Save Your Heart For Me

 

 

                The tall younger woman kept her head lowered and all he saw was her shapely backside while she tugged at the corner of her navy skirt caught under one leg of the safe.  

            “Let me.” He tilted the safe to free the fabric, then pushed the unwieldy block of metal into place.

            “Oh, finally.” She shook out her skirt and bent to brush at the stain marring the hem. “Thank you—“ When she straightened and looked up at him, she fell silent and paled as if she’d seen a ghost.

            Hell, he figured she had. A phantom from her past. 

            “Beth? Beth Jeffers?” Matt tried to mask the sensations raised by seeing her again—surprise, longing, heartache—but doubted he succeeded. 

            She, on the other hand, quickly recovered her composure and turned up her nose as if she’d smelled a skunk. “What are you doing here?”

            “Honestly, Beth, I’m surprised at you.” Her mother looked from one to the other. “You two know each other?”

Beth pushed a stray golden curl from her face and raised her chin. “We met long ago.”

She wore her blonde hair in a bun, but wisps escaped to frame her face. Time had been good to her. The years had rounded her a bit in the right places and softened her—except for her ice-cold blue eyes.

            She gave Matt a measuring glare and balled her fists at her hips as if challenging him. “Whatever you want, you won’t find it here.”

            Matt wanted to say something sharp to make her think he cared nothing for what she thought, but his mind went blank. Danged if she wasn’t prettier than when he’d known her six years ago, especially without bruises marring her ivory skin from her sonofabitch husband’s fist.