Her heart did a foolish jitterbug that she chalked up to nerves. She was scared silly, not attracted, though any female alive would notice this tall, dark lawman.
Wearing a shuttered expression above a crisply pressed uniform shirt, creased blue jeans and brown boots, he was still Tate, but with tantalizing changes. Lean and tough looking, he brought to mind a marine. The tall, anvilshaped body that had made him a top football recruit filled out the sheriffs shirt to perfection, the olive color emphasizing his mocha skin and green eyes. His brown-black hair was shorter, the almost military cut highlighting the high cheekbones of his Native heritage. Juliannas stomach dipped. The handsome boy had become a stunning man. A man who had chosen another woman over her.
From somewhere in the building came the static of a police radio. Tate cocked his head to listen, not taking his eyes off her for a minute.
Shed wondered
about him many times over the years, but nothing had prepared her for this moment. Her ears rang and blood pulsed at her temples. Some deeply buried emotion threatened to rear its head as she took in the man shed once loved with all the teenage passion possible. She fought it back. Tate was the past, and she was here for Megan. Only for Megan.
Suddenly short of breath, Tate stared at the tall, willowy brunette with a death grip on his office doorknob. Julee Reynolds was not only back in town, she was standing outside his office, looking up at him with anxious blue eyes that threatened to undermine his resolve never to get emotionally involved with a woman again.
With steely control, he drew some air into his tortured lungs. Shed always been beautiful to him, even when the other guys had called her Olive Oyl and Toothpick, but years of working in an industry where beauty is carefully cultivated had enhanced her natural assets. He didnt want to notice, didnt want to feel a thing in her presence, but he did.
Hello, Tate.
She extended a handa long, manicured hand with those fancy fake nails women liked. Fool that he was, he wrapped his fingers around hers. The jolt of awareness from her skin to his was as powerful as the stun gun theyd zapped him with in the police academy. She was warm and soft andcriminy, she was Julee, the woman whod taken his heart to L.A. and never sent it back. Thats why he couldnt breathe, couldnt talk. Heck, he couldnt even think.
Like his father, Julee had been relegated to a mental file marked unsolvable case so he could move on with his life. Maybe thats why seeing her affected him so strongly and brought back an avalanche of unwanted feelings. Time and hard work had distanced him from most of the pain in his past, but nothing had ever filled the void Julianna had left when shed stepped on that old Greyhound bus and ridden away.
Hed known she had to give the modeling world a shot, had wanted that for her. She and her mom had already lost their house and were barely holding things together. He just hadnt realized it would hurt so much when she never came back, especially after his career-ending injury. Eventually, pain turned to resentment and resentment to bitterness. Shed proved him right. He wasnt worth her coming back to. Hed fallen into a black hole after she left and nearly destroyed himself. Since then, hed kept his heart locked away, taking care not to risk that kind of rejection ever again.
If he had a lick of sense, hed find out what she wanted and send her back to L.A.ASAP.
How are you? Her voice was that smooth honeyed alto that had once sent his teenage libido into overdrive. Just talking to her on the phone had been a sexual fantasy. Sexiest voice, sexiest legs, sweetest girl on the planet.
He slammed the cover on that file so fast his brain ached.
Doing good. Yourself? He willed himself to release her hand, then reached around her and unlocked his office so they could go in. Lord knew he needed to sit down and get a grip.
Standing aside, he let her enter first, catching the subtle drift of some designer perfume. He couldnt name it. Never was good at that sort of thing, though he could sniff out a meth lab or a drunk driver with his eyes closed.
Its been a long time, she said, her blue gaze drifting around the old, narrow office that hed worked so hard to gain. His desk, always a cluttered mess, looked even more so today. The air-conditioning wheezed and rattled and little dust wads flapped in the vent. To her big-city eyes, accustomed to the best, he supposed this place looked and smelled like a musty hole in the wall.
A very long time, he repeated, glancing at the calendar on his desk. Nine years, seven months and thirteen days, to be exact. The date shed left him was a permanent scar on his heart, like a bad tattoo that no amount of surgery could remove. I heard you did all right for yourself.
You heard?
He shrugged, not willing to let her know how hed scrounged for every drop of information, praying shed make it big then praying she wouldnt. Hed even fantasized about her coming back, broke and lonely. In his dreams, hed been the man she needed, the only one who could help her. Hed been a dumb kid then whod believed in the impossible.