Yours After Dark Page 31

  The voice startled and intrigued her. Deep and scratchy and a bit dirty sounding. Then she made the mistake of looking his way and realized who he was. That guy Deacon from the other night, the police chief’s brother, who’d been at the clinic when she arrived with Katie to check on Chloe and Finn.

  He’d given her a long, obvious once-over then.

  She’d been unimpressed, even if he was hotter than the sun. In her experience, hot guys were most often world-class douchebags, and she’d had more than enough of his type.

  “Usually when someone asks you what’s up, you would say nothing or not much. It’s kinda rude to not respond at all.”

  “It’s also kinda rude to tell someone you’ve never talked to that they’re rude.”

  “If the shoe fits, baby.”

  “Go away. I’m watching my sister and her husband dance.”

  “Weddings are boring. Let’s get out of here and go find some trouble.”

  Julia stared at him as if he was insane. “It’s my sister’s wedding. My twin sister’s wedding. I’m not leaving. I’m the maid of honor, for crying out loud.”

  “You two are twins?” He looked at Katie and then at her. “I don’t see the resemblance.”

  “That’s because we’re fraternal twins.”

  “Huh. Interesting. So that’s a no to getting out of here?”

  “A hard no. I’m sure that’s a word you don’t hear often, but I’m happy to repeat it for you if you didn’t understand the first time.”

  He flashed a grin that was so sexy, her panties melted, and her ovaries stood up for a better look at him. “You’re a feisty little thing, aren’t ya?”

  “What’re you even doing here? You’re not friends with Shane or Katie.”

  Shrugging, he said, “I was bored, so I crashed.”

  “You did not.”

  “Did so. Are you going to tattle on me? Are you that kind of girl? The one who was always up the teacher’s ass in school?”

  “I’ve never been up a teacher’s ass in my life.”

  His eyes grew very wide in the second before he lost his shit laughing. “Bet you’ve never said that sentence before.”

  She leaned in close to him. “Go. Away.”

  He leaned in closer, so close his nose nearly touched hers. “Make. Me.”

  Curling her lip in distaste, she backed away from him.

  “Tell me this—if she’s your twin and you’re the maid of whatever, why don’t you seem happy for her?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I am happy for her. No one is happier for her than I am.”

  “Coulda fooled me. You were staring at them like you wanted to stab them.” He caught himself. “Sorry. Poor choice of words after the recent outbreak of stabbings.”

  “Will you please leave me alone to enjoy my sister’s wedding? You shouldn’t even be here.”

  “I’d be happy to leave you alone if I thought you were actually enjoying your sister’s wedding.”

  Julia wanted to smack him—and she wanted to kiss him, which infuriated her because he was obnoxious and entitled and everything she disliked about men in general. So she decided to ignore him, returning her focus to Shane and Katie, who were gazing into each other’s eyes and kissing as Owen sang to them. They were so damned sweet, her teeth ached.

  “You really ought to take off with me. I could show you a good time.”

  God, she was tempted. So bloody tempted. Anything was better than pretending everything was fine when it wasn’t. It wasn’t fine at all, and it might never be again.

  She sighed deeply.

  “Darlin’,” he said in a softer tone, “I don't know who you think you’re fooling, but you’re not fooling me. You’re miserable. And what I don’t understand is why someone who’s so beautiful she makes me want to beg would ever want to be miserable if she had a choice not to be?”

  He made a good point. In fact, it was an excellent point. She was miserable, and Katie was so happy, she’d never even notice that Julia was gone. And as far as compliments went, he’d quite outdone himself. She stared into the golden-brown eyes of the devil himself, feeling the pull of temptation so great, she couldn’t resist. “Let’s go.”

  Thank you for reading Yours After Dark! I hope you enjoyed Finn and Chloe’s story and the chance to catch up with the Gansett Island crew. Twenty books into this series, and still the most fun I’ve ever had as a writer is every chance I get to take the ferry to Gansett to find out what’s going on with the McCarthys and their friends! There is MUCH more to come for the Gansett Island Series with NO END IN SIGHT!

  A huge, profound thank you to my friend, Celeste Hornbeck, who has rheumatoid arthritis and other autoimmune disorders, for helping me to flesh out Chloe’s character and her challenges with RA.

  After you finish reading, join the Yours After Dark Reading Group to dish on the details of the book with spoilers allowed and encouraged, and make sure you’re a member of the Gansett Island Reader Group to never miss news of the series or upcoming books. Have you read ALL my books? If so, you’re a Marie Force SUPER Fan! Join the SUPER Fan reader group .

  Keep reading for a look at the first three chapters of my new standalone contemporary romance, Five Years Gone. If you haven’t gotten a chance to read this one yet, I hope the three chapters convinces you to give it a whirl!

  As always, thank you to my husband, Dan, and the incredible team that supports me behind the scenes, including Julie Cupp, Lisa Cafferty, Holly Sullivan, Isabel Sullivan, Nikki Colquhoun, Anne Woodall, Kara Conrad, Linda Ingmanson, Joyce Lamb, Jules Bernard and Jessica Estep. I couldn’t do what I do without their help and support.

  And the biggest thanks of all to the incredibly supportive readers who have given me a dream-come-true career. Love you all.

  xoxo

  Marie

  * * *

  Enjoy a sneak peek of Five Years Gone!

  PROLOGUE

  AVA

  We met in a bar, of all places, a dingy hole-in-the-wall favored by military members from the nearby Navy base in San Diego. I went with a friend from school who was interested in one of the military guys. Before that night, I’d never been there, and I’ve never been back. John was celebrating the promotion of one of his buddies. He crashed into me as I left the ladies’ room and kept me from falling by grabbing my arms to steady me.

  Just like in the movies, our eyes met, and my spine tingled with the kind of instantaneous awareness I’d only read about but never experienced personally.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, gorgeous and fierce in his fatigues.

  I noticed gold leafs on his collar, a hint of late-day scruff on his jaw and the name WEST in bold black letters on his chest. Intense electric-blue eyes made it impossible for me to look away, even when I was safely back on my feet.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  Realizing I’d been staring at him, I blinked and reluctantly broke the connection. “I… Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for the save.”

  And then he smiled, and the tingling began anew.

  “I’m John.”

  I shook his outstretched hand. “Ava.”

  Keeping his hold on my hand, he tipped his head. “You come here often?”

  “Never,” I said, laughing. “I’m a first-timer.”

  “What do you think so far?”

  “I wasn’t impressed until about thirty seconds ago.”

  As if he had all the time in the world to give me, he leaned against the wall. “Is that right? What happened thirty seconds ago?”

  I thought about taking back my hand but didn’t. “I was saved from certain disaster by a man in uniform.”

  “The guy in the uniform is the reason you needed saving in the first place, because he wasn’t watching where he was going. Least he can do is buy you a drink.”

  “I wouldn’t say no to that.” I was proud of my witty responses and got the feeling he could more than hold his own in the wittiness department. Acro
ss the crowded room, I noticed my friend talking to the guy she’d come to see, and her brows lifted in interest when she saw me with John. He guided me to the bar, placing a proprietary hand on my lower back, and told one of the guys to give me his stool.

  “Yes, sir.” The younger man bowed gallantly to me as he took his beer and moved along.

  “Do people always do what you say?”

  “If they know what’s good for them.” His teasing grin kept the comment from being overly cocky. “What can I get you?”

  Deciding to live dangerously for once, I asked for a cosmopolitan.

  “Go big or go home,” he said with admiration.

  “That’s my motto.” I was so full of shit. I wondered if he could tell I was all talk or what he’d think of me if he knew I usually err much closer to the side of caution than the wild side. I wondered if he could tell I was just barely old enough to drink. I’d turned twenty-one only six months earlier.

  When my cosmo and his Budweiser had been delivered, he offered a toast. “To new friends.”

  I touched my glass to his bottle. “To new friends.”

  “So, where’re you from, Ava?”

  “New York.”

  “I thought I heard New Yawk in your voice.”

  I batted my eyelashes at him. “So four years at the University of California San Diego didn’t scrub the New York out of me?”

  Laughing, he said, “Hardly. I know some guys from New York. One of them is from Staten Island, which is about as New York as it gets. I know New York when I hear it.”

  “I’m from Purchase, upstate from the city. What about you?”

  “I’m from all over. My old man is a retired general. You name it, I’ve lived there.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Right here.” He turned that intense gaze on me, and I went stupid in the head. I couldn’t see anything but him. We might as well have been alone in the crowded bar for all I knew. Unlike my friend, who loved men in uniform, I was never turned on by the uniform. Until then. Until John. “You want to get out of here?”

  I swallowed hard. It wasn’t like me to leave a bar with a man I’d just met. “And go where?”

  “Somewhere we can talk.”

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  He leaned in so his lips were close to my ear. “Everything. I want to know every single thing there is to know about you.”

  * * *

  That’s how we started. We were intense from the first second we met until the last time I saw him five years ago today. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I looked into those incredible blue eyes or woke to him on the pillow next to me or heard his voice in my ear, whispering words that’re permanently carved into my heart as he made love to me.

  The worst part is I have no idea where he is. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead, being held captive or if he’s living his life somewhere else with someone else. I don’t know, and the not knowing is the hardest thing I’ve ever dealt with.

  I love him as much today as I ever did. No amount of time could ever change that simple fact of my life. We had two beautiful, magnificent years together, caught up in our own little bubble. He never met my family. I never met his. We didn’t make couple friends. We didn’t talk about the future. We didn’t need to. Our future was decided that first night, and it would take care of itself in due time. I honestly and naïvely believed that.

  Now, with hindsight, I realize the bubble was strategic on his part. He gave me everything he had to give, including no promise of tomorrow.

  Five years ago today, we watched the horror unfold on live television. A US-based cruise ship blown up by suicide bombers. Four thousand lives extinguished in a heartbeat. Our world permanently changed once again, our country declaring yet another war on terrorists. After 9/11 we thought we’d seen everything. We were wrong.

  “I have to go,” he said, grabbing the duffel that stood ready in the front hall closet. He called it his “go bag.” I’d thought nothing of it.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I don’t know that either.” He held my face in his hands and gazed at me, seemingly trying to memorize my every feature. “I love you. I’ll always love you.” Then he kissed me as passionately as he ever had and was gone, out the door in a flash of camouflage.

  I never saw him again.

  I’m not his wife or even his fiancée, so no one notified me of his whereabouts. And three months after he left, when I found a way onto the base in a desperate quest for information, no one there could tell me anything either. I tried to locate his parents and other people he mentioned, but it was like they didn’t exist. I could find no record of a retired general named West in the Marine Corps, Army or Air Force.

  Furthermore, an exhaustive search for information on the John West I had known led nowhere. No high school, no college, no military service, no nothing.

  Sometimes I wonder if I dreamed the two years we spent together, doing mundane things like grocery shopping, cooking, watching TV and sleeping together after long days at work. But then I’d remember the blissful passion, the scorching pleasure, the desire that ruled us from the beginning, and I’d know I didn’t dream him. I didn’t dream us. We were real, and he was everything to me.

  Sitting on the floor in our apartment, surrounded by boxes, I take a few minutes before the movers arrive to memorize every detail of the place where we lived together. I’ve packed his things along with mine, and I’m moving home to New York. Today was my deadline. I gave it five years, and I simply can’t do it anymore. I can’t sit in our home among our things, waiting for something that’s never going to happen.

  It’s over. It’s time for me to move on. It’s probably long past time, if I’m being honest with myself. And though I know it’s the right move at the right time, that doesn’t mean my heart isn’t shattering all over again as I dismantle the place where we were us.

  My sister is getting married next month. I promised her I’d be home in time to hold her hand through the festivities. Other than occasional trips home for holidays and other occasions, I’ve been gone more than ten years. I bear no resemblance whatsoever to the girl who left home at eighteen seeking independence from her overbearing family at a faraway college out West.

  I accomplished all my goals, finishing college, landing a decent job and falling in love with the man of my dreams. I found out what happens when dreams come true and how painful it is when they blow up in your face.

  It’s time now to set new goals, to start over, to begin a life that doesn’t have John at the center of it the way it did here. It’ll be nice to be back with people who love me and care about me, even if they tend toward smothering at times. That’s looking rather good to me after years of loneliness and grief.

  The intercom sounds to let me know the movers are here. I pick myself up off the floor and steel my heart for the day ahead. I can do this. I’ve been through worse, and I’ll survive this the same way I’ve survived everything else. Despite my resolve, my eyes fill with tears as I press the button that opens the door downstairs to the movers.

  It doesn’t take them long to pack my belongings into their truck. I keep with me the things that can’t be replaced—precious photos, gifts he gave me, the clothing he left behind. After taking a final look around the apartment, I pack those boxes into my car, turn my apartment keys into the leasing office and head east, feeling as if I’m leaving behind everything that ever mattered to me.

  It’s like I’m losing him all over again. I cry all the way through the desert of Southern California and well into Arizona. I relive every minute I can remember, every conversation, every special moment. I think about what it was like to make love with him and wonder how I’ll ever to do that with anyone but him. Maybe I won’t. Maybe that part of my life ended with him, and even though I’m only twenty-eight now, I’m okay with that possibility. Once you’ve
experienced perfection, it’s hard to imagine settling for anything less.

  The tears finally dry up somewhere in northern Arizona, but the ache inside… I take that with me all the way to New York, where I will try my very best to pick up the pieces of my shattered life and put them back together into some new version of myself.

  After all, what choice do I have?

  * * *

  CHAPTER 1

  AVA

  My sister, Camille, doesn’t do anything halfway, including get married. She’s one of those girls I’d love to hate if she weren’t my beloved sister. Three years behind me in high school, she was class president, captain of the cheerleading squad, valedictorian and homecoming queen. I’m sure the teachers who had me first wondered how the same genes could’ve produced two such different sisters. Why do you think I moved so far from home to go to college and stayed there afterward? At least in San Diego, no one ever compared me to my rock star little sister.

  A few weeks ago, she graduated from Yale Law School, at the top of her class, of course, and made Law Review, had offers from every big firm in the country and sported a three-carat diamond on her finger from the son of the New York governor.

  Like I said, she doesn’t do anything halfway. So here I am at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City, standing beside my sister as she marries Robert James Tilden III in a lavish ceremony. Did I mention she’s also freaking gorgeous? Well, she is, and never more so than today. She’s glowing with happiness and excitement and unfettered joy that serves as a bitter reminder of everything I’ve lost.

  Pass the champagne.

  If ever there was a time to get rip-roaring drunk, this is it. Rob arranged for hotel rooms for every member of the wedding party, so no one has to drive or even function after the reception. I plan to take full advantage of my new brother-in-law’s generosity up to and including room service breakfast.

  Camille grasps my arm as we make our way from the rooftop where the happy couple exchanged vows to the ballroom where the reception will be held. “Help me pee,” she whispers.