Hush (2 page)

Present Day

Tangleheart: Saturday, 6:00
P.M.

A
NNA
K
INCAID
WAS
the turned-down pagecorner in the book of Charlie Drexler’s life. With a placeholder like Anna he had to question his decision to skip ahead in the first place. Even setting aside their firefly nights of long ago, the sight of Anna making her way across the summer grass, deftly balancing a tray of—yes sir, those were deviled eggs all right—would still have knocked the wind out of him.

Dream girl walking.

Tonight the corn-silk hair she’d crimped as a teen whipped long and naturally straight behind her, maybe because straight hair was the current fashion, but he preferred to think it was because she’d finally realized she was goddamn beautiful in her own right. A simple sundress with spaghetti straps slipping off her bronzed shoulders conjured sensuality from innocence, and the curve of her hips, backlit by the setting sun prompted a shameless reminder from his dick that he was a man who’d been without a woman for far too long. But his dick was the least of his problems. The real trouble was the way his heart kicked up when the wind carried the familiar scent of her vanilla soap to him.

Eschewing the vanity of perfume, Anna had always opted for natural fragrances and handmade soaps. To his way of thinking, her fancy soaps might be a natural, organic vanity, but they were vanity all the same. Yet year after year, he’d bitten back the urge to point out the flaw in her logic simply because he flat-out loved the way she smelled.

The way she smelled.

The way she shook back her hair when she laughed.

The way she moved.

But unlike times past, today he wasn’t the only one admiring Anna. An overfed blue jay pecking the corncob bait on the Carlisle front porch paused to crane its neck and jabber a compliment as, with downcast eyes, Anna sideways-climbed the tricky steps. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t the steps that were tricky, maybe it was balancing those eggs while wearing high heels. High heels that showed off a pair of amazing calves. All he really knew was that he wanted Anna to look up. And when she saw him, he
needed
her to smile.

With his heart thundering in his ears, he waited for the moment of truth. He dragged a hand through his hair. He’d been scared plenty of times during his tour in Afghanistan, but he didn’t recall his palms ever sweating like this. Anna climbed from the top step onto the porch, looked up and stopped dead in her tracks.

Helpless to contain the excitement welling inside him, he grinned—quite possibly beamed—at her. Anna’s mouth, on the other hand, didn’t roll out of its peppermint-pink bow. Her ridiculously blue eyes didn’t crinkle at the edges, and she didn’t offer so much as a glimmer of the smile that had woven its way into the very fabric of his dreams. If she had, he might never have recovered the breath to speak. “Hello, Peaches.”

“Charlie.”

His worst fear had been that the Anna of his boyhood would tromp up the steps and rage at him, and he’d prepared himself for the worst. Or so he’d thought. What he hadn’t prepared himself for was this. This neutral look on her face. This indifferent demeanor. It was as if Anna simply didn’t care one way or another that he’d returned to her determined to find out what he’d missed. It was as if the girl who’d looked up to him, who’d, let’s face it,
worshipped
him, didn’t care one way or another that he’d come home.

His chest deflated…briefly. But he was never one to stay down for the count. “Care to dance?” He grabbed her by the hand, pulled it high above her head and twirled her beneath his arm.

“Damn it, Charlie,” she muttered as they both lunged for the plate of deviled eggs.

Triumphantly he held out the rescued dish. “No harm done.”

“To the eggs.” She arched a matter-of-fact brow and made a quick survey of each high heel.

He set down the plate on the porch swing and moved in close. One hand found her hip while the other grazed her palm, and magically her arm rose with his. Her body canted forward until he could feel the brush of her warm breasts against his chest. Her knees buckled ever so slightly as he pulled her against him. She was trembling at first, but then she steadied. Her heart beat against him, keeping time with his own, and their breathing synchronized—as if their bodies knew how to talk to each other even if they didn’t.

He swallowed hard
. Man up, Charlie
.

She shifted positions, bringing her hips in line with his, and by now, at least one part of him needed an admonishment to
man down
. “About that dance.”

Sliding out of his arms, she quickstepped back, almost tumbling off the steps in the process. She skirted him, retrieved the platter off the porch swing and stuck it in his hands. “Welcome home, Charlie. The eggs are for you.”

“You remembered.”

Her nose scrunched up. “What?”

“Deviled eggs are my favorite.”

“Are they?”

“C’mon Peaches, don’t be mad.”

“Stop calling me Peaches. Mad about what?” she asked, her tone devoid of interest.

He squinted at her. She squinted back with no trace of animosity. Surely she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. He refused to accept this display of equanimity as truth. She was either mad and covering it up by playing it cool, or she had amnesia, and amnesia was the least likely explanation for her behavior he could think of. “Look,
Anna,
can we go somewhere private and talk?”

Shaking her head so hard her hair snapped against her cheek, she said, “No way.”

“Why not?”

“First, it would be rude to disappear from your welcome home party. Simone has been planning this ever since your feet hit dirt in Tangleheart. Second the eggs were Simone’s idea, not mine, and third—”

She might’ve disabled his hands by sticking him with the platter of eggs, but he was far from disarmed. After all, he was carrying a backup weapon. In less than a heartbeat he’d loaded up the trusty charm gun
. “Hey, girl.”
He aimed a smoky look her way, one that could have felled hundreds, maybe thousands of librarians in a single shot.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “
Hey, girl?
Are you supposed to be Ryan Gosling in this scenario? Since when do you follow Ryan Gosling memes?”

“Since I saw your Facebook page.”

Her lips transformed into a defiant pucker that reminded him of the time he watched her take her first shot of tequila. “You checked out my Facebook?”

“Guilty as charged. You’re not the girl next door anymore, Anna. You’re the hot librarian.”

Her eyes flashed with determination, but he was confident of his impending victory. Anna’s
you-cannot-make-me-smile
glare was a sure sign he could.

He cocked the charm gun. “
Hey, girl
. When’s amnesty day at the library?”

He pulled the trigger. “’Cause I need to turn in an apology, and it’s six years overdue.”

Her puckered lips twitched at the edges. Wait for it…ha! Like a field of prickly poppies answering the call of the morning sun, her expression opened and transformed into a thing of beauty—the best smile he’d seen since the day he’d left Tangleheart, Texas.

“Six
and a half
years if you want to be accurate.” He could hear that incredible smile creeping into her voice too.

“So you did miss me.” He made an expansive gesture with his hands and tried not to sound cocky. “I mean you seem to know exactly how long I’ve been away.”

Her face flushed, and her mouth flatlined. “I’m just pointing out the facts, Charlie. No apology is necessary. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I think the past belongs in the past.”

“Then let’s go someplace private and talk about the future.”

“You’ve got more nerve than sense, Charlie.”

“And you’ve got great legs.”

“I run.”

His gaze crawled greedily from her well-turned calves, up and around her curves, climbing higher and higher until at last it reached her face and landed on her baby-blues. “It shows.”

“Guess running’s my own form of therapy, so I won’t be needing your apology, Charlie. I’m over it.”

“But maybe
I’m
not over it.” After a six-year absence he hadn’t exactly planned on ambushing her on the front porch with his untidy, unresolved emotions, but he wasn’t here to play tiddlywinks either. He’d come back to Tangleheart for two reasons, and Anna was one of them.

Anna tilted her head, surveying him closely. When her gaze reached his face it lingered on his right cheek, where shrapnel had left a faint scar in the pattern of a starburst. “You’ve changed,” she said, a soft catch in her voice.

“The Army does that to a man.” As he lifted his chin, a torrent of memories tightened his jaw and made his heart tumble in his chest. He had, in fact, changed a great deal, and not just on the outside. The question was, had he changed enough to convince Anna to give him a second chance? Had he changed enough to
deserve
that chance?

Anna cleared her throat, like she had more to say but thought better of it. For an instant, he thought he saw tears in her eyes, but then she looked away, and with her hair floating behind her, blew past him so fast he didn’t even have time to grab the door for her. He let loose a rough sigh. He didn’t know much about what Anna Kincaid had been up to all these years, but one thing was certain: Fantasizing about getting Charlie Drexler naked wasn’t it.

D
ON’T LOOK BACK
. Trying to make her mind a blank slate, Anna Kincaid whisked inside the front door and headed straight for the Carlisle kitchen. She did not wish to speak ill of the dead, nor did she wish to
think
ill of the dead, which was why she’d made a conscious effort all these years not to think about Megan O’Neal. And Anna had stuck fast to her just-don’t-think-about-it plan until this very evening, when Charlie Drexler had shown up on her sister’s front porch, twirled her beneath his arm and turned her heart back six years.

Tonight, when he’d pulled her close, even the knee-buckling feel of his solid chest against her cheek couldn’t stop her mind from churning through the murkiest part of their past. It couldn’t stop her from thinking ill of a poor dead girl who’d deserved far more from life than she’d ever been given. If it hadn’t been for Megan O’Neal, Charlie wouldn’t have enlisted in the Army straight out of high school, and he wouldn’t have been part of that convoy when a suicide bomber tried to take out his entire squad. When Megan decided to end it all, she hadn’t just taken her own life—she’d very nearly cost Charlie his life too.

That terrible thought froze Anna’s heart. She shook out her hands to relieve her tingling fingers.

Enough
.

She’d meant it when she’d told Charlie the past belonged in the past.

Now
on the other hand was the time to mentally prepare herself for an evening with her big sister, Simone. Smoothing her skirt, she glanced around the farmhouse kitchen. Farmhouse, of course, was Simone-speak for one of the most well-appointed homes in Tangleheart. Set on a one-hundred-acre spread of forested hills, this farm could boast no
crops
other than the stories Nate Carlisle liked to spin of their simple, country life.

Seeing the table in the nook set for four—five if you counted the high chair—Anna quickly realized that no other guests were coming to dinner. She’d been had by her big sister, which really should have come as no surprise at all. Simone’s welcome home
party
was really nothing more than a thinly veiled ploy to shove Anna and Charlie together. She sniffed. At least the house smelled like her favorite homemade cinnamon rolls.

As her sister turned from the sink to greet her, Anna queued up her best stay-out-of-my-business voice. “Thanks for setting me up, Simone.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” Simone replied, either not catching or choosing not to understand Anna’s subtext. “Thanks for bringing the appetizer. I hate the way deviling the eggs stinks up the house.”

Anna waited a beat. How long would it take for her sister to start in on her? Simone’s criticisms were always well-intentioned, but that did little to take the sting out of them.

“Where are the eggs, anyway?”

“I gave them to—”

“Oh, dear, Anna, would you like to put some makeup on before dinner? You’re welcome to borrow mine.” Simone scurried about, fussing with the centerpiece. “You know I’m your biggest fan, but you’re going to have to make an effort to look your best if you want to rope that man. Drex is far too handsome, and he has far too many prospects. A plain Jane simply won’t do for the future Doctor Drex.”

Most everyone, except Anna, called Charlie, Drex. In high school, she’d tried using the nickname a few times, but he’d put a fast stop to it.

I like it when you call me Charlie.

That’s what he’d said, and somehow it had made her heart expand in her chest.

“I’m not interested in
roping
Charlie, as you put it, but in case you haven’t noticed, I’m wearing both lip gloss and mascara.”