Lisa Jackson - Wicked Game

“Weird, huh, to wait all these years-almost twenty-and still be hung up on the same guy? She should have her head examined, or maybe her palm read, see what’s up with her love line.”

Becca smiled faintly. “Think it’ll show in her palm?”

“Laugh if you will. There’s a reason that astrology and alternative religions or beliefs are still around after centuries and centuries. There’s something to them.”

“You’ve got Renee believing.”

Tamara shook her head. “Renee…I don’t really know what it is with her, she’s the last person I would have thought would look into alternative spirituality. She saw somebody else who spooked her.”

“A woman at the beach.”

“I don’t know what she said that got Renee going, but she’s got a lot to deal with. Her job and Tim-the guy’s practically a stalker, or so she says. She caught him with someone else and basically told him to take a hike, and now he acts like they have to stay together.”

“Through good times and bad.”

“She told you?” Tamara gave her a look.

“We had coffee and wine at Java Man.”

“Thank God I’ve never been married. Engaged twice and once I nearly ran off to Reno with a guy, but I managed to regain my senses first.”

The people at the next table began arguing about their kid’s inability to quit texting messages from her cell phone throughout what the dad insisted was “a family meal. Quality time.”

Glancing at their table, Tamara leaned a little closer over the table toward Becca, whispering, “My point is-it’s got to be worse when you really go through with it. When you walk down the aisle, exchange I dos and plan for your future and family.”

“Been there, done that,” Becca murmured.

“Oh, sorry. I’m an idiot.”

“It’s all right. It never would’ve worked with Ben.”

Tamara raised her margarita to Becca, then took a long swallow. Setting the glass back down, she eyed it critically. “I have to lay off these, they are no good for you, I mean no good. I only drink alcohol when I’m really stressed, like I am about all this Jessie stuff. Much as I believe in ghosts, it’s a little eerie for everyone to think she might be one of the souls who can’t pass over.”

“What are you talking about? You still think she’s alive.”

The waiter returned with the check. They paid the bill and were out the door, walking toward their cars, fighting gusts of late-February wind, the Mexican music following them outside when Tamara said, “Okay, I confess, I had an ulterior motive for meeting tonight. And it’s not completely about Jessie or whoever’s bones were found in the maze.”

“Thank God.”

“Well, maybe. Maybe not.” Tamara fished in her oversized bag for a set of keys. “It’s Hudson. I picked up the vibe between the two of you at Blue Note. Something’s still there, isn’t it?”

Becca couldn’t lie, but she couldn’t admit she’d never gotten over him. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you guys ever get together? I always thought you did. I mean a few years after Jessie disappeared, not in high school or anything. I think Vangie said something once.”

Evangeline had always been a gossip.

“I ran into Hudson and Zeke a time or two after high school,” Becca admitted as they reached her Jetta. “And Hudson and I hung out some. Renee knew. Vangie, too, I guess.”

“Just hung out?” Tamara arched a brow.

Becca shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“But you still have feelings for him? I mean, come on. I pick up this stuff as a matter of course. You and he were sending out shock waves the other night, so I just want to know, is it on again? Are you seeing him? I don’t want to get in the way, if that’s the case.”

“I’m…not…well…we’re…” She didn’t know how to admit that she was on her way to meet him, that she was thrilled about the chance to be alone with him again, but that she also knew it might be emotional suicide. She’d loved him so much, with that schoolgirl fanaticism that could be fatal.

“What?” Tamara demanded as the wind, icy with winter, kicked up.

“I’m on my way to his place now,” Becca finally admitted, lifting her hands in surrender. A hank of her own hair blew across her face as the wind chased wet leaves across the parking lot.

“Ahh…” Tamara nodded and let out a long sigh as she opened the door of her Mazda. “I was hoping my radar was wrong, but it rarely is. Say hi for me. And if it doesn’t work out, let me know. He’s the best of the bunch. By a looonnnnggg shot. We were all kind of jealous of Jessie back in high school, weren’t we?”

“Yeah, a little.”

“So…if you’re involved with Hudson-”

“We’re not involved.”

“Not yet,” Tamara said. “Then maybe I should set my sights on The Third.”

Becca groaned.

“Or Mitch. They’re both single.”

“So is Jarrett, I think.”

“I’m not a masochist,” Tamara said, swallowing a smile, “but please, please, don’t ask me about sadism.”

She sketched a wave and slid behind the wheel of her car.

Becca, parked two spots over, did the same, nosing her Jetta out of the lot, heading west toward Hudson’s and wondering if she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life.

Hudson shoved the bottle of white wine he’d just purchased into the refrigerator. It was Chardonnay. Medium-priced. Should be right, but there was no way in hell he would know because if he drank, it was beer. Maybe scotch. Wine was outside his interest level, and his knowledge of the subject could be summed up in two words: red and white.

But he’d watched Becca sip white wine at Blue Note, and he’d figured that was what she’d like to drink.

He ran a hand through his hair. “Good God,” he berated himself. He’d fought the urge to call her for over a week and had just about given in when he’d heard her voice on the answering machine. He’d told himself to back off, keep his distance, that now that Jessie’s body might have been discovered, this was the worst time, the absolute worst, to start trying to rekindle old flames-flames that just didn’t seem to die despite all the years that had passed.

Becca…Lord, she was beautiful.

As had been Jessie.

Sometimes, in his dreams, those kind of sexy, almost kinky dreams when he woke with a hard-on, he’d be making love to one of them, usually Jessie. Always her long brown-blond hair spilled around her, her hazel eyes were wide with excitement, pupils dilated as he touched her between her legs. “More,” she whispered in his ear, and as he rolled atop her, spreading her legs with his knees, she grinned devilishly, as if she knew something he didn’t before she faded, her image bleeding into Becca’s. The scene would shift suddenly. Instead of lying atop the pool table or in his bed, more likely than not, he and Becca were entwined beneath the old timbers of the barn or under the swaying branches of the willow tree. In the distance, where the long branches and vibrant leaves shifted, he would catch a glimpse, an ashen, ethereal image of Jessie watching them. A ghost. Dead, yet existing.

And smiling.

Knowing.

Accusing him silently, sarcastically, of his betrayal.

As if she’d known that even in high school he’d been attracted to Rebecca.

Jesus, it was chilling. He’d wake up in a sweat, his cock shriveling, his head pounding with a lust that was forever split between two women.

No wonder he’d never had a wet dream; Jessie’s wide-eyed voyeurism took care of that.

Grabbing himself a beer, he snapped off the cap and took several long swallows. His thoughts turned to Becca. She’d run hot and cold with him. Wanting him, then backing off, just as he had with her.