“None of them are you, Carrie Ann.” His voice was soft and soothing, slipping past her defenses, caressing old wounds hidden deep inside.

Every tiny muscle in her face softened. Heat rose from her heaving chest, striking fire to her cheeks. He inched closer, shifting restlessly, turning her heartbeat unruly. Energy spiked between them. She sensed his need to reach out and touch her, practically feeling his hands ghost over her flesh.

Backing away slowly, she barely twisted her head once, indicating no. Her throat constricted, sealing her words into silence.

“You don’t need to act all tough. It’s me you’re talking to, Carrie Ann. I see right through it. The only reason you’re being so stubborn is because you’re scared.”

“That was a long time ago. You don’t know anything about me anymore.”

“You’re wrong and you know it.” His tone gentled into a rasp. “I bet that if I slip my hand beneath your dress, there’d be clear evidence of your true feelings.”

Carrie Ann’s jaw jutted forward and she seethed through gritted teeth, “I guarantee that if you even try to slip your hand anywhere near my panties…you’ll be crying like baby. And in an immeasurable amount of pain.”

Her agitation only encouraged him. Easy charm clung lazily to his full lips. “Why don’t you try being a little more honest with your feelings, Carrie Ann?”

“Me?” Her screech echoed through the basin, skipping through the range of mountains. “Remind me again. Why did we break up?”

“If I remember correctly, you broke it off with me.”

“Of course that’s how you’d remember it! Typical Summer. Blame it all on me!”

Summer remained eerily calm. His piercing stare never left her face. He’d prepared for this, all of it, and suddenly she found herself at a complete disadvantage.

“You want to know why?” Casting aside all humor, he sobered. “Because I lost my mind after losing football. I drank too much. I was an all-around jerk, Carrie Ann. I’d invested everything into football for my future…our future, and I hated myself for failing. I had no idea how the fuck I was going to give you the life you deserved. I pushed you out. I drove you away when you were trying to be there for me.”

Stunned by his admission, wetness needled the corners of her eyes. “All I wanted was you. I never cared about anything else. The money, the fame, those were things you wanted.”

“Back then…that was easy for you to say. You came from money. I had something to prove.”

“I never asked…”

“You never asked, but your father made it perfectly clear.” His voice refused to waver. Summer’s stare locked on her face. The amber in his eyes turning the color of honey behind his perfectly tan skin. “I lost the most important thing in my life…and it wasn’t football.”

The urgency in his tone, the desperate need for her to understand, disarmed her. Fighting back the urge to immerse herself in his closeness, she pushed back tears. Channeling her defenses, she retorted tersely, “Funny how you seem to forget about me finding your dick shoved into some other chick’s navel.”

“I’m not going to hash over this bullshit with you again, Carrie Ann.”

His brazen attitude seemed designed to perpetuate the assumption they were an item.

“Of course you’re not. Because you’re just as chicken shit now as you were back then! How bout you try the truth for once.”

“I told you the truth a hundred times and you didn’t listen!” A long heavy silence lingered between them. “You want the truth?”

“That would be a nice change.”

“I never lied to you. Ever. I apologized a hundred times for something I had no control over.”

“So, you’re still sticking to the ‘I swear. I woke up with my dick in some chick’s mouth and I thought it was you’ bullshit story?”

“It’s not a story. I did think it was you…for a minute. Until I realized…”

Unraveling at the seams, she unloaded on him, “Go ahead! Say it! This is my favorite fucking part…‘her blowjob just wasn’t as good as yours.’ God, you haven’t changed one bit!”

Her voice shredded, lost to the heartbreak. She turned her back to him, refusing to let him witness the pain, raw and unprotected. His hands came to her shoulders. The pads of his fingers pressed into her flesh, raising the hair on her body to spiky points.

“I realized it wasn’t you, because no other woman can make me feel the way you do. And you’re right…that still hasn’t changed. No one’s even come close.” The heat of his touch coaxed a small gasp from her lungs. “I went to bed alone that night. Yes, I was trashed, but I wasn’t even at the house party that night. You’d just broke things off with me the day before and I’d been drinking with my brother for two days. When his wife found us at the bar, she drove me home and left me on the lawn. The next thing I remember was waking up with…”

“Yeah, well, I still don’t really give a rat’s ass about how you remember it.” Her stomach turned and twisted, wrenching at the memories that had trampled her heart. She held back the bile climbing up her throat. “When I walked into your room, you were kissing her…” Carrie Ann’s face scrunched in disgust and hands tangled around each other. “Your hands were shoved into her hair. And! Your dick was poking her in the stomach.”

“She was kissing me. I was trying to get her off me.”

“Whatever, Summer. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Bullshit. It matters. Speaking of chicken shit…maybe you should take a look in the mirror. Because right at this very second you know damn well you want to be with me and you’re throwing it away. Why are you so scared to admit you want to be with me?”

His soft voice pulled at the threads binding her heart. Carrie Ann was more than scared. She was terrified. A deep intimate conversation would only lead to rehashing the past, open old wounds, and threaten to reveal haunting secrets that were best left buried.

“What’s it gonna take, Red? Hmm? You were an open fucking book when you were drugged. You may not remember it, but I heard every word. Loud and clear.” He spoke with such a quiet intensity that her eyes swung around to meet his. They burned bright of their own illumination, desire and longing in every color on full display. “Time is ticking by. I’m tired of fighting it. If we don’t fix this now, we’re going to grow old apart from each other because at one point or another one of us was too damn stubborn to admit we were wrong.”

She felt trapped in the center of his attention, drowning in painful memories of the solitary confinement that followed their breakup. Grief and loss flooded to the surface. Tears sprung to her eyes. Clenching her fingers to the edges of her jacket, she wrapped it tightly around her body, charging off the porch into the pouring rain.

The sound of his stomping feet, sloshed in a wake behind her.

“This isn’t done, Red. We’re going to talk about what you said to me on the flight here. You can’t keep it tabled forever.” He came to an abrupt halt. His voice raised, yelling over the weather, “I can’t bring back yesterday, Carrie Ann! Neither one of us can. You’re not the only one with scars ya know. And there’s damn sure something you’re not telling me! So how about you try being honest…with yourself!”

The storm brewing inside her body grew far darker than the one looming overhead. The wetness on her face had nothing to do with the rain. She stumbled blindly through a torrent of tears and thickets of long grass toward the steam rising above the hot springs not far from the cabin. Steam hovered at ledges of three natural waterfalls, pouring over the edge in sheets as hot water cascaded from one tier to the next, dropping into limestone soaking pools.

Carefully, she scrambled over a few boulders, seeking shelter beneath the pines along the pond’s edge. Wiping excess water from a large flat rock, she lowered herself to the slick surface. Carrie Ann stripped off her boots, testing the temperature with the tips of her toes before dipping them into the healing waters. Aspen climbed into her lap, licking at the salty drops on her chin.