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  Ann would have considered that an olive branch of sorts if he hadn’t offered his help in such a patronizing tone. She understood why Riley loathed him.

  “Should you be outside in the light, Anson?” Riley asked sweetly. “Your kind is known for turning to ash under the sun.”

  Maya snickered, and Dex coughed to hide a smile.

  Ann and Jack exchanged a sigh. “I’ll go get the linens box,” she said.

  “Right.” Jack hotfooted it toward the garage. “I’ll go, ah, do something away from them so I’m not called to the witness stand later.”

  She laughed. “Funny guy. Come help me in your bedroom when you’re done.”

  He kissed her. “Be right back.”

  There were four more boxes in the storage van, and she grabbed the one marked linens, leaving the one labeled weight equipment for the Black cousins. While Anson and Riley squared off and Dex watched on with glee, Maya joined her in the bedroom.

  “You know, Riley’s right.” Maya helped her move boxes of clothes around so they had a clear path to Jack’s new closet. “Anson is an ass.”

  “It’s his tone.”

  “Makes me want to punch him.” Maya bumped Ann with her hip. “I know I bet against you, but I’m glad for you and Jack. All in all, he seems like a good guy.”

  “He is.” Ann smiled, so in love it hurt. “But we’re going to do things right and take our time. No rush.”

  “Yeah. Leave the revenge to the professionals.” Maya cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “So are you going to tell him about the baby?”

  “I—”

  “What?” Jack asked from the doorway, his face pale. “Revenge? What baby?”

  “Shit.” Maya looked like she’d just stepped in a pile of it. “I’m sorry. I meant—”

  Ann blew out a breath. She hadn’t planned on telling him about the miscarriage. Ever. What good would it do but hurt him and her all over again?

  “Maya, can you give us a minute?” Ann asked.

  “And some space,” Jack added. “Tell the guys and Riley I’ll pay you back later.”

  “Sure, sure.” Maya darted out of the room and closed the door.

  Ann and Jack watched each other while the sounds of their friends leaving reached them. After a second car departed, she sat on the bed, not sure where to start.

  “Ann?” He stood, his arms crossed. Defensive, worried, upset. “Is there a baby?”

  “Yes and no.” She sighed. “It happened so long ago.”

  “So you’re not pregnant now.”

  “No.” She watched him carefully.

  “Tell me. I need to know.”

  She understood as much as she didn’t want to. “We used to be careful, remember?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But a few times we weren’t. One day I got really bad cramps. I thought I was having my period, but it turned out I wasn’t. I went to a clinic and found out. You know, the one we went to for the condoms? I should have just told my mom we were having sex and gone on the pill. But I was embarrassed.”

  “I know.” He sounded so sad.

  She blinked to clear her eyes. “Well, my bleeding was heavy. Too heavy for a period. I’d had a miscarriage. The baby wasn’t ever really there.”

  “You didn’t tell me?”

  “I wanted to, but then there you were at lunch with Selena Thorpe.”

  He blanched and sagged against a nearby wall. “Jesus Christ. That happened on the day we broke up?”

  “Close enough. I’d lost the baby I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying. It hurt, but not as much as you’d think. We weren’t ready. I know I wasn’t. It was a relief, to tell you the truth. But yeah, it was sad. I wanted to tell you the next day, but you dumped me. It was a shock.”

  “Shit. You thought I’d been sleeping with Selena. God, you must have hated me.”

  “I didn’t know what had happened. It was all so confusing. The world just kind of fell apart in twenty-four hours.”

  He just stared at her, silent. Then in a small voice he asked, “Did your parents ever find out?”

  She shook her head. “Just Riley and Maya. I needed their support. I couldn’t tell you, of course. And my mom… It would have killed me to have her so disappointed in me. She loved you. Dad did too. But I mean, I was their little girl.”

  In a hoarse voice, he said, “I get it. I do.” He stared at her, and she didn’t know how to feel.

  On the one hand, revealing her secrets relieved her. But on the other, she hated seeing his pain. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “No. And it’s not yours either.” She left the bed to reach out to him. She stroked his cold fingers. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

  “I guess not.”

  She kissed the back of his limp hand. “Do you forgive me for not telling you?”

  “Of course.” He stood straighter and seemed to shake off his mood. “Talk about a revelation.”

  “I know. Hell of a moving day.”

  They shared a shaky laugh, and he cupped her cheek. “Something else Maya said.”

  Hell. She’d hoped he hadn’t remembered that part.

  “What did she mean about revenge?”

  She dropped her gaze, feeling horrible for ever having thought up the plan.

  “Ann?”

  She moved back to gather her thoughts.

  In a quiet voice, he asked, “Is that what all this is? You getting your revenge on me for the baby?”

  “The baby? No. I had put that behind me. But in a way, I guess, I’d have to say yes. That’s how it started.” She wanted no more lies between them.

  He looked away from her and clenched his hands. She wanted him to yell, not do his quiet thing where he seemed to accept what came at him without a stink.

  “Jack, listen. I heard you were back in town, and I was angry. I admit that. But it had nothing to do with the miscarriage. A spontaneous abortion, the doctor called it.” She thought that might sound better, a less hurtful term, but he didn’t react other than to continue staring away from her.

  “The girls and I had some wine and were talking smack. We learned you and Dex and Anson were back in town, three guys who’d done us wrong—or so we thought at the time. To get some closure, we decided to get back at you.”

  He glanced at her, and the angry pain darkening his eyes sucked her breath away. “So this—us—was about getting back at me? What? Making me fall in love with you so you could dump me the way I once dumped you?”

  “No. Don’t be—”

  “But you just said—”

  “We’d been drinking. It was a stupid idea. I was going to use and lose you. There. I said it.” Ann was all about truth, but for some reason, doing the right thing and coming clean didn’t seem to be helping her. “Jack, that was before I knew the real you. I told you I love you, and I meant it. The past is the past. Let it go.”

  “I have. I didn’t care about you and Terry when I thought you’d been together. I just wanted you, Ann. But this whole time you’ve been plotting to date me, then break up with me?”

  “No. Listen, damn it.” How had everything turned sour in a matter of minutes?

  “I can’t… I have to go. I need to think.” He gave her a wide berth and slammed out of the house. She didn’t hear a car, so he had to be walking. But he’d left her. Again.

  He needed time to accept what she’d told him. In his place, she supposed she’d need the same. When he settled down and remembered what they’d shared, everything they meant to each other, he’d come around. Then they could straighten out the truth from the lies and have their happily ever after.

  A tear slid down her cheek.

  She hoped.

  Jack had never felt so lost. He didn’t know what to think or how to feel. He sure as hell didn’t want company though, so he walked away from the neighborhood. Two miles up the road toward the mountains, he turned onto a popular trail. Then another half mile he turned
again, onto a barely used path he’d come across when he’d first arrived back in Bend.

  A baby.

  He couldn’t wrap his mind around thoughts of his and Ann’s child. The words miscarriage and spontaneous abortion didn’t compute, because he kept seeing a baby in Ann’s arms, one with his dark hair and her blue eyes.

  He wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Selena Fucking Thorpe, Chapman, the guys from the football team that he’d thought were his friends. They’d all colluded to break him and Ann up. And when she’d needed him most, he hadn’t been there.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” she’d said. He knew she had made peace with the loss, but he hadn’t yet. Yes, it had been gone before it had lived. But a baby…

  He walked until his thighs burned and his calves stung. The sun started to fade. He walked some more. Every so often his cell phone vibrated in his pocket.

  Along his walk, he faced some hard truths.

  Ann was right about the baby. They hadn’t been ready, and nature must have sensed it. He felt stupid for being so attached to something so long ago, but he thought he deserved to mourn. What kind of bastard would he be to feel nothing for what might have been his child?

  But the other truth, the thing that continued to haunt him and maybe always would… Had Ann really been stringing him along? He’d confessed his love, had thought she had too. Yet… She’d been icy to him that first day when he’d picked up Josh. Why date a guy she thought had not only cheated on her, but dumped her for Selena after such a traumatic experience?

  That stymied him. In her place, he well understood her need for revenge. But how much of what she felt for him had been real, and how much was staged? She now knew he had been a victim to Selena’s lies, like her. But what did that mean in the grand scheme of things?

  They weren’t moving in together. She had her place, he had his. She’d agreed to take things slowly. Did she have another motive for wanting space? So that when she dumped him this time, she had her own place to go back to?

  He wished he knew what she really thought. He hated feeling stupid. Used. And he wasn’t even sure he deserved to feel bad, because she could be telling the truth. Maybe she did love him after all. He hadn’t been as bad as he’d thought he was in high school. He’d sexually satisfied her. He knew that much.

  But the rest? Affection or revenge? Did she love him? Could she after what she’d suffered at such an impressionable age? The more he thought about it, the worse he felt. Ann had a reason to be angry, but she was at heart a kind woman. Maybe she’d started out with the intent to get him back but had lost her nerve. What if he’d been steadily falling in love, and she’d been feeling nothing but gentle affection? What if now she didn’t know how to let him down easily and was going out with him out of a sense of misguided pity? Christ, that would be worse than her trying to make him pay for the past. Dating him because she was too nice to hurt his fucking feelings.

  He continued to think long and hard on his way back. He texted everyone who’d called him that he was fine, just needed some time to think. To Ann, he sent the same. A generic but polite message to give him some space alone.

  And he felt even hollower without her, moron that he was.

  Ann didn’t know what do to. It had been a week. Jack wasn’t talking to her. Maya was beside herself apologizing every time they met. Ann sat on Riley’s couch, trying to believe things could still work out while her friends tried to cheer her up.

  “God, Ann. If I’d just kept my mouth shut I—”

  “Enough! Maya, so help me, if I hear one more apology from you, I will slap you into tomorrow,” Ann snarled. “He overheard the truth. Fine. The problem isn’t you or him, it’s me. I never should have come up with that stupid idea for revenge in the first place. It was a terrible thing to do, and it backfired on me.”

  “Karma,” Maya said, subdued.

  “Enough with the meekness. Bitch up, damn it.”

  Maya blinked. “Bitch up?”

  “I think she means man up,” Riley said. “Except you’re not a man, so…”

  “Oh.” Maya grinned, looking relieved. “I like it.”

  Ann muttered, “You would. Okay, you two. I’m at the end of my rope. What do I do?”

  “About?”

  “Hello? Jack. Who the hell have I been talking about?”

  “There. That’s what you needed.” Riley and Maya nodded.

  “What? A headache from explaining myself to the thickheaded one?”

  “I prefer dense,” Maya said. “Kidding. No, you needed some fire under your ass. You’ve been trudging around like the walking wounded. Bitch up yourself. Get over it.”

  Before Ann could light into her, Riley put a hand on her shoulder. “I think what Maya means is that we’re worried about you. The last time you fell for Jack, it all imploded. This time the truth came out. So Jack needed his time to process. I think a week is plenty.”

  Maya nodded. “Me too. You need to take care of this. No more sulking for you or the sexy vampire. And yeah, I’m going to call him that from now on because he rocked that Halloween costume.”

  “And he gave us roses.” Riley smiled.

  “White roses. I love flowers.”

  Ann didn’t mean to, but she started crying. She’d been overemotional all week and hiding it from everyone. Even her friends didn’t know about her crying jags that lasted all night at the thought of losing Jack again. He was her best friend. A guy who had been everything she’d wanted twelve years ago and today. To learn she’d been wrong about him both hurt and elated her.

  “Oh shit. Get the tissues.” Maya literally hurtled the couch and grabbed Ann in a big fat hug. “Get it out, Ms. Weaver. I’m so sor—” she broke off when Ann growled at her. “I mean, I’m sad to know Jack is being an ass again. We should go fix that.”

  “Right. Because you’ve been so helpful up till now,” Riley said drily. She handed Ann a tissue. “Clean up, girl, then get your battle armor on.”

  “Armor?”

  “A slinky dress, makeup, and the sexiest shoes you have. Leave the underwear at home. It’s time to hunt your man down and remind him who he belongs to.”

  “Me?”

  “You,” Riley and Maya said as one.

  Then Maya gave Ann a wicked grin. “You have to set a trap, and I know just how to do it.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You look like shit, Jack.” Dex shook his head as the pair of them worked to straighten up Dex’s back room. The studio was perfect, with the right amount of light and space to have several backdrops for portraits, as well as comfort for staged shoots and costumes.

  But the back storage room needed some new shelving, and Jack needed something—anything—to take his mind off Ann. He would talk to her again soon. Just…not until he was ready. He couldn’t figure out how to deal with her yet. But God, he missed her.

  “Dude, you stare any harder at the shelf, it won’t need nails. You can hammer it in through thought alone.” Dex brought his hands together and made some weird meditation sound.

  “Shut up, Black.”

  “It speaks! About time. How’s work?”

  “Okay. I enjoy helping the TAs, and I’ve made some great inroads on new research with solar power. I’ve written a syllabus the head guy likes, and I’m rewriting some course work for fun.”

  “For fun.” Dex blinked. “You really are a nerd under that muscle, aren’t you?”

  “You’d know. Poindexter.”

  Dex held his hands over his heart and staggered. “Bastard. Hit me right where it hurts, why don’t you?”

  Jack shook his head, chuckling. “Where’s Anson?”

  “Where else? Fighting with Riley.”

  “He’d do better to leave her alone before she feeds him a poisoned cupcake.”

  Dex sighed. “Sad thing is, he’d take it in a heartbeat if she offered. He’s stupid enough to eat it and die to prove a point.”

  “What? That he has the hots for Ri
ley?” Jack wasn’t blind. Well, not all the time. When it came to Ann, he couldn’t think straight. With everyone else, he knew just how to handle them. He’d been smart enough to avoid his family with work excuses. None of them knew of his personal troubles, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  Anson and Dex did, of course, and they’d been nothing but supportive. Hearing that the girls were out for vengeance put them both on the alert. Jack kept Ann’s miscarriage and his other worries a secret though. Some things even best friends didn’t need to know.

  “You ever going to talk to her again?” Dex asked. He’d been a quiet shoulder to lean on, not bugging Jack about details, just listening. Anson had given him several strategies for dealing with her, none of which had any appeal.

  “Yeah. I just don’t know what to say. I mean, she had a reason to want my head on a platter.”

  “And you can’t trust that she means it when she says she loves you.”

  “You know Ann. She’s got a heart. She might have started the relationship with the idea to screw me over, but once she knew the truth, she’d never have gone through with it.”

  Dex blinked. “If you know that, then you know she won’t lie about dumping you.”

  Jack sighed. “Yeah, but what if she went on dating me just to save me more heartache? God, I said heartache. I’m turning into a woman.” He hated thinking so hard about fucking feelings.

  Dex coughed. “Well, um, I don’t think I’d say—”

  “I am way over-thinking things. So we didn’t work out once? Doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, right? She probably feels sorry for me. And damn, but pity will kill a hard-on faster than—”

  “Than what, Jack?”

  He blinked at the woman who filled the doorway. It couldn’t be.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” It took everything he had in him not to launch himself at Selena Thorpe and demand some serious apologies. He wanted to spank the woman, but not in a good way.