Page 58 of Deadly Vendetta

“That wasn’t true at all.” He closed his eyes, sorting through the memories that slammed back into his thoughts. Painful memories he’d tried to forget ever since that last night in Fossil Hill. “You meant everything to me.”

“Then why? You left without a word. You never wrote or called. For all I knew, you could have been dead all these years.” Her voice hitched a little and she pulled her hand from his.

“It...it seemed better just to disappear. I couldn’t come back. And later, I figured there wouldn’t have been any hope that you’d even see me again.”

“Better? To just disappear?”

“After Mom and I moved here, it didn’t take long for the sheriff and his deputies to brand me as trouble,” Zach said slowly. “I was a loner, a teenager with a chip on my shoulder. They probably figured I was a threat from the start.”

Dana gave a short laugh. “I remember. We were pulled over a half-dozen times when you took me out. The deputies always seemed disappointed when they didn’t find open bottles or worse. My mother was always warning me about you.”

I’ll bet she was. “There were other encounters with the law when you weren’t along. Ordinary stuff, I suppose, for a rural community trying to corral its wild teens. But then...” Even now, his anger rose at the injustice. “I got stopped on prom night, after taking you home. The deputy made my options very clear. He said he had enough evidence to put my mom and me in jail for embezzlement from the bar where she worked. When I hesitated, he said he would also implicate you as my accomplice.”

“What?”

“He claimed to have witnesses, documents—everything he needed to prove you and I were helping her. If Mom and I didn’t leave town immediately , we would be arrested. And then he’d be coming after you.”

She stared at him. “In all these years since, there’s never been any word about this so-called embezzlement around here. We could have stood together and proved it wasn’t true. Who accused you?”

“It doesn’t matter any longer. But that person must’ve had important contacts in town. When I tried to get the deputy to tell me, I earned a concussion and a laceration worth eight stitches. Any last convincing I needed was done when I stared down the barrel of his gun.”

Dana drew in a sharp breath. “I never knew.”

“He gave Mom and me a few hours to disappear, and said the accusations would be waiting if we ever came back.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“Was it?” Zach lifted a shoulder. “I was just a kid, but he sounded plenty serious to me. I knew there wasn’t much hope for a barmaid from the wrong side of the tracks and her son. If we’d been tried in a backwoods courthouse with a public defender, we wouldn’t have had a chance.”

“But—”

“We had nothing. No connections, no money. My mom had...well, she’d had some legal problems over several bad checks the year before. Not intentional, just a lack of money and sheer desperation, I think. Anything more could have spelled real trouble. I knew we couldn’t risk staying.”

Dana fell silent for a long moment. “And you never found out who wanted you out of town.”

He shook his head. All of the old fear and anger of that night rushed through him. The absolute certainty that there’d been no choice.

Yet because he’d agreed to leave town that night, he’d been free to go on to a bigger town, a better school, and had ended up with a college degree and a good career. His mother had been free to eventually find and marry a good man, and finally make a good life for herself.

“It was the right choice at the time, Dana.”

“I wasn’t worth fighting for,” she murmured. A sad smile curved her lips. okay.”

“That wasn’t true. But at the time, given our circumstances, it was hopeless.” She looked so lost that he slowly slid his thumb along the high curve of her cheekbone. “No one has ever affected me the way you did.”

“You don’t have to say that. I’m a big girl now.” Stepping back, she waved a hand toward the sofa. “You’re welcome to stay, or you can go home. I’m heading upstairs.”

Catching her arm as she turned to leave, he gently pulled her into an embrace with his hands locked at her lower back.

She stilled. “You asked what I would do with an intruder? I could show you right now. I promise you it’s effective,”

He winced at that. “Maybe try that another time instead. Like when your old pal Tom shows up again.”

Her answering smile faded. “I don’t think there’s anything else to say,” she said finally. “We had a high school romance. We feel a remnant of that same old magic. But it doesn’t change who or what we are now, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Liar.” Since coming to Fossil Hill, he’d tried to deny the chemistry he felt whenever she was near. It hadn’t helped. “That kiss in the moonlight after prom was the most magical moment in my life. And if I don’t kiss you right now, I think I’m going to die.”

A glimmer of laughter danced in her eyes. “Really?