And that sucked. He couldn’t forget her anymore than he could have her. Sweet, little, virgin baby, she had no idea what she was getting into.
ONE
One Year Later
So that was what had happened to that third shirt. Rowdy Mackay leaned against the kitchen doorway, tilted his head, and watched in amusement as Kelly shuffled over to the refrigerator and opened the door to peer into the interior.
The long, gray Marines T-shirt swallowed her slender frame and hung well past her thighs. A pair of his matching gray socks covered her small feet, and gray sweatpants hung from her hips. Not his, he thought in amusement—obviously hers but loose enough to make a man wonder why the hell she was suddenly hiding that curvy little body he knew she possessed. Especially when she had never bothered to do so in the past.
This outfit was a far cry from the snug shorts and T-shirts she used to don for summer sleepwear. Long, honey brown curls fell from the crown of her head to the middle of her back, the loose ringlets tousled and still a bit tangled from sleep, and damn if she didn’t look like she had just dragged herself from a lover’s bed.
He knew better, of course. His father’s rules were strict. Rowdy might live under his roof during the brief times he was home, but he didn’t bring his women here for the night, and he knew damned good and well Kelly wouldn’t bring a man here.
The treasured princess of the house might be spoiled beyond bearing, but she respected her mother and stepfather. So dragging herself out of a lover’s arms before making her way to the kitchen for a snack wasn’t a scenario that was likely to happen here.
It was one of the reasons he had stayed away as much as possible since she had come of age. One of the reasons he had taken that last tour with the Marines. Some things a man just knew he was too weak to resist, and he had accepted long ago that he was too weak to resist Kelly.
That realization had come along about the time she grew br**sts and he began noticing those br**sts. Somewhere around the time that she started teasing him with innocent smiles and brushing against him, and he began enjoying it.
It was then he joined the service just to get the hell out of the house, to get away from her. College wasn’t providing him the escape he needed. She was still there, and so was he, too often. And he was weak. Weak men were dangerous creatures. A twenty-two-year-old man had no damned business touching a sixteen-year-old, and he had known it. The only other option had been leaving. So Rowdy had left.
His time in the Marines had taught him self-control, finished his education, and brought him into manhood. But his greatest weakness was still his greatest weakness. Kelly.
“I don’t wanna cook.”
His lips quirked at the early morning grumpiness in her voice. She was talking to herself. Some things never changed. The sun would rise in the east and set in the west, and Kelly would always mutter to herself when she was irritated.
And the sound of her sweet, husky voice would always make his dick threaten to burst the zipper in his jeans.
“There’s cereal in the cabinet.” Rowdy expected her to turn with a smile bright enough to rival the sun. His arms were ready to open for the handful of woman barreling toward him. He wasn’t expecting what he got, though.
Kelly screamed. The refrigerator door slammed closed hard enough to rattle the contents as she turned to dart through the opposite doorway.
Her face had gone paste white; her wide gray eyes were filled with fear.
Who had she been expecting?
She was poised to run but fighting to stand still. Conflicting emotions ran across her expressive face as her eyes met his, and the room filled with a tension that had never been there before.
Fear filled her eyes.
Rowdy narrowed his eyes on her, his body stiffening. No, it wasn’t fear. For a moment, there had been pure, shocking terror. A woman aware that she was alone with a man, that she was weak, that her security wasn’t assured. He’d seen it overseas in the eyes of a thousand women, and he saw it now.
“Rowdy?” Her voice was high, thin, her hands bunching in the front of her shirt, fisting the material as she shuddered. “What are you doing here?”
The husky, fear-laden voice twisted at his guts and had pure, unbridled fury simmering in his mind. What had happened to Kelly?
“It’s home, isn’t it?”
He had been ready to catch her as she ran at him. She always ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck, pressing her tight little br**sts against his chest, and slapping a kiss to his cheek. For eight years, he could count on Kelly’s greeting. Until today. He wondered in which direction the sun would rise now. Some things should just never change.
“Oh. Yeah.” She nodded, her eyes darting around the room before a nervous smile tilted her soft pink lips, trembled there for a moment, then disappeared. “We weren’t expecting you. Did you tell Mom and Ray you were coming?”
“No. I never do.” His battle instincts were humming now. This wasn’t normal. It was so far from normal that he knew with a clench of his gut that he wasn’t going to like whatever the hell had been going on here.
Suddenly, nearly a year of his father’s discomfort when they talked on the phone rose within his mind. Every time he had asked about Kelly, Ray Mackay’s voice had tightened. When Rowdy asked to talk to her, he was given excuses.
The letters he had received from Kelly had changed, too. She no longer sent pictures, no longer filled the exchanges with innuendo or teasing comments. She had still written, but it was different, a difference he couldn’t put his finger on, couldn’t explain. He had felt it, though.
“No, you’re always sneaking up on us.” There was that nervous smile again, the way her eyes darted around the room.
Rowdy held himself where he was, leaning against the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He could be a patient man when he had to be. But he had also learned that sometimes, there was no choice but to forge ahead and confront whatever enemy waited in the dark. He’d learned to forge ahead just as well as he had learned to wait.
“What’s going on, Kelly?” He straightened from the doorway, dropped his arms, and tucked his thumbs in the waistband of his low-slung jeans.
His chest was bare, the cooling breeze from the air conditioner drying the sweat that had dampened his flesh. He’d been cleaning the Harley, polishing his baby and getting her ready for her first ride in over a year. He’d dumped his duffel bag in his room and headed straight for the garage, knowing his father and stepmother would be at the marina, and figuring Kelly would be there as well.