The Certainty of Deception Read Online Free PDF Page A

understand why I would have feelings like that for a complete stranger, but looking back, I realized that McKenzie was never a stranger to me.  She was the missing half of my soul. 
    I grabbed a clump of wet sand, pressing it into the palm of my hand.  A tender smile twitched at the corner of my mouth.  McKenzie changed my whole world that day, and never even realized it. 
    Dropping the clay, I reached into my jersey pocket and pulled out my smartphone.  I slid my thumb across the flat panel.  There was something I had to do before leaving the beach.  “Here goes nothing,” I muttered, as I dialed the number.
    The phone rang.  I clenched my fist in the dirt, allowing the sand to squeeze between my fingers.  It was cold and wet, but it calmed the nerves that churned in my belly.
    “Evans’ Bodyworks, McKenzie speaking,” her sweet voice serenaded me like a siren’s song.
                  The wind pushed from my chest in the most orgasmic of ways.
    I closed my eyes and allowed the intense rush of relief blow from my chest.  For the last two months, I’d called her office just to hear her voice.  She’d changed her cell phone number to an Amarillo number after leaving, but Evans’ Bodyworks was a listed number.  As per my agreement with Jared, I never said a word.  I simply listened to her until she h ung up.
    “Hello?”  I shivered with delight at the sweet timbre of her tone.
    Since her departure, I’d taken up sending her flowers every Monday, simply to brighten her week.  The phone call was to brighten mine. 
    “Hello?  Anybody there?”
    Oh, God, that Southern drawl.  She’d commented several times about how much she hated her accent.  “ I sound like a backwoods hick ,” she’d complained.  She didn’t sound like a hick to me.  On the contrary, I could’ve listened to her talk all day long if given the chance.
    Drops of rain splattered to the ground.  I looked up at the sky.  It appeared the sun was going to lose the battle of the clouds after all.  Not that I minded, I loved the rain.  The rain held a sentimental value to me.  It was a rainy night where I first made love to McKenzie.  Rain was a good thing.  It brought life and in my case, it brought love.
    I closed my eyes to recall the smell of her skin mixed with the rain.  Shadows of her danced in the recesses of my mind.  I swallowed hard, thinking of how it felt to have her smooth skin pressed against mine.  Every minor detail displayed with vivid accuracy in my consciousness.  Her shimmering blue eyes sparkled, her playful smile, and the way her golden hair fell in front of her face when it was wet.
    “Andy?  Is that you?” she whispered.
    Tha-thump.
    My heart skipped a beat at the sound of that nickname on such beautiful lips.  Only Mickie was allowed to call me that.  Just because my name was Andrew, didn’t mean people should call me Andy.  Andrew or Drew was fine with me, but never Andy.  That was my twin sister’s nickname, after all. 
    I sprang to my feet in a single bound, and looked around the beach.  It was still fairly empty.  Just a few runners making their way to their cars before the rain picked up. 
    “I guess not,” she faltered.
    The sadness in her voice chipped away another piece of my mangled heart.  She missed me.  The evidence was there in the sound of her voice.  Fine, the evidence was hearsay, but this wasn’t a court of law, so it was admissible. She called me by name, hoping it was me on the other end of the line. 
    This was what I’d been waiting for.  I needed to know that she missed me too, that I wasn’t alone in my heartache.  I wanted to reveal myself, but I feared it would ruin my upcoming plans.  Only one person knew what I was about to do and that was because he was intricate to my plans.  All I needed was for Jared or Gavin to get wind of my trip to Amarillo.  There was no doubt in my mind that they’d try to stop me.  So, instead of acting