Excerpt
from LET ME CALL YOU SWEETHEART:Why couldn't she just put him aside and move on?
But nothing about Zach had ever been easy. He was a tornado over their
placid plains. And she was being sucked up and swirled around all over
again. Used to stability, the feeling of not having her feet on the ground
was as scary to Bess as it was exhilarating. She didn't know whether to
cling or let go and enjoy the wild ride.
Maybe clinging all those years ago had been her biggest mistake.
With a sigh of regret, she stood and brushed at the dust circling her
knees. Maybe what she needed was someone to come along and brush the dust
off her before she became as dull and dried out as the books she secretly
abhorred. Those staid, moralistic classics mocked her lonely existence.
No one read them anymore because the plots were well known and held no
mystery. Flashy, action-packed pulp fiction was what sold, not the
plodding prose lining her shelves.
She heard the door to her shop open and mentally girded herself for the
ordeal of listening to yet another rush of gossip. The need to snap,
"Can't you mind your own business?" tugged at her firmly set lips as she
turned.
And she froze.
For there in her doorway stood a man where the boy had once been.
He hadn't changed at all.
But the moment that giddy thought surfaced, she knew it wasn't true. He
was different. Seventeen years had lent a hard maturity. On Zach
Crandall, it was an exciting change.
Gone was the lanky whipcord strength of youth. In its place stood a
sturdier form, one of purposefully hewn muscle and latent power packed
inside faded denims and snug black T-shirt. Hung on a rack of impressive
shoulders was the expected black leather jacket with sunglasses dangling
from the pocket where he'd used to carry a pack of smokes. In younger
years it made him look like a throwback to the rebellious fifties. Now it
gave a sleek, dangerous air. Dangerous was a word that always described
the eldest Crandall boy. A boy no longer.
His features held a magnificent patina of years. Smooth unshaven contours
became compelling angles and stubble-shadowed hollows. Black hair once
worn indifferently shaggy now sported a crisply cut aggressive bristle.
Slashing black brows offset the familiar laser blue of a stare made more
intriguing by the network of lines fanning from the outer corners.
Dramatically shaped lips remained unsmiling, hoarding the wide dimpled
smile capable of charming any member of the female gender out of her virtue
when he chose to exert its hundred watt dazzle. Age brought a tough edge
of character to his always startling good looks. And just the sight of him
tripped an earthquake of emotions.
"Hello, Bess."
Her breath expelled in a noisy shiver. "Zach."
Silence stretched taut as his icy gaze roamed over her. She tingled
beneath that assessing sweep, every fiber coming alive, shaking off
seventeen years of dormancy.
"You look great." A blunt, factual delivery.
She'd never been able to modestly deny his compliments because they
weren't meant as flattery. He stated observations with a flustering
directness. Words she would have scoffed at from others were always
believed when Zach spoke them. He didn't play manipulative word games. He
said what he thought. That was the one things that always got him in the
most trouble. Except with her.
"I-I heard you'd come . . . back." She'd meant to say home but how could
he consider this town home after the way it turned its back on him--the way
she'd turned her back on him? Guilt twisted in her belly, adding to her
agitation. "It's been a long time."
"Well, nothing in this place ever changes."
Truer words couldn't be spoken. Time stood still at the boundaries of
Sweetheart. Days, months, years passed with monotonous predictability.
She could have told him the bank now had drive through windows and that the
library had a link to the Internet but those weren't the changes he
referred to. He meant the heart and soul of Sweetheart; the attitudes of
its people. And, no, they hadn't changed. Small towns had a way of
fostering past prejudices and excluding anything outside the norm. Zach
had been more than outside. He'd been on another planet. And that's where
the town preferred he stay.
He left the doorway, coming farther into her store. Bess watched him
move, fascinated as always by his potent animal-on-the-prowl swagger.
Other men strolled, sauntered, stomped. Zach strutted, shoulders shifting
with aggressive sensuality, hips rolling with an arrogant, "I'm the cock of
this walk. Get out of my way or prepare to be moved." Back then most of
the citizens of Sweetheart scrambled to give him room. The few who hadn't
usually had regretted it. Timid little Elizabeth Carrey was the only one
who hadn't given way. She'd held her ground because she recognized that
attitude for what it was; posturing, all for affect. The really dark and
dangerous aspects of Zach Crandall weren't on the outside for everyone to
see. They were deep and personal. And to Bess, very frightening.
He frightened her now. With his blatant sexuality. With his take over
intensity. With the way she quivered on command right down to her sensible
loafers. No one but Zach had ever had that kind of control over her; the
kind that was threatening yet voluntarily given. She'd given him
everything once before. This time, she vowed to be more cautious. There
was much more at stake than a naive teenage heart.
She relaxed a little when he came to a stop just out of arm's reach. His
penetrating stare left her and roved the crowded book cases. Cold contempt
settled in his gaze. "Still shut away in this tomb." Then he surprised her
with his directness. "Where's your Mom?"
Taken off guard, she faltered. "She-she's dead. Almost three years ago."
His stare snapped back to fix on hers. "Oh." No ‘I'm sorry' because she
knew he wasn't. He wasn't a hypocrite. He could have easily said "Good".
Instead, he studied her for her reaction, assessing what difference that
fact had made in her life. Summing it up flatly. "And you're still here."
His comment said volumes. It said she was still the dependent daughter,
afraid to take a risk, afraid to defy opinion, afraid to live. Knowing he
was right in all those assumptions made her prickle up defensively. How
dare he come back after seventeen years and make any judgements about her
life.
"It provides a comfortable living for me."
"Comfortable," he echoed with a soft disdain. "Good. Good for you." But
not for him. He would never settle for comfortable. Or safe. Or
respectable. And that had always scared her, too.
It felt so strange, his presence crowding this room, her mother's bastian.
Was she rolling over in her no-nonsense casket at the knowledge of him
invading her sacred space? Part of her twitched with distress while another
welcomed his bold intrusion. He was shaking off the dust.
"So, how long are you staying?" Did that sound too hopeful, too desperate?
"I don't know. I've got some unfinished business. Depends on how things
work out." He said it casually but his stare practically scorched her.
Was she one of those loose ends? Was that something she should fear or
anticipate? She was never quite sure with Zach. His motives were a
mystery. And because she resented the anxious way his vagueness affected
her, she struck back with her own touch of ice.
"Then what? You take off, like before, and no one hears from you for
another seventeen years?" Hurt and anger trembled in her tone.
"Why not?" he answered coolly. His stare dared her to name a reason.
Bess blinked against the sudden burn in her eyes. She held her head up
high to deny that he could still make her cry with the indifferent cut of
his words. She didn't want him to see her as the same vulnerable teen, but
rather as a woman with some degree of pride.
"Well, maybe we should just say our good-byes now and be done with it."
She turned away before tears fell in earnest but he wouldn't allow a
dignified retreat. His hand closed about her upper arm. Such strength in
those long fingers, power he carefully channeled so as not to bruise her.
"I'm sorry," he said, this time, meaning it. "I'm not leaving any time soon."
When she turned, ready to forgive him, he stepped forward, bringing her
right into his arms. Arms that curled easily to enfold her close in an
unplanned yet instinctive embrace. Arms she'd longed for on many a wakeful
evening. Arms that felt better than anything had a right to.
"I didn't come here to hurt you, Bess." He said that softly as if he
feared she might not belief it. His hands opened wide, between her
shoulder blades, at the small of her back, pressing her into him, her soft
swells flattening against his hard lines. Woman into man. The difference
those seventeen years made quaked through her. His voice lowered a
gravelly notch. "There are a lot of things I'd thought about saying to
you, but good-bye wasn't one of them."
This
page is designed and maintained by