Who Do You Trust?. Melissa James

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СКАЧАТЬ hating it. Needing to push him away, yet never wanting to let go. Wanting more. Always wanting more when it came to Mitch. Loving him too much, wanting him too much, knowing it had never been that way for him. Dreams and fantasies of pushing her hands beneath his shirt, finding that glorious summer-heated maleness beneath— “You could have come to visit,” she whispered.

      “You know why I didn’t.”

      The scene at her wedding.

      She suppressed a shudder. Tim Carroll, her brand-new husband, in the grip of the sudden and shocking aggression that comes from being roaring drunk for the first time. Throwing Mitch, his best man and longtime closest friend, out of the reception hall and out of their lives. Okay, so Mitch had been a little drunk, too. More than a little. So he’d watched her every move that night, in a tense, brooding stance that made her shiver…but not with fear. And so what if he’d chosen to speak about the beautiful bride instead of the bridesmaids, and how much he loved her? It was no secret how close Mitch was to the girl next door who’d married his best friend. It was anyone’s guess why Tim suddenly got to his feet in the middle of the speech and threw Mitch out.

      Everyone knew Mitch’s story: the bounced foster kid taken in by a dour, old, widowed farmer, who only tolerated him for manual labor. Mitch never had any family of his own, no one to love him or care for him until he’d come to Breckerville. Which was why Tim’s act, in the middle of his own wedding, in front of all their friends, seemed so cruel and inexplicable. The mystery of Mitch McCluskey’s dramatic and permanent exit from town was still an occasional topic for speculation and gossip.

      As was Tim’s less flamboyant exit from town. Less visual, but no less dramatic.

      Lissa wished she didn’t know the reason for Tim’s lashing out at his best friend. And she’d never tell Mitch—not about the wedding nor about why Tim left her. How could she tell him that Tim, her husband— No, it was impossible.

      Just as anything but friendship between them was impossible, now and forever. If she’d ever worked up the courage to tell him how she’d felt before she married Tim…but marriage to Tim had changed everything—her innocence, her belief in love…her belief in herself. It was all gone.

      “How are the boys?” Mitch asked now, as if he knew she wanted the subject changed.

      She relaxed against him, then pulled away. Don’t think. Don’t feel. “They’re wonderful. They turned nine a month ago.”

      “I wish I’d been here.” He tipped her chin up, searching her face with a tender gaze. “Thank you for taking them in after the police notified me they’d finally found them. They didn’t go into the foster system, thanks to you. You don’t know what it means to me.” He bit down a smile, taking her face in his hands. “Dumb remark. You know better than anyone what it means to me.” He leaned forward, softly brushing her mouth with his. “Thank you, my beautiful, generous-hearted Lissa, for everything you’ve done. For them. For me. Thank you. Thank you.”

      She couldn’t control the quiver that ran through her at the words, at the touch. He’d called her beautiful…

      And for the first time his mouth had touched hers.

      Once, only once before had he come close, and, as things had always been between them, it was too little and years too late.

      In the kitchen of her parents’ house. He’d given her a locket for her seventeenth birthday—a year after she’d started dating Tim, his best friend. A candy-pink enamel-and-gold heart-shaped locket, a cheap, bargain-store replica of the one Gilbert gave to Anne of Green Gables. Unable to believe he’d remembered, let alone respected her little dream, her sweet, foolish dream that she’d find her own Gilbert and receive her own locket of love. He’d used what little money he had to fulfil it. She’d thrown her arms around him and reached up to kiss his cheek. He turned his face to hers, whispering huskily, “Lissa, don’t you know I—” He’d searched her eyes for an intense moment, and she knew that all the yearning in her heart for his kiss must be clear to see, shining like a beacon in the night. Slowly he’d lowered his mouth to hers as she waited, breathless and hungry for the touch….

      Then Tim’s laughing voice sounded outside the room, and they sprang apart like guilty lovers. Neither of them could bring themselves to hurt Tim, his best mate and her boyfriend.

      Oh, how she’d wished, in the long, cold years after her birthday night, that she’d had that kiss before it was too late. But too late had come and gone years ago. She’d lost her innocence too young. She’d learned cynicism too well. Even if by some miracle Mitch wanted her—and why would he?—she knew exactly what she was. Not enough for any man.

      With a smile she knew trembled, she backed off. “Still full of blarney, McCluskey? You must have had a touch of Irish in you.” She swept a hand over her grubby gardening attire, the battered straw hat perched atop her simple ponytail. “I’ve lived in this face and body thirty-one years. I know what I am.”

      His gaze never wavered. “I can’t speak pretty words, Lissa. I only speak what I know.” Stepping forward, he tipped her face up with a finger. “You were a sweet, pretty girl when I knew you before. Now you’re a beautiful woman, with a heart as gentle and lovely as your face.”

      She trembled even at his simplest touch; the tiny flare of forbidden heat came alive, warming her shivering soul, making her stupid dreamer’s heart wonder if maybe, finally—

      Fool! She had to break contact. Now.

      She stepped back so fast she almost fell into the aubergines. “You can’t know what I’m like now. You haven’t seen me in twelve years. Times change, people change. I’m not the girl you knew.”

      Again Mitch allowed her withdrawal, his gaze following her, dark and brooding; yet his words held the simplicity of faith. “You took my boys in when they were in trouble. You went to Sydney for them, brought them home and kept them safe here when I couldn’t leave East Timor. That’s the Lissa I knew I could trust with my sons—and you came through. For them. For me. And that makes you more beautiful to me than any supermodel could be.”

      “Yep. The perennial nice girl next door. That’s me,” she said blithely, hiding the strain of bitterness beneath the words. “Everyone’s best friend and little sister, who always comes to the rescue. Good old reliable Lissa.”

      A short silence, as if he weighed his words. Then he spoke, his deep, rumpled voice speaking his unique brand of blunt truth. “You’ve always been a ‘nice girl,’ you did live next door, and yes, I’ve relied on you—but from the moment we met, I’ve never thought of you as my sister, Lissa. Not once. Not ever.”

      She couldn’t breathe. Her gaze felt pinned by his, trapped by the power of words she’d never dreamed of hearing from Mitch McCluskey, the beautiful, dark-hearted rebel who was always going to fly away from this hick town. “How…how did you think of me?” Then she swung toward the house, her face burning. “No. Don’t answer that. Would you like coffee? The boys will be home from school in about twenty minutes, and Jenny—”

      “Are you frightened of me?”

      The question halted her midstride. Slowly she turned back to him, trembling, needing, ashamed. She didn’t want to say it, but she’d never lied to Mitch; she’d only kept secrets.

      She met his gaze, hers filled with unflinching honesty. “Terrified,” she said softly.

      His hands, reaching out to her arms, dropped. СКАЧАТЬ