Free Revenge by Lisa Jackson Page B

“Just as soon as you explain this.”
    Oh, God. How could she begin to tell him all the reasons she’d left Rimrock with no intention of ever returning? The truth whispered through her heart, begging to be let out, but she wouldn’t listen to that persistent little voice.
    â€œI’m tired, Max.” She opened the door to her apartment and slipped through the narrow opening. “And it’s late.”
    â€œIt’s barely nine.”
    â€œI don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
    He studied her through the slit in the door and his expression was anything but friendly. “I won’t give up, Skye,” he said, “and I can be pretty stubborn.”
    â€œSo can I.”
    â€œI remember,” he said, and his face seemed to lose some of its harsh angles. He reminded her of the younger man, the kinder man, the man for whom she’d nearly thrown away all her dreams. Her throat tightened at the memory, but she shut the door and turned the dead bolt.
    She wouldn’t, couldn’t let him into her life again. She’d never let herself be caught in that emotional tug-of-war. Waiting at the window, she heard the engine of his truck catch and listened to the whine of gears as he drove away. Only when the sound had disappeared did she relax, sagging against the wall and closing her eyes.
    She was a fool. An overeducated, silly fool. She’d thought, actually believed, that she and Max McKee could live in this tiny community, come into contact on a regular basis, and still keep everything that happened in the past buried deep.
    She’d been very wrong.
    Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she’d never forget the love they’d shared together, the plans they’d made, the bitter disappointment of finding out he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was. Nor would she ever truly forget her deepest secret—the reason she couldn’t let Max, elder son of Jonah McKee and heir apparent to the McKee fortune, know the truth.

Chapter Five
    Rimrock, Oregon
Summer—the Past
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    T he noon whistle screeched from the fire station in town as Skye sprayed lemon juice onto her wet hair and flopped into a chaise lounge in the backyard.
    â€œWhat’s wrong with you?” Dani, hands on her slim hips, stared openly at her usually reserved older sister. “For the past two weeks you’ve run around here humming and smiling like you’ve got the biggest secret of all time.”
    Skye laughed as she finger combed her hair and closed her eyes. When she did, she saw Max McKee’s handsome face behind her lids, and a tiny shiver of anticipation, unlike any she’d ever experienced before, swept through her.
    She felt the warmth of the sun’s midday rays caress her skin and she experienced only a little jab of guilt that she was taking a break from picking corn and beans from the garden.
    â€œYou know, I have better things to do than this,” Dani complained as Skye sprayed the lemon juice over her hair again in the hope that she could streak her blond curls to an even paler shade.
    â€œLife is good,” Skye said. “Slow down and smell the roses.”
    â€œThis...from you?” Skye opened one eye and saw her sister registering mock horror. “You, the honor student with the scholarship to college, the girl who plans to be Rimrock’s first woman doctor? Slow down? When you’ve been on the straight-and-narrow fast track for years?”
    â€œMaybe it’s time to take it easy,” Skye said, stretching lazily.
    â€œSomething’s up. Something I don’t know about because life isn’t good. You and I both know it.” Dani wiped off a bead of sweat that had dripped below her rolled-up handkerchief, her answer to a headband. She was muscular and tanned from hours working with horses on the ranches bordering town, and she detested being trapped into doing anything the least bit domestic. Such as