Dying to Tell(8)

They also shared their first kiss that evening under the twinkling stars.

When school started, she figured he’d drop her and go back to his crowd, but he hadn’t. And she’d fallen hopelessly in love with him.

But she didn’t see love in his eyes now. Instead, his dark coffee-colored eyes were intense, angry, filled with a coldness that made her stomach quiver.

The blond stared at her with avid interest. Curiosity. Then sexual interest. Then as if she were a bug he wanted to dissect.

As if he were comparing her to her sister.

She sighed in frustration. She’d hated that part about being a twin. Everyone thought they were supposed to be just alike. To think alike. To read each other’s thoughts.

So they expected her to be crazy too.

Guilty or not, old instincts died hard, and she still had an innate urge to defend her sister.

But Papaw is dead...You have a mission here—to find out exactly what happened. What—or who—drove her to that point.

Sorrow gripped her for a moment at the thought of never seeing her grandfather again.

On the heels of that sorrow, the memory of breaking up with Jake taunted her. His father had just disappeared. Jake had been torn apart.

She’d had to leave because she knew the real story about what had happened to him.

It was the only way to protect Jake and her sister. And herself.

Of course he knew none of that.

And he never could. It would hurt him too much.

But judging from the anger sharpening his eyes, he remembered that she’d walked out. And he hated her for it.



Jake felt as if he was eighteen again, with his tongue tied to the roof of his mouth. Dammit, he’d hoped, prayed, that Sadie would have no effect on him now.

He was dead wrong.

The years fell away, and he saw her standing in the rain alone when she was eight and had missed the bus after school. Then the first day of high school, when she’d painted a picture of the sunset in art class that had made him realize that underneath that shy girl lay talent.

The night he’d first kissed her in the moonlight.

She’d been thin then, but feminine and sweet and so standoffish that most of the guys were afraid to date her. That, and they were afraid of her sister.

The intensity was still there, but she wasn’t thin now. Hell no. She’d developed curves in all the right places. Luscious curves that made his groin tighten.

He dragged his gaze from her eyes, torn by the well of emotions in them, and tried to wrestle in his reaction.

She might be Amelia’s twin, but they looked nothing alike to him. Sadie had always had a life about her. A spark that her sister hadn’t.

Her hair was a curly auburn mess now, spiraling over her shoulders in waves as if it had a mind of its own. Her clothes were nondescript—a plain black skirt, boots, and sweater—as if she didn’t want to draw attention to herself.

But those eyes. Those damn blue eyes were like sapphires, dark and full of secrets and...pain.

They always had been.

That anguish had sucked him in once.

Never again.

“Hey, ma’am, you’ve got to be Amelia Nettleton’s sister.” Mike’s deep drawl jerked him from his thoughts.

Sadie gave a curt nod, her gaze latching onto Jake.

Jake’s throat hurt, but he cleared it and took charge. “I didn’t know if you’d come or not.”

Anger flashed across her face for a brief second before she plastered on her tough-girl face. One he recognized from years before.

He’d thought it had been a mask back then, but maybe she really hadn’t given a damn.

She tightened her fingers around her big leather shoulder bag. “Of course I came. My grandfather just died.”

“Holy mother,” Mike said in a muffled voice. “You even sound like your sister.”

Jake wanted to argue with that. Sadie’s voice was lower, sexier. Especially when she’d whispered his name in bed.

Sadie shot Mike a belligerent look, then turned back to him. “Where is she, Jake?”

He hated to be the bearer of such bad news, especially considering the way they’d parted. “In the back.”

Her expression didn’t falter. Calm, cool, collected. Only he knew her better.

He knew she could lose control, that she was ticklish behind her ear, that she liked long, heated kisses and skinny-dipping in the dark at Slaughter Creek.

That she moaned long and hard when she came.

“Tell me what happened,” she said, obviously oblivious to his thoughts. “Your version, before I talk to Amelia.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek. So that was how she wanted to play it. As if nothing had ever happened between them. As if they’d never been friends. Or lovers. As if he’d never held her in his arms while she’d cried out in ecstasy.