Rapid Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

she’d expected.
     
    She had
paused a moment, struck by the strangeness of his eyes, by the pull of him, by
the click of recognition. No, she had never met him before, but she’d
immediately recognized something about him. Something inside him, something
deeper than the faint tang of alcohol that laced the air between them, though
that, too, was a connection.
     
    With the
bruises of her marriage still fresh on her soul, Maya had pushed past the man,
and had hidden in the back of his criminal psych class. He’d taught with an
uncomfortable sort of detachment, as though he didn’t want to be there,
couldn’t be anywhere else. More whispers had buzzed about him, rumors that he’d
once identified a murderer by touching the victim’s hand, that he had visions.
     
    That he
drank to keep the visions away.
     
    Maya had
stayed away from him, wary of the reputation and the alcohol, but every now and
then, when they had come face to face in the halls, or on the jog paths, or in
the cafeteria, he would look at her, and those strange, knowing eyes would
linger in her mind for days.
     
    That had
been the only contact between them, the only connection until that one stupid,
stupid night, when Maya had given in to the temptation.
     
    As much
as she’d told herself, then and now, that it was her fault more than his, that
mistakes happened, that sometimes even the strongest person stumbled off the
path, she’d lost something that night, something more than the six charms she’d
plucked off her necklace the next morning, and flushed down the toilet.
     
    She’d
lost a piece of herself.
     
    She felt
the same strength drain from her as quickly as the blood drained from her face
when she saw those eyes, when his features realigned themselves into those of
the man she had known. His beard was gone and his hair cut short, and he was
leaner now, fitter.
     
    But he
was still Thorne.
     
    She
thought she caught a whiff of alcohol on the air between them, though that
could have been a scent memory, kicked up by the shock of seeing him again, the
shock of the bison stampede that had nearly killed her.
     
    His face
creased into a wry smile. “We don’t need to pretend this is a happy reunion. We
don’t need to rehash why you took off before I even woke up that morning, and
why you transferred all the way out of the academy to avoid me afterward.
Frankly, I don’t think I care anymore. Just suffice it to say I owed you a good
deed. Now we’re even. Okay?”
     
    He rose
gracefully to his feet and extended a hand to her, though she wasn’t sure
whether he intended the gesture as a peace offering or a challenge.
     
    Hell, she
wasn’t even sure which was appropriate.
     
    What
would he do if she admitted she didn’t remember anything about that night? That
everything after finding the dead battery on her car was a blur, culminating in
her waking up the next morning in his bed, with his arm thrown across her waist
and his breath in her ear?
     
    “Fine.”
She stood on her own, strangely reluctant to touch him when her fingers still
buzzed with the feel of his body as she’d helped pull him to safety. “We’re
even.”
     
    But her
stomach twisted at the look in his eyes, which implied an uncomfortable
intimacy. For years she’d tried to block the memory of her single ignominious
one-night stand, tried to tell herself that nothing had happened, that he’d
been gentleman enough not to take advantage. His expression now told her she’d
been lying to herself about him, about them.
     
    They’d
gotten drunk, they’d had sex, and then she’d run away.
     
    Emotions
she’d fought off five years earlier rose up to swamp her, to slap at her with
feelings of failure, of humiliation, of disappointment—not with him, but with
herself.
     
    She drew
breath to say something breezy, something that belied the turmoil within, but
before she could speak, a small voice said, “I want my mommy.”
     
    Startled back
to the moment, to the