But I wasn’t sure he did. “I’ve lived through this, Kevin. Seeing reporters and hearing gossip and knowing, just knowing where it can lead.”
“Jimmy says the station is quiet.”
“Uh-huh. This is the lull when lawyers are plotting strategy. Jay Harrington amasses pro-Chris legal arguments, while prosecutors amass anti-Chris ones, but we won’t see any of that. What we will see isn’t about legal issues. It’s about headlines. It’s about entertainment. It’s about sensationalism.”
“And memory,” Kevin said, returning the subject to me. “Confront them, honey.”
Well, there was that underlying theme again. It was easy to ignore my therapist, who had her head in psych texts. It was harder to ignore Kevin, who had a keen feel for real life.
That sent my frustration through the roof. “How?”
“Start with him.”
9
Kevin didn’t know the half. He didn’t know that passion had been like lightning between Edward and me. Or that since the divorce I hadn’t missed it—had barely thought about it—until now. Or that by the time Friday ended with a fourth—or was it a fifth or a sixth sighting of Edward Cooper, now calling himself Ned, I was upset enough to confront the man.
I did it that night in my dream. I yelled at him, yelled and screamed, threw the kind of tantrum I had never thrown in my life. I wanted to scare him off, but don’t know if I did. The dream woke me too soon.
And still, when I left work Saturday evening, I might have avoided him if the parking lot hadn’t been surreally dark and rainy, or if the first person approaching me as I dodged puddles hadn’t worn a plastic poncho visibly shielding camera equipment. When Edward came from nowhere with his ball cap dripping, warded off the man and shepherded me to my truck, I was so grateful that when he said, “My place or yours?” I was lost.
“Yours,” I whispered.
“Lock your door.”
I did. Wipers going double-time front and rear, I backed around with care lest the photographer be lurking behind, and waited only until the Jeep Wrangler had done the same before following it out of the lot.
Lost was putting it mildly. I was insane to be doing this. But I was exhausted after a day of back-to-back appointments, and worn down after a week of fighting the past. I didn’t know what I was looking for, didn’t know what I wanted, didn’t even know whether the simmering inside me was from anger or desire, only that it was there.
My wipers beat at the rain, muting the thud of my heart as we headed north on the Blue before crossing back over the river onto a lesser-used road. His taillights were my guide. When he put on his blinker, I did the same. Our headlights showed a brief sprawl of farmer’s porch, shingled siding and mullioned glass, but all went dark when I pulled in behind him at the side door and shut down the truck.
I had a moment then, literally sixty seconds in which I might have changed my mind. I had been so prudent, so prudent since the accident. My life was about self-control. It was about discipline. Yes, it was about self-deprivation, and my therapist had tried to change that, to no avail. Self-deprivation felt better to me than self-indulgence.
So this was out of character. I felt a flicker of hope that acting now would kill the need, but if that gave me a lofty motive, it was quickly gone. The past was knocking as insistently as Edward’s knuckle on my window, and my body ruled.
He held my gloved hand as we ran through the rain and, once inside, he quickly had me backed against the door. Our mouths fused. His kiss was forceful; so was mine. I was furious to be here doing this, but I truly hadn’t had a choice.
Clothes were in the way. He pushed my hood aside to dig his fingers into the knot of hair at my nape, and, with better traction, kissed me again. Between my wet down jacket and his sodden wool one, though, skin was too distant to feel. And I did want to feel. That was all I wanted to do—not think, just feel.
We pulled at clothing, hands tangling at buttons, zippers, and snaps. I’m not sure we were completely undressed when he entered me, but it didn’t matter. I gave a sharp cry. Oh, my body was ready, but it had been nearly five years without this, and