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Rick Bennet had not been looking forward to this. He’d only agreed to give Tracy a ride as a favor to Meg, his high-school girlfriend. But the Tracy he remembered was nothing like the woman standing in front of him now.
In his memory, she was a shy, slightly overweight, fingernail-chewing, ponytail-wearing irritant. The younger sister he’d had to put up with every time he’d arrived at the Hall house to see Meg.
The girl who used to walk past his parents’ house a dozen times a day. The girl who had trailed after him like a smaller shadow.
Obviously though, times—and Tracy—had changed.
He experienced a quick, hot jab of pure male admiration. It had been a long time since a woman had so instantly affected him. A flash of desire spurted into life as his gaze swept over her.
Her short blond hair was a fluffy tousle of curls that made him want to reach out and touch them, to test their softness against his skin. She wore a simple yellow blouse tucked into a calf-length, filmy looking summer skirt and small strappy sandals on her dainty feet. Pale pink nail polish decorated her toes, and with surprise he noted her tiny silver toe ring. Long, abstract silver drops hung from her earlobes, glinting in the afternoon sunlight. A honey-golden tan accentuated her blond hair and blue eyes, making her look like a magazine ad for youthful living in Southern California.
She made his mouth water. And though his brain had a hard time believing this desirable creature was really Tracy Hall...his body didn’t care.
“Wow,” he muttered. “You look great,” he said, yet noted the hand she kept clamped over one eye and the fact that she was squinting with her other eye.
“Yeah,” she grumbled just under her breath. “For a one-eyed pirate princess.”
“Something wrong?”
“No,” she said, as he stepped past her into the entry hall. “It’s just these darn contacts.”
Well, that explained the absence of the thick, wirerimmed glasses he’d recalled. But what explained the rest of her transformation? he wondered silently. Like a butterfly from a little caterpillar, Tracy Hall had become a stunner.
His gaze followed her as she shut the door and turned to face him.
“Look,” she said, keeping her hand firmly clasped over her eye. “Why don’t you go into the living room while I run upstairs and see if I can get this darn thing out without blinding myself?”
Grabbing a fistful of skirt, she hiked the hem up to her knees and raced up the steps leading to the second story. Rick watched her, idly admiring the flash of her legs and the sweet curve of her behind.
That thought caught him up short. Tracy’s behind? Little Tracy? Bookworm and math whiz? “Whoa,” he told himself and rubbed the back of his neck. Shaking his head at this unexpected development, Rick turned and walked toward the doorway opening into the living room.
Another surprise.
He didn’t know why, but he hadn’t imagined Tracy living in such quiet elegance. Twin white sofas, their stark surfaces brightened with boldly colored throw pillows, sat facing each other. A low-slung coffee table that looked like a polished redwood stump lay between them and held a scattering of magazines neatly fanned out on its surface. A couple of overstuffed chairs, small decorator tables and reading lamps made up the rest of the furniture in the large, airy room. Two of the four walls were completely covered by bookcases. Another wall boasted floor-toceiling windows with a view of the ocean in the distance. On the last wall was a fireplace with a basket of wood sitting on its hearth. The wide plank floors gleamed in the splash of sunlight streaming through the uncurtained windows.
Just one surprise after another. When he had agreed to give Tracy a ride home to Oregon, he’d somehow expected to find her in a small apartment, locked away from the world. Stupid, he supposed, to assume that a grown woman would be much the same as she had been at fourteen. Just because she had spent most of her time then hidden behind the pages of a book didn’t mean the same would hold true now.
He couldn’t help wondering if her personality had changed as thoroughly as her appearance.
Upstairs, Tracy raced into her bedroom, clipped her hip on the edge of her dresser and ran into the bathroom, wincing at the low throb of pain. Another bruise soon, she thought. Honestly, she was black and blue enough to convince anyone that she was being abused regularly.
But in her own defense, she wasn’t really clumsy. She was simply always rushing, thinking ahead to what her next move would be to the extent that she didn’t pay attention to what she was doing at the moment.
And right now, she was thinking about the next three days spent in a car—and motels—with Rick Bennet.
Setting both palms down flat on the edge of the sink, she leaned forward and dragged several deep breaths into lungs that felt starved for air. “Jeeezzz, why’d he have to be so good looking still? Why couldn’t he have developed a hunch back, adult acne and bad teeth?”
The butterflies in her stomach had butterflies of their own. One look at him and her heartbeat had quickened until she wouldn’t have been surprised to see it fly right out of her chest.
Just imagine what her reaction might have been if he’d arrived wearing his Marine uniform. Ooohh... the thought of that had her toes curling tightly into her new sandals.
What was it about Rick Bennet that got to her? Even as a kid, Tracy had watched his every move and daydreamed about him breaking up with her sister, Meg, in favor of her. She’d gone to sleep every night kissing a pillow, pretending it was him. She’d filled dozens of diaries detailing every word he ever said to her, which wasn’t difficult since most of their conversations had been limited to... “Hi, Rick,” from her and “Hey kid, where’s Meg?” from him.
Not much, true, but enough to warm every corner of a nerdy fourteen-year-old girl’s heart.
And now...he had actually paid her a compliment. Obviously, the professional makeover she’d sprung for had been worth every penny.
She lifted her head, stared into the mirror and groaned. “Oh, yeah. You’re a real beauty, you are.”
Prying open her eyelid, she fumbled for a minute or two, then finally managed to adjust the annoying contact lens.
Studying her reflection, she had to wonder if this was worth all the trouble. Not just the contacts. She’d eventually get used to them. No, she was beginning to doubt the wisdom of her whole plan.
But reunions didn’t come along every day. And heck, she’d heard people talking about going back to their old schools and lying like crazy about their grand achievements in life. And it wasn’t as though she was going home pretending to be the president of the United States or something.
She flipped off the light switch and walked into the bedroom. Sunlight filtered through the sky-blue blinds and lay in golden slats across her quilt-covered bed. Almost like sunshine sliding through prison bars. Except that they were lying horizontally instead of vertically and prisons probably didn’t have such homey touches as quilts and feather pillows. And besides, they didn’t put you in jail for lying, did they?
A guilty conscience nudged her again.
“Oh, perfect,” she mumbled, striding toward the bed to pick up her bags. “It’s a good thing you didn’t become a criminal,” she said aloud. “Or a spy. You just don’t have the stomach for it.”
Who was she trying to kid? It wasn’t the thought of living a lie for the reunion that had her so tied up in knots. It was seeing Rick again. It was feeling those old feelings again. It was realizing that some things, no matter how many years had passed, didn’t change.
Slinging her garment bag over one shoulder, she staggered under its weight, groaned, then lifted the metal bar on her suitcase and set its tiny back wheels on the pine floor. Grabbing up her cosmetic case, she headed for the doorway with slow, plodding steps.
Like a man headed up the stairs of a gallows. “Oh, get a grip, Tracy,” she told herself. Honestly, if she was going to spend the next week or two sweating over every tiny white lie—excuse me, exaggeration—she’d never make it.
And for heaven’s sake, she’d better get over the flutter of nerves that attacked whenever she was within an arm’s reach of Rick. He was doing a favor for her sister. Just being friendly. He wasn’t there as her date. Or her lover.
Ooohh. That thought sent a tingling sensation to every part of her body. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled in a long, deep breath, hoping to stabilize her nervous system.
When she was in control again, she lifted her chin and said aloud, “You can do this, y’know. It’s just a few days alone with him. Then you won’t see him for another ten years or so. How hard can it be?”
Something told her that last sentence would go down in her private journal as the equivalent of “famous last words.”
Two
Freeway miles flew past.
In just a few hours, they were out of the Los Angeles area’s crush of cars and speeding along a highway edged on either side by acres of farm country. Orange and apple groves blended into small, tidy vineyards and those into pistachio orchards. The sky seemed bluer, the sun warmer and the wind cleaner.
Tracy stared out the window at the passing scenery, noting the ancient California oaks—now protected by the state—dotting the rolling hillsides. Occasional farm houses added touches of color to the rainfreshened greenery. The farther they traveled from home and the work that awaited her return, the more Tracy relaxed into the plush seat cushion.
This wasn’t so bad, she told herself. Actually, it had been a pretty nice trip so far. She hadn’t stumbled over a conversation once, and she was almost used to Rick being in such close proximity to her.
Of course, she’d be in way better shape if he weren’t.
She slid a sidelong glance in his direction. Both hands on the wheel, he kept his gaze locked on the road in front of him. But, even in profile, his good looks were enough to fuel a dozen or more very interesting fantasies in far less susceptible women than she.
His light brown hair was cut militarily short, yet retained just enough length to let her see traces of what used to be soft waves. He wore a pair of silverframed aviator-style sunglasses that hid his deep emerald-green eyes. At six foot one, he was much taller than she, even sitting down, and his dark blue polo shirt, open at the collar, stretched across a broad chest that proved he had more than a passing acquaintance with weight lifting.
Her gaze slid down briefly, noting his faded blue jeans and the slip-on deck shoes he wore. Yep. Gorgeous. She bit back a groan and deliberately turned her gaze back to the road ahead of them.
“Inspection over?” he inquired politely.
“Excuse me?” she glanced at him, feigning confusion.
“Did I pass?” He spared her a quick, amused look.
Obviously, he wasn’t going to buy her innocent act.
“Saw that, huh?” No point in denying what he’d clearly noticed.
“Subtlety was never your strong suit, Tracy,” he said and one corner of his mouth quirked into a half smile.
“Still not,” she admitted. Shifting in her seat, she gave him her full attention. “Though I rarely hide behind trees these days.”
His smile deepened.
“Anyway, I was just noticing that you really haven’t changed much over the years.” An understatement somewhere along the lines of “Gee, the Empire State Building’s a little tall.”
“You sure have,” he countered and shot another half glance her way. “You look great.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I think.”
He laughed shortly. “Okay, that didn’t quite sound the way I meant it to.”
“It’s all right. I know what you meant.” A gust of air rushed through her open window, pushing her hair into her eyes. She swept it back with an impatient gesture.
She should be pleased, she thought. Wasn’t he seeing her exactly the way she wanted all of the people back home to see her? Changed? Grown up? Beautiful? So why did it irritate her that Rick Bennet was noticing the very image she’d worked so hard to portray?
Maybe because there was a part of her that wanted a man to be attracted to the real Tracy? She couldn’t help wondering what it might have felt like to have Rick look at her as she usually was, in jeans and T-shirt, and still think she was beautiful.
“So,” he asked, turning down the volume on the car radio, “how come you’re making the trip home?”
“Probably for the same reasons as you,” she said. “To see the family. Visit. Stroll through the school and see if it’s as hideous as I remember it.”
“Hideous?” he repeated. “I always thought you liked school.”
“Why?” she asked. “Because I studied all the time, got good grades?”
“Well,” he said with a shrug. “Yeah.”
A natural assumption, she supposed. It would never have occurred to him that she’d spent all of her time studying because she was too shy to make friends and too awkward to attract boys. School was the one and only place where Tracy shone, which had pleased her proud parents no end, but had also contributed to her nerd reputation. Of course, her doom was sealed when she skipped a grade. Not only was she younger than everyone else, but a geek, as well. Every time some teacher had held her up to the class as an example of what could be accomplished through actual study, the resentment level at Juneport High had escalated.
Her one real friend had been her sister, Meg, which had only made Tracy’s lusting after Rick even more awful.
“Talked to my mom last week,” he was saying, and Tracy steered her attention back to the here and now. “She tells me Meg’s pregnant again.”
“Yep.” Swiftly, stirrings of both excitement and envy rippled through Tracy. Deliberately, she pushed the latter into a dark corner of her heart, hoping it would stay there.
But oh, how she would have loved to be somebody’s mother.
“How many does that make?”
“This is her fifth,” Tracy said, smiling at the idea of another new baby to cuddle. The warm, solid weight of a tiny human being cradled against her was the sweetest feeling she could imagine. She’d have to take a couple of weeks vacation when the newest niece or nephew arrived, just so she could indulge her status of favored aunt—and, work out some of her own frustrated baby fever pangs.
“Five kids!” Rick shook his head and whistled to himself, low and long.
“What’s wrong with that?” she demanded, instantly on the defensive.
“Whoa, Aunt Tracy,” he said, taking one hand from the wheel long enough to hold it up in mock surrender. “I only meant it’s hard to imagine Meg—or John, for that matter—having five kids.”
“Oh.” Her protective instincts subsiding just a bit, Tracy said, “Okay. It’s just that a lot of people make a big deal out of how many kids she has. And I don’t figure it’s anybody’s business but Meg and John’s. Besides, who says the nuclear family has to be limited to 2.5 children?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Not me. I don’t see the appeal in having kids, but like you said, that’s their business.”
“Good, because she’ll probably make sure you get to meet the whole brood.”
Rick’s eyes widened at the thought until he looked like a deer caught in headlights. Apparently, the very idea of being surrounded by kids was enough to turn the big bad Marine pale as a ghost. Still the confirmed bachelor then, she thought with a wistful sigh.
Not that she would ever have had a chance with him anyway. But she wanted a man who wanted the same things she did. Home. Family. A big, sloppy dog.
“You’re excited about seeing the kids, aren’t you?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said and grinned at her. “Your face lit up and there was a distinct gleam in your eyes.”
“I’m a very good aunt,” she said.
He looked at her again, this time thoughtfully. “I’ll bet you are.”
Rick had the feeling that Tracy was pretty damn good at whatever she did. She’d always had a soft heart. And, he might remember her as being an annoyance, but he also remembered just how smart she was. With perfect clarity, he recalled how humiliated he’d been to have a fourteen-year-old girl tutor him in geometry. Of course, without her help, he might still be sitting in Mr. Mofino’s classroom, staring blankly at the chalkboard as though trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphs.
Back then, all he’d wanted to do was play football and spend every other spare minute with Meg. She had been his first real love and he’d been sure that they would be together for the rest of their lives.
He pulled in a deep breath and let himself remember the night that particular dream had died.
It was the night after high school graduation. They were supposed to meet at the gym, then drive to Reno and get married. Stupid, he told himself now. But at the time, it had all seemed so romantic. So adult. Suitcase packed, graduation money in his pocket, he’d driven to the gym and parked in the shadow-filled lot to wait for her. Hours passed, and at first he’d assumed she was having trouble getting away. Then later, he’d found other, more complex excuses for her. At last, he fell asleep only to wake up as dawn filtered through the darkness. He was still alone.
Naturally, he’d driven straight to Meg’s. Convinced that only illness or a broken bone could have kept her from their rendezvous, he’d been surprised when she’d hustled out of the quiet house in her bathrobe to meet him on the lawn.
All these years later, he could still hear her voice, tinged with regret.
“I’m sorry, Rick. But I just couldn’t go through with it.”
“But why?” he’d demanded, and made a grab for her, which she quickly sidestepped.
