If she had told Jake that there was someone else, someone who loved her and was good to her, would he have let her have her baby? But she couldn’t tell Jake that he wasn’t the only one. He would have been furious. He might have…
It doesn’t matter now. My baby is dead. Jake is dead.
I killed them both.
A warm breeze stirred to life, rustling through the thick hedges and swaying the top branches of the old oak tree. Narrowing her gaze, she stared at the tree, at the very spot where Jake had stood leaning against the trunk, a half-smoked cigarette between his fingers. He’d been so cocky, so sure of himself. Mr. Irresistible.
He had grinned when he saw her peeking at him through the hedges where she’d hidden in an area of shrubbery that had died and been trimmed into an alcove shape. And that smile had stayed in place until the arrow hit him dead center, in the heart. A lucky shot? Divine providence? What did it matter. Jake Marcott had paid for his sins with his life.
Tears welled up in her eyes as she remembered the way he had looked, his body pinned to the tree trunk, blood oozing from the wound, him gasping, his eyes wide with shock. He hadn’t died instantly, but soon enough. And all the while, he had stared right at her, as if asking for her help.
She had slipped away, leaving him, glad that he was dead.
Dean McMichaels considered himself a good guy. Friendly, courteous, likable. Ever since junior high, he had attracted the ladies. Teenage girls back then. But his first conquest had been an older woman. He fifteen and she seventeen. Teena had been the cousin of a friend of a friend, a girl all the guys in his circle had screwed at one time or another. In retrospect, he wasn’t all that proud of the fact that he’d been one of them, but he’d been a horny kid and she’d been putting out. After Teena, he had become a bit more discriminate, usually going steady with a girl before they had sex. But the one girl he had really wanted-wanted so much that he’d honest-to-God compared every other woman in his life to her-had been hung up on another guy: Jake Marcott. May his black soul rot in hell.
He had known Rachel Alsace since kindergarten when her family had moved back to Portland, her dad’s hometown, from where her mom had lived all her life, Chattanooga, Tennessee. From day one he had kidded Rachel about her hillbilly accent. Once he’d even made her cry and had instantly regretted it. She’d been a tomboy, climbing trees, riding her skateboard, racing her bike, playing baseball. A real live wire, full of energy and enthusiasm.
He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped thinking of her as just one of the guys and starting seeing her as a girl. About the time she went through puberty and grew a set of perfect knockers. Man, how he’d wanted to see her boobs. Once-just once-he’d kissed her, at Lindsay Farrell’s thirteenth birthday party when they were playing some crazy kissing game. Being a good sport, Rachel had allowed the kiss, but when he’d copped a feel, she had slapped him. Their gazes had locked in a heated exchange. He had wanted to kiss her again but knew he’d blown his one chance to become more than just buddies.
By the time Jake Marcott showed up in their lives, when they were sixteen, he had already begun to pester the hell out of Rachel, doing everything he could to make her notice him. Why was it that all the other girls had paid attention to him, but not the one he’d wanted?
After Jake’s murder, nothing was ever the same for any of the old gang, least of all for Rachel and her family. She had moved back to Tennessee with her mother after her father’s death, and he’d lost track of her. Once in a blue moon, he’d run into Kristen and asked about Rachel, but she hadn’t known anything more than her address. Both of his serious girlfriends in college had been cute, petite blondes; when he’d married in his late twenties, his wife, Kellie, had fit the same description. He hadn’t been consciously aware of the fact that he had repeatedly tried to find a substitute for the one and only girl he had always wanted.
And here she was back in Portland, back in his life, and walking straight toward him. All he could say was she cleaned up damn good. Just looking at her took his breath away. Nothing flashy, just understated beauty. The kind of clean, wholesome, all-American beauty that turned Dean inside out.
They were both thirty-eight, both divorced and childless, and together again after twenty years. Was fate giving him a second chance with Rachel? Or was he a fool for letting himself believe in second chances?
Dean stared at Rachel, drinking in the sight of her. Her short blond curls framed her heart-shaped face. Her big blue eyes sparkled with mischief and curiosity just as they had when she’d been a kid. She had dressed casually, her outfit suitable for just about any place he might take her in Portland for dinner. White slacks in some gauzy fabric with a matching loose-fitting blouse that billowed out from a row of tiny beading directly under her breasts. Heaven help them both, but she looked good enough to eat.
“You have her home at a decent hour, young man,” Charlie Young said jokingly as he patted Dean on the back.
“Is two in the morning a decent hour?” Dean asked.
“I’ll be home before midnight,” Rachel informed both men.
“You two have a nice evening,” Laraine called after them as they left the house.
Once alone together in Dean’s white Thunderbird, he started the engine, then turned in his seat and looked directly at Rachel. “You look beautiful.”
The corners of her mouth lifted ever so slightly. An almost smile. “I’m not beautiful and I know it, so don’t waste your time with flattery because it will not get you laid tonight. Got that?”
Dean laughed. God, she hadn’t changed. At least not in the way she reacted to him. Hackles raised. Spitting fire. On the defensive.
“I really do think you’re beautiful.” I always have. “And to set the record straight, I don’t put out on a first date. A girl has to woo me a little before I let her have her way with me.”
“I can’t believe this-you act like you did when we were sixteen.” She glowered at him. “I’m cute, vivacious, spunky, and have a really nice rack, but I am not now nor have I ever been beautiful.”
He shifted gears, backed his Ford sports car out of the Youngs’ driveway, and gunned the engine, shooting the Thunderbird like a rocket down the residential street.
“You’ll get a speeding ticket driving so fast,” she told him.
He slowed down to just ten miles over the speed limit. “I have friends on the police force who can fix a ticket for me.”
Rachel gave him a real smile then, and his stomach knotted.
“Would you be interested in a movie before dinner?” he asked, already having a particular movie in mind.
“I guess so, if there’s something good showing.”
“Define good.”
She glanced his way. “Something that isn’t all blood and gore. Something that won’t give me nightmares and something where every other word isn’t MF.”
“Well, there goes my idea of seeing a movie.”
They both laughed.
That evening after leaving Emily with Mandy’s parents, Mandy and Jeff drove over to Ross Delmonico’s apartment. Mandy had called earlier and told Kristen they had to talk, that it was urgent. Now, after she’d had the entire afternoon to rationalize the eerie phone call she’d received, Mandy was able to tell Kristen about it without crying or freaking out.
“Is there anyone who might want to frighten you or even hurt you?” Kristen asked. “Someone not connected to St. Lizzy’s or the reunion”-she sighed heavily-“or to Jake?”
“No, no one,” Mandy said.
“I think Mandy needs to report the call to the police.” Jeff glanced from Kristen to her husband Ross.
“I agree,” Ross said. “When Kristen sensed she was being stalked-”
“Rachel Alsace is back in Portland,” Kristen blurted out. She’s a police officer in Alabama and Chief Young is allowing her to go through the old Cupid Killer files. She’s working with Dean McMichaels. You remember Dean, don’t you?”