Secrets of a Perfect Night (29 page)

As if he felt her gaze on him, the man she didn’t recognize turned his head and looked at her, and a little tingle joined the butterflies in her stomach.

His dark hair was cut short, and unlike some of the men around him, he looked like he would still need a comb for many years to come. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes, but they were deep set and a bit intense as he stared back at her. His cheeks were wide, his jaw perfectly square, and his deep blue suit fit his broad shoulders with the flawless tailoring that could only come from a designer label. One side of the jacket was brushed back, and he’d shoved a hand in the pocket of his trousers. His white shirt fit flat against his chest, and his blue tie was held in place by a thin gold clasp.

Brina raised her glass to her lips. Some lucky girl’s husband, she thought, until his bold gaze slid over her, touching her lips and throat and lingering over her breasts. Normally, she probably would have been offended by his unrepentant staring, but it didn’t feel as if he were looking at her with sexual interest. More out of mild curiosity, as if he were inspecting her
instead of checking her out. But when his eyes moved to her hips and legs, then began the slow process all the way back up, an appreciative smile curved the corners of his mouth, and she about sucked in the lime slice from her drink.

Perhaps not a husband after all, she amended. Probably some girl had begged a hunky guy to escort her tonight. Or hired an underwear model. Brina had thought of that too, but in the end she hadn’t because it made her feel as if she wasn’t okay by herself.

“Brina McConnell?”

Brina tore her attention from the man across the room and looked at the woman in front of her. Instantly she recognized the light green eyes and long auburn hair. “Karen Johnson, how are you?”

She and Karen had been president and vice president of The Future Homemakers of America together, and they’d gotten drunk on Karen’s daddy’s home-made wine on more than one occasion.

Karen spread her arms wide, then laid her hand on her very rounded tummy. “Pregnant with my third,” she said.

Third? Brina had only had two serious relationships since high school, and neither had lasted more than a few years. “Who’d you marry?”

“Which time?” Karen laughed.

Brina didn’t know how to respond to that. She didn’t think “Holy shit” would be appropriate, so she asked instead, “Have you seen Thomas Mack? I heard he’s here tonight.”

Karen looked around, then pointed directly at the underwear model. “There he is.”

Thomas Mack knew the precise second Brina McConnell realized who he was. Her eyes rounded and her mouth fell open right before he watched her lips form the words, “Oh my God, you’re kidding.” Before that moment, she hadn’t had a clue. He’d changed since high school and so had she. She’d filled out and grown more beautiful than the girl he’d known.

He recalled the first time he’d seen her on the first day of first grade, and he remembered her big hazel eyes and enormous ponytail. She’d always had such thick hair, it made her head look too big for her neck.

He also remembered the first time he’d bought her a present. It had been in the third grade, after she’d had her tonsils out. He’d bought her a blue Popsicle that had cost him a quarter and had melted on the way to her house.

He remembered the day his dog, Scooter, had died, the funeral they’d given the old black Lab, and the way he’d held Brina while she’d cried like she was never going to stop. Thomas had been thirteen and hadn’t cried, but he’d wanted to. That had also been the day he’d noticed the changes in her body for the first time. He’d been holding her, trying to act like a man and trying not to cry over the loss of his dog. And as he’d stood there, battling himself, her soft hands clutching him through his tank top and her little breasts poking his chest and driving him crazy, he’d tried not to think of her naked. He remembered pushing her away and telling her to go home because her blubbering was making him feel worse. She’d left angry and never knew that it hadn’t been her crying
that had made him send her away. It had been the sudden aching thud in his chest, and the pounding in his groin. From that day forward, Brina McConnell had tortured him and hadn’t even known it.

It wasn’t until the summer going into their senior year of high school that Thomas had decided it was time to do something about his feelings for Brina. They’d been with a group of friends at The Reel To Reel Theater, when he’d leaned over and kissed her for the first time, right in the middle of
Rain Man
. She hadn’t been his first girlfriend, but when she’d ended their relationship, she’d been the first girl to knock him flat. It had taken him a year or two and several more girlfriends to get over Brina McConnell.

Since leaving Galliton Pass ten years ago, Thomas had seen and done a lot. He’d earned a full scholarship to Berkeley and had graduated high school with enough advanced placement credits to enter as a sophomore. Three years later, he’d graduated with a double major in finance and computer science. Right out of college, he’d been hired by Microsoft, but he’d quickly discovered that working for someone else wasn’t what he wanted. After a short time, he and two of his friends had quit to start their own software company, BizTech. They’d developed programs to predict business and market trends, and in the beginning he’d loved his work. But the bigger the growth, the less he’d enjoyed himself.

The day BizTech went public was the day the company made the Fortune 500. It was also the day he remembered why he’d quit working for Microsoft. The company no longer belonged to him, and worrying
about market shares and shareholders wasn’t what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. Five months ago he’d sold his interest in the company and gotten out completely.

Thomas was twenty-eight, had enough money to last several lifetimes, and for the first time was without direction or goals. He understood completely the stories he read about doctors and lawyers who closed successful practices to become cowboys and race car drivers. While herding cattle and racing cars didn’t appeal to him, he had given some thought to doing consultant work. He wasn’t certain what he wanted to do now, but he had time to figure it out.

George Allen, surgical supply salesman and former first-seat trombonist and class comedian, cracked a joke and everyone around him laughed.

All of his life Thomas had worked hard to succeed, and he’d never looked back. Not until he’d opened the notice to his high school reunion. When he’d first read Brina’s name on the list of attendees, he’d been a little curious about her. He’d wondered if she’d gone to fat or had five kids. The more he’d wondered, the more his curiosity had gotten the better of him.

If he was completely honest with himself, part of the reason he was here tonight was that he wanted to stand back and see if Brina still made his chest get tight when he looked at her. If the sight of her brought a lump to his throat.

She didn’t.

He raised his drink and watched Brina over the rim of his glass. She leaned to the left and looked around Karen Johnson’s hair. Then she smiled, a purely femi
nine tilt of her mouth that had tortured him from grade eight clear through twelve. A female mystery of softly parted lips that used to make him suck in his breath and left his hands aching to touch her. He remembered the times in her room or his house or sitting in his grandmother’s old Reliant, when he’d been so hard he’d wondered what she’d do if she knew. If he took her hand and let her feel what she did to him. She’d driven him bleary eyed with lust, and he’d never done much more than kiss her.

Thomas polished off his drink as George told another joke, this one concerning women and fish, and again Thomas was the only person who didn’t laugh. He didn’t need to beat his chest or degrade anyone to feel like a man. He might not have lost his virginity until his first year of college, but he’d made up for lost time, and he could honestly say he’d never been with a woman who smelled like a fish. Laughing would imply that he had, and frankly, it made him wonder about the caliber of women George knew.

“Talk to you later,” he said, and made his way to the bar. Some people might think he didn’t have a sense of humor. He did, but growing up, he’d been the butt of too many belittling jokes to laugh at them now.

He ordered a scotch and water, then turned, and his gaze landed on Brina, who’d moved to stand right in front of him. The top of her head reached his mouth, and he looked down into the greenish gray eyes he remembered so well.

“Hey there, Thomas,” she said.

Her voice didn’t sound the same. It was lower, feminine. More like a woman than a girl. “Hello, Brina.”

“Are you here alone tonight?”

“Tonight and the whole weekend.” He’d thought about bringing a woman. His last girlfriend had modeled lingerie for Victoria’s Secret. They were still on friendly terms, and she probably would have come with him if he’d asked.

“Thank God,” she sighed on a breathless little laugh. “I thought I was going to be the only single person here.”

“George Allen is here alone.”

“Unless he’s changed a lot, I’m not surprised.” She shook her head. “You look good, Thomas. I didn’t recognize you right away.”

He’d recognized her the second she’d walked in the room. “I changed after high school.”

“Me too. I grew two inches.”

That wasn’t all she’d grown, and Thomas purposely kept his eyes pinned to her face rather than run them up and down her body again. Which was exactly what he wanted to do. Not that he felt lust for her anymore, but he was still curious. That growing streak she’d mentioned had popped out a nice set of breasts, and out of curiosity, he wouldn’t mind stripping off her dress and taking a really close look. His brows lowered and he tried to think of something else. The weather. World politics. Who would win the Stanley Cup this season? Anything besides undressing the only woman who’d ripped his heart out.

Two

B
RINA STUDIED
T
HOMAS’S
serious blue eyes and tilted her head. Except for the color of his hair and eyes, this man standing in front of her didn’t much resemble the skinny boy from her past. “I don’t know if you know this,” she said in an effort at conversation, “but everyone is talking about you tonight.”

He lifted a brow. “Really? What are they saying?”

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head and took a drink.

“Well,” she began, “it’s going around that you’re richer than Donald Trump, and you’re dating Elle Macpherson and Kathy Ireland at the same time.”

“I must be better than I thought.” For the first time since Brina had seen him that night, the corners of his deep blue eyes hinted that he might be amused. “But I’m sorry to disappoint everyone,” he said. “None of that is true.”

“Hmm.” She took a drink. “That means the other rumor probably isn’t true either.”

“Which is?”

“The worse thing you can be in this town.”

A corner of his mouth lifted. “Someone said I’m gay?”

“No, worse. They say you’ve turned Democrat.”

He smiled then. It started with the slow curving of his lips and slid into full-fledged pleasure. “God forbid.” He laughed, at first hesitant, then a rich masculine sound deep from in his chest that stirred the butterflies in her stomach and fluttered across her skin like the slightest touch. “I wouldn’t want the local NRA to come gunning for me.”

The humor crinkling the corners of his eyes transformed his face from merely handsome to check-for-drool devastating. “No,” Brina uttered as she ran her gaze down his straight nose to the deep furrow molding the bow in his top lip. “You wouldn’t want that.”

“How’s your family?” he asked.

“Good,” she managed, and looked into his eyes once again. She’d dumped this guy for Mark Harris. What in the hell had she been thinking? “None of us live around here anymore. How are your grandparents?”

“Getting older. I moved them to Palm Springs for their health. They didn’t like it at first, but now they love it.” He raised his glass and took a drink. “Where do you live these days?”

“Portland,” she answered, and while she told him about her work, she searched his face and couldn’t help but look for any trace of the boy she’d known. Physically there was very little resemblance. His eyes were still dark blue and his lashes thick. His cheeks were no longer hollow and his dark hair was cut short to the tops of his ears, the unruly waves tamed.

When her gaze returned to his, he asked, “What are you looking for, Brina?”

“You,” she answered. “I’m wondering if I know you anymore.”

“I doubt it.”

“That’s too bad. Do you remember the summer we spent hunting witches and vampires in the forest?”

“No.”

“We made spears and wooden crosses.”

“That’s right. I remember,” he said as the chandeliers in the ballroom dimmed, and they turned their attention to the stage. When the spotlight hit the white bunting and silver glitter, it suddenly looked like the first winter snow.

“Hi everyone, I’m Mindy Franklin Burton,” Mindy announced from behind the podium. “Welcome to the Galliton Pass class of 1990 high school reunion.” Everyone clapped except Brina. She couldn’t. She had a glass in her hand. She looked to her left. Thomas didn’t applaud either. And suddenly she wondered why Thomas was here. For as long as she could remember, he’d always said that when he left Galliton, he was never coming back. The one time she’d asked if he would come back and see her, he’d told her she could come with him.

“In 1990, we listened to Robert Palmer, New Kids on the Block, and U2,” Mindy continued.

Not Thomas, Brina remembered. He’d listened to Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton.

“George Bush was sworn in as the forty-first president and Lucille Ball died at the age of seventy-seven. On television we watched ‘Cheers’ and ‘L.A. Law,’ and
when we went to the theater, we saw
Arachnaphobia
and
Ghost
. And in our own…”

Brina’s thoughts returned to the tall man wearing the impeccably tailored suit standing beside her, and she again wondered why he’d returned after vowing so often that he would not. Perhaps, like her, he’d come here to show everyone that he wasn’t insignificant, that he’d made a success of his life, but Thomas had never cared what any of them thought. In fact, she’d never known a person who cared so little about impressing anyone, but it had been ten years. People changed. She certainly had, and he had to have changed too.