Mendoza's Return Read Online Free PDF Page B

his head. Steam rose from a narrow, rectangular, lighted pool. Someone was swimming laps, but it couldn’t be Melina, because she had a paralyzing fear of the water after a childhood experience.
    He moved around the courtyard as unobtrusively as possible, spotted the door to her unit then hesitated again. He had no idea how she would react to his just dropping in, yet for a reason he couldn’t articulate, he wanted to know.
    â€œRafe?”
    He spun around. Melina was resting her arms on the pool’s edge, staring at him.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” she asked.
    â€œYou’re swimming,” he said in amazement, moving closer. “You never even liked bathtubs.”
    â€œHand me my towel, would you?” she asked, pointing to one on a chair nearby. She swam to the steps and climbed out, her bright blue one-piece suit clinging like a second skin, her breasts firm, her nipples hard, her wet skin shiny.
    He’d almost forgotten how perfectly built she was, not lithe and athletic but curvy and lush. They hadn’t slept together all that many times, at least not overnight, but he’d loved being able to wrap himself around her in bed and touch her whenever he wanted. The few times they’d been able to afford a motel room, it’d seemed as if they’d made love more times than there were hours in the night. Otherwise, theirdorm rooms had allowed for only quick get-togethers, pleasurable but not as satisfying.
    Now, standing in front of her, Rafe opened her towel and draped it around her. He was more than a little tempted to pull her against him and rub her through the towel to dry her off.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” she asked again, not moving away but wariness settling in her eyes.
    â€œI was out for a walk.”
    Still she didn’t try to put space between them, as if frozen in place. He took it as a sign, inching closer, memories of her consuming him. His gaze dropped to her parted lips, her breath coming softly, quickly. He bent toward her.…
    Melina spun away from him. “Let’s go inside,” she said, pulling her towel tightly around her, then pressing the button for the electric pool cover.
    Her body ached for him even as she called herself every kind of idiot. She’d almost kissed him, almost forgotten why they weren’t together. If she hadn’t come to her senses—She didn’t even want to think about it.
    Melina was trembling as she walked to her house, cold from the night air, but she’d also pushed herself hard in the pool. Seeing Rafe this morning had set her on edge all day. Caught between the past and present, she’d barely been able to focus on anything. Even Big John had called her on it—and if a sixty-two-year-old cantankerous stroke recovery patient noticed, it wasa sure thing that everyone else she’d worked with today would’ve seen a different Melina.
    â€œI’ll be right back,” she said to Rafe once they were inside her living room, then she hurried up the stairs to her bedroom, stripped off her suit and grabbed her jeans and a sweatshirt.
    In a hurry, she knocked her robe off the hook in the closet. Her gaze landed on the framed letter that had hung under her robe. The letter he’d sent all those years ago. She’d finally stopped noticing it—until just this moment. Now it seemed to have its own spotlight.
    She didn’t have to read it to know what it said, as it was burned in her memory. She’d framed and hung it to remind her of what could happen if she let someone hold her heart, as he had done.
    She closed her eyes for a few seconds. He hadn’t even called her. After all those years, all that love, and he hadn’t even felt that he owed her a phone call ending their relationship.
    It all came back to her in one stab-in-the-heart moment—all the pain, all the loneliness, all the anger. And now she had to go downstairs and face him as if nothing