Loving Constance by Lyn Cote

Author:Lyn Cote
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steeple Hill
Published: 2004-08-31T04:00:00+00:00

Hours later, Connie let Rand into her Volvo and they drove away from Annie’s home. He’d planned to catch a taxi home, but had stayed at the Nielsen apartment hoping to pick up any possible lead or even a hint of one. None had come, but what he’d learned from Annie about the bills reinforced his own hunch.

“I still can’t take it in.” Connie stared through the windshield. “There has to be some explanation for why Troy would—”

“Would take all the money and run?” Rand couldn’t keep the snide trace out of his voice.

Connie made no reply.

Rand’s conscience nudged him. “Sorry. I’m not happy about what Annie found out today. It’s just…I get so tired of this garbage myself. Annie’s a sweet mother and the kids are great and…”

“And you obviously still think Troy has abandoned them?” Connie said, a warning in her tone.

Give it up. “And you think,” Rand said acidly, “he’s still a knight in shining armor and will return with the Holy Grail.”

Silence.

“He can’t have planned to leave Annie penniless…. There has to be some reason, some explanation—”

“Of what?” He made a sound of disgust at himself. Why did he want to make her see how nasty the world really was? Just because of what he’d suffered, did he need to mock someone who was struggling to deny the damning truth about a childhood friend? He left them penniless, Connie, whether he planned it or not. He did it.

“I don’t know what has happened to Troy.” Connie’s knuckles whitened as she clenched her fingers around the steering wheel.

“Then we’re in the same sinking boat. I don’t know for certain, either.” Though I have a good guess. Feeling even his bones were weary, Rand let the surliness drain from him before he went on speaking. “You know what I think and I know what you think. Let’s just drop this, okay?”

“Okay.”

Silence.

In it, his awareness of Connie expanded and sharpened. He watched her glance into her rearview mirror, slow to a stop, accelerate and rotate the wheel when they turned a corner. Then they were on the tollway out to Taperville.

The light from the dash and the tall sodium lamps gave a ghostly light to her clear, attractive features. Her distinctive scent, some expensive fragrance no doubt, was all around him. Her slender arm reached out and she snapped on the CD player. An eerie, Celtic melody filled the car. It suited the woman beside him, the woman who more and more was never very far from his thoughts.

For a moment, he let his imagination run wild and free. He imagined moving closer to the warm vibrant woman he sensed Connie Oberlin to be. He would touch her soft cheek and turn her face in his hands. I would kiss your lips…

He snapped off his imagination. His heart was jumping in his chest. That’s why I wanted to be the one to deliver the truck. I knew Connie would be there. I want to kiss her, hold her. This admission left him reeling as if he’d just run into a wall in the dark.

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