Stacey Joy Netzel Boxed Set (11 page)

“Mmm, thanks. And tell Zach his favorite
Uncle says hi.” I loved my little three-year-old nephew more than
anything. In fact, I needed to head over to Meg’s soon so I could
get my fix of the little tyke.

“I will,” Meg promised. “Bye.”

“Bye.”

I set the phone down on
the seat, only to have it ring about ten seconds later.
Meg
. “Now
what?”

“Isn’t your class reunion tonight?”

She would remember that, wouldn’t she?
“Yeah,” I confirmed cautiously.

“Any old flames going to be there?”

I immediately pictured the
one person I didn’t want to think about, wearing an emerald green
dress the night of the Snowball Winter Formal.
Thanks, Meg
. “I don’t
know.”

“Ah-ha! So you do have someone from high
school besides crazy Lyssa.”

“Everyone’s got old crushes from high
school, Meg.”

“Check out their ring fingers, okay? I’d
like to be an aunt before I hit thirty-five.”

“Oh, God, you’re as bad as Mom,” I
grumbled.

“Well, you’re not getting any younger, and
it wouldn’t kill you to actually try and go on a date every so
often. Or for that matter, just have sex once in awhile.”

“God, Meg, shut up. My sex life is fine,
thank you.”

“That’s not what Tony says.”

“Your husband doesn’t know shit,” I
retorted.

She snorted. “Then how come you haven’t
bought any new condoms in over a year?”

I nearly choked. “Wh--! How the hell do you
know that? Quit snooping in my drawers!”

“Oh, relax, it was last spring. Tony stopped
by for lunch when I was cleaning one day, and we didn’t want any
‘oops’ so close to Zach.”

My jaw tightened, along with my fingers on
both the steering wheel and my phone. Two years between kids was
not that close, but I focused on the other issue at hand. “You
better have used the guest bed.”

“Who said we used a bed?”
my sister said in a low voice she should only
ever
use with her
husband.

“Gross. I’m hanging up.”

“Hey!”

“What?” I growled.

“You shouldn’t talk on your phone while
you’re driving.”

I hung up on her chuckle
and shook my head as I slid the phone in the chest pocket of my
flannel jacket. Should’ve let the damn thing go to voicemail. Bad
enough our mom hounded me, now my sister knew I had no sex
life,
and
I
wouldn’t be able to walk through my house without wondering where
she and her husband had done the nasty.

My truck wheel got caught in a rut and I
hauled the wheel to the right. Maybe with this weather I could just
avoid the whole reunion. Thinking of Summer put a rock in my
stomach heavy enough that I’d rather deal with sister issues at
home.

Besides, the weather man had said six to ten
inches and at five-thirty there was already at least three on the
ground, maybe four. Just a couple more miles to my house and then I
could take a hot shower before watching the action movie I bought
last week. A couple beers and Meg’s lasagna might relax me enough
to forget about the x-rated things other people were doing in my
house that I wasn’t.

Chicken shit.

I gripped the steering
wheel in protest, powering my truck through the slushy mess
obscuring the road to the point where I couldn’t even see the
center line. I didn’t know if Summer would even be at the reunion,
so I was
not
chickening out. A major winter storm on the fifth of May was
more than reason enough to stay home.

Besides, last time I saw Jenna she’d taken
extreme pleasure rubbing in the fact that Summer had moved on.
Summer now lived in Florida and was engaged to be married. She was
happy and completely over my asshole mistake the night of the
Snowball dance.

I’d always liked Summer in school, and
though we were friends, she intimidated the hell out of me. Pretty,
smart, funny…and just shy enough to be mysterious. On the other
hand, my girlfriend at the time was anything but mysterious. Not to
mention, Lyssa knew exactly how to play a typical teenage guy who
was easily led around by the fly of his pants. Every time we broke
up and I considered asking Summer out, Lyssa would unzip me back
in.

The Snowball dance couldn’t have been timed
more perfectly. Lyssa and I had been broken up for almost a month
and I was voted the Junior representative for the court. I had to
choose a girl from my class to stand up with me, so I took the
opportunity to ask Summer. She said yes, and then spent the next
couple weeks blushing every time I said “hi” in the hall.

The night of the dance, I waited on her
porch with my stomach flipping like crazy, fingering the petals of
a pink corsage. Summer opened the door and nearly took my breath
away. Her green dress brought out the color in her hazel eyes, and
she’d curled her dark hair. I couldn’t tell you what else she’d
done, but pretty was out the window and beautiful had taken its
place.

“Wow,” I managed. “You look great,
Summer.”

“Thanks.” She smiled and blushed before
dropping her gaze. “So do you.”

I relaxed with the realization she was as
nervous as me. After sliding the corsage onto her wrist, I held out
my arm so she wouldn’t slip on the snow covered walkway. The night
flew by, and before I knew it the Grand March was over. I was off
to the side with a couple friends discussing where to go after the
dance when Lyssa walked into the gym wearing a barely-there dress
and fuck-me heels. I recognized them because she’d worn them before
and told me exactly what they were for.

From all the way across
the gym I saw Summer’s smile disappear.
Shit.
I was going to need some help
getting through this one. I headed straight to the punch bowl and
downed two full glasses, thankful a couple of seniors had spiked it
earlier. Then I found Lyssa and dragged her out into the hall
before she could ruin the rest of my night.

She dropped a bomb and ruined it anyway.

Just thinking about that night and what
followed pissed me off and shamed me at the same time. I usually
dealt with the memories by blocking them out and continuing my life
as if it’d never happened.

And I would do that again by skipping the
reunion. I wasn’t a coward; I just didn’t need another in-my-face
round of reminders.

My front tires hit a dip in the road and
threw slush in all directions just as a low pair of headlights cut
through the falling snow. I realized the car was half in my lane
only seconds before the other vehicle jerked to the right and
avoided a head-on collision.

“
Sonofabitch
.”

Talk about a reality
check.
Attention on the road,
man
.

Heart thumping, I applied the brakes,
because no way that vehicle had avoided the ditch. Even if the
driver had managed to correct his steering, the shoulders of the
roads were still soft and mucky from the endless April showers we’d
received.

I pulled over as far as I dared on my own
side of the road and flipped on my hazards. Hunching my shoulders
against the wet, blowing snow, I hurried across the road to where
the other car’s tires had left a muddy trail through the snow. I
slipped a bit on my way to the driver’s door and bent down, but it
was hard to see clearly through the fogged glass.

I could tell the driver was a woman, and
she’d leaned her head back on the seat, so I rapped a knuckle on
the window. She jumped, but powered down the window.

“Are you okay?” I asked while scoping out
the situation.

“Um…I think so,” she replied.

“I don’t think you’re getting out of here
without a tow truck.”

“Great,” I heard the woman say.

I took a closer look at the front of her
car. Oh, yeah, nothing was getting that baby out except a tow truck
with a cable and a winch. Not to mention, I’d happened to catch the
rental plate, so it was best to leave it to the professionals for
insurance reasons. I pulled my cell from my pocket and dialed my
friend, Dave Bensen—the professional with insurance.

While the phone rang, I turned back to check
out the woman in the car. Her back was to me as she leaned toward
the passenger seat, and all I saw was long, dark hair. When she
pulled a cell phone from her purse, I said, “Don’t bother. My buddy
Dave owns the local towing service.”

She settled back into her seat as Dave
answered. “What’s up, Nelsen?”

I cupped my hand around the phone and turned
my back to the wind so I could hear better. “Hey, how’s it going?”
I asked.

“Busy,” Dave said.

“Any chance you got a free truck?”

“Are you kidding? With this storm all my
drivers are booked for at least the next three hours. Everyone
forgets how to drive in snow after just a couple weeks of spring.
Why?”

“There’s a woman in the ditch on Highway 32
right before my road. Can you schedule her in and tow her car to
the diner?”

“Sure, I’ll add it to the list,” Dave
said.

“Thanks.” I gave him the make and model
before hanging up and turning back to the woman. The snow blew
between us and I had to raise my voice to be heard over the wind.
“His guys are booked up on calls until at least eight. I can give
you a ride to town, if you’d like to wait at the Silver Falls
Diner, or until you can call someone to come get you?”

“Aren’t you going to the reunion?”

The question took me totally by surprise and
I answered without thinking as I bent closer to the open window.
“Yeah, how did you—”

And that’s when I got my
first good look at her face.
Whoa
. Conscious effort kept my jaw
from dropping. “
Summer?
”

She smiled like I remembered in high school.
Then it disappeared and she said, “You remembered.”

Those two pointed words
said
she
remembered. Guilt socked me right in the gut. “Of course…how
could I not?”

Up on the road, my neighbor’s maroon car
crept by, giving me the perfect reason to avert my eyes from her
unwavering gaze. I lifted a hand to Mike, but felt the weight of
Summer’s silence. Pressure makes me say stupid things.

“What’s it been, like…?”

“Ten years,” she supplied with just the
slightest hint of sarcasm.

“Yeah. Wow.” I forced my gaze back to hers.
“You look great.”

“Thanks.”

I wasn’t lying to be nice.
Summer had always been pretty and she’d improved over the past ten
years. She wasn’t supermodel gorgeous, but truthfully, that was her
appeal. Hazel eyes framed by thick, dark lashes. Light makeup
enhanced her features and shiny gloss highlighted her lips.
Beautiful yet approachable…
if
one didn’t have a huge, stupid mistake hanging
over his idiot head.

Not sure how long I stared before I noticed
her shiver. I wore a flannel jacket, but she sat there in a
sleeveless dress, in her ditched rental car, with wet snowflakes
whirling through the open window.

I gave myself a mental shake and
wondered…could this be my one shot at redemption?

“I was just on my way home to change,” I
told her before doubt could set in. “If you don’t mind waiting at
my house for a few minutes, we can go to the reunion together and
Dave can have your car towed right to the supper club. You remember
Dave Bensen, right?”

She nodded and leaned closer to the window.
Her muddy tire tracks were turning white again, a good incentive to
get moving. Though I figured her agreement was for the question
about Dave, I grabbed the handle of her door and pulled it open as
if she’d said yes to coming home with me.

I held my breath when she hesitated.
Finally, she lifted her purse from the passenger seat and extended
one leg out of the rental. The long expanse of bare skin distracted
me enough that I almost messed up again. Luckily I caught sight of
her little black sandals just before she planted her painted toes
in the mud.

“Whoa, hold up.”

Only a jerk would let a woman walk through
muck in shoes like that—and I was done being a jerk. I leaned down
into the car to scoop her up. She drew back with a sharp breath,
but I went all in.

“Hang on.”

With one arm under her knees and the other
behind her back, I shifted my balance to lift with my knees. She
made a grab for my shoulders, nearly throwing me backwards onto my
ass.

“What are you doing?” she demanded in a
high-pitched voice.

Once I’d gained my footing and stood
straight, I gave her a grin. “You can’t walk through the mud in
those shoes.”

She didn’t say another word, but she didn’t
protest, either. I took that as a good sign. Coming up with
something to say on the way to my truck was impossible with her in
my arms. She wasn’t skin and bones, nor was she heavy. No, she was
just about perfect. The wind swept her spicy-sweet scent past my
nose and whipped her long, dark hair across my face.

Man, I should’ve thought this through for
more than a second. Heat built with each increased beat of my
pulse, every breath I took. Snowflakes melted on my face so fast I
half expected the moisture to turn into steam and my grip tightened
as I fought the urge to rub my fingers along the soft skin of her
legs.

There you go…make up for
the Snowball dance with sexual harassment.
Jackass
.

I helped her inside my truck before quickly
shutting the door on my lusty thoughts. A quick trip back across
the road netted her coat and then I locked up her car. Dave’s shop
was on the way to the reunion location, so we could drop off the
keys on the way.