Slow Hands by Lauren Bach

steel-toed boots most days, not four-inch spikes. The soles of her feet were on fire, especially after the long walk home.
    Then she remembered the reason she'd walked home and scowled at him. "I thought you were having breakfast with Scarlet."
    Alec started to remind her—as part of his cover—the two of them were supposed to be playing long-lost lovers. Except he had a funny feeling Ostman probably hadn't explained that aspect either.
    "Scarlet's sleeping off the punch." Actually, Scarlet had passed out in his car, and he'd carried her inside, left her on her couch. "Same thing you should be doing."
    Keira squared her shoulders. "Are you insinuating I can't handle my liquor?"
    Alec met her gaze. The makeup made her eyes look exotic. Smoky. And they snapped with green fire. His insides quaked. He was the one that couldn't handle it.
    "You could handle anything, Keira. I always admired that."
    She bit back a denial. He hadn't been around to see how she'd handled his leaving ten years ago. The aftermath had been disastrous.
    "Why did it have to be you?" she said instead. "Of all the people they could have sent."
    "I grew up here. I was a logical choice."
    A logical choice. What had she expected him to say? That he'd jumped at the chance to return? He'd had ten years to come back. The fact he hadn't said it all.
    "You hated Freedom," she said.
    He sighed, wished he had a legitimate rejoinder. 'It wasn't Freedom, per se. It was the lack of opportunity." How could he explain something that was more feeling than reason! "I think 90 percent of the males I graduated with felt the same."
    His answer, while disappointing, didn't surprise Keira. Each spring, the male high school seniors flocked out of town, even those not headed to college.
    She knew all the reasons: They had to see if the world was round... follow their wanderlust... prove the girl next door wasn't enough.
    Metropolis was a powerful lure. She remembered being tempted herself.
    She grabbed for a blasé response, sorry she'd brought the subject up. "Yeah. Well, in spite of the exodus, the town's still grown."
    "I was wrong to leave the way I did."
    His words caught her off guard. And made her mad.
    She didn't want to hear excuses. Not now. I was wrong to leave the way I did. What did he mean? That he should have found a better way to leave? Or that he should have stayed?
    "I got over it a long time ago, Alec. It doesn't matter anymore."
    "It should. Once we couldn't stand to be apart. Now you can't bear to be in the same room." "And this surprises you?"
    His words tore at her reserve of ill will. Every terrible thought she ever had about Alec Dempsey was stored in one place. And she didn't want to go there. Not now, not when she didn't feel totally in control.
    She bit her lip, silently counting, determined not to let him get to her.
    But it was too late. Her heart had waited ten years for its chance to tell him off.
    "I told everyone in town I was leaving with you, Alec," she blurted. "That we were getting married. I waited forever for you to return."
    The moment came screaming back as if it were yesterday. She had agreed to elope with Alec the morning after her senior prom. She had gone home to pack and tell her grandfather.
    But Alec didn't return the next day. Or the next. Or the next.
    Quite simply, she never saw or heard from him again. Until today.
    Oh, she'd heard about him. Had sent a message to him through his mother. But then nothing.
    Keira closed her eyes, drew on the internal strength that had gotten her through the difficult moments of her life.
    "At first I was certain something tragic had happened," she whispered. "That you were comatose in a hospital and couldn't reach me. Then I heard you joined the army. Heard you married. For a long time I hated you. But mostly, I wished I'd never met you." She cleared her throat. "Then I got over it."
    "I didn't mean to hurt you—"
    Keira rose, cutting him off with a faltering wave of her hand.
    She didn't want