Jennifer Greene - Sunburst

She didn’t smile. “Don’t…touch me again. Ever, Morgan,” she said in a low, menacing tone.

He didn’t like that, and his dark eyes suddenly flickered with steel. He shook his head, still smiling. “Kyle and I go back a long time, Erica,” he said roughly. “But if you’re not with him, I have no obligation to hide my own feelings. The marriage isn’t working anymore-or do you want to try to tell me that everything’s fine between the two of you?” His tone was so heavily sarcastic that she flinched. “It’s obvious that it’s over.”

She could feel the color drain from her face. Was it obvious that her marriage was over? She had thought it a well-guarded secret and still couldn’t believe it herself.

“So you thought that gave you certain rights?” she demanded bitterly. “I don’t love you, Morgan; I could never love you that way.” He took a step forward, and she stiffened. “Just leave me alone. I thought you were Kyle’s friend-”

“Friend! As if Kyle needed one! He’s always gotten every damned thing he went after.” Morgan took a rasping breath. “Don’t be a fool, Erica. You’re shook up, maybe, but you know I really care for you. You know what I can give you-”

“Nothing,” she said tightly. “Ever.” She saw the cold black glint in his eyes again and felt a chill run through her body. “I want you to go home. Leave us alone.” She saw his eyes riveted below her neck and snatched shakily at the torn yellow fabric of her blouse. “Morgan, please. I don’t want to tell Kyle. I don’t want him to know. Please, just go away-”

“Tell Kyle,” he suggested, very softly. “You think he’ll believe you, Erica? You’re so absolutely sure he wouldn’t believe something entirely different happened? That we’d both had our share to drink at the party…”

With a sick sense of horror, Erica started backing away from him, edging toward the door of the shop. What would Kyle believe? Kyle had always trusted Morgan; it was only his wife he’d pushed out of his world lately, as if he could no longer trust her. Behind her, her fingers reached for the doorknob and curled around it, something solid in a very shaky world. “You wouldn’t do that. You wouldn’t suggest anything like that to Kyle-”

“Are you asking me not to?”

For a price, she thought bitterly. “I’m asking you to leave us both alone.”

“And I will, Erica. I intended to leave in the morning, regardless. You know that. There isn’t any problem, unless you create one.”

He smiled. She felt nauseated. She spun around and wrenched open the door, leaving it ajar as she stumbled out into the yard toward the house. She was halfway there when she heard the engine of Kyle’s truck.

It was like a nightmare. She wanted so desperately to run to him, to throw her arms around him and be sheltered and soothed… Yet she stood stock-still for that instant, too terrified that Morgan would take his revenge, and that Kyle wouldn’t believe her.

In the next instant, she lost that choice. Kyle was a statue, freezing halfway out of the truck when he spotted her. He didn’t so much as move, taking in the torn blouse, her tousled hair and tear-streaked face… She caught the deadly chill in his eyes before he averted his face and turned toward the open door of the new building where Morgan stood.

The truck door slammed. In tears, she ran for the house.

Erica sat at the small dressing table in the loft where she usually put on her makeup. For an hour, she had been waiting to hear Kyle enter the house. She’d all but thrown off the clothes she’d been wearing, listening. She’d showered, listening. She put on a simple white shift and sat down, still listening.

It seemed unbearably warm and she threw her head forward, lacing her fingers behind her neck to lift off the heavy weight of hair. She ought to get it cut. When she’d first met Kyle it had been cap-curl short; he had coaxed her into letting it grow until haircuts had become trims, and finally only Kyle took the scissors to even it. Her mane, he called it on occasion. Hair! she shrieked silently. The last thing on her mind was hair…

She kept waiting, ready to spring up the moment she heard his footsteps downstairs. She had a dozen speeches prepared…

Kyle, I don’t care what it looked like. Please listen…

Kyle, your best friend attacked me…

Kyle, I wrecked that yellow blouse on a nail; the thing just ripped. Wasn’t that stupid?

Kyle, I love you.

Where was he? What was he thinking? Another half hour passed, and still he didn’t come. Restlessly, Erica got up and walked to the window. Dusk had already fallen. She couldn’t see Morgan’s trailer, but the truck was no longer parked in its customary spot, nor was Morgan’s car. She stood and stared until it was too dark to see, and then moved aimlessly to the bed. She didn’t often have headaches, but at the moment her temples were pounding so badly it hurt to move. She lay down and stared at the ceiling. Her whole body felt like a massive electrical system on overload. Anxiety overload. Only gradually did that emotion shift to anger.

She’d be damned if she was going to lose Kyle because of Morgan. Problems between herself and Kyle…perhaps. But not Morgan. That man… She’d scrubbed and scrubbed in the shower, trying to get rid of the sensation of being forced, the humiliating horror of being helpless. Over and over, she’d relived her own guilt in the ugly morass. Could her own actions have led him to believe she was interested? The hugs she’d thought meant to be only affectionate… She played all of it over and over in her brain. Perhaps he had misinterpreted her actions, but she had intended only friendship. It mattered.

But nothing mattered now except her own relationship with Kyle. She closed her eyes. Anger was soothing the terrible anxiety. Anger had always been missing before; she hated the emotion and gave it a wide berth. She shook at the first shouted word, would a thousand times prefer to turn the other cheek. Assertiveness was a nice buzzword, easier said than done.

For more than six months, she’d tiptoed around Kyle, believing he needed her understanding, forcing no issues because she was afraid of the answers. Those tactics hadn’t worked, and she wanted her mate back. She’d remained passive, being gentle and careful and tentative. Softness was just a little too much of a luxury now. She was no child. She knew what she wanted.

She remembered the look on Kyle’s face in the truck as he caught sight of her standing in the yard, her blouse ripped… Were they together at the moment? Was Morgan telling him…?

She and Kyle had gained ground in a thousand ways, she thought fleetingly. When they’d made love; the dozen little incidents when they’d found themselves happy together; she’d learned of his background from Martha, and several times she’d thought he was trying to open up, tell her his feelings… She wasn’t going to lose him because of Morgan, and she didn’t care what Morgan told him.

Of course she did. Because if Kyle thought she had been unfaithful…

Heartsick, she thought about fighting and felt like crying. Her eyes stayed closed.

Bright sunlight streamed in onto the bed. Erica’s eyes fluttered open, and she came to immediate wakefulness when she found herself staring at Kyle’s sleeping face, as she felt the weight of his arm around her. She didn’t breathe for a moment. Deep shadows were etched beneath his eyes; his clothes were strewn all over the floor. The sheet barely covered his hips as if he’d hardly cared the night before if he was covered or not. So he had come to bed in exhaustion. But he had come…