LISTENING TO LESLIE and Suzannah’s laughter as they made their way down the staircase, David closed Avery’s front door and turned toward her.

She wasn’t there. She’d been standing beside him until moments ago, having seen her mother and Leslie to the door. The second the older couple stepped from the apartment onto the landing, Avery had obviously flown the coop.

He barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Such typical Avery behavior, backing away when the heat was on. And more often than not, backing into the kitchen. It was as if she found whatever comfort she needed in food.

Not in eating, but in the preparation and the presentation. The familiar routine. The expectation of having things go her way and turn out exactly as planned.

He’d wondered why of all the things she could’ve done with her life that she’d chosen to open a bakery. In the light of her food fetish, the business made sense. Avery Rice was a creature of habit, one at home in her element, one who had done everything in her power to secure her safe harbor—a harbor she was about to have buffeted to the ground.

He headed for the kitchen, where he heard her banging around, and stopped in the doorway to watch as she flipped on the switch for the garbage disposal and began to shove a perfectly good and barely half-eaten loaf of French bread down the drain.

The motor ground and whirred, chugging hard as the bread became nothing more than wet floury goo. Undaunted, Avery continued to feed the loaf to the unforgiving blades. It was time for an intervention.

David crossed the kitchen and flipped down the disposal’s switch. The motor halted mid-grind. Avery looked up, her eyes wildly bright and red rimmed though as dry as the proverbial bone.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, her anger palpable though he didn’t know the source.

“You have something against leftovers?” he asked, using his height to advantage as he towered above her.

“No, I’m just cleaning up.” Mouth clamped shut, she waited for him to move his hand from the switch. When he didn’t, she tossed the rest of the loaf into the sink and returned to the table for the casserole dish of lasagna.

David moved to intercept the food before it suffered the same grinding fate. “Avery, destroying the rest of dinner isn’t going to make anything better.”

A dark blond brow went up. “Who said I’m trying to make anything better? Unless you consider cleaning up this mess making things better.”

It was the way she said the word mess that got to him. She wasn’t talking about the leftover food or the dirty dishes at all. She could’ve ground the salad, the lasagna, hell, even the wine and salad dressing into oblivion, and nothing would change. She would still be caught up trying to fix what she thought was broken, to put her insular world back to rights.

She needed to understand that time had moved on without her. Or perhaps that was exactly what was going on. The very reason she was bent on destruction. God, but he hated seeing her hurt.

He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Avery, listen to me. I ate way too much and I need about twenty minutes on the couch before I can move. Then I’ll help you with the dishes.”

“I don’t need help with the dishes.”

“Maybe not. But I need to help you with them.” He took hold of her arm just above the elbow, yet he didn’t move until she made up her own mind to follow. They headed for the living room, and when she tried to sit in her overstuffed chair covered with blue-and-white mattress ticking, he guided her onto the matching loveseat and into his lap.

He snuggled back into the corner and took her with him, his legs extended and hers nicely draped over his. He liked the weight of her, liked it a lot. With one arm around her back, the other resting above her knees, he decided he could sit like this for a very long time and be a happy man.

Having a happy woman, though, would be even better. And to get there they were going to have to talk, no matter how much he enjoyed digesting in silence. With his eyes closed. And too often with his mouth open while he snored.

“Avery?”

“Humph.”

Not quite a full snort. He supposed that was a good sign. “Talk to me.”

“About what?” She settled farther down into his lap.

Another good sign. “Dinner went well, don’t you think?”

“I suppose,” she said, her tone not as petulant as before but still pensive.

“What did you think of Leslie?”

She hesitated for a moment, pushing her hair back from her face. “I thought you would’ve given me an I-told-you-so by now.”

“Gloating’s not really my style.”

She cast him a sideways glance. “What is your style, David? Just your average sneaky bastard type?”

“You think I’m sneaky?” He gave himself the benefit of the doubt and left out the bastard part.

“I think you have an agenda, yes.”

Well, yeah. He did. He wouldn’t be here otherwise. “That’s a pretty broad observation. I actually have several.”

“So you admit it?”

“Sure. Why not?” He shrugged, resting an elbow on the loveseat’s padded arm and playing with the ends of her hair. He was going to die if he didn’t get to feel her hair on his skin—and soon. “Doesn’t everyone have one or two? You included?”

This time she shifted away in order to face him straight on. “And, Mr. Know-It-All, I suppose my agendas are obvious to you.”

He shook his head, feeling his pulse pick up speed as he took this conversation deeper. “Only the one that’s kept you in Tatem all these years.”

Her expression blanked. “And that one would be, what?”

“Staying connected to your past, though I’m not sure of the why,” he added, then waited, expecting her to jump up and show him to the door.

When she didn’t, he began breathing normally again. He wanted so much from her, with her, yet knew he couldn’t force what she wasn’t ready to face.

“Where did you go when you left Tatem?” was what she finally asked.

“El Paso, why?” And why did he think she’d known that?

“Was it easier for you there than it had been when you’d come back to school here, you know,” she added with a hitch of her shoulder, “after your suspension?”

That suspension had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to face in his eighteen years. He’d never fit in; that was true enough. But school had always been a breeze. It was returning with a new reputation that had put stars in his eyes.

Yeah, he’d been cool. But he still hadn’t had Avery. “Easier? In a lot of ways, yeah. I blended. Didn’t stand out as a brain, or as the troublemaker that had my father moving us out of Tatem in the end.”

“But did you hate it?” she asked, yet what he heard was, But did you hate me? She was still caught up in their senior year because of what she thought she’d caused to happen to him. Damn, but why hadn’t he seen that?

He moved his hand from her hair to the back of her neck where he began to massage. “Avery?”

She stiffened. Her gaze slid away. This time he wasn’t going to let her go until he said what he needed to say.

“It was my choice that night. My choice, to go after Johnny. I could’ve gone for help.”

She frowned, looked back at him, softly asked, “Why didn’t you? You wouldn’t have been hurt. Or suspended. You could’ve stayed in Tatem.”

“You think Johnny wouldn’t have gone after what he’d wanted if I’d ran?” He tried to keep the emotion from his voice, but his words came out strangled. “Do you think I could’ve lived with myself if I’d been too late getting back?”

“But I went with him—”

“No,” he said, cutting her off as tears welled in her eyes. “It was not your fault, do you hear me? Nothing that happened that night was your fault.”

“But if I hadn’t gone. If I’d told him no.” She closed her eyes, bowed her head. “I should have told him no.”

He wasn’t going to argue that. But he wasn’t going to let her accept responsibility for what he’d had to do. “Avery, you need to let it go. It’s been over and done now for fifteen years. Hell, I’m the one whose life was upended and I’ve gotten over it.”

“Have you?” she asked, moving her far hand to his chest and resting it there in the center where his heart had started to thud.

“Sure.” He tossed off the answer, sure of nothing but the way her touch was causing his blood to stir. “Why would you think I hadn’t?”

“Because you’re here. In Tatem. A tiny dot on only the most thorough road atlas.” She offered him a sadly wry smile. “Not a lot to see and do here. Even Mom and Leslie had to go to Alpine, for God’s sake, to have a decent night out.”

“I didn’t come back because I was looking for a decent night out.” He moved one hand to cup the back of her head, the other to cover hers on his chest. He watched her eyes widen, felt his own heartbeat thunder into their hands.

This was it. A moment fifteen years and ten months in coming. “I came back for you.”

For a moment, he thought she believed him, then the sad tinge to her smile deepened. “I don’t know why you would.”

He wanted to growl with frustration. “Are you still thinking I was serious? That day in your kitchen when I told you you’d ruined my life?”

She shrugged, twisted her mouth into a grimace. “No. I know you weren’t serious. But I’ve wondered so long about how things might’ve been. It’s strange, but that moment and all the ‘what ifs’ that followed have been hard to let go.”

“The ‘what ifs’ don’t matter, Avery. Nothing matters but here and now.”

“Give me time?” she asked so hesitantly that his aggravation stirred.

Time was one thing he wasn’t going to let her have.

“I can’t,” he said, before he pulled her toward him and ground his mouth to hers.

He poured all that he was feeling—the irritation and the desire—into the kiss, giving no quarter as he demanded she respond. He was desperate for her to respond.

And finally she did, tossing off her reticence, her hesitation, the uncertainty of her mood as she matched each stroke of his tongue, scooting around until she straddled his lap and wrapped his neck in her arms.

He’d never known a woman so mercurial yet so free with her passion when stirred. Tiny whimpers spilled from her mouth to his, and he felt the vibration of the sound all through her body.

He spread his legs and she shimmied even closer, then released him, her arms moving from around his neck to her blouse’s first button. Her eyes went glassy with desire.

It took the strength of Atlas for David to stop her from undressing and offering him heaven.

“Avery, wait.”

Her expression grew cold. “I’m beginning to think you’re a tease, David Marks. How many times now have you stopped me from jumping your bones?”

“Trust me,” he said with a less-than-steady growl. “You jumping my bones is the stuff of fantasies.”

“So…what, then?” She backed off his lap, got to her feet and looked down. “The reality’s too much for you?”

He managed to work himself up to a standing position without his erection snapping in half. Stifling a groan wasn’t as easy. And so he didn’t even try, though he toned down the sound from the were-wolf howl he felt like letting go.

“Here’s the reality, Avery. My reality,” he said once he stood in front of her. “I love you. I want you. But I don’t want a one-night stand. Or a cheap roll in the hay.” God, what a liar! At this point his body was ready for either of those.

He stepped closer; she backed toward the door. “What I want is for you to come to me because you want me. Not because you’re all revved up and need what I can give you. And not because you feel you owe me, or think sleeping with me will be a twisted way to make amends for the past.”

“I didn’t say—”

He cut her off ruthlessly. “I want you to come to me because I’m the only man you want. The only man you need. If that’s the case, then I’ll be at my place. I think you know where it is.”