was a long time ago, Tyler,” she said. “Here’s the code.” She set a piece of paper down on the seat between them. “It’s right by the front door and there’s another keypad in the kitchen.”
“Well,” he sighed, picking up the piece of paper and lifting his hips slightly so he could push it into the front pocket of his worn jeans. “Can’t say I expected that.”
Juliette took a deep breath, wondering whether she should tell him about the other stuff, whether it even mattered to him. She glanced at him, his jaw clenched as he stared out at the darkness around her car.
Was it even her business to tell him?
If not her, then who? No one else was around, and if it could take some heat off his mother, should he see her, then maybe they could all avoid another incident like what happened last month with Savannah.
“Look, Tyler, I don’t want to—”
Those blue eyes swung toward her, and she couldn’t deny that as much as she disliked him, she’d never forgotten him.
I thought I knew you, she thought mournfully. I thought we were friends.
“Spit it out, Juliette.”
“Your grandmother paid your mother to stay away from you kids.” Tyler blinked. “Ten thousand a year.”
“You know that?”
“Savannah told me. Margot confessed last month when Vanessa broke in again. I’m sorry, Tyler—”
“I’ve known for years,” he said.
“You knew?” she breathed.
He nodded. “How did Savannah take it?”
“Not well,” Juliette said. An understatement, but luckily Matt was there to help.
“Carter and I found out and…” He sighed and took off his cap, pushing his fingers through his thick blond hair. “We didn’t tell her. We thought…I don’t know…we thought we were protecting her. It’s all we ever wanted to do.”
Juliette took her eyes off the road and gaped at him.
Don’t care, she warned herself. Don’t show that you’re even interested, because that man will do something awful with the information.
“Well, I guess that catches you up to speed,” she said, pressing on the clutch and shifting into first when the light turned green. She sped up and shifted into second and then as the road opened up she drove it into third.
Tyler’s chuckle stirred the hair on her neck. “Juliette Tremblant,” he murmured. “You still have a thing for speed.” She didn’t say anything. Refused to rise to his bait. The car filled with tension until it was all she could do not to unroll her window, just so she could breathe.
“You’ve changed,” he said, and she could feel his eyes on her hair, her body, the clothes she covered it with, and she knew what he wasn’t saying—she’d changed, and it wasn’t for the better.
“You haven’t,” she said, not sparing him a glance as she braked over the train tracks.
“You haven’t spent ten minutes with me, Jules,” he said. “How could you possibly know that?”
“It’s Juliette.”
He laughed and she glared at him hard.
“Okay,” he said, “it’s Juliette.”
“And you’re still the same Tyler O’Neill. Here you are, punched in the face and kicked out of the St. Pat’s game. Seems awfully familiar.”
“It does ring a bell, doesn’t it?” He touched his lip with his finger, probed it with his tongue, and she tried to convince herself it was disgusting. But it wasn’t. It was hot.
The air in the car was humid, thick. She cranked the fan a notch higher, hoping it would help.
It didn’t.
“Did you know I was back?”
“It’s Bonne Terre, Tyler. The second you stepped foot back inside the parish about twenty people called me.”
“Good old Bonne Terre,” he said, looking around the dimly lit town as though vampires lurked in doorways. Considering she loved this town, and her job was to take care of its citizens, his attitude rubbed her wrong all over. “But what I’m wondering is what you’re doing? Keeping up on what’s happening at The Manor, giving me a ride.” He tilted his head, his Paul Newman eyes practically glowing in the darkness of the car.
Sex oozed off him. And he was breathing all her damn air.
“Your sister is my best friend.”
“Right,” Tyler said, his voice ripe, his eyes way too warm. “My sister.”
She stomped on the brakes. “What are you saying?”
His eyes raked her, that lopsided grin that used to put her whole world on edge was back. “Nothing,” he drawled.
His arm stole across the top of the seats, not touching her, but too close anyway.
She leaned over him, ignoring the warmth of his body, the smell of him, all of it. Every memory, every old impulse come back to haunt her—she ignored it all and opened his door.
She’d done what she needed to do. He’d been warned. She could kick him out of her car and, if God was kind, never ever lay eyes on Tyler O’Neill again.
“Get out,” she said.
He watched her for a second and suddenly the charm vanished from his smile. All that smug sexuality was banked, put on ice for the moment. “Come on, Juliette—”
“Get the hell out of my car, Tyler.”
She met his eyes, unflinching, unblinking, nothing but anger and disgust over his betrayal, his absence, all those years spent ignoring not just her, but Savannah and Margot, too.
“You left without a word,” she said, the words burning her mouth, scorching the air. “You are no better than your parents.”
Perhaps it was the lights, the shadows, but his face changed. Melted. Just for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite keep the mask in place.
But then he eased out of her car into the dark night, taking his scent and his heat and those eyes with him.
“Why did they call you, Juliette?” he asked, slamming the door and leaning in the window. “All the good citizens of Bonne Terre—what made them think of you when I came into town?”
She knew what he thought, that it was their past that had made people call her. That people saw him and thought of her, that they were linked, forever, in everyone’s heads. In her head.
She smiled, so damn happy, thrilled actually, to prove him wrong. “Because it’s my job, Tyler.”
Slowly, she pushed back her light blazer, revealing her gun.
And her badge.
His jaw dropped and it was beautiful. Really, really a beautiful thing.
“What have you done, Jules?” he breathed.
“It’s Chief Tremblant now, Tyler,” she said.
Grinning, she popped the clutch and peeled out, emblazoning in her brain this moment—leaving Tyler O’Neill, in a delicious twist, in her dust.
CHAPTER TWO
THE MANOR LOOKED THE SAME.
Shabby but somehow noble. Elegant. A lot like the old lady who lived there, he thought, and suddenly it seemed too long since he’d seen his grandmother.
But just looking at the house, the dark windows, that bright red door, his feet got itchy.