holier-than-thou attitude still emanated from her like radiation from a nuclear blast.
“I was…unloading my dishwasher.”
“Didn’t you hear the door?”
“Yes, but I had my hands full.”
Just then the dog caught sight of Luke. She let out a little yap. Loucinda turned, her gaze falling on Luke, and the temperature in the room instantly dropped ten degrees.
“Hello, Mrs. North,” he said.
Shannon whipped around, her eyes dropping closed with dismay when she realized he was standing there.
Loucinda stared at Luke for the count of three, with an expression that could have frozen a sun-baked Texas prairie. Then she looked at Shannon, whose cheeks were flushed with a just-kissed look even the most oblivious person could have read at twenty paces.
“I don’t understand,” Loucinda said.
Shannon opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“Why in the world is that man…?”
Loucinda stopped short, drawing herself up into a tall, upright pillar of judgmental attitude.
“We’ll talk another time,” she told Shannon.
With that, she opened the door, walked out of the apartment, and closed the door behind her.
Then, silence.
Shannon spun on Luke, speaking in a harsh whisper. “Did you have to do that?”
“Do what? Say hi to Mom?”
“Yes!” Shannon said, striding toward him. “You could have stayed in the bedroom!”
“Yeah, I could have. But look at all the fun I would have missed.”
“Fun? You call that fun?”
“I bet if it had been Russell Morgensen coming out of your bedroom, she’d have been thrilled.”
When Shannon didn’t respond, Luke knew just how true that was. He kept his face impassive, but his stomach felt as if a lariat was coiled tightly around it. He told himself he didn’t give a damn what Loucinda North thought. But the moment she looked at him as if he’d committed murder just by being there, all those old feelings of inferiority came rushing back.
He sat down on the sofa and reached for his boots.
“Where are you going?” Shannon asked.
“I’ve had enough for one night.”
Shannon let out a breath and sat down on the sofa beside him. “I’m sorry, Luke. Really. I’m sorry. It’s just—” She floundered around, searching for words. “It’s just that my mother is so judgmental.”
“I didn’t hear you telling her that.”
“Are you kidding? That’s a can of worms nobody in his right mind would open up. If you’d grown up the way I did, you’d understand.”
“Oh, yeah. I bet that was awful.” He yanked on one of his boots. “Am I still that despicable?”
“Of course not!”
“According to your mother, I am.”
Shannon sighed. “She’s still seeing the kid you used to be, that’s all.”
That was all? Luke shook his head. That was everything. It meant there was no such thing as redemption, and that a grudge was something to hang on to through eternity.
“You’re angry,” Shannon said.
“Nope. Not angry. Just fed up.”
“This isn’t just about tonight, is it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“This is also about what happened when we were kids.”
Luke’s heart thumped harder. He stared down at his other boot as he pulled it on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That night in the hayloft.”
Luke’s stomach twisted with the memory. He didn’t want to talk about that. He still remembered the anguish he’d felt when she’d left that hayloft, making the heavenly feelings he’d had only moments before go straight to hell.
“You were angry that I didn’t want anybody to know what had happened between us,” Shannon said.
“Let me tell you something,” Luke said. “There were two kinds of girls in this town. Half of them didn’t want anybody to know they’d been with me, and the other half couldn’t wait to tell everyone they knew. I didn’t give a damn either way.”
“But you left town the next day, so I thought—”
“I was leaving town anyway.”
“You never told me that.”
“Back then I didn’t feel the need to tell anyone much of anything.”
“I’ve always felt guilty about that night. I thought I hurt you.”
“Hurt me?” Luke said. “Considering where I came from, I was pretty much immune to hurt.”
“Okay, then. How about how you hurt me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have any idea how I felt when I found out you were gone?”
Luke looked away. What else could he possibly have done but leave? No way on this earth could he have faced Shannon the next day, only to have her do exactly what she’d done tonight. I love having sex with you, she would have said, but of course we have to keep it a secret. You understand. If he’d stuck around to hear those words pass her lips,