was walking home from school alone one day. A couple of boys cornered me by the old Dawson house, where I used to cut across the creek. One of them was that Morse boy. Ronald, I think. His brother had been picked up for drunk driving. This was back when my father was still a judge and he’d just sentenced Ronald’s brother. He was a repeat offender. My father had no choice. But Ronald was looking for someone to blame. I guess I was an easy target.”
The way she said it—so simply, with no resentment or anger in her voice—made him wonder how often that kind of thing had happened. How many of her fellow students had resented her, hated her even, because of the power her father yielded?
“So there I was, all alone with these three guys, when you came along and—”
“Saved you.” He finished the sentence for her because he couldn’t stand to hear the hero worship in her voice.
Her gaze snapped back to his. “You do remember.”
As if it were yesterday. In vivid detail. And he remembered all the things she was leaving out and skimming over. Her “a couple of boys” had been three huge guys. Football players, if he remembered right. Big, dumb and just looking for an excuse to pin Jessica Sumners up against a tree.
Which was exactly where they’d had her when he’d come along. She must have been terrified, but there hadn’t even been a glimmer of emotion in her eyes. She hadn’t begged or cried out or even fought them, as if she’d instinctively known that would only incite their rage. Instead she’d stood there, her gaze as calm and steady as her voice as she’d talked to Ronald.
Her tone so soft, Alex hadn’t caught much of what she’d said. Something about how this would be for the best. How his brother could get the help he needed.
Alex had stood there, half hidden by the fence, his blood pounding, waiting to see what would happen. Unable to leave her to fend for herself, if the guys didn’t walk away, he’d have to do something. But jeez, they were huge. And he’d been in enough fights to know he hadn’t stood a chance, not against all three.
“It all happened so fast,” she mused. “One minute I was all alone, the next I was surrounded.” She looked up now, her eyes finding his. “And then you were there.”
When he’d seen Morse lean in toward her, he’d acted instinctively. He’d called out her name. Not Jessica. Not Sumners, which was what Morse had been calling her. But “Jess.”
“You called out to me,” she said, still studying him with that pensive expression that made him so uncomfortable. “It must have surprised them, because they all three turned around and I was able to get away.”
She’d run straight to his side. Without thinking, he’d put his arm around her shoulder. Together, they’d walked through the Dawson’s yard to the street. At the sidewalk, he’d dropped his arm, but kept walking beside her, not wanting to let her out of his sight. Especially when he’d glanced over his shoulder to see all three guys standing in front of the Dawson house, watching them.
After they’d turned the corner and were out of sight of the football players, she’d slipped her hand into his. He’d felt her palm damp against his and her fingers trembling, and only then had he known how scared she’d been.
When they’d reached her block, he’d stopped and tried to pull his hand away, but she’d held tight. All he could think at the time was that he’d never imagined he’d ever find himself holding Jessica Sumners’s hand. And he sure as hell had never imagined it would feel that good.
Then she’d looked up at him, her eyes bluer than any he’d ever seen, her expression so serious. Not distant and reserved, as it had been the few times their eyes had met while passing in the halls, but warm and filled with emotion. Gratitude, sure, but something else, as well.
An awareness of him. As if she was seeing him for the very first time. Hell, maybe she was. Girls like Jessica—good girls—didn’t notice him. And for all he knew, she’d never really looked at him until that moment.
She’d stood so close to him that when the breeze picked up, a long strand of her hair fluttered close to his face and he’d caught the scent of her. She’d even smelled rich. Clean and fresh. Not like strong perfume, the way his sisters did.
In that instant he’d been distinctly aware of two things. First, he’d wanted to kiss her. Desperately. He’d wanted to press his lips to hers to see if she tasted as rich as she smelled.
Second, he shouldn’t even be touching her.
Jessica Sumners was perfect. She never got into trouble, she never got her hands dirty, and she sure as hell never kissed guys like him. Not in darkened cars late at night when no one could see her and certainly not in the middle of the day forty feet from her front door.
Less than a month before, he had stood in her father’s courtroom and been ordered by Judge Sumners to “keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble.”
He’d suspected making out with the judge’s daughter would get him into a great deal of trouble.
Despite that—or maybe because of it—he’d pulled his hand from hers and shoved it into his pocket. It had been one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
When she’d opened her mouth to say something, he’d interrupted her. “I’ll stay here and watch until you’re inside.” She’d nodded. “Don’t walk home alone again. Wait to walk home in a group. The bigger the better.”
“I’ll have our maid pick me up at school until this blows over.”
Of course. Her maid. Why hadn’t he thought of that? “Good idea.”
She’d seemed to want to say something else as she’d watched him with those huge blue eyes. Eyes that seemed full of something perilously close to hero worship. Hell, that had been the last thing he’d needed. Jessica Sumners getting a crush on him.
Damn, that’d screw up his life but good.
“Go on.” He’d nodded toward her house. Keeping his tone bored, he’d added, “I got things to do.”
Her gaze had flickered as she’d turned and hurried toward the imposing mansion. She hadn’t looked back. Hadn’t seen that he’d stood on the corner, watching her house for nearly thirty minutes, belying his comment about having things to do.
Now, all these years later, as Jessica stood in his driveway, he thought again about how nothing had changed. She was as out of his reach now as she had been on that long-ago spring afternoon. And she still seemed unaware of how much he wanted her.
“I looked for you the next day at school,” she said. “I guess I wanted—” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She may not have known what she’d wanted all those years ago, but he had. She’d wanted to recapture that connection they’d both felt standing on that street corner, her hand in his and the rush of adrenaline still pounding through their veins.
She looked at him now, her expression unguarded. When she looked at him like that, he felt like a hero. Ironic, given the very unheroic things his libido was urging him to do.
“So that’s why you came to me? Because I saved you from some bullies?”
She frowned, looking very unsure of herself. “Not exactly.”
“Then what?” When she didn’t answer, he leaned forward. “I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.”
Now her eyes met his with a flash of annoyance. As if it irritated her to hear him belittle his actions.
He sighed. “Look, Jess, it sounds to me like all these years you’ve been walking around thinking I’m some kind of a hero. But that’s just not true. I didn’t rescue you. I wasn’t a hero. To tell the truth, I wasn’t even a very nice guy.”
“I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “What you did might not have