Free KeyParty by Jayne Kingston Page B

don’t have to be anywhere until late morning.
There’s still time for a power nap between now and then.” He leaned over their
plates and kissed her. “Last night was hands down worth losing sleep over.”
    She could feel her heart pick up the pace and warned it to
be a little more cautious.
    Sounds of talking drifted to them down the hallway. There
was a heavy thump followed by more laughter.
    “Are you going to be able to sleep with the two of them in
the next room?”
    “I am blessed with the ability to sleep through air raid
sirens if I’m tired enough. And if that doesn’t work…” He shook his head again
when there was yet another squeal from Bree. “I have really good earplugs,” he
assured her.
    He watched her thoughtfully while they both fell silent,
eating.
    “Are you ready to tell me why you have such a hang-up about that yet?” He pointed in the general direction of her crotch with his fork, his eyes
lit with a mixture of curiosity and amusement.
    Rachel took her time chewing while she processed her answer,
but she couldn’t for the life of her remember why she’d clung to that old hurt
for so long.
    “Had,” she corrected. “I had a hang-up about that,”
she pointed to her lap with her fork, “and the reason why isn’t important any
longer.”
    He stopped chewing and gave her a long, meaningful look.
    She knew she was already in deep when he grinned, looking
both charming and arrogantly pleased with himself, and said, “Good.”

Chapter Eight
     
    “Tell me about you and Rachel Marsh.”
    Ben’s mother handed him a tall glass of iced tea. She
settled herself on the rocking chair next to his with a sigh.
    He tore his gaze away from the sun setting behind the forest
at the back of his parents’ property and looked at her, but said nothing. What
could he say?
    “And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. It
was all over your face when I found the two of you coming out of that therapy
room last week.”
    He propped his sunglasses on his head and looked into the
window at his back. His stepfather couldn’t be seen inside the house.
    “I really hate it when you do that.”
    “Guess when you’re about to lie to me?” She nodded, looking
smug. “I know.”
    “I wasn’t about to lie.” He took a long drink from his tea.
    “Forgive me. What I meant to say was give me some kind of
half truth and then hedge your way out of answering.”
    He was thirty-one years old. He’d graduated at the top of
his class in both high school and medical school. He’d managed to make a name
for himself as an up-and-coming physician outside both of his parents’ stellar
reputations. He loved and admired his mother more than any other woman he’d
met. She’d been his rock from the first moment of his life, but she could still
make him want to shut down as though he was a reticent teenager from time to
time.
    He sighed. “Like I said, we knew each other back in college.
I tutored her in chemistry until she quit school and went home. I never heard
from her again.”
    “Wait a minute.” She reached over and laid her hand on his
arm. “She’s the girl you were so crazy about back then. The one you just about
worried yourself sick over when she took off and wouldn’t answer your phone
calls.”
    Another deep breath and he put his sunglasses back over his
eyes.
    “I’m right, aren’t I?”
    “Mother—”
    “So what on earth happened to her? You must have been
thrilled to see her again.”
    To say the least. “She quit school and moved home.” He
shrugged. Hadn’t they just cleared the air on that? “She didn’t answer my phone
calls because her parents took away her phone when she showed up and announced
she’d left college.”
    “That seems a little harsh.”
    He gave her a bland look. “What would you have done if I’d
quit?”
    She met his gaze evenly. “We never had to worry about that,
now did we?”
    No, they hadn’t. All his life the only thing he’d