Free The Kissing Game by Suzanne Brockmann Page B

aim it at the fat one. Everyone freezes—everyone but the last fish, still flopping on the deck. I bend down, scoop it up, and toss it overboard. Free at last. Then, standing there like some kind of wild creature, shorts torn, breasts bare and covered with the blood from the fat man's nose, I tell my merry band of fishermen to join their skinny friend in the gulf or one of ‘em's gonna find out what an incandescent flare feels like, fired at close range.
    And just like that it's over.
    But even as I write these words, I know that from this moment on, it will never be over. From this moment on, my life will
never be the same. Unlike my little fish, I'll never really be free again.
    Simon slowly closed the notebook, slowly set it down on the floor.
    Then he stood up and went to look for Frankie.
    Simon was standing on the beach as Frankie came out of the ocean. She swept her hair back from her face, using her hands to squeeze out the water. The ocean had cooled her, cleansed her. She always felt so damn dirty if she so much as
thought
about that awful day.
    The sky still held a slight hint of red-orange from the setting sun, but it was the moon, two-thirds full and waxing, that lit Simon's face.
    Without his usual smile he looked older, harder, and entirely unforgiving.
    “Tell me their names,” he said as she stopped in front of him, “and I'll track them down and beat the crap out of them.”
    Frankie moved up the beach to where the clothes she'd had on over her bathing suit were lying in a pile. “I don't remember their names.”
    “Like hell you don't.”
    She glanced back at him. With his mouth set in that grim line and his blue eyes glistening in the darkness, she could almost believe him capable of doing injury to the men who had nearly raped her all those years before. Funny, she'd never thought of Simon as the aggressive type, but he looked as if he might actually
enjoy
this particular bloody encounter.
    “Why didn't you press charges?” he asked.
    “There was no proof,” Frankie told him, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “Preston Seaholm believed me—he told me he'd back me one hundred percent, whatever I decided to do. But the D.A. told me it's hard enough to convict someone of rape, let alone attempted rape.” She heard a trace of bitterness creep into her voice. “
You
didn't take my word at face value—why should a courtroom full of strangers?”
    “I'm sorry,” Simon said, and he actually looked as if he were. “It's just …. I know what you told Leila, and I had to believe that if you hadn't told her the entire truth, then you wouldn't tell me.” He spoke softly, uncertainly. It was the first time Frankie had seen him with his self-assurance andsupersmooth charm stripped away, with his heart laid bare.
    But, no. It wasn't. The night before at the resort restaurant she'd seen a similar look in his eyes, right after that moment when she'd been so convinced he was going to kiss her ….
    “If you had been raped, and you hadn't even told your best friend, you damn well wouldn't have admitted it to me,” Simon continued. “I mean, can you honestly stand there and tell me that you would have told me the truth?”
    Frankie shook her head. He was right. She wouldn't have been able to tell him.
    “That's why I had to read it myself. So don't be …. mad at me, okay?”
    Frankie nodded. Okay.
    Simon nodded too. He stood there in the moonlight, just looking at her, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his shorts, his usually laughing eyes so somber and serious.
    “You got any other awful secrets for me to stumble across, Francine?” he asked with only a ghost of his usual smile.
    Frankie's heart was beating hard. She'd always found smooth-talking, devil-may-care Simon Huntoutrageously attractive, but knowing that he was capable of this quietness, knowing he had this vulnerability, made him damn near irresistible.
    Any other awful secrets?
Only that I desperately want to feel your arms around