer during college and driven the entire craggy coastline, marveling at the natural beauty that took their breath away, the mountains and drop-offs, the mammoth rocks and roaring waves, stopping wherever the spirit took them. They’d spent three days in Carmel.

      Tricia had sworn she’d go back there with СКАЧАТЬ