Suddenly the ability to stand up to somebody like her mother seemed like the most amazing talent in the world to Shannon, one she couldn’t imagine ever having herself.
“What does it feel like?” she asked. “To not care what anybody else thinks?”
He shrugged offhandedly. “It doesn’t feel one way or the other. I just ignore all of it.”
“But how?”
He shrugged again, but this time he didn’t look at her. “What people think about me is pretty bad. If I cared, I wouldn’t be able to think about anything else.”
In that moment, she knew he’d lied. It did feel a certain way. It felt like hell. The kind of hell he avoided any way he could.
“I still wish I could be more like you,” Shannon said.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “You don’t want to be like me.”
“Why not?”
He looked at her with disbelief. “I know you’re not dumb, so you must just be fucking with me.”
Shannon turned away. “Sometimes it’s not so great being me, either.”
“Yeah. Big house. All that money. Must be hell on earth.”
“Things aren’t always what they seem.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “Sometimes they’re worse.”
His words hung in the air for what seemed like ages. She had some sense of what he went through with his father, but he’d never really talked about it.
“How much worse?” she said.
He swallowed hard. “You don’t want to know.”
She looked down to see Luke’s fingers tighten against his thighs as he spoke, turning white with the pressure. She slid her arm through his, then lay her head against his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
For the next several minutes, she silently consoled him, knowing there were things she still didn’t understand, things she knew he didn’t want to talk about. She only knew that the boy she’d always thought was so tough and indifferent was hurting inside, and she wanted to take the pain away.
Soon she realized the sun had set, and she could see the moon rising out the small window in the hayloft. She didn’t want to leave him, but she had no choice.
“It’s getting late,” she said, reluctantly pulling away from him. “I should go.” Then she realized she was still holding the necklace in her other hand. “I’d better not put it back on. The clasp must be broken.”
“Here. Let me take a look at it.”
She handed it to him, and he looked closely at the clasp.
“No. Not broken. Just a little bent.” He fiddled with it for a moment, then handed it back to her. “There. It’ll stay now.”
She looked at it and nodded. “Can you put it back on me?”
She’d turned her back to him, pulled her hair to one side, and held the necklace up. When several seconds passed and he didn’t move, she wondered what was going on.
Then she felt his lips against her neck.
She closed her eyes, savoring the feeling. Then he slid his hand around her waist, resting his palm just beneath her breasts. It was a shockingly sweet and tender gesture that shot shivers right down her spine.
She turned around, and there it was in his eyes. Desire like nothing she’d ever seen before. And she wanted him every bit as much as he wanted her. The wild, swooping sensation in her stomach told her she might even be in love with him. She wasn’t completely certain she knew what love felt like because she’d never experienced it before, but wasn’t it supposed to be about feeling good around a guy? Trusting him? Wanting him? Even now, Shannon remembered every look, every touch, every breathtaking moment that came next.
But she remembered even more vividly how everything had fallen apart.
In one painful blow, all the excitement and exhilaration had been wiped out by anger, regret, and guilt. So it was no wonder that when she looked up at Rosie’s that day and saw Luke standing there, the myriad of emotions she felt had practically knocked her to her knees.
As the years passed, she’d tried to shove her feelings for him to the back of her mind, to that place where unfulfilled promises and might-have-beens went to die. Then the day of his father’s funeral, all it had taken was one glance at him to bring it all back to life, to make her fall right back into that sea of desire all over again.
But there was nothing between her and Luke anymore. He was a