Chapter One
Jeremy stumbled along a deserted road just outside Vegas. At least…he thought he was outside Vegas. The heatwave-shimmer of darkness on the horizon could be Pittsburgh. Reno. Aliens. It depended on whether this was dehydration or a really bad hangover. With the April sun beating down on his head, Jeremy was leaning toward dehydration. He felt like an egg in a frying pan, sizzled and broken.
Though he was pretty sure the sunlight wasn’t to blame for how he’d gotten here.
He’d come to Vegas for a little fun. That was what leave was about, right? Fast times, cheap booze, plenty of gambling. He was pretty sure people only ended up bruised and stranded in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, in the movies. He blamed the damned squid for his own personal reenactment of The Hangover. Jeremy had kept his cool until the sailor had called him a coward and a jarhead.
Then he’d lost it.
He wished he could blame the alcohol, but he’d been sober at that point. It wasn’t until after the fight, his eye black and his lip swollen, that he’d nursed his wounded pride with a visit from Johnny Walker. His own temper, built up over the months of a high-tension deployment, had gotten him into this mess. The liquor had just made his bruises hurt a little less.
Though he’d sure as hell like to know what happened between the bottom of the bottle and the side of the road.
He fingered the split in his lower lip and let out a bitter laugh. Idiot. At twenty-seven, he should know better than to drink until he dropped. He never lost control like that. Never let himself. Not after what his father had done to his mother. His father had blamed the bottle, too.
Yeah. Right. Even sober, his father was an ass**le.
Jeremy wouldn’t let himself follow in his father’s footsteps: a loser behind bars, with no hope for a future and no one who loved him enough to bother visiting. Jeremy was a Marine. He made his own life, did his best to look after people.
And if he roughed up one squid on leave, well…Jeremy hadn’t thrown the first punch. Sure, he’d lost the fight and ended up as desert road kill—but at least he could claim self-defense.
With a snort, he ducked his head against the sunlight and trudged along the road. At least he’d get to work on his tan.
That tan was turning into the beginning of a sunburn before he finally heard a car engine rumbling behind him. It was the first sign of life he’d seen since he stumbled out of the desert. Finally. He’d started to think he’d slept through the end of the world. Zombies optional.
He turned to walk backward, facing the wavering silver gleam that sped toward him. His mouth was too dry to even try shouting, his tongue swollen. He waved his arms over his head like a madman and stepped into the road. The late afternoon sun reflected off the hood, blinding him.
Please don’t run me over.
Not that it wouldn’t be a fitting end to this hellish day.
Brakes screeched. Jeremy stumbled off the road and landed on his ass in the sand. Grit stung his reddened skin. A cactus decided to f**k with him just a little more and poked into his back. Son of a bitch. He rubbed at his eyes; negative-image floaters swam against the insides of his eyelids.
A car door opened with a k-chnk. Footsteps pounded the pavement, their noise drawing closer. Jeremy cracked his eyelids open enough to squint at the driver. Short. Female. That was all he could make out.
She dropped to her knees at his side. “Are you all right?”
Her voice was soft. Sweet. Melodious. Familiar. He thought of warm summer nights by the pool, watching the stars.
With his best friend’s sister at his side.
Oh, hell.
“…Erica?” Please, God, no. Anyone but Erica. He rubbed at his eyes and blinked at her. Same brown hair. Same brown eyes. Same soft, sweet face. It was Erica, all right.
Shit.
“Do I know you…?” She eyed him warily, her eyes empty of recognition.
Any moment now she’d remember him. Jeremy Addison. The fool who’d confessed his love to her. The idiot who’d driven her away with his stupid mouth. She’d run before he’d even finished the you in I love you. It had been years, but she’d remember.
And it would all go downhill from there.
And five…four…three…two…
“…Jeremy? Is that you?”
“Yep,” he croaked. The only way this day could get worse was if her brother was in the car. Tommy. His ex-best friend. That would dropkick things from downhill to straight into the shitter pretty fast.
Jeremy cleared his throat and tried to force something resembling a human voice past his lips. “Uh. How are you?”
“How am I?” Her eyes widened. “How are you? What the hell happened? You look like a POW.”
Her soft, cool hands pressed to his shoulders, then slid over him. He knew she was only checking for injuries, but his heart stumbled nonetheless. Maybe if his skin didn’t feel like an overcooked hot dog, he’d actually enjoy her touch.
“I don’t remember,” he mumbled.
What he really meant was I drank myself into a drunken stupor. And I think now I’ll go do it again, thank you. Go ahead and run away now. This time, I won’t blame you. And this time, he thought, he’d try tequila. Anything to erase the memory of humiliating himself in front of the girl he’d been in love with since the first grade.
He sighed. “The last I remember, I was hanging around the Bellagio. Hadn’t even cracked my first beer.. Some Navy jackass called me out. Picked a fight with ten of his buddies. Next thing I know, I’m waking up with a mouthful of sand.”
“How long have you been out here?” She felt his forehead. He could’ve told her without checking; he was running somewhere between fricasseed and hot as hell, Fahrenheit.
He gritted his teeth. “No clue.”
“Come on.” She slung an arm under his and gave him her shoulder. “In the car. You’re probably dehydrated. I have some bottled water.”
He’d have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. Jeremy had a good foot or more on Erica. She’d hit five foot one when they were eleven, and hadn’t grown an inch since. He still remembered her marking off her height on the doorframe of her family’s antique frame house, and finally giving up after it didn’t change for six straight months. Sad that he still remembered that—her pretty, slim fingers curled around the marker, the way she pouted.
But he always remembered things like that. Story of his life.
It was more stubbornness than strength that got him back on his feet. She wrapped her arm around his hips, as if she had even half a chance of supporting him. His heart gave a painful lurch, and his gut tightened. He ignored it. His body and heart never could be objective where Erica was concerned.