* * *

DIRTY LIKE BRODY

I will never forget the first time he spoke to me.

I remember everything, right down to the music that was playing on the Discman I had tucked into the back of my jeans. (It was my brother’s new Chris Cornell album, and the song was “Can’t Change Me.”) When the bullies started taunting me I turned it up, but I still heard what they said.

I was eight years old, and the last girl on the playground anyone would ever guess would grow up to become a fashion model. Every day I came to school in clothes that were worn and usually a couple sizes too big for me, hand-me-downs, either from my brother or from Zane. When I wore their baggy clothes, the other kids didn’t spend so much time telling me how skinny I was.

But they said other things.

I was sitting alone in the playground after school when it happened, up on top of a climbing dome; my brother and his friends called it “Thunderdome” because they’d made a game of dangling like monkeys from the bars inside and kicking the crap out of each other. The bullies were standing at the bottom of Thunderdome, so I couldn’t even run away. They were big bullies. Fifth grade bullies, and while my brother, who was in seventh, would’ve intervened, he wasn’t there.

“How come you got shit stains all over your jeans?” the dumb-looking one asked me, leaning on Thunderdome and looking bored. “Doesn’t your mom do laundry?”

“You got a shit leak in those saggy diapers, dork?” the even dumber-looking one asked, and they both snorted.

“Yeah, she’s so full of shit her eyes are brown.”

“What’s wrong, baby dork? You gonna cry?”

No. I wasn’t going to cry. My brother had a lot of friends and while they were never that mean to me, twelve-year-old boys could be relentless. I knew how to hold my own. I’d cry later, at home, when no one could see me.

Besides… the new boy was coming over, and I definitely wasn’t crying in front of him.

He was in seventh grade, but the rumor was that he was thirteen or even fourteen and had flunked a grade or two. Obviously, he was super cool. He wore an actual leather jacket, black with silver zippers, like rock stars wore. He smoked outside the school, hung out alone at the edge of the school grounds, and spent more time in the principal’s office than the principal. I never knew what he did to get in trouble, but whatever it was, he did it a lot.

The other kids in my class thought he was scary. I just thought he was sad.

Ever since Dad died, I knew sad when I saw it.

The bullies saw him coming and they started getting squirrelly. I thought they’d run but he was there too fast, closing the distance with his leisurely, long-legged stride.

“You guys’re so interested in shit, there’s some over here I can show you, yeah?” He stood with his hands in his pockets, his posture relaxed, as the bullies started going pale.

I slipped my headphones off.

“Naw, I don’t wanna—”

“Sure you do, it’s right over here.” He toed the ground at his feet with his sneaker. The grass was still damp from a bit of rain in the afternoon and mud squished out.

The bullies started shaking and sniveling, babbling apologies and excuses. There was a brief, almost wordless negotiation, at the end of which they ended up on their knees in front of him.

He hadn’t moved. His hands were still in his pockets.

“Just have a little taste and tell me if it’s fresh,” he told them, in a tone that brooked no argument, squishing his foot in the muck again.

Then he looked up, his brown hair flopping over one eye, and winked at me.

I stared from my perch atop Thunderdome with unabashed, eight-year-old awe as the bullies bent forward, shuddering.

He was going to make them eat shit!

For me!

I was ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure it was just wet mud, but those bullies were scared enough to believe it. And ate it, they did.

He then told them to apologize to me, which they also did, eyes downcast and shaking, spluttering mud. One of them was crying, snuffling through his snot and tears. Then he told them to beat it and they ran away, blubbering and tripping over their own feet.

I stared down at my savior as his unkempt hair fluttered in the breeze. He wore a Foo Fighters T-shirt under his leather jacket and his jeans were ripped, like mine. “You can go home now, you know,” he said, like maybe I was slow.

I just sat there, picking dried mud from my jeans.

“Aren’t your parents waiting?”

I didn’t answer. I knew better than to answer questions like that.

When other kids found out what happened to Dad they either made fun of me or worse, they felt sorry for me. And Jesse said not to tell anyone Mom was sick again. He said if they knew how sick she was, they might take us away from her.

So I said, “I’m waiting for my brother.”

He glanced around at the empty playground. “Who’s your brother? And why isn’t he here kicking those little shits up the ass?”

“Jesse,” I said. “My brother is Jesse. He’s in detention with Zane.”

He took a step closer, teetering on the edge of the sandbox. “Yeah? How come?”

“They… um… got in an argument with Ms. Nielsen because she said I can’t come to school in dirty clothes. They do that a lot,” I mumbled, wishing maybe I hadn’t said all that, except he looked kind of impressed about the detention thing.

He looked at my jeans; I’d gotten them muddy when I sat in a ditch to listen to music before school. I could pretend it didn’t hurt me if he said something mean about it, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear it.

Why didn’t he just go away?

“Well, you can come down. Those little shits aren’t coming back.”

I picked at the hole in the knee of my jeans, where my kneecap was poking through.

He leaned over, resting his elbows on Thunderdome. “What’re you doing up there?”

“Playing Thunderdome.”

I knew how stupid it sounded when no one else was there. It wasn’t like I didn’t have any friends to play with when my brother wasn’t around, but they all had parents who picked them up after school. Anyway, I thought it might impress him. Thunderdome was outlawed by the teachers and we only played it after school.

He stepped into the sandbox. “How do you play?”

“It’s quicksand!” I squealed. “You can’t step in it!”

“Oh. Shit.” He jumped up on the dome. “Almost lost a shoe.” He looked up at me and his hair fell over his eye again. Blue; his eyes were a deep, dark blue. He climbed to the top of the dome and sat across from me.

Maybe he wasn’t making fun of me; he just didn’t know the rules of Thunderdome.

“It’s okay,” I told him. “You’re safe up here with me. I’m the princess.”

It was true; my brother and his friends always let me be the princess so I’d stay out of the way while they played, and sometimes they let me decide on the winner in case of a tie. But I figured it sounded more important if I left that out.

He pulled out a cigarette and lit it with a shiny flip-top lighter that had been scraped and dented all to hell, and started smoking. His hands were scraped too, his knuckles split and scabbed over. His fingernails were too short, chewed all down into the nail bed, his cuticles all ragged and blood-encrusted. They were a mess. But his face…

He was so… pretty.

“What happened to your hands?”

He didn’t answer. Just smoked his cigarette and looked out across the school grounds, his arms wrapped around his knees, watching as parents picked their kids up in the distance, along the road in front of the school.

“A princess, huh?”

“The princess.”

“So who’s the prince, then?”

“Don’t need one.”

He looked at me. “Then who’s gonna save you if you fall in the quicksand?”

“I will.”

“What if you can’t?”

“Then you can,” I said. “If you want to. But you might get stuck in there, too.”

He stared at me for a minute. Then he smiled, slowly, and it was like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.

“Then I guess we’ll sink together.” He took a couple of drags of his cigarette, his eyes squinting through the smoke. “You got a name, princess?”

“Jessa Mayes.”

“Jessa Mayes,” he repeated. “Don’t ever let those little shits talk to you that way, yeah? Next time they try, you make a fist, like this.” He showed me, clenching his fist until his split knuckles looked like they might burst. “And you hit ’em, right here, in the nose, as hard as you can. You do it hard enough, they’ll go down. Then you run away. You do that once, they’re not gonna bother you again.”

I shook my head. “I’m not supposed to hit people. My brother says sticks and stones—”

“Yeah?” He flicked the ash off his cigarette and spat on the sand below. “Well, your brother’s a pussy who doesn’t know shit.”

I gaped at him.

No one talked about Jesse like that. The other kids all thought he walked on water because he could play guitar.

“I can’t make a fifth-grader eat crap.” My face was getting hot and I looked down at the sand. “Maybe you can. I can’t.”

When I glanced up again, he was taking something off his jacket. He held it out to me. “Take it,” he said.

I took it from his outstretched hand and examined it. It was a little silver pin shaped like a motorcycle. It said Sinners MC on a banner that wrapped around the tires. There was a woman on the motorcycle but she wasn’t riding it, exactly. She was facing the wrong way and reclined back, her back arched, shoving her boobs out.

I was eight.

I had no idea what Sinners MC meant, so it never occurred to me to wonder why he had a pin that belonged to an outlaw motorcycle club.

“You wear that,” he said, glancing over my shoulder, “no one’s gonna mess with you.” He was looking in the direction of the school, his eyes narrowing as he dragged on his cigarette.

“Smoking on school grounds again Mr. Mason?”

I turned to find a teacher stalking toward us, one of those shit-eating bullies in tow, red-faced, looking anywhere but at us. “What will your parents have to say about this?”

“Can’t wait to find out,” he muttered. His blue eyes met mine as he tossed his cigarette aside. Then he smiled at me again.

I smiled back.

He leapt to the ground, jumping over the quicksand and landing in the grass.

“See you around, princess.”

I watched him shove his hands in the pockets of his jeans and walk away. But it wasn’t true; I didn’t see him around. He never even came back to school after that day.

Not for two whole years.

Those bullies never bothered me again, though. None of them did. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t because of some pin. It was because of him.

Because he’d made two fifth-graders eat shit for being mean to me, and no one wanted to eat shit.

The next year, when a new girl in my class asked me about my motorcycle pin, she didn’t believe me when I told her where I’d gotten it. As if I’d made up the whole thing about the badass boy in the leather jacket who saved me from a couple of bullies—then mysteriously vanished from school, never to return—just to impress her.

But I knew he was real.

I had his pin, and I had his picture. In the seventh grade class photo in the school yearbook he was standing right next to my brother, staring down the lens of the camera like he was ready to take on the world… and make it eat shit.

His name was Brody Mason.

He was the love of my life.

If only I’d figured that out a lot sooner than I did.

* * *

I was late. For my brother’s wedding.

And because I was late, the universe seemed to be conspiring to make me even more late. All three legs of my flight had been delayed. The last was the airline’s fault, the second, the fault of the weather, but the first… well, that was all me, so it was kind of a domino effect.

Once I’d finally touched down in Vancouver—thirteen hours late—it seemed to take an unusually long time for my bags to come down the carousel, and by the time I’d gathered my things, piled them onto a baggage cart and steered my way to the exit doors, I’d been traveling for over twenty-four hours. More than enough time to ponder how pissed off my brother was going to be.

I was weary and uncomfortably hot, sweating in my leather boots and faux fur jacket. I’d worn a thin T-shirt layered over a tank top and knit leggings with the jacket and boots, not sure what to expect with the weather. Vancouver was having a weirdly cold winter but the snow and ice was now gone, replaced with a faint, drizzling rain. The air that greeted me was cool and fresh but not cold as I walked through the sliding glass doors. And everything felt… familiar.

Much more familiar than I thought it would.

I took a breath and tipped my face up to the cloud-bruised sky. I glimpsed the peaks of snow-dusted mountains in the distance. And I felt an overwhelming sense of… joy.

Aside from the fact that I didn’t actually want to be here, that I was carrying the burden of a gut-gnawing sense of dread—the kind that came with knowing you were about to come face-to-face with things you’d never really figured out how to face—it felt good to be home.

Home.

I grinned as the wisps of rain hit my face…

Then I saw him.

Him.

Several feet to my left, there was a cue for the taxis, which I’d planned to get myself into. I’d get my ass to the ferry where I’d meet my old friend, Roni, my “date” for the wedding. On the ferry over to Vancouver Island, she and I would catch up and I’d generally get my shit together for what promised to be the most difficult weekend of my life. In the winding, four-and-a-half hour drive across the island, I’d run through the various tidbits of conversation I’d prepared in my head to get me through this; inconsequential, impersonal stuff like the latest celeb gossip, fashion trends from the front lines, and if I was really desperate, the weather. Canadians were always game to discuss the weather; it was kind of a way of life. Of course, I’d throw in a few decent jokes, too.

My old friends were always good for a laugh.

At the end of the road, maybe Roni would flirt with the boat guy and he’d let us grab a super-quick drink (or two) at the last bar we could find before heading out. On the private boat to the very posh and very remote resort up the coast where the wedding was taking place, I’d give myself the little pep talk I’d also worked out, in preparation for coming face-to-face with the man I’d painstakingly avoided for the last six-and-a-half years.

Basically, my entire adult life.

Along the way, Roni would provide distraction, entertainment and comic relief, as she always did. And when I saw him, him, she’d be by my side, drawing attention and generally providing a loud and lovely buffer.

And everything would work out just fine, right? Because no way seeing him could possibly go as badly as I feared it might.

Right.

That was the plan.

Instead, I was alone. I’d taken all of two steps into my hometown. I was weary and jet-lagged. I’d had not one drink. And my little pep talk? Completely out the window.

Because a dozen feet to my right, he was standing at the curb in the rain, staring at me… and my world fell apart.

“Brody,” I breathed.

Then I more or less went into shock. Because he was right there. In jeans and a black leather jacket, his dark eyebrows furled as he stared me down, rain droplets dripping from his soft brown hair and his full lips… the smoldering, overcast sky casting shadows in his eyes… looking just like he used to look, only… better.

“You’re late,” he said, his voice flat. He took a few steps toward me, then stopped, his gaze flicking down to my breasts. “Is that my shirt?”

I glanced down.

It was an old Led Zeppelin tour T-shirt. It said United States of America 1977 and had a rockin’ angel on it, a naked dude with outstretched wings. It wasn’t the kind of T-shirt you paid too much money for in some hipster boutique because it looked old and distressed. It was old. It was large on me to begin with and was now so stretched out I tied it above one hip to make it fit. The neck fell off one shoulder. It was worn to hell and had a few holes.

And yes, it was his.

I’d picked it up off his bedroom floor one sketchy morning when I was eighteen, and never gave it back. He’d never asked for it back. And even if he wanted it back after I’d worn the hell out of it, I wasn’t giving it back.

It was a piece of him. The only piece I had.

“No,” I lied, pulling my jacket shut. Butterflies skittered in my stomach as he reached past me, scooping my bags off the cart.

“Had a shirt just like that. Disappeared around the time you did.”

His blue eyes met mine and I felt the almost-electric jolt all the way down my spine. I felt it between my legs.

Holy hell.

I still felt it.

That same thing… that thing that should’ve died with all the years and all the miles between us… all the silence… all the time I’d wasted trying like hell to fight it, to deny it, to just plain numb it out. Coiling fast, hot and tight at the base of my spine… in my lungs, at the back of my throat, every cell of my body catching fire… as every nerve, every fiber lit up in protest of every second we’d been apart.

It was exactly the same. Only… worse.

It was more.

That crazy, irresistible pull I’d felt around him back then had only grown stronger.

His eyes darkened as his pupils dilated… and I knew he felt it, too. Then his gaze dropped to my lips. He breathed in, his nostrils flaring. His jaw clenched.

Then he turned and walked away. With my bags.

Oh my God.

I just stood there, watching him go, the air between us stretching thinner and thinner the farther he got, until I couldn’t breathe. At all.

I allowed myself two-point-five seconds to freak out. Then I forced some air, shuddering, into my lungs.

Then I went after him.

I caught up only when he stopped to toss my things in the back of a black Escalade parked at the curb, hazard lights flashing. I stood there, awkwardly, waiting for him to turn around, every part of me throbbing with the force of my heartbeat; my lungs as I fought to breathe, my brain as I fought to think, my clit.

My knees were shaking.

No man had ever made my knees shake before.

Well, no other man.

This was not how my body had ever reacted to other men.

And yes, I was aware that deep, deep down, there was still some part of me—maybe larger than I’d like to admit—that was still that skinny, dorky, lonely girl who’d been bullied on the playground. But making my living as a model over the past decade meant I’d grown a thick skin. Very thick. I’d also learned that no matter how I felt inside, the world did not see me as that skinny, dorky girl; that men, in general, found me beautiful. Way more beautiful than I’d ever felt. I still had a hard time reckoning me with those pictures of model-me in designer lingerie, my long brown hair highlighted with caramel and honey, my eyebrows perfectly shaped, my cheekbones and chin all somehow grown in to balance what I’d feared would always be an awkward nose, my full lips and long limbs somehow all working together to create an image that was something far and away from that girl inside. Even so, I’d learned how to carry myself with confidence, how to compete, perform, win and even lose with grace. I’d learned how to keep my cool under intense scrutiny, and mercifully, how to handle rejection. Because the world I lived in, even for beautiful girls, was rife with rejection.

What I’d never learned how to do, apparently, was look Brody Mason in his deep blue eyes and not lose my shit.

Lucky for me, he barely spared me a glance as he slammed the back of the truck shut. “Get in,” he said, disappearing around the driver’s side.

I walked up to the passenger side door as he got in the truck. Then I stood there, in the misting rain, still kind of in shock, just trying to get a handle on all the reactions set off by his sudden presence.

Because how could I still react to him like this? After all this time?

It was like no time had passed at all.

Worse; I knew exactly how long it had been, and according to my body, I had six-and-a-half years without him to make up for. Preferably immediately, nakedly, and repeatedly.

I took a deep breath, fumbled with the door handle and opened the door. “Thank you for the ride,” I managed.

He didn’t smile. He just swiped a hand through his damp hair and stared me down with those intense blue eyes. I started to register how much older he looked than the last time I’d seen him, though his eyes hadn’t changed. Time had been good to him. Very good.

Six-and-a-half years.

It hit me like a kick in the gut, all at once.

It wasn’t something I’d ever allowed myself to fully process: the agony of missing him, of wishing things had gone differently for us. If I did, I’d probably curl up and die, right on the spot. Because how could I live with it?

Now that he was here, though, right in front of me… all my carefully constructed walls, the armor I’d built up over the years against my true feelings, against him, cracked open, and everything came surging into the light. Every moment between us. Every breath I’d taken on this Earth since Brody Mason sauntered into my life.

And it was in those deep blue eyes, that he remembered, too.

He remembered everything.

“Get in,” he repeated, and started up the truck.

I got in.

As we pulled out into traffic he was silent, and I tried to think of something to say to fill the void. It was the perfect time, really, to tell him. The perfect opportunity to explain why I’d left, all those years ago.

I could tell him everything. Just come clean, like I’d told myself I should do… could do. Might do, while I was in town for my brother’s wedding.

Instead, I stared at his handsome profile, afraid to speak. The arch of his brow, his high cheekbone. The strong line of his nose. His square jaw, clean-shaven but slightly shadowed. His stylishly unkempt brown hair. The battered leather of his jacket.

I hadn’t laid eyes on him in years. Not until my brother’s well-meaning fiancée started texting me photos of her and Jesse, and Brody happened to be in some of them. I should’ve deleted those photos, but I didn’t. Instead, I’d gazed at them a thousand times. And now he was here.

So close to me.

I watched his throat move as he swallowed. I watched his knuckles turn white on the steering wheel as the wiper blades beat an angry rhythm against the rain.

I stared at the familiar tattoo on the back of his right hand, a mess of entangled vines that wound around his thumb and wrist and belonged to a small, black rose on his palm. So familiar, like we’d never been apart. How many times had I traced the pattern of those vines with my gaze?

A million, at least.

That tattoo, just one of the many things about Brody—the many small details that made him him—that I’d tried to forget over the years. But I hadn’t forgotten. I knew I hadn’t. And despite all my preparation for this moment, I wasn’t prepared at all.

I wasn’t ready.

Would I ever really have been ready for this?

Maybe I was totally kidding myself to think I’d ever be able to face him, those blue eyes staring me down, and come clean.

Maybe I’d just always be dirty and there was nothing I could do about it.

I looked out the window. “It’s raining,” I said. Yeah. Brilliant. But since I was a total chickenshit, I was going with it.

“Seven years,” he said. I looked over at him, but he didn’t look at me. “Seven fucking years, and all the times I’ve tried to talk to you and you shut me out, and now that’s all you’ve got to say? It’s fucking raining? It’s January. It’s Vancouver. Where you were fucking born. So yes, it’s raining, like it always does in January. What the fuck else do you want me to say about it?”

Okay…

So much for my Canadians-love-talking-about-the-weather theory.

I was judging by the number of F-bombs in that little tirade that he was pissed. At me.

Not that I hadn’t expected him to be a little mad. Among other things.

But the fact that he obviously was mad just proved that he still cared, right?

“Six-and-a-half years,” I said.

“What?”

“It’s been… six-and-a-half years,” I repeated, my voice fading, “since we… saw each other.”

He said nothing.

It’s just because he cares, I told myself. And he probably won’t be the only one who gives you attitude this weekend, so get used to it.

But I couldn’t get used to it. I had no experience with mature, pissed-off Brody. I’d barely been able to deal with the Brody I used to know. Young, wild, too gorgeous for common sense and angry at the world.

At all the world… except me.

We took a turn to the right, continuing back into the airport, and I struggled to get my bearings; it had been years since I’d been here, but this was definitely not the way to the ferry terminal.

“Where are we going?”

“To your brother’s wedding.”

“But… I’m supposed to meet Roni at the ferry.”

He shot me a look that could only be described as scathing. Come to think of it, it was the first time he’d looked at me since I got in the truck. “And I’m supposed to trust you not to skip out on the dinner tonight, or the wedding tomorrow? You’re already missing the rehearsal.”

Oh.

Jesus.

That’s what this was about?

He didn’t pick me up at the airport because he wanted to see me?

I studied his angry profile and it all became so clear.

No. He didn’t want to see me.

He’d only come to get me because my brother, the big rock star, had asked him to drive out here in the rain and deal with me. Brody was one of my brother’s best friends, so why not? Worse; Brody managed my brother’s mega-successful rock band, Dirty, so this was probably some sort of business deal. Like somewhere in his contract, my brother had snuck in a clause that it was Brody’s responsibility to deal with all the most tedious bullshit in his life, up to and including escorting his little sister to his wedding so she wouldn’t bail.

Definitely something my brother would do.

Well, if they had a contract. In their many years of working together, Brody and the band had never had a written contract between them. Because that’s just the kind of friends they were. A verbal deal, then.

You deal with Jessa. I’ll owe you one later.

“It’s really none of your business,” I told him, “if I go to my brother’s wedding or not.” And it wasn’t. Brody wasn’t my manager—much as he’d wanted to be, back when I was writing music with the band… but that was neither here nor there. He wasn’t the boss of me either, any more than my brother was.

Yeah, try telling either of them that.

Whatever. This was ridiculous. Offensive, actually, that they both seemed to think I needed some kind of chaperone for this event. That they were treating me like I was still a fucking teenager.

Yes, I’d screwed up six-and-a-half years ago—and okay, every day since then—but today was a new day, right?

“Jesse is my business,” Brody ground out. “Literally. If you skip out on his wedding or any of the other romantic bullshit Katie has planned for the next forty-eight hours, that shit will not fly.”

We made a sharp turn into the small parking area in front of the Flying Beaver, a little restaurant and bar on the water where the floatplanes docked, and panic started to rise. This whole thing was spinning way, way out of control. Because apparently I was about to be trapped in a very small plane with a very pissed off Brody for the next couple of hours, and he didn’t even want to be here.

“I told Jesse I’d take the ferry to the island. He was going to have a car meet me—”

“Yeah, well, you’re late.” He parked us at the curb and cut the engine, popping off his seatbelt.

“I was at a shoot, Brody. It ran late. I couldn’t just bail in the middle of—”

“Do not say my name.”

I blinked at him.

What?

“Go ahead and say and do whatever the fuck you’re gonna do,” he said, “but you do not get to say my name.” When I just gaped at him, he turned to me and leaned in, so close I could see the silvery-gray flecks around his pupils, and said in a low voice, “You wanted it, I’m giving it to you. Exactly what you’ve been asking for the last six-and-a-half years with a whole fuckload of silence. Consider me dead to you.”

I stared at him, speechless. At the lines of repressed rage on his handsome face; the coldness in those dark blue eyes.

“You’re… you’re angry with me,” I stammered.

He grunted derisively. “We can’t just go from being strangers to best friends, princess. Doesn’t fucking work that way.”

Princess.

He used to call me that, when we were young. It wasn’t a derogatory term, the way he said it now.

I looked out the window and sniffled a bit. It was the rain making me sniffly. It wasn’t his words that were making my eyes itch and blink, my stomach twist itself in knots.

When had Brody become such an asshole?

Right… Probably around the time I “disappeared.”

I knew that. I knew this was my fault. That I’d treated him badly.

No, not badly. Badly was when you forgot to tip a really decent waiter. Badly was cutting someone off in traffic.

I’d treated Brody horribly.

Horrendously.

I took a breath and looked at him again, watching him pocket his keys and generally ignore me.

“We are not strangers,” I said softly. “We never have been.”

He looked at me briefly. “I don’t know you,” he said, and my heart crushed in on itself.

“If you don’t know me now,” I told him, trying to keep my voice from wavering, “you never did.”

“You’re right. I didn’t.” He started to open his door.

I reached to stop him, catching his leather sleeve, and he stiffened like I had the fucking plague. Those ice-cold eyes locked on mine.

I shrank back in my seat, letting him go. “You don’t need to do this, you know. I can just take a cab to the ferry.”

He slammed the door shut and swore under his breath, an angry muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Let me tell you what I know,” he said, turning to me, his elbow on the steering wheel so his broad shoulders seemed to take up all the space in the cab. “What I know is exactly how fast and how far you can run. What I know for fucking sure is exactly what it does to the people you leave behind when you do, and I am not spending this weekend scraping together a trail of shit when you ruin Jesse’s wedding. So if you wanna hate me for it go ahead and hate me, but if you think you’re going to the ferry, you’ve got another fucking thing coming. You’re doing this my way and that’s all the fuck there is to it.”

Holy shit.

Not only had Brody become much more of an asshole than I remembered… he was kind of scary when he was pissed off. Colder than he used to be; harder. Bigger, too. A lot more muscular; I could tell, even with the leather jacket.

“Unless you want me to arrange to get your ass on a plane out of here right now,” he went on, leaning his big, muscular, pissed-off self into my space, “and we pretend you never landed. Because if anyone finds out you showed your ass in town and then you turned tail and took off, sweetheart, I am not gonna be the one telling Jesse to back off and give you space. You hear me on this? I’m fucking done with covering for you and making excuses for you and waiting for you to get a clue. Your brother loves you and the least you can do is show your face at his motherfucking wedding.”

My gaze dropped away from the accusation in those cold eyes. I studied the muscle ticking in his jaw, the veins standing out on his neck, and realized I’d been wrong. He wasn’t pissed.

He was seething.

And no, this was definitely not going as badly as I feared it might. It was much, much worse.

I felt the burn at the back of my throat, the stinging behind my eyes, but I took a deep, shuddering breath, willing myself not to do this… not to fall apart. Not in front of him. But shit. I totally felt like a teenager.

Maybe because the last time I’d been this close to Brody, I was one.

His hand went to my hip and I heard the click as he released my seatbelt, felt the straps slide over me as he reached across me…. his nose almost bumping mine as he pulled the latch on my door, opening it.

“Get out,” he said.

I didn’t move. Instead, I bit my lip.

I didn’t realize I’d done it until his gaze dropped to my lips, then flicked back up to my eyes. His eyes darkened and a slow, aching minute passed between us.

If he was any other man, I might’ve thought he was turned on.

As it was… he looked kind of disgusted.

The rain pattered down on the truck, encasing us inside, and yeah; it was just like I was eighteen and he was twenty-three all over again, sitting in his truck in the rain—except that day, he wasn’t telling me to leave. He was asking—no, begging me to stay.

But back then, Brody didn’t hate me.

Now…?

I couldn’t blame him for being mad at me. I’d expected things to be difficult between us. I did not expect this.

I did not expect hate.

But it was definitely hatred I saw in his eyes. Pure, ice-cold loathing, with a hefty side of revulsion and resentment.

And Brody Mason hating me? No amount of preparation could’ve helped me with this. Even if I’d told him everything I thought I might tell him, my harrowing confession… I didn’t think he’d hate me. I thought he’d like me less, and that was bad enough—bad enough to keep me gone for six-and-a-half years. I couldn’t even imagine how hard it would be to come crashing down off the pedestal he’d put me on so many years ago… but I knew it wouldn’t feel good. I knew it would be painful.

But this? This was pure hell.

“Are you getting out,” he asked in that stone-cold voice, “or do I have to drag you out?”

Um… no.

That would not be necessary.

Mostly because the thought of him putting his hands on me right now, in any way, was making my clit throb, because apparently, pissed off Brody turned me on about as much as he scared me. Because I was screwed up like that.

Yeah; pure hell.

“I’m here,” I managed. “I’m here for the wedding, okay?”

“Believe it when I fucking see it.”

“So you’re just kidnapping me, is that it?”

“I’d call it damage control, but if that’s what you wanna call it,” he said, “go right the fuck ahead.”

Then he opened his door and stepped out into the rain.

“I’m sorry,” I said to his back. Because I couldn’t think of anything else he might want to hear from me right now.

He looked at me but he didn’t say a thing. He just slammed the door. I watched him stalk over to a big, dark-haired man who’d appeared on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

Oh, Jesus. Jude.

This was serious.

My brother’s best friend and the head of Dirty’s security team, Jude was pretty much permanently glued to my brother’s side. If he was here to accompany us to Jesse’s wedding, they really were afraid I might bail.

There was no way I was getting out of this.

Never mind that I’d actually been looking forward to the ridiculously long drive across the island, the time on solid ground to acclimate to being home and to prepare myself for two days at a remote resort with Brody.

Clearly, that wasn’t going to happen.

I climbed out of the truck as Brody got my bags from the back, handing them off to the pilot.

“Picking up Amanda,” I heard him say to Jude. “We’ll see you up there.” Then he was off, without a glance in my direction, heading back through the rain to his truck.

We.

I tried to squeeze out a smile as Jude grabbed me up in a hug, all muscles and killer dimples, and planted a kiss on my forehead. At least someone was happy to see me. I hugged him back, grateful for his solid comfort. He asked how I was doing and how my flight was and I did my best to answer, but I wasn’t sure my words made any sense.

Brody wasn’t even coming on the plane with us.

He was going to get Amanda.

Amanda.

I felt every letter of her name stab my heart.

I had no idea who Amanda was. Unfortunately, as far as I could guess, bimbos were never named Amanda. Smart, beautiful girls were named Amanda.

Amanda, who was going to my brother’s wedding with Brody.

Fuck. He had a date.

A girlfriend?

Which meant… No. Fuck, no. I wasn’t going to tell him. I watched him peel out in his truck, and I made the decision, fast; I wasn’t going to tell him anything.

What good would that do? He was already pissed at me for what I’d done—for leaving the band, for leaving everyone behind six-and-a-half years ago. For leaving him. He wasn’t going to be any happier about the reason I did it.

He wasn’t going to hate me any less.

“Jessa! Fucking! Mayes! You beautiful AWOL bitch, get your ass over here!”

I turned to find Roni stepping out of the restaurant. She strut toward me through the rain, arms held wide.

“Roni!” I gave her a big hug and she laughed, jumping us both up and down with little-girl joy. Fair enough, since Roni and I had been friends since high school. And I really hadn’t seen her in a long time. Like most of my friends back home, I remembered her looking younger than she actually was, but time had been good to her, too.

Tall, dark and the sort of sexy that had been known to cause at least one major traffic accident, if anyone could take focus off my arrival at my brother’s wedding, it was this girl. A girl who could turn any situation into a party; whether it was booze, drugs, or an epic hook-up you were in the mood for, Roni was your girl… a girl who’d once hooked herself up with Zane Traynor, my brother’s lifelong friend-slash-nemesis and the insane—and insanely gorgeous—lead singer of Dirty.

When I’d asked her to be my date for the wedding, she was incredibly keen, and I wasn’t naive as to why.

“Zane is in the wedding party,” I reminded her as she hooked her arm through mine and we followed Jude down the walkway toward the float plan dock. “Can I trust you to behave somewhat? This is a wedding, not an orgy. I think my brother’s new wife will be a little perturbed if the two of you turn it into one.” I didn’t worry that she’d take offense at the warning; we both knew it needed to be said.

“My orgy days are long behind me,” Roni lied with a grin. “Anyway, been there, done Zane. You know I never go back for seconds.” Then she winked at Jude as she climbed onto the plane. I watched Jude’s gaze fall straight to Roni’s ass in her skin-tight jeans.

Yeah, with Roni in the room, no one was even going to notice me.

One could hope.

I followed her, taking one of the leather seats and shaking the rain from my hair. Jude climbed in behind me and the pilot welcomed us on-board, launching into the safety spiel. I really should’ve paid attention, since crashing into the Pacific Ocean in a tiny floatplane was probably one of those life events I’d want to be prepared for. But I just couldn’t do it.

Picking up Amanda.

Shit, this was going to be a long fucking weekend.

Luckily, Roni pulled out a flask before we’d even hit the air. I took a swig of her infamous home brew—blackberry vodka—then a couple more, and tried really hard not to care.

So Brody had a date for the wedding.

So he hated me.

What the hell did it matter? I was never going to see him again.

As soon as the wedding was over and my brother and his new bride headed off on their rock star honeymoon, I was getting the hell out of here. And nothing would really change.

Okay, so Brody would hate me instead of liking me. But for all I knew, he’d hated me for a while now; I just didn’t know it yet. So now I’d be aware that the only man I’d ever loved couldn’t stand me—couldn’t even stand for me to say his name.

But so what? I’d be gone.

And this time, I was never coming back.

* * *

The floatplane landed in the calm waters of Cathedral Cove just as the sun was setting at our backs, the light fading over the seemingly-boundless waters of the Pacific Ocean. The cove, a tiny inlet lined with towering spruce, hemlock and western cedar trees, was tucked up along the coastline of Vancouver Island, accessible only by water and air.

Even I could admit it was an epic location for a wedding.

The main lodge building, where the ceremony would take place, appeared through the trees on a rocky promontory, overlooking the water with its towering front walls of glass and what I could only assume were heart-stopping views of the cove and the Pacific beyond; it wasn’t called Cathedral Cove Resort for nothing. I could already see why Katie chose it.

And why her best friend, Devi, had sent flowers and steak dinners to my house for a week after I called a guy I knew, who knew the owners of the resort, and twisted a few rubber arms.

Really wasn’t all that difficult to convince them to book out the entire place for Jesse Mayes’ rock star wedding on semi-short notice. Turned out, they were fans. But I enjoyed the steak anyway.

As the plane growled up to the docks, it occurred to me that I really hadn’t been out of the city, into nature, in far too fucking long. This wedding would be a great excuse to—mostly—forget about work for a couple of days, unplug, and breathe some clean, green air.

I should really be happy right now.

Or at the very least, looking forward to spending the next couple of days with my best friends, my friends who’d become, over the years, my family, at what was sure to be one of the best parties of the year, probably the best party of Jesse’s life—because we were celebrating his marriage to Katie Bloom, a woman who made him ridiculously happy.

But I wasn’t happy.

I was far from happy.

Fortunately, the loud drone of the plane and the distractingly stunning view made convenient cover for the fact that I couldn’t manage conversation with Amanda, much less look her in the eye. But as the plane settled and we climbed out, the crisp, cold wind off the water smacking me in the face, I knew I had to get my head together. I couldn’t exactly mope around like some adolescent asshole for the next two days.

If you don’t know me now, you never did.

Jesus, that girl knew what to say to piss me the fuck off.

No; not girl. Woman.

No mistake, she was a woman now, and didn’t that just drop-kick me right in the guts. Because I’d missed it. All of it.

Everything Jessa Mayes would become… she’d gone and become it without me.

And now, with one shitty little comment, she thought she could just wipe away the years I had known her? All the time we’d spent together as kids, and then, as we got older… She could just take that all away from me?

Well, fuck her.

Maybe it meant nothing to her, but she didn’t get to decide what it meant to me. She didn’t get to tell me what I knew or didn’t know, and she sure as shit didn’t get to tell me how I felt about it.

You’re angry with me.

Yeah. No shit.

I was also more than a little pissed at myself for losing my cool. But I just couldn’t fucking handle it. Being that close to her… every caveman urge I’d ever had rearing up in violent protest that I had her, that close, again, and she was gonna slip through my fingers, again.

Consider me dead to you.

Jesus. What a fucking asshole.

Amanda turned to me and smiled, her short blonde hair dancing in the breeze. She looked like a Canadian beer commercial with her white teeth, tight jeans and short bomber jacket, her plaid shirt tied above her navel.

I smiled back.

Our bags were whisked away as a guide from the resort gave us a quick tour of the grounds, which pretty much consisted of a maze-like cedar-planked boardwalk winding through the ancient trees. It was suspended over the rocky, uneven ground, and far below, a stream that meandered through the rainforest, feeding the hot springs on the rim of the cove. We were already late, so once we’d stopped off at our cabin and changed into our dinner clothes, we headed straight up to the lodge. The tiny amber lights that had been strung along the boardwalk had begun to sparkle in the dusk; I had no idea if the lights were always there or if they’d been hung for the wedding, but it was beautiful.

Along with the scents of cool, damp cedar, fresh spruce needles and moss, the bird calls and chirps among the trees, the water crashing on the rocks below… the whole scene was pretty breathtaking. So breathtaking, I was pretty sure Amanda hadn’t yet noticed that I hadn’t said a word to her since the plane hit air.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

The scents of cooking—lemon, dill, something buttery and something else kind of sweet, like fresh baking—wafted out from the back of the lodge, and the scent of a wood-burning fire, smoky and inviting, clung in the slightly misty air off the water. I took a few slow, deep breaths, just trying to soak it all in, collect my thoughts the way I might before a particularly unsavory business meeting.

But this unease had nothing to do with business.

As we approached the lodge, I could make out the thump of bass and the unmistakable, bittersweet rhythm of The Black Keys’ “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Which was really fucking unfortunate, since a Black Keys song had once imprinted on me in a way that I’d never be able to separate hearing this band from the memory of dancing with Jessa Mayes on a shitty summer night in the dark.

But really… was there anything left on Earth that didn’t somehow remind me of her?

Amanda caught my hand and leaned in, resting her head on my shoulder. I could hardly blame her. It was the perfect setting for romance, never mind that it was a wedding. Katie and her girls had done well planning this thing, and if my goal was to get my date in the mood to spend the next couple of days screwing in front of a fire, mission accomplished.

Except that I was suddenly wondering why the fuck I’d brought Amanda to this thing at all.

Maybe because it would’ve seemed weird if I didn’t bring her? Maybe because, when she heard that Jesse Mayes—lead guitarist of Dirty, the band I’d managed since they and I were little more than kids, and one of my best friends—was getting married, she just assumed she’d be coming with me.

Or maybe because, when she’d assumed she was coming, I let her go ahead and assume, because deep down I’d wanted to send a big fat Fuck you to Jesse’s sister by showing up with the pretty blonde at my side.

Yeah, that sounded about right.

Not that I was proud of it.

As we stepped from the boardwalk onto the wraparound deck of the lodge, I took another fortifying breath. One of the catering staff opened a door for us, and as we stepped inside, I saw them.

Jesse and Katie.

In the middle of the room, dancing slow and kind of making out, laughing as they pawed at each other like no one else in the lodge, or the universe, existed. Pretty much their usual mode.

Everything was as it should be, then.

A few other people were dancing; most were talking, drinking and snacking on hors d’oeuvres. Besides the lodge staff, the catering team bustling in and out, and Jude’s security guys, there were about forty or so guests, all VIPs—close family, members of the wedding party and their dates—here for the rehearsal in preparation for the wedding tomorrow, which would be attended by another sixty or so guests. All of whom I knew.

But as we started across the room, despite all the familiar faces, I had eyes for only one person; one person who clearly wasn’t here.

I didn’t see her. Anywhere. And Jessa Mayes was pretty fucking hard to miss.

I didn’t see Jude either, so I couldn’t even ask him where the fuck she was. Saw Roni in the corner, flirting with one of his security guys, though, so at least their plane had landed.

“You wanna dance?” Amanda asked, just as the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” started playing.

Christ. What was with all the soul-sucking love songs?

Right. Wedding.

“After I introduce you around,” I told her, steering her past the dance floor. The more people she knew, I figured, the more likely she might have a good time—despite the fact that she was here with me.

I took her over to greet the other members of Dirty—also pretty hard to miss. Zane, our lead singer, with his white-blond mohawk, demonic beard twisted into a braid, eyebrow piercings and ice-sharp blue eyes with just that little bit of crazy in them—wearing jeans and a black leather vest, because that was semiformal wear for Zane. And Dylan, our drummer, his six-and-a-half-foot frame making him the tallest dude in the room; add to that his unruly, flaming auburn hair and athletic build, poured into leather pants and a cashmere sweater, and even if I hadn’t seen them, all I’d have to do was follow the batting eyelashes.

Wherever these guys went, a trail of drooling women was sure to follow, and there were about a half-dozen flocked around now, including Katie’s mom. Yeah; we probably could’ve made these guys a decent career in music even if they had zero musical talent.

Lucky for us all, they had it in spades.

Both of them were grinning like fools as Amanda and I waded through the pheromones. They looked just a little too happy, which in my experience was rarely a good thing. When these two got up to shit they were like a couple of idiots on the playground; neither of them could back down from a dare.

“No bullshit at Jesse’s wedding,” I told them, straight-up. I didn’t have it in me to deal with their shenanigans on top of everything else.

“Nope,” Dylan said. “Just saying how good it is to see Jessa. Jesse’s so fucking happy. Kinda feels like a reunion.”

“Yeah, we could get her to stick around for a bit, we could actually make it one,” Zane said. “You know, get her out to jam, write some killer shit.”

“Yeah,” I said. “If we could.” I looked around for someone to introduce Amanda to, so I didn’t have to tell Zane, here and now, that was a shit idea. And never gonna happen.

Jessa Mayes’ days of songwriting with Dirty were over.

Long over.

She’d made her choice, six-and-a-half years ago. She’d walked away from the band and never looked back. Fucking thing was, I knew for a fact every member of the band was more than willing to let that slide if she’d just come back and write with them again. Especially Jesse; he’d loved that girl from the second she came into the world, and he wasn’t about to stop. When Jessa was born, her four-year-old brother had named her—after himself—forging a bond that would never be broken. He would always have her back, would never turn against her, no matter what shit she pulled.

Not me.

It was my job to look out for the band, and I was never gonna let Jessa Mayes fuck us all over again.

“What’s your deal, Bro?” Zane looked from me to Amanda and back with a devious grin; clearly, something wasn’t adding up. People could say what they wanted about Zane being a lunatic, but the man wasn’t stupid.

“Yeah, man,” Dylan said. “I’m sensing a general aura of funk.”

Great. If it was that obvious something was off, even to Dylan, by far the most laid-back—and least nosy—of my friends, this was gonna be a long fucking night.

“No deal,” I said. “Just airsick. Floatplane.”

Total bullshit, but the best I could do just now was spit out a few two-word sentences and turn away before they asked more questions.

I was glad to find Dolly when I did, waiting for a hug. Zane had brought her as his date, though she would’ve been invited anyway. Dolly was Zane’s grandma; she was also the woman who’d raised him from the time he was two years old, and it was her garage that Zane and Jesse jammed in with all the shitty little garage bands they formed before we put Dirty together.

Grandma Dolly had also helped raise Jesse and especially Jessa while their mom battled her illness. When she died, it was Dolly who’d taken Jessa in, given her stability, a sense of family and three meals a day so Jesse could pursue the gonzo life of a musician on the brink of superstardom.

I had big, big love for this woman. We all did. Tiny and white-haired, she was pushing ninety and still going strong; at least, strong enough to take the flight out here, be a part of this crazy shindig, and keep putting up with Zane’s shit.

I wrapped her up in a careful hug and kissed her soft cheek. “Zane taking good care of you, Doll?”

“Oh, he always does.” I could hear the joy and the pride in her scratchy voice. “Everything has been just lovely, and all my babies together.” She patted me on the back before letting go. “Everyone’s so happy that Jessa’s come home. Have you seen her yet?”

“I picked her up at the airport, actually.”

“She looks like she’s doing well, don’t you think? Such a beautiful girl.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Beautiful. Dolly, this is Amanda.”

I introduced Amanda around to all the usual suspects, including Dylan’s “date,” Ash, lead singer of the Penny Pushers, one of the bands Dirty often toured with. Dylan and Ash had been besties since they’d met playing a festival about five years back and because he was Dylan’s plus one, Ash was the only Pusher who’d be attending the wedding. That’s how selective the guest list was.

I’d told Jesse not to sweat it. If anyone was pissed about not getting invited—and they would be—I’d deal with it.

The only member of Dirty who wasn’t here yet was Elle, our bass player and Jesse’s ex-girlfriend. She was invited, of course, but wasn’t in the wedding party, so she wasn’t here for the rehearsal. She’d be arriving sometime tomorrow with the other guests. Awkward, sure, but this was Jesse and Katie’s thing and that’s just how it had to be.

I’d be checking in with Elle and I knew my partner, Maggie, would too, to make sure she was doing okay. But this was what it was.

Jesse was happy as fuck, he was marrying Katie, and Elle just had to deal.

As long as it didn’t fuck with the music, we’d be fine.

Maggie had materialized to greet us, looking pretty as usual in a silky gray cocktail dress that matched her striking eyes, her dark hair slicked back in a ponytail. Even in her heels she was petite; I had to lean down to kiss her cheek. Despite the pretty package, Maggie was pure kick-ass. I’d never met anyone who could rally people and bend them to her will the way she could—not even Jude’s security guys, and they often carried guns.

She showed us around the room, essentially a giant yet cozy banquet hall, with a massive fireplace at one end, opposite the towering windows overlooking the cove. She gave us the lowdown on where the ceremony would take place—in front of the windows—and showed us the stage toward the back of the hall where Zane’s side project band, Wet Blanket, would play tomorrow night. The floor in the middle would be used for seating during the ceremony, then dinner, and later cleared for dancing. Right now it had a cluster of eight round tables set for the rehearsal dinner. The tables were lit with dozens of candles, chandeliers glowing above.

If Maggie ever decided to quit the music business, she could probably make a solid career as a wedding planner. I wasn’t gonna tell her that, though; I needed Maggie taking on more work, not planning her escape. On paper, she was my assistant, which was fucking ridiculous. In reality, she did a lot more for all of us than her fair share. I’d been trying to officially promote her for years, but apparently she didn’t want any more “responsibility.” Which I translated as: I already put up with enough of Zane’s shit, don’t make it any easier for him to abuse me.

Katie’s best friend, Devi, joined us, and the two of them chattered on for a while about wedding stuff. Jesse had given them a blank check to do whatever they wanted—meaning whatever Devi thought Katie would want, and what Katie wanted, evidently, was an intimate yet glamorous wedding in the Canadian wilderness. Glad no one asked me how to pull that off, but somehow, Maggie and Devi had.

The both of them had been obsessed with it over the past five months, calling me ten times a day with inane questions. I gave them the best answers I could, but really, I did not give the last shit about weddings. Weddings, and marriage in general, were, in my limited experience—as the child of not one but three ugly divorces—pretty much a farce.

I did give a shit about Jesse though, which was why I’d agreed to be one of his groomsmen when he asked. And what Jesse gave a shit about was Katie Bloom, that cute-as-all-hell girl in his arms with the dark hair and blue-green eyes. Apparently, the spoiled fuckwit she’d almost made the mistake of marrying a few years back—or rather, his fuckwit parents—had insisted on a big, grandiose summer wedding, but Katie had always dreamed of a cozy winter wedding. So a cozy winter wedding was what Jesse was giving her.

Pretty sure he’d give her any-fucking-thing, if she asked.

Thing about Katie was, she never asked. Which was one of the many things I liked about her. Refreshing change from the other women Jesse had dated over the years, who were, for the most part—other than Elle—opportunistic airheads.

The man was brilliant on guitar; not so brilliant in his choice of women.

When I saw him with Katie, though, I could say he’d finally gotten it right.

He was smiling ear-to-fucking-ear when they came off the dance floor; he let her go long enough to give me a bear hug, lifting me right off the floor. It struck me, when he smiled, how much he resembled his sister; the both of them kinda dorky as kids, all lanky and over-serious about music, now tall and statuesque, more than their fair share of beautiful, with their flawless, chiseled features, big, dazzling smiles and soulful brown eyes.

“Brody. About time you graced us with your presence. Had to stop and get a new tattoo on the way, brother?”

“Just a quick one, of Katie’s name,” I poked back.

Where normally he might’ve dropped me on my ass for that, he just laughed. Of course, he had Katie. He had Jessa. The two people he loved most in the world were here, and nothing was gonna piss on his parade.

Even my general aura of funk.

I gave Katie a hug and a kiss and told her she looked gorgeous, which she did. I’d been informed that she wasn’t wearing a white dress for the wedding, so the little white cocktail dress she’d chosen for tonight was a nice touch. “Luckiest groom around,” I told her, and she smiled her sweet, disarming smile at me.

Then I introduced Amanda around to Katie’s family; I’d had a chance to meet them at the engagement party back in the fall. Nice people. Solid. Loved Jesse something fierce. And they took to Amanda right away, like everyone did.

Why wouldn’t they?

Amanda was charming in a genuine way, and easy to talk to. Not to mention easy on the eyes. Definitely deserved better than some distracted asshole who couldn’t even fucking see her.

Because the entire time I introduced her around the room, eventually landing at the bar where she got chatting with Katie’s parents, playing on repeat at the back of my mind—actually, at the front of it—was: Where the fuck is Jessa?

Where. The Fuck. IS she.

I would’ve liked to believe myself when I explained to myself that my interest in the answer to that question was purely for Jesse’s benefit. That as one of his best friends and groomsmen, not to mention his manager, it was my duty to help make sure this thing went off without a hitch, that Jesse was happy, that Katie got the wedding of her dreams; that as soon as they got back from their honeymoon, Jesse was going back into writing mode for the new album and it was important he not be distracted or dealing with the fallout of some bullshit family drama, courtesy of his disappearing-act of a sister… or some such shit.

But the truth was, I had to see her again.

Had to.

One glimpse of her, standing in the rain at the airport, her face tipped back as she grinned at the sky like she didn’t have a fucking care in the world, wearing my shirt—or at least, a shirt that looked a fuck of a lot like a shirt I’d once had, that she’d been wearing the last time I saw it—and I was done.

Done.

Sitting all of two feet from her in my truck? I was well and truly fucked. Because I’d forgotten how many colors there were in those soulful dark eyes. Forgotten how fucking pretty she was; how painfully fucking pretty. And I could still see the little girl she once was in those eyes—the little girl who’d looked at me like I ruled the fucking world.

I could barely look at her, could barely fucking breathe—that smell of her, fuck me, the smell of her that hadn’t changed in all the years since I’d met her, sweet and pure, like apples and blossoms and rain and fucking stardust and moonbeams; I couldn’t say what it was, but yeah. All I could do was grip the wheel and concentrate on driving and just try to keep from foaming at the mouth when I lit into her—try to pretend that none of it mattered; all my pissed off, miles-deep frustrations; all the disappointment; all the repressed agony and the pent-up clusterfuck of rage… that none of it destroyed me at all… that she didn’t destroy me, when she so fucking did… all of it, just broiling beneath the surface, ready to blow.

And her voice.

That fucking voice I hadn’t heard in six-and-a-half years, melodic and soft and so fucking her.

I had never in my life had to jack off so badly that I pulled my vehicle off the road, onto the shoulder of a fucking highway, and took my cock out while cars blasted by and I did not give one fuck who saw me.

But I did just that.

Not five minutes after dropping her off with Jude, on my way to pick up Amanda… because no one needed to see me like that. So totally fucked up.

Christ, who does that?

A maniac, that’s who.

And if I was a maniac, it was because Jessa Mayes, once upon a time, turned me into one. But shit happens, yeah? I was a kid then. Since then, I’d become a man. I wasn’t gonna unravel at Jesse’s wedding.

And I didn’t.

I was good. I had this.

Until I heard her name, just somewhere in the ether, and I knew she was here.

Jessa.

Someone said it, somewhere, and I turned to look across the room like a dog tossed a scrap. Pretty sure I salivated. My wine glass broke in my hand. It made an audible popping sound, and both Amanda and I looked down to find the delicate bowl of the glass, still in my hand, cracked, wine dribbling out.

At least I wasn’t bleeding.

“Omigosh,” Amanda said, and grabbed a bunch of napkins from the bar to help me. “Um… I think you’re supposed to finish drinking the wine before you break the glass.” She smiled at me, then got the bartender to whisk the broken glass away and hand me a fresh one.

While I just stood there.

Staring across the room.

Because Jessa Mayes had just walked in wearing a dress that couldn’t possibly be legal on that body.

Not that there was anything scandalous about the dress on its own. It was fitted to her goddess-like curves, but it was longish, ending just below the knee, the neckline dipping no lower than her collarbone, with half-sleeves. It wasn’t exactly an upstaging-the-bride sort of dress. It wasn’t white, slutty, or showing miles of leg—and Jessa Mayes had miles and miles of leg under that thing.

It was just what it did to my brain when I saw her in it.

It was made of what looked like thick, bunched-up silk. Not quite peach, not quite pink… salmon? Iced-rose-cantaloupe-sorbet? I had no idea what the fuck a chick would call it, but it was motherfucking hot.

Along with her silky, slightly wavy hair that reached pretty much exactly to her nipples, worn smooth, the ends curled under and one side tucked behind a perfect ear, she looked like a screen siren out of some old black-and-white movie—but in vivid flesh tones, like some technicolor wet dream.

Hard to tell when I’d picked her up at the airport in that furry jacket, but now I could see how she’d changed since she went away—in all ways holy and good. As a little girl she was cute, a little dorky, scrappy, with her mane of wild brown hair and those big brown eyes. As a teenager, she got lithe and limber, swanned right out into an angel-faced beauty.

As a woman…

I’d seen photos of her these last six-and-a-half years. Professional photos from high-end shoots for major fashion brands. It was pathetic how often I’d searched her on the web, found new shots of her from some swimsuit shoot or lingerie campaign I hadn’t yet seen, and saved them.

None of those photos came close to capturing what I was looking at right now.

Jessa’s eyes found mine across the room… and that wide-eyed look of hers went straight to my dick.

Christ.

She turned away, hastily. Then she bent down to give Dolly a hug, giving me a first-rate view of her perfect, heart-shaped ass, and I just about broke another wine glass.

It was fucking official. The woman was trying to kill me.

Wasn’t enough that I was dead to her; she was actually trying to end me.

As I watched her across the room the most fucked up thing was, after being that close to her again—close enough to breathe the same air, close enough to smell her, close enough to glimpse all those colors in her eyes—I’d probably let her.

I put the wine glass down on the bar and stared at my hand wrapped around it, afraid if I let go the whole thing would fall apart. Stared kind of blankly at the tattoo on the inside of my forearm, a single line of runes that read abstinence. A tattoo that only I, or someone who happened to know how to read ancient Germanic runic writing, would understand. And for the life of me I couldn’t remember what it was supposed to mean or why the fuck I had it permanently inked into my arm, other than the fact that it had nothing to do with abstaining from alcohol or any other such substance—and a lot more to do with the goddess across the room in the silk-sorbet dress.

I let go of the wine glass and ordered up a beer from the bartender. Why the fuck was I drinking wine anyway? I didn’t even like wine.

Amanda. Amanda liked wine.

My gaze fell to her. She was standing next to me, sipping her wine and watching me over the rim of her glass. It really wouldn’t take a genius to match my line of sight to Jessa Mayes’ ass and Amanda was far from stupid, so I wasn’t even gonna pretend that wasn’t where I was staring for the last half minute.

“That’s Jesse’s sister, right?” she asked lightly, like what I’d been staring at didn’t bother her at all. But yeah, it did.

Because perfect, heart-shaped ass.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to keep my tone business-neutral. Like, Yeah, that’s the sister of one my best friends, and isn’t that nice she made it to the wedding? I haven’t seen her, or even thought about her, in six-and-a-half years. Have you tried the crab cakes yet?

No idea if Amanda knew me well enough yet to see through that shit. But she smiled softly and the uneasy, suddenly self-conscious look in her eyes made me feel like that much more of an ass. “Maybe you could introduce us?”

Yeah. I’d get right on that.

“Have you tried the crab cakes yet?” I asked her. “I’ll get you some.”

Then I took my beer and got the fuck out of there.

* * *