The Boys Next Door Read online

  Judah cleared his throat. Against his will, his gaze flicked downward, tracing the line of her thighs through her faded jeans. “He’s all right. He’s in Washington these days. Bought a farm there. He’s married now.” He watched Annie closely, wanting to see her reaction.

  If his words surprised her, she hid it well. “That’s great. When was this?”

  “Seven, eight years ago. Something like that. He’s got kids,” Judah elaborated. “Two boys and a girl.”

  Something flickered briefly in her eyes, but she only smiled. “That makes you an uncle. Congratulations.”

  “Yeah, I guess it does.” He cleared his throat again.

  “And you?” she asked. “How about you?”

  Her eyes were too soft. Too warm. Too lovely. Judah shifted uncomfortably and pushed back his Stetson. “Me? I’ll never leave Montana.” He snorted. “You know me.”

  “Do I?”

  Two words, one little question, and suddenly it seemed like there wasn’t enough air for his lungs. Never mind the vast blue sky above them, or the miles of open, rolling hills all around. Judah moved closer, his voice dropping half an octave. “I’ll always be here, Annie. You know that.”

  Her gaze rose to meet his, full of shadows. Maybe longing. Something thrummed in the air between them, and Judah stepped away quickly.

  Christ, what was he doing?

  “So, how long you in town for?” He leaned against the porch railing, absently noting the flaking paint. Ought to do something about that, he thought, then: Why bother? It’s not like it matters.

  But it still broke his heart.

  Annie shrugged. “Just overnight, really. I booked a room at the boarding house.”

  He nodded. “You drive out here?”

  “Yeah. I parked up on the ridge. I…I didn’t want anyone to see me.”

  Which was probably smart, Judah admitted. Even thoughtful. Maybe Annie had changed, if only a little.

  Suddenly, he wasn’t so happy with the idea.

  Then he pictured her sliding pell-mell down the slope, sending dirt flying and scaring the cattle half to pieces. He had to fight to suppress a smile. Yeah, that was the Annie he remembered, all right.

  “Well, come on,” he said, straightening. “I’ll give you a lift.”

  She was silent as he drove down the long, dusty ranch road, hopping out without his asking to open the livestock gate at the far end. Her hair hung in her face, and in the afternoon light she looked as slim and nimble as she had at seventeen. She grinned at him as she climbed back into the truck. “Thought I forgot that, didn’t you?”

  Judah merely grunted and turned onto Route 32.

  But as they rattled up the dirt track running up to the ridge, he heard himself saying, “If you’re bored tonight, go on down to the pool hall. They put in a dance floor,” he added awkwardly. Shut up, Judah!

  “Are you going to be there?”

  “Dunno. I doubt it.”

  Hell no, Judah, and what in hell are you thinking?

  “Well, maybe I’ll think about it, then,” she answered. “Thanks for the lift. And say hi to your mom for me. I miss her.” Opening the door, she hesitated. “It’s good to see you, Judah.”

  He didn’t answer, and after a moment she climbed out. He waited as she walked to what looked like a brand-new Buick, started it up and backed it around. Her eyes met his once through the windshield, and she waved as she drove past.

  He didn’t wave back.

  Judah watched in the rearview mirror until the Buick was out of sight. He wasn’t going to the pool hall. It had taken too many years for the hole in his chest to stop aching constantly. Too many sleepless nights wondering where she was, how she was. Wondering if she was all right.

  She was fine, and that was enough. He didn’t need to know more than that. He didn’t want to know more.

  And he sure as hell didn’t want her getting anywhere near Tommy.

  Putting the truck in gear, he turned it around, his hands tight on the wheel as he drove back past the old house. Already it seemed impossible to believe she’d actually been there, appearing suddenly out of the past like a ghost.

  The open door was what had attracted his attention, making him go up onto the porch to see if someone was inside. He’d caught folks squatting there a few times, hitch-hikers and vagrants and such. He suspected the local teenagers sometimes used it as a hangout.

  To have Annie run out the open door and into his arms had staggered him on a level he wasn’t sure he could deal with. He probed gingerly, feeling for cracks in his armor, testing to see if his heart was still intact. He couldn’t tell—he could no longer recall what it had felt like yesterday.

  He wasn’t certain, actually, when it had last felt a thing.

  Time was like that, he mused—it kept creeping by you. The days piled up like boards in a lumber mill, each one hardly any different from the next, until something shocked you out of your routine, making you question who you were, what you wanted…

  Remembering the feel of her body pressed against him, her arms clutching him with such fierce need his cock had hardened automatically, Judah clenched his jaw.

  One thing for sure, he didn’t want Annie Parsons.

  And he was, by God, not—repeat not—going to the pool hall tonight.

  He drove over the next hillock and down into the meadow, and pulled up beside the new ranch—a modern split-level in which everything worked, nothing needed fixing, no one screamed at each other or shoved or came to blows, ever. Parking his Silverado beside Tommy’s white F-150, Judah took a deep breath and went into the house.

  Ma was knitting on the old paisley sofa, which still looked out of place in the dull, beige-toned living room. Seeing him in the archway, she looked up and smiled. Judah hesitated a moment, then continued on down the hall.

  Tommy looked over as he walked into the kitchen. “Everything all right out at the old place?”

  “Fine,” he answered, opening the fridge and taking out a beer. Tommy glanced at the clock in surprise. It was only one-thirty, but Judah didn’t care. He needed a drink, damn it.

  And damn Annie Parsons, he added as he started to open it and realized his hands were shaking.

  Chapter Three

  They really had put in a dance floor, Annie saw with some surprise. Not just a little ten-by-twelve Pergo square, either.

  The front half of the pool hall had changed hardly at all—the billiard tables still listed like ships at sea, and the worn wooden counter running around the walls was scarred with ancient cigarette burns and randomly carved graffiti. The solid clack of pool balls punctuated the strains of Johnny Cash playing somewhere in the background, while men circled the tables in their blue jeans and Stetsons, sucking on beers and muttering in low voices.

  It all looked the same. It looked exactly the same. Even the neon Budweiser signs could have been twenty years old.

  But beyond the short, utilitarian bar the back wall had been knocked out, opening up a cavernous space which was once, she suspected, part of the old Woolworth’s stockroom. A raised stage at the far end provided room for a band, although none was in evidence. Instead, a jukebox played in one corner, its colored lights reflecting in the large mirrored ball that rotated over the darkened dance floor. Around the edges, Formica tables with sturdy metal legs were clustered, most of them empty. One solitary couple swayed, hip-locked, to the music.

  She hadn’t seen the Silverado Judah had been driving this afternoon parked outside. Then again, she hadn’t really expected to.

  Why had he lied to her? She was almost certain he had. It was the throat-clearing, she mused—it always gave him away. Taciturn, inscrutable, so self-contained she’d wondered for years if he even liked her, Judah nevertheless royally sucked at lying.

  It was obvious he hadn’t been exactly thrilled to see her. Not that she blamed him, but he could have at least smiled. Even once would have done. But he hadn’t. He’d been rigid as a fence post, even when she’d hug
ged him.

  Annie flushed slightly, remembering. Hugged him? She’d practically thrown herself at him. God, what had she been thinking?

  She’d just been so relieved to see him, was all. Relieved and overwrought and not thinking at all—not, at least, till his coldness had finally penetrated.

  If he’d missed her at all, it sure hadn’t shown.

  Well, that was what she’d hoped for, wasn’t it? Hadn’t she wanted him to be over it? Over her?

  But then why had he lied? The question had haunted her all afternoon as she’d wandered through Melgrove, revisiting old haunts. Was he still angry at her? Were he and Tommy still not talking, and he didn’t want her to know?

  She hoped it was true, damn it—she wanted Tommy to be married, happily raising kids somewhere in Washington state. Of all of them, he deserved it most.

  Of all of them, he’d been the only one who hadn’t done anything wrong.

  Picturing Tommy’s broad, easy grin, Annie sighed to herself. God, she’d give just about anything to know if he’d forgiven her, if he’d gotten over her betrayal and gone on with his life.

  Well, she wasn’t going to find out, apparently. Not, at least, if it depended on Judah.

  But Judah was hardly the only person in town she could ask.

  Straightening her shoulders, she skirted the pool tables, commandeered a stool at the bar and ordered a beer. The bartender glanced at her sidelong as he popped it open, his gaze lingering as if he was trying to trace a resemblance.

  “You from around here?”

  It was the opening she’d been hoping for. Annie smiled as she tilted the bottle. “Not anymore. I used to be, though.”

  “Thought so. You go to Melgrove High?”

  “Sure did, Wally Harmon, and I’m insulted that you don’t remember.”

  His eyes widened. “Annie? Annie Parsons?”

  She grinned. “How’ve you been, Wally?”

  She knocked back the whiskey he insisted on buying her, making chit-chat about his wife and two kids, slowly sipping her beer until enough time had passed for her to ask without pushing, “You know who I wonder about sometimes? Tommy Ambinder. Whatever happened to him, do you know?”

  “Tommy? That’s right—you two were a real item that last year of high school, weren’t you? Least till you left all of a sudden like that.” His gaze sharpened, becoming inquisitive, and Annie could almost see the gossip-gears turning.

  To forestall the obvious question, she asked quickly, “So where’s he at these days? Is he still around?”

  “You might say that,” Wally answered, grinning. Turning from her, he leaned over the back side of the bar. “Hey, Tommy! C’mere!”

  Oh God. Annie froze, something skittering queasily in her stomach. Suddenly, the whiskey she’d slugged didn’t seem like such a good idea.

  In the back room, a lone figure unfolded from behind a table. Annie watched it, one hand going to her hair which she hadn’t done more than rake a brush through after her shower at the boarding house—and why, for God’s sake, hadn’t she put on any make-up?

  God oh God oh God.

  Well, there was no help for it now. Nervous, uneasy, she shifted on the bar stool as that tall figure walked toward her, refractions from the mirrored ball catching briefly in his blond hair, leaving his face in shadows. Halfway to the bar he stopped short in surprise, and Annie braced herself for the coming rejection.

  Instead, Tommy lengthened his stride, his eyes wide as he came around the bar. “Annie? Holy June bugs in July, is that really you?”

  He was smiling—he couldn’t be smiling—but he was, a grin so huge it seemed to stretch to his ears. With a whoop, he swept her off her stool, spinning her around and sloshing her beer, and suddenly Annie was smiling back, hugging him, forgetting all about her messy hair.

  “I never—”

  “Where have you—”

  “It’s been so—”

  “When did you get so tall?”

  They finally stopped talking over each other for half a second and simply stood, looking. Then they both burst out laughing. “You first,” Tommy said gallantly. “Let me get you another beer.”

  “Thanks.” Grinning, she let go of his hand and watched as he got two more beers from Wally. He had gotten tall, taller even than Judah. His shoulders had filled out and now rolled like a young bull’s, the muscles showing even through his soft flannel shirt. His hair was longer, not clipped into the crew cut she remembered, but still the same sandy, sun-tinted gold.

  He glanced at her from under shaggy bangs as he paid for the beers. Wow, Annie thought, suddenly seeing him—really seeing him. His features had become firmer over the years, the underlying bones of his face settling under his boyish good looks into a quiet strength that reminded her of his brother.

  “Damn, Annie, I can’t believe you’re here.”

  Small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened as he smiled, his eyes glowing with a familiar warmth that set her heart racing. His voice was so soft it stroked along her senses, shortening her breath as remembered feelings tumbled through her.

  He is inside her, his hips flexing as he pushes gently against her opening. They’ve come close before, but never this close. Never with him actually inside her, the hard thickness of his cock entering her bit by bit. It’s exhilarating, but it’s scary too—she knows that what they are doing is irreversible, there is no going back, and Tommy knows it too. She can see it in his eyes, the thread of care and worry woven through his obvious desire, a care which has been there every day of their lives.

  It’s why he is so gentle, despite his own raging hunger—like her, he has never done this before. Not like this. Not all the way.

  This afternoon, she is determined to give him that. She’s even brought a condom.

  He’d been nervous, putting it on, his fingers fumbling awkwardly with the slippery latex as he rolled it down over his jutting shaft. Annie hadn’t been the only one who giggled.

  Now she feels it sliding against her, slick and foreign-feeling against her tender flesh. She can’t help but wonder what it would feel like without it, what it would be like to have just Tommy inside her, skin against skin, smooth and silky and…

  Tommy groans, his head tossing back, his entire body going rigid above her. Staring up at him, she clenches her inner muscles again, feeling her own arousal leap as Tommy’s groans turn desperate, his cock squeezed tight by her inexperienced efforts.

  A wholly feminine satisfaction unfurls inside her and Annie repeats the experiment, gripping him so tightly his face goes slack and mindless, all his attention centered on the throbbing bliss in his groin. His muscles bunch reflexively, his ass flexing beneath her hands as he pushes in again harder, his movements jerky now, barely within his control. His cock swells inside her, stretching her uncomfortably, and Annie bites her lip. Then Tommy is surging forward, plunging in so deep it makes her gasp, his groans growing hoarser as his hips pump uncontrollably.

  “Oh God, Annie. Jesus, I can’t…”

  He freezes above her, his groans choking off, and his face contorts as he peaks, pressing hard against her.

  Just a little harder, she pleads silently, squirming against him, working her mons instinctively against the jut of his pubic bone. Just a little more, Tommy, please…

  Her movements make him shudder, his whole body quivering as his cock throbs inside her. Sweaty, overwhelmed, he slumps against her, his head coming to rest on the pillow of her shoulder. His mouth searches blindly along the curve of her collarbone, and Annie strokes his sandy hair, fighting against her own unsated hunger, trying to find enjoyment in Tommy’s obvious satisfaction.

  When he finally lifts his head, his eyes shine with something very near to worship.

  There was an echo of that look still in the way he gazed at her now. Annie felt her breath heaving in her chest as she stared back at him, cheeks heating with the memory.

  Their very first time. The week after the Melgrove Rodeo. She re
membered it like it was yesterday.

  His expression changed as he watched her, a question forming in the depths of those clear blue eyes. Then he took her hand. “C’mon. Let’s go snag a seat.”

  He settled her at a table in the back room near the stage, as far away from the jukebox as they could get. It was relatively quiet here, cozy in the semi-darkness. The lone couple still rocked slowly, hips glued to hips, despite the up-tempo beat of the Shania Twain song now playing. Annie glanced at them, and then glanced away.

  “Now,” Tommy said, turning his chair around and folding his arms across the back, “tell me everything.”

  She laughed nervously. “What’s to tell? I work for Missoula County. My job’s a mass of paperwork. I had a cat for a while. That pretty much covers it.”

  He cocked an eyebrow mock-sternly, as if to say Twenty years and that’s it? I don’t buy it. “You ever marry?”

  She shook her head.

  “No kids?”

  “Nope.” She smiled gamely, ignoring the sudden ache in her chest.

  “Pity,” he said, matching her light tone. “You’d have made a great mom.”

  “Hey, I’m not done yet, boy!” she protested. “Don’t count me out yet.”

  He returned her smile with one of his own—and God, how she remembered that grin! It sent little tingles all the way to her toes, warming every inch of her. Then his gaze grew serious. “You were that close, all this time.”

  His eyes reproached her, and she looked down at her beer. “I know. Big, dramatic exit and I never left the state. Crazy, huh?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Not crazy. But why didn’t you ever come back?”

  “God, Tommy! How can you ask me that?”

  “Yeah.” He sighed deeply. “I guess we didn’t make it very easy on you, huh?”

  We? She glanced at him, startled. He caught her expression and grimaced. “Hell, I’ve known you since forever, Annie. I always knew you had a crush on Ju.” She stared at him, totally taken aback. He grinned again, self-deprecatingly. “Doesn’t mean I wasn’t jealous, though.”