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weeks. And that’s why I owe you an apology.”
    His breath hitched. He opened his mouth to speak, but couldn’t.
    She gripped his hands harder. “You are not responsible for Megan’s death. Don’t ask me again who the other man was because I won’t tell you. I’ll be gone before dark, and I pray to God I never see Tangleheart, Texas, again.”

Chapter Three

    Tangleheart: Monday, 6:00 P.M.
    C HARLIE HAD SOUNDED odd on the phone—troubled. He’d said he needed to talk, and Anna had figured she had enough good sense to keep her emotions in check around him. But when she’d arrived at Charlie’s apartment, he’d put his hand on the small of her back to guide her way, and his touch had triggered a dangerous yearning that started low in her belly and spread all the way up through her aching chest. Clearly, she’d overestimated her good sense. Coming here had been a mistake—a big one.
    She started to remove her purse from her shoulder, and then thought better of it. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something.”
    He plopped down in the dead-middle of a small leather couch. His long legs opened wide, and then he patted a spot near his thigh. “Sit with me.”
    Her gaze darted about the living room, taking in the unadorned white walls and a clean but worn brown carpet. The laminated coffee table looked like the type you’d get at Rent-A-Center. There were no chairs in the room, nor was there a loveseat to augment the couch. The place screamed temporary, and why wouldn’t it? Charlie had just gotten into med school–at UT Austin. Classes started in the fall. Too bad she didn’t know how to be his temporary friend. “I can’t stay, so do you or don’t you have something important to say me?”
    “How ’bout I’m sorry ?”
    “We’ve covered that. You apologized, quite charmingly I might add, just after spinning me around on Simone’s front porch. And then I said there was no need for an apology, which in fact there is not, and that we should keep the past in the past. That was around forty-eight hours ago, surely you haven’t forgotten already.”
    “No. I haven’t forgotten, and I was charming, I’ll grant you that, but I didn’t get to apologize properly because you cut me off.”
    “So now I owe you the apology?”
    “Peaches, just sit the hell down…please.”
    Wishing she’d kept her keys in hand, she started digging through her purse for them. Way too much junk in there; receipts, candy, pennies.
    He patted that alluring spot next to him again. “If you really want to put the past behind us, then hear me out. Let me say what I need to say, and after that I won’t bother you again…not unless you want me to.”
    Charlie Drexler bothering her. How many of her teenage fantasies had revolved around that scenario? She took a deep breath and managed to whisper, “Fair enough.” She nudged Charlie’s knees to the side so she could sit down without their bodies touching and then sank down on the couch.
    “I’m sorry .” He picked up her hand, and stroked his thumb in circles over her palm, sending little sparks flying up her arm.
    So much for not touching .
    “When Megan died, I did exactly what I swore I’d never do. I took a get-out-of-jail-free card. Instead of staying here and dealing with the heartache I’d caused, I ran like hell.”
    To keep from interrupting him, she held her breath. Enlisting in the military and putting himself in harm’s way hardly seemed like playing a get-out-of-jail-free card to her.
    A sharp line appeared between his eyebrows. “Of course running away didn’t work. The harder I tried to forget about Megan’s death, the more it haunted me.”
    She let out her breath. Everywhere his thumb touched, sparks followed, but the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach anchored her to reality. Each word he spoke made it increasingly clear that Megan’s ghost stood between them. And if her ghost stood between them after all this time, no doubt it