Free Fueling Her Fire by Piper Trace Page B

you stay in this
little town?”
    “Because I love it here. It’s a great town and it’s home.”
His voice had an edge. “I know it’s not a flashy, exciting city, but there are
a lot of reasons to want to be here. They might not be obvious to you, but that
doesn’t mean they’re not here.”
    Whoa. She raised her eyebrows at his jab, not
understanding the nerve she’d touched.
    His voice softened and he ran his hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry. I’m just…I’m glad to see you, Kip. I missed you.” He looked up to
meet her eyes. “It’s been a long time. I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I
thought about looking you up a few times, but I didn’t figure you’d want to
hear from me. You had your new friends, your new life. I was just some guy you
knew back in high school.”
    She was surprised at his revelation. He’d thought of looking
her up? She felt dumbfounded by the revelation. In the last thirty minutes he’d
convinced her that her well-remembered high-school memories were nothing but
distortions of the truth. And Dylan had missed her. That thought created
butterflies in Kip’s stomach, and she wondered how it might have gone if he’d
acted on the thought.
    He cleared his throat. “Sorry I’m putting you out tonight,
but honestly I’m thankful that tree fell. I’d hate to have you out here by
yourself all night in this kind of weather.” He stood up and came around the ottoman
to sit on the couch next to her. She stiffened. She was not going to be
Dylan’s one-night romp again. Her defenses overwhelmed her politeness.
    “Oh yeah,” she said with sarcasm, “thank god you’re here to
keep me safe.” She scooted away from him, pinning herself to her side of the
couch. He looked down at her body language, his mouth set in a grim line.
    “That’s not what I meant, Kip,” he said dryly.
    What was wrong with her? She didn’t know why she was so on
edge. Consciously, she worked to soften her face, hoping she might look
apologetic. A look would have to do, because she couldn’t manage to voice an
apology to him. She was still angry at Dylan. All the nice stuff he’d just said
didn’t erase the fact that he’d humiliated her back in high school.
    He was silent for a minute. “You really didn’t know?”
    She thought about it but couldn’t follow. According to the
stuff Dylan had just told her, there was obviously a lot she hadn’t known.
“Which part?” she asked.
    “All of it.”
    “No.” Then she added softly, “especially the part about the
guys liking me. That was really true?” But she only wanted to hear about one
guy in particular.
    A wicked smile crossed his face and he looked down at his
wineglass to try to hide it. “Oh yeah. It was always a running commentary in
the locker room at football practice—what they’d do to you if they had the
chance, who was going to be the one to finally get to touch your boobs, who was
finally going to get you in bed.” He chuckled, smiling widely over what he
clearly thought was an amusing memory.
    But her face had gone blank.

Chapter Six
     
    Kip’s anger boiled over and she shot out of her seat,
glaring down at Dylan. This was a conversation she hadn’t planned to have, but
there was no stopping it now.
    “Was that why?” She spat the words at him. “Was that why you
told the whole school ?” Her voice had grown high-pitched.
    He looked up at her, confusion obvious on his face. “What
did I—?” But he didn’t finish the question. His face grew horrified.
    “No! No, Kip, no!” He grabbed her arm in his effort to
persuade her to sit back down next to him. She wrenched away from him and fled
toward the door. When she reached it, she whirled to find him not far behind
her. Her eyes smarted with tears but she would not let him see her cry over
something he did to her eight years before. She channeled those feelings toward
her anger, toward her determination to throw him out—and she didn’t care if
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