Dangerous Kisses by Trish Milburn

Author:Trish Milburn [Milburn, Trish]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Amazon: B00550M0SU
Goodreads: 11784542
Publisher: Trish Milburn
Published: 2011-06-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

Long seconds ticked by, and still Jake said nothing. The silence hung heavier with each passing moment until Sydney had to cut into it.

"What’s wrong?"

"Nothing." Jake stood and walked into the kitchen. She watched as he retrieved a Coke from the refrigerator, then took a long swallow. He stared at the can as if seeing that night long ago when he’d lost his father.

Sydney rose and moved next to him but didn’t push him to confess all.

"I know what it’s like," she said, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "How hard it is to open up to anyone. Everyone and their dog wants you to ‘let it go’ but you’ve held it in so long, it’s easier to keep doing so."

"It’s no big deal. Lots of kids lose their fathers."

"Yes, but they lose them to car wrecks, cancer, heart attacks. They meet other kids who’ve been through the same thing. But when your parent is murdered, it’s hard to find someone who knows how that feels, how it knocks a hole in your heart and keeps eating at you no matter how much time passes."

Jake turned toward her and leaned against the countertop. "What happened to your mother?"

The old pain scorched her heart, but if she expected Jake to open up, she had to do the same.

"Mom was a nurse. She’d always worked the morning shift, but she switched to a later shift because it paid more. Her shift ended about midnight. Before she got out of the parking lot, she was carjacked." A chill sliced through Sydney accompanied by a shudder. "Someone shot her and left her lying there. She was seconds away from the emergency room, but she didn’t have a chance."

"You said someone. They didn’t identify the carjacker?"

Sydney shook her head and felt again like the little girl she’d been that morning when her father had awakened her with red-rimmed, teary eyes to tell her that her mother was gone.

"No. They never arrested anyone. I don’t think they had any idea who killed her. Sometimes I wondered whether they cared."

"I’m sorry."

The old anger that was as much a part of her as her heart or lungs threatened to take over, to color the world as it had for so many years before she safely tucked it away. Jake didn’t need to know how there’d been a carjacking prior to her mother’s, how the police had known a predator was prowling through the dark streets of Kimmerville and hadn’t warned the public. Jake was a cop, yes, but he wasn’t one of those cops. He might have some of the same tendencies, as all cops seemed to, but she couldn’t hold that long-ago wrong against him.

She glanced over at him and offered a faint smile. For a few moments, they stood silently side by side, each wrapped in their own memories.

"What about the man who shot your father?"

"They killed the bastard," he said, his voice hard and sharp. "As soon as they pulled those little girls and my dad out of the way, they stormed the house.

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