“She’s dead. How did he win?”
She couldn’t put it into words without betraying Wendy. The things Wendy’s father had done to her were her last secret, and Max would keep it. He’d won, because in the end, Wendy had still turned to a man to save her. Men had always failed her. She was doomed from the moment she left her husband to run to another man. And Bud Traynor had twisted the knife, brought her down.
One day Max would make him pay for that. The day would come.
Nick regarded her, hand supporting his chin, index finger resting on his lip. “How did you know her?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.” Such a beautiful double entendre. Wendy came to life inside her once again. Like a light switch, the anger winked out, and desire blazed like a thousand-watt bulb.
In life, being wanted was what had made Wendy feel alive. She’d lost everything in the end, except for a little while, when she’d had complete control over her body’s responses, when two men had wanted her. Then, Wendy had power. Big-time power.
Max dug her fingers into her palms. Her body’s heatwave receded with the pain. She leaned forward. “I’m a psychic.”
She wondered fleetingly if Cameron would have approved the admission. He would certainly have approved her in-your-face attitude.
She expected shock, even anger. Nick merely nodded. “I knew there was something.”
“You mean you believe me?” She clamped her jaw shut when she realized her mouth hung open.
“I knew you were special. You scared the shit out of me when I first saw you. You scare the shit out of me now. You’re not going to be an easy woman to live with.” The assumption in the statement turned Wendy giddy.
“I won’t live in your wife’s shadow.”
“I don’t want you to. No fuckups this time. I want to start over.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You don’t understand. I mean it’s over. I’m not like your wife. I’m not like Wendy.”
“I know. That’s why I think I love you.”
She almost laughed, caught herself only at the last moment. Inside her, Wendy cried. To finally hear those words, the ones she’d wanted so badly, the ones she’d died without hearing.
He’d said them to the wrong woman.
For Wendy, Max wanted to see him hurting. “You don’t love me. You want to take care of me. You remember seeing me at the Round Up going from man to man.” A shiver ran like a spider across her shoulders, but she went on. “And you want to save me.”
“What’s wrong with wanting to help you?”
“I don’t want a man who acts only on his passions, his pain, and his guilt. I will not depend on you. I will not have my wounds healed by you. I will not have my one-night stands fixed by you.” She stabbed her chest. “I will do it on my own.”
The words were as much for herself as for Nick. A surge of power straightened her spine. She liked the feeling.
She just wasn’t sure she could live up to it on dark, lonely nights.
Her nose tingled with the elusive scent of peppermint. She sucked in her breath. “Are you eating candy?”
“What?”
She yanked open the glove box, found nothing but papers. “No peppermints,” she murmured.
He cocked his head, his mouth lifting at one edge in a smile. “Did anyone ever say you were a little crazy?”
She laughed. “Yes, my husband. All the time. Good-bye, Nickie.”
She reached behind her, opened the truck door, stepped down onto the pavement.
“Hey, wait a minute. Where are you going?”
“Home. I meant it, Nick. I don’t want to be with you.”
He looked at her, a play of unreadable emotions racing across his face. “I’ll drive you.”
“It’s only three blocks back to my place. I can do it on my own. I don’t need a man to take care of me.”
“Wait.” He held out his hand, his eyes intense, willing her to take what he offered.
She almost slammed the door on him, then changed her mind. “Tell me, Nick, when you were feeling so guilty because you believed you’d driven your wife to kill your lover, did you ever even think about the fact that by confessing, you would be leaving your kids to be raised by a murderer?”
Chapter Thirty
Nicholas Drake hadn’t followed her home.
As she moved from shade to warmth to shade along the sidewalk, she felt oddly empty. No Cameron inside her head, whispering, cajoling, or taunting. And now no Wendy. The woman was gone. Max wasn’t quite sure what had sent her away. Was it something she said, something Nick said? Did it even matter? Something had liberated the poor woman’s tormented spirit.
It was almost anti-climatic.
Wendy was free.
Max couldn’t say the same for herself.
Running to Nick had been the easy way out for Wendy, just as returning to her nameless, aimless one-night stands had been Max’s flight from Cameron’s death and the things his killers had done to her.