Page 193 of One Wild Wish

“The house looks smaller,” I said. Not I miss you. Not why did you ruin us? Not I did something you’ll never forgive .

She kept her eyes on the house. “You’re just bigger.”

“Did the gutters always slant like that?” This I could do. Talk about nothing instead of our past and the reason I was here.

“Doubt it.”

“It needs an overhaul.”

“The paint job certainly needs love.”

The word love drifting from her lips had me rubbing the stitch still twisting my side.

I’d thought we were destined for each other, Gwen and me. The type of soul mates who’d gone through hardships, but could never stay apart. Her nineteenth birthday was supposed to have been the start of our time. Our new beginning. It had been the exact opposite, and I needed to remember that. Not give life to the overpowering connection tugging at me while we talked about laser eye surgery and the deterioration of childhood homes.

Her focus finally settled on me. “How’d you know I was here and not at my apartment?”

“Shot in the dark.” Wasn’t sure yet if it was lucky or unlucky, not with these confusing feelings jumbling my insides.

She didn’t invite me in, or apologize for what she’d done all those years ago, but the jade in her eyes shimmered, a hint of pooling tears. Gwen didn’t do tears. She was tough, made of self-determination and independence. Built by an indifferent mother and lack of affection. But the vulnerability behind her rigid posture was palpable…as was something else.

Her face softened, wistfulness in the lift of her brow, mixed with desire? Yearning?

If the emotion pouring from her eyes were a song, it would be titled “First Love.”

It rocked me. All our history, and it only took one look, one mundane conversation, and I was imagining my lips on Gwen’s, her in my arms, our painful past erased. Exactly why I hadn’t contacted her after receiving her mother’s insane letter. Why I’d missed the funeral. Why I’d delayed coming here: I’d never gotten over Gwen Hamilton.

That awareness didn’t erase the sting of betrayal simmering in my gut. Both sloshed together, stirring into a queasy concoction.

When it came to Gwen, I couldn’t see straight.

“Can we talk?” I nodded toward the house. I needed to move, break this spell. Apologize for what I’d done, then get away.

Arms still hugging her belly, she stepped back. I walked past her and our arms brushed. Just a whisper of skin against skin, but enough to spark each of my follicles. The Zap , I used to call it—a stupid, infatuated teen who’d go gaga, one graze from her zinging all my nerves to life. Fire. Thirst. Hunger.

Some things never changed.

I focused on her and Finch instead. Gwen the Deceiver. Gwen the Traitor.

That Gwen was familiar. That Gwen I could talk to without wondering if she felt this indelible connection, too. But the boxes filling the too-familiar space shot me with an injection of guilt. She probably did this alone, packing her mother’s life away. Unless her friends had helped her, or a man. Likely a man. My cramp knotted tighter, turning my sloshy insides into a trash compacter.

I readied to tell her about the blasted letter and get away from her and this uncomfortable ache, but she swiveled, and said, “I’m sorry about that night.”

Dammit. Not what I could handle right now. “It’s ancient history.”

If I said it, maybe my heart would believe it.

“It’s not. Not for me, at least. I was too embarrassed to contact you after. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done, my biggest mistake. I don’t even want to explain it, because it makes no sense. Absolutely none. And I won’t make excuses, but I want you to know how sorry I am.”

She didn’t want to explain it? Not even try? “Why don’t you give it a shot, Gwen? Give me the abridged version. The bullet points of why you fucked Finch.”

She swallowed convulsively, and I tensed down to my toes, barely refraining from punching the wall. This was not why I’d flown home. This wasn’t about me and my bruised ego.

Why the hell couldn’t I just let it go?

She sucked on her bottom lip, a move that had more fire driving through my veins. Different fire. I couldn’t keep from glancing at her slim hips, her long legs, how the bottoms of her camouflage pants skimmed her calves, the material tough but sexy. Like Gwen. Nine years of nurtured anger threaded with remorse over what I’d done, and tangled with this thing . This gripping attraction and wistfulness—a deep missing of this woman from my life—leaving me lightheaded.

I was such a mess around her. “Forget I asked that. I don’t want to know. The reason—”