Tempting Evan Read online

  “So I guess you and Evan are an item now, huh?”

  “I . . . no. No, we’re not.”

  “Oh.” Her face screws up in a picture of confusion. “My bad. I just assumed. I mean, before. You know, when Emily was alive, I could see why it wouldn’t work. I mean she’d be so . . . .” She trails off, waving a hand. “I just mean that I saw you guys arrive together. And I know you had a huge crush on him back when we were kids. And last year I heard—”

  “What?” I say, almost too sharply. “You heard what?”

  One shoulder lifts in a tiny shrug. “Nothing really. I just heard that you and Evan might be getting serious.”

  “You heard wrong,” I say sharply. “I have a boyfriend in Los Angeles.” Even as I say the words, though, I feel ridiculous. Technically, I do have a boyfriend, but the words still feel like a lie. Because I don’t love Terrance. I wish I did, and oh, how I’ve tried, but I’ve been in love with Evan Walker since I was in kindergarten. I’ve spent the last year lying to everyone, including Evan and myself. All to make a dead girl happy.

  I wonder whom that makes more pathetic: me, living my life to please a dead friend, or the dead friend, trying to control my life.

  * * *

  Wildfire has always been my favorite bed & breakfast in Fredericksburg, a town that overflows with historic homes and quaint lodgings. This particular establishment, besides having large, comfy rooms and excellent food, has a koi pond surrounded by a native plant garden, all overseen by various bits of statuary ranging from gnomes to the Virgin Mary. In other words, a place for equal opportunity meditation, all accomplished under the backdrop of gurgling water and the soft chatter of squirrels in the peach and oak trees.

  I’m sitting on the bench, engaged in a bit of meditation, when Evan strolls up. He sits next to me, silent, then bumps me with his hip, a silent entreaty to shove over. I do, forcing myself not to smile at the welcome familiarity of it all.

  We sit in silence for a while, the setting summer sun cutting through the trees, making the garden glow with deep orange streaks of light. It’s a nice moment, and one I don’t want to end. Even more, though, I want the future. And I’ve asked him to come here so that I can grab hold of it.

  “Thanks for coming,” I say.

  “It’s a little déjà vu,” he says. “I almost didn’t come.”

  “But?”

  “But I couldn’t stay away,” he says. “Just like I can’t stay mad at you.”

  I inspect my fingernails so that I can avoid looking him in the eye. But I’m smiling, and I think he knows it.

  “Last time we were here, things didn’t go all that great between us,” he says, taking my hand and twining his fingers with mine.

  “I know. It was hard for me. Seeing you, I mean. With Emily suddenly gone.” Everything I’m saying is absolutely true, but I know he understands something different than my truth. He thinks he was a reminder. A harsh reflection of the loss we’d both suffered. In truth, he was the manifestation of a promise I made to Emily to stay away from Evan. A promise she’s reminded me of day after day, staying my hand when I want to accept his dinner invitations, telling me I did the right thing when I cry at night, wondering what might have been.

  I’d agreed because I’d thought her death was my fault. Not completely, but enough that the weight of it bore down on me, quashing my own desires and filling me with a need to repent. And, in part, with a need to punish. Both myself and Evan. Because if it was my fault, it was his fault too.

  She’d seen us that night. Locked here in an embrace, his mouth hot on mine, his hands cupping my breasts. She’d run, a typical Emily reaction. Drive far, drive fast and think about what’s bothering you.

  She never made it home. More, she’d never really had the chance to cool down.

  After the funeral, Evan and I had come back to this bench, and I’d told him it was over. Over before it had even really begun. I told him it was for the best. That I needed space.

  I didn’t tell him I’d made a promise to his dead sister. Without that promise, things would have been different. I would have cleaved to him. Cried with him, and worn myself out in grief.

  I have to wonder now if that would have stymied our relationship. If maybe, in some twist of fate, Emily’s promise has given us the time apart to grieve separately that will now allow us to come together without her ghost between us.

  Because somehow, we will come together.

  Somehow, I’m going to make Emily Walker leave me alone.

  First, though, I’m going to forget about her, and concentrate only on the man sitting next to me.

  * * *

  I wake up in Evan’s bed, feeling more fabulous than I can ever remember feeling. Sexy and alive, bruised and taken. No, strike that. I feel claimed. And, honestly, I like it.

  The door to the room opens, revealing the dusky grey of dawn. Evan steps in, holding a gingham-lined basket of muffins. An utterly domestic scene, and I honestly think I might just have to jump him again right then, it’s so damn sexy.

  “Hey you,” he says. “Regrets?”

  “Just that we didn’t do this before.” I mean it, too, although I still have a few reservations. Emily’s wrath, for one. But my best friend has made herself scarce, and that tingling in my veins that I’ve lived with for the last year—that sensation that lets me know she’s near—is gone.

  I broke my promise and, in doing so, I let her go. I probably let her down, too, and for that I’m sorry. But I had to. More, I wanted to.

  I kick my legs out and reach for my underwear and jeans. I’m dressed in no time, Evan watching me with bemused eyes. “Bad choice of muffins?”

  I grab one, then give him a kiss on the nose. “There’s something I have to do,” I say. “Someone I need to say goodbye to.”

  He nods, squeezes my hand. “Do you want me to come with you?” But the question is for form only. He knows I have to do this alone, and he hands me the keys to the rental car.

  I lift myself up on my tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “I’ll see you soon,” I say, then sashay out the door, blowing him a kiss along the way and feeling—for the first time in a year—that things will be all right.

  * * *

  Until I moved to Los Angeles, I’d lived in Fredericksburg my entire life. But that doesn’t mean I’m familiar with every square inch of the place. And I sure don’t have the route to the cemetery memorized. Which is why I’m now cruising—lost—down the wrong county road. I squint into the rising sun, trying to see the road despite the glare, and that’s when I realize where I am. I’m on the little two-lane county road that Emily had been traveling when she died. My heart picks up its tempo, and I can hear my pulse in my ears as I notice the landmarks. The rock outcropping. The battered billboard. The deep ditch.

  Emily died here. Right here.

  I’d been looking for her grave. And, in a way, I found it.

  I shake my head, suddenly chilled, and lean sideways, grappling for my smartphone to call up a map. I want to know the fastest route back to the B&B, and screw the cemetery. I’ll pay my respects this afternoon like everyone else.

  I tap in my passcode and open the app. Easy enough. But then I take my eyes off the road just long enough to glance down at the screen. And that’s a split second too long.

  When I look back, there she is. Emily. Standing in the middle of the road, right in front of my car.

  I slam on the brakes, jerking the steering wheel to the left, even as my mind screams for me to do nothing. To just keep driving. She’s an apparition! You can’t hit her! You’re going to lose control!

  As if in a dream, I see the car start to spin, the tail whipping around to connect with the transparent Emily, who seems to melt into the morning mist. I slam my foot on the brake—the wrong thing to do—and try to turn into the spin. But it’s all over. I’ve lost control. The car skids, hits the ditch and rolls. I hear the explosion of the airbag deploying, and for a split second, I’m upside down, my own scre
ams echoing in the car.

  And then everything is black.

  * * *

  I wake up, and she’s there. Emily. Right beside me in the passenger seat. Which, I realize through the screaming pain in my head, is especially unusual since the car is upside down, and she’s sitting there—inverted—without even wearing a seatbelt.

  I feel something sticky and look down. Some sort of pipe has pierced the side of the car, and pierced me, too. The stickiness is my blood, and it’s all over my hands.

  Once again, everything goes black.

  * * *

  This time, when I come to, I’m ready. I turn my head only a fraction of an inch, but even that is enough to make me grit my teeth against the pain. “Why?” I say to her.

  Her eyes are wide and moist, but she doesn’t cry. Do the dead not cry, I wonder? And then I think that I’ll know the answer soon enough.

  “Why?” I repeat.

  “You promised me,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.

  “That isn’t fair,” I said. “You shouldn’t have made me. I love him.”

  “No.” The word is flat, harsh, and holds a world of anguish. “You were mine. My best friend. It was about us. Not about you and him, with me just the tagalong sister.”

  “Emily,” I say, my voice thick with understanding. Or maybe it’s not my voice. Maybe it’s all in my head. “Is that what you were afraid of?”

  Her face contorts with unshed tears. “You were going to forget about me. Not at first. At first, you’d both think about me every day. But slowly, slowly, you’d begin to realize that whole weeks were going by. And it would just be you two. No Emily. Why should there be? She’s dead, after all.”

  “I love you,” I say. “I’d never forget you. But the living have to go on. So do the dead, you know.”

  “I know,” she whispers. “Now we can go on together.”

  I’ve known it since I felt the blood, warm and sticky on my hand. Now, though, reality settles in. I’m dying. All alone on this road, and dying.

  “I don’t want to go,” I say.

  “I didn’t want to either.”

  “This isn’t right.” My head is swimming, and the blackness threatens to take me again. “You did this. You interfered. I wasn’t supposed to die.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” she says, and now I hear the cheerleader. The drama queen. My teenage pal who always got what she wanted exactly when she wanted it.

  “You can’t always have what you want,” I say, and there is desperation in my voice. I can hear it, smell it. I’m begging now, and I don’t care. “Please. Please, help me.”

  She’s silent, and the black closes around me. I fight my way back through the muck, spewing out words, fighting the only way I can to stay alive. “AnnMarie thinks you’re a bitch, but you’re not. I know you.” I suck in air, my words coming out choppy but coherent. “You’re my best friend, and I love you. Don’t let me die here. Not now. Not like this.”

  The black grabs at me, clingy and thick, sucking me down like mud. As I start to drown in it, I see her face. She loves me, too. It’s all there in her eyes. The love, and the remorse. For a moment, I am filled with hope.

  Then I see the slow, sad shake of her head. “How can I possibly help?” she asks. “I’m not even really here.”

  I’m dead, I think, as the black sucks me under. And as tears stream down my face, I think I know the answer: Yes, the dead do cry.

  * * *

  Light.

  Everywhere. Bright, white light.

  Heaven?

  “Are you good enough for heaven?”

  I recognize the voice, and I open my eyes. Evan smiles down at me.

  “I said that out loud?” My voice sounds croaky, but it’s a voice. And this is a hospital room. And I’m not dead. “How?” I ask, grabbing his hand and holding tight.

  “I found you,” he says, apparently understanding my question. “You were in the same ditch they found her in.”

  “But why did you come looking at all?”

  Color tints his cheeks, and he looks at our intertwined hands instead of my face.

  “Evan?”

  “Just a feeling.”

  But it was more than a feeling, I’m certain of it. “Emily,” I say. “She told you.”

  He looks up sharply, makes a scoffing noise. But I see the truth in his eyes. “Just one of those things, babe. You hear stories like this all the time. People get a feeling. They go. They rescue the damsel in distress.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “Syd . . . .” From his voice, it’s clear he wants to drop the subject, but I’m not letting it go.

  “Just tell me. Please. It’s important.”

  His shoulders lift, then fall in resignation. “She said she’s not a bitch. And that we both should remember that.”

  I laugh then, laugh and pull him close. Because I was right, and I’m alive, and I’m free.

  And, somewhere, I know that Emily is free now, too.

  * * *

  A note from JK

  I hope you enjoyed Tempting Evan! I’d be soooo grateful if you’d leave a review! Reviews are so helpful to authors!

  If you’d like to try another short story, check out The Demon You Know, part of my Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom series or ’Til Death Do Us Part, another JK Short Reads!

  Want to dive into something a bit longer and full of romance and fun? Try my Man of the Month series? Twelve standalone romance reads — you can grab the first one here: Down On Me

  With his tight muscles and vibrant ink, certified bachelor Reece Walker is the kind of man who’s used to having any woman he craves in his bed—except Jenna Montgomery. She’s been his best friend for years, and that’s a line he just can’t cross.

  Until a wild, stolen kiss changes everything. Now anything goes, and Reece is determined to use every wicked skill in his sensual repertoire to claim Jenna as his friend, his lover, his everything.

  I have lots of other books in Kindle Unlimited, and you can always find an updated list here!

  And I’d love to hear from you. Here’s where you can find me in cyberspace:

  www.jkenner.com

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  For exclusive content and updates, sign up for JK’s newsletter & join her Facebook fan group!

  Text JKenner to 21000 for new release announcements!

  Happy reading!

  JK

 

 

  Kenner, J., Tempting Evan

 

 

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