Free If You Come Back To Me (If You Come Back To Me #1) by Beth Kery Page A

fast. I never blamed you, Marc. Never. How could I?”
    He shrugged. “Other people managed to. It’s human nature. When the perpetrator of the crime dies along with the victims, people look to the family. Blame has to be cast somewhere.”
    “But that’s ridiculous!”
    “I’m not saying it isn’t. But people need to do something with their anger, with their helplessness.” He shrugged. “I see it all the time in my work. Victims need to find a target for their angst. My mother has lived with that refrain for fifteen years. In the beginning, she got nasty phone calls, hate mail, pranks were pulled. People in town ostracized her. Some of them still do. It hasn’t been an easy road for her. People say she should have been harder on my dad about his drinking. Maybe one of us kids should have stopped him somehow. Maybe I should have. I was old enough. That was what my opponent for the State’s Attorney position thought…and made a point of mentioning about a dozen times during the campaign,” he added wryly under his breath.
    “You’re kidding.”
    He shrugged and glanced away. In all honesty, he’d repeatedly wondered if he might have done something to prevent the crash.
    “You were twenty-one years old,” she whispered. “Please tell me you don’t actually believe any of those allegations.”
    “No. I don’t,” he said after a moment. “My dadwas responsible for his actions. Does that mean those criticisms didn’t eat at me at times? Of course not. It’s natural to wonder how you could have done things differently.”
    “How could you have known what your father was going to do on that night? You had your own life. You hardly were thinking about Derry any more than I was thinking of my parents at the time.”
    She’d spoken in a pressured rush. Marc recognized the moment she realized what she’d just said. Color rushed into her cheeks.
    Of course neither of them had thought of their parents that night. They’d been in bed together, their love on the brink of consummation.
    Marc shoved aside the emotion-packed memory with effort.
    “Deidre holds my mother responsible for a lot of what happened with the crash. She thinks my mother was in denial about my father’s drinking problem. That’s why she doesn’t return to Harbor Town in the summer like the rest of us. Actually, Deidre refuses to come to Harbor Town, period.”
    Marc sighed when he saw Mari’s horrified expression. He’d brought her here for a casual outing, a chance for them to reconnect over something besides their volatile past.
    “Let’s not worry about it, okay? Not now,” he murmured.
    He gave in to his need and placed his hands on her damp shoulders. She went still beneath his touch. He slipped a finger beneath the cloth of the swimsuit where it tied around her neck.
    “I just thought the color would look good on you, that’s all.” He noticed her confused expression. “That was the reason I picked this suit. The main reason,anyway,” he said as he watched himself idly stroke her. He met her stare. “Gold—like your eyes and your skin.”
    “Marc.”
    Her breath fell across his lowering mouth. He kissed her softly, and she responded to his coaxing caresses, feeding his desire with a distilled sweetness he associated exclusively with Mari. His muscles tensed when he felt her fingertips touch his chest, her movements striking him as curious but uncertain, featherlight and quick, like ten drops of water scurrying over his skin. It hurt a little to feel his body respond so wholeheartedly to her taste and feel and to have to restrain himself, holding back what seemed so natural and right. When they’d been young, it’d been a serious trial.
    As an adult man, it was nothing less than torture.
    Her eyes seemed to smolder beneath her heavy eyelids when he finally lifted his head to study her. The need to press her soft, lithe body against his length in the calm water nearly choked him, it felt so powerful. He placed his