“Really?” he asked, stunned that she did. He remembered the last time, but for completely different reasons.

“Uh huh,” she said, stopping her massage to squeeze a little more lotion in her hands. Tristan’s eyes closed as he enjoyed her ministrations.

“How could I ever forget the kiss that made my life a living hell?”

*-*-*-*

His eyes shot open. “What?”

She exhaled slowly. “You really don’t remember, do you?”

His brows creased in confusion. “Refresh my memory.” Obviously his memory wasn’t as good as he’d thought, because that kiss always brought a smile to his face whenever he thought about it.

“Okay, let’s see. It was at the high school bonfire after the dance. You were a senior and I was nothing but a lowly freshman. To my shock and your date’s horror, you gave me a ride to the dance and even danced with me a few times,” she said absently as she rubbed his back and chest.

Tristan’s hands clenched tightly on the desk. It was the first and only school dance that he’d ever attended and it had nothing to do with his date, whoever the hell it had been. He went for one reason and one reason only. He wanted to dance with Marty. More to the point, he wanted to hold her in his arms. He remembered ignoring his date. She’d been bitchy, but that’s all he remembered about her.

“After the dance, the three of us walked to the bonfire where your date, Karen Manor, a junior, bitched and threw a few hissy fits, because she wanted you to send me away.”

“And I didn’t,” he said softly, because that night he’d decided to test the waters to see if he could handle more with Marty and handle giving in to what he felt for her. Unfortunately for his date, she’d just been a decoy, an excuse to attend the dance and spend time with Marty without any pressure or her father killing him.

“No,” she sighed, “You were always so sweet and protective of me. You said you weren’t going to leave me to fend for myself around a bunch of drunk jocks.”

He nodded. That was part of the reason. Even at fifteen she’d been stunning. He hadn't been the only one to notice how beautiful she was. But the real reason had been quite simple. After spending three hours holding Marty in his arms and dancing to horrible music, he’d decided that he was going to give in to the overwhelming need to finally make her his.

“So, there we were. The two of us sipping sodas and hanging out near the fire. Karen was with Matt Cabal a few feet away trying to make you jealous.” He didn’t remember anything about that moment other than sitting with Marty and using the cool night air as an excuse to wrap his arm around her.

“Anyway, some genius decided to throw a beer bottle into the fire. It shattered against one of the logs and a small sliver of glass slashed my cheek.”

Tristan carefully pushed back in his chair and stood up, moving away from her. He didn’t want to be near her when she finished the story. There was no doubt in his mind that she would be able to feel the tremors shooting through his body at the mere memory of what happened next.

“Are you okay?” she asked, frowning.

“Yeah.” He pulled on his shirt and tie. After a small pause she continued.

“Anyway, after you punched the boy for hurting me, even though it was an accident, you walked back to me and pressed a kiss to the cut…and missed, kissing me full on the mouth. It sent your date into hysterics and for the next year and a half her little friends and she went out of their way to torment me.”

He hadn’t missed. Not even by a millimeter. He’d meant to kiss her. If she hadn’t stepped back, stunned, he would have continued that one perfect kiss. He remembered that he was about to pull her back into his arms when the spirit of a child walked up to him, reminding him of why it could never be. It was that night when he’d decided that he had to do the right thing by her and push her away. It was also the night the weird dreams started.

Not that he could really call them dreams. They were more like flickers of scenes that played through his head while he slept. They were never long enough for him to get a good picture of what was happening, but he sensed that they were about her, about them. Although they happened infrequently, they were still enough to wake him up in the middle of the night, sweating and panting. Every time he woke up feeling heartache so deep that he actually thought he’d die, wished for it actually. He’d do anything to avoid experiencing that type of soul crushing pain.

Whenever he experienced one of those flickers of a dream, he had to fight the urge to leap out of bed and go to her. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her until the pain stopped, but he couldn’t. He was a freak and she deserved so much better than him. He’d realized that years ago when he’d pushed her away for her own good.

Same as now.

With feigned arrogance, he shrugged. “Sorry about that, but I guess some things never change.” When she looked up from wiping her hands clean with a paper towel, looking confused, he continued. “Your dad’s still making me let you tag along,” he said, knowing that it would hurt her enough to push her away. It was a lie and it killed him to say it. Not once in their childhood had anyone forced him to let her tag along or made him be nice to her. They’d never needed to do that. Even back then she’d been special to him.

He watched with an emotionless expression as his words had the desired effect. Her eyes teared up as she stared back at him. Still, he made no moves to correct the lie or comfort her even though it was tearing him apart inside.

“You’re lying,” she said evenly. “No one ever made you be nice to me.”

He simply shrugged as he adjusted the gun in his side holster.

“You really are an ass**le, aren’t you?”

He met her eyes and answered without any hesitation, “Yes.”

Chapter 9

Tristan chanced glances up at Marty every now and then while they worked. As far as he could tell she hadn’t looked up at all. He’d finally managed to push her away for good. No wonder he felt like shit. That and his shoulder was f**king killing him. He had a pretty good idea that he’d torn something this morning, but at the moment he really didn’t care.

A knock sounded at the door. “What?” he snapped.

Rosemary walked into the office, carefully staying away from Tristan’s side of the room. She looked at Marty expectantly as she set a huge bouquet of baby pink roses in front of her.

“What are these?” Marty asked as she reached for the card.

“I don’t know. There wasn’t a name inside the card. It was just addressed to you and said congratulations on your new job.”

Marty’s hand stilled on the card.

“You read her card?” Tristan asked, his tone thoughtful and cool. It was the tone that everyone around here knew meant that he was pissed, really pissed.

Rosemary licked her lips nervously. “I had to find out who they were for,” she explained, trying to act innocent, but he wasn’t buying it.

“Well, I’m guessing that the person delivering them could have told you who they belonged to or the fact that her name’s on the envelope should have been a clue.”

“Oh,” Rosemary said with a nervous chuckle. “I didn’t realize that.”