Just Let Go… by Kathleen O'Reilly Page B

for her keys, even though they were sitting right in plain sight. No, in truth, she was waiting for Austen once again, but at least this time he didn’t disappoint.
    Her eyes traced over him, searching for some hint of the boy she knew, but this man was a tall, dark stranger. The beer-dumping had only highlighted his charms. The thin cotton shirt clung to a powerful chest, his hair darkened to a weathered bronze. His smile was full of all that confidence he’d never had. Liquid dark eyes met hers without remorse, as if she were nothing but a floozy in a bar. Gillian could feel her rage building again. Anger at her own mistakes as well as his.
    “Why did you show up here tonight?” she railed, kicking up gravel as she paced. “What did you expect?”
    “Not the beer. Nice exit, though.” He ran a hand through his hair and stared at her. Ogled would be the better word choice. The cherry-popping glance slid to the swell of her breasts, arrogantly resting there as if he knew what was underneath. He did.
    That stopped her in her tracks. Gillian resisted the urge to cover herself, willing herself not to react. “I thought you had left,” he continued, finally moving his eyes back to her face.
    “Not me. I’m not the leaver. I’m not the one who has to run scared.”
    His brows rose. “Is that why you’re waiting out here? Because you couldn’t be the first one to leave? Stubborn, but unnecessary.” She didn’t like the taunt. That wasn’t something he would have done in the past. He’d been thoughtless, but never cruel.
    “I wasn’t done yelling at you,” she explained, which was mostly the truth.
    “I didn’t know you had started.” The shrewd gaze was studying her, curious and aroused.
    “Don’t be cute,” she snapped, not liking the fevered tension in the air, the way her anger felt too out of control.
    “It’s part of my charm.” He leaned against a parked pickup, his hands in his pockets, a flagrant display of masculine swagger. It was another new trait; one that unnerved her. Gillian glanced down, quickly shifted her gaze from exactly where he wanted it to be.
    Bastard.
    This time, Gillian did cross her arms across her chest. The air was too hot, he was too hot, and she could feel the flames licking at her face, her skin and the budded tips of her breasts. “This was a mistake. I don’t want to be here. I didn’t want to put on a show for the entire town.”
    He shrugged easily, a smile playing around his mouth. “Could have fooled me.”
    “That was pride,” she admitted, because pride was a better excuse than lust.
    “If that was pride, then what is this?” he asked, seeming as if he knew the answer, seeming as if he expected her to fall in line, fall into his bed.
    At that, Gillian told her body to get it together. She would not be played. Not by him. She released her arms from their candy-assed position, and rested against the judge’s Honda. Languidly she crossed one long leg over the other, cocked her hips just so, because this was pride. This was ego.
    This was war.
    “You don’t think I can resist you, do you?” she told him, her smile every bit as pulse-pounding as his. “You think I want to crack open your cookie jar? No, sir.”
    She saw a flicker in his eyes. “You didn’t used to think that way.”
    “I got smart.” Then she shrugged, a careless roll of one shoulder that brought his eyes back to her breasts, and brought the tingles back to her skin. “Did you leave because you were scared? Afraid you couldn’t measure up?”
    His warm smile froze. “You didn’t used to be a bitch, Gillian.”
    “Back in the day, I was always a bitch. Knew it, did it, I owned it. But I wasn’t mean to you. I was always good to you. Always careful, always kind. I wanted to make you a part of this town, and I didn’t deserve to be left high and dry on the most important day of my life.” She met his eyes squarely because this was more important than beer, more important than