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Chapter Fourteen

The jingle of the door drew Elizabeth like a magnet. She dashed out, her silly heart thinking it might be Jason again.

But her feet stopped short at the sight of A.J..

"What do you want?"

A.J. held up a wrapped parcel.

"Doing business on my lunch hour, Lizzy girl."

She could hardly ignore him, even though she wanted to. She weighed the package and reached for the cash he held out. When she did, he linked his fingers with hers and leaned toward her, over the counter. He smiled, looking revoltingly secure in his own charm.

She twisted against his hold and wondered what on earth she'd ever seen in him.

"Let me go, A.J.."

He didn't.

"So how on earth did you end up shackled to dull Jason?"

"He's not dull," she said coldly.

She finally managed to extricate herself from his grip. "Jason's done more with his life than you could ever hope for."

And she suspected that A.J. had always been envious of that.

"The only thing interesting that Jason ever did was the rodeo. But he hung up his bevy of buckle bunnies when he married you, I suppose."

"Having a bevy was much more your style than Jason's."

Not because Jason wasn't as attractive as his younger brother. In fact, Jason was far more intense than A.J., a fact that had as much to do with Jason's personality as it did with his thick blonde hair, carved features, and mesmerizing blue eyes.

Mesmerizing blue eyes that no longer wanted to look on her as his wife, she reminded herself harshly.

She counted out A.J.'s change and set it on the counter between them. She wasn't taking a chance that he would grab her hand again.

"What are you really doing back in Pine Valley, A.J.? You can't expect me to believe it's because you missed it here."

"I got a good offer from CeeVid," he said.

"Don't act as if they sought you out," Elizabeth countered immediately. "I wouldn't believe it and I can easily find out the truth."

His lips thinned. "So I approached them. Big deal. I'm good at what I do and they hired me."

"But why Pine Valley, A.J.? CeeVid has other offices."

Nothing about the last few days made any sense. Surely this was something that could be explained, though.

"What are you doing? Hiding out from some woman you led on?"

He looked away for a moment and Elizabeth knew instinctively that her sarcastic comment had been much closer to the mark than she'd expected. But then he was grinning that look-at-me-I'm-so-charming grin again.

"So, what do you think, Lizzy girl. Might be nice if we were friendly-like since we're gonna be neighbors."

"I don't think so."

"Afraid big brother wouldn't approve?"

"Since it is apparent to most of this town by now that I've moved out, I guess that hardly matters now, does it?"

"Why did you? Move out, I mean."

Elizabeth didn't answer that. She had no intentions of letting A.J. know that he'd had any affect on her marriage.

Fortunately, A.J. seemed content to have his question go unanswered.

"Jason always did like acting the hero," he said smoothly, instead.

Elizabeth swallowed. She didn't know what this turn of conversation meant, but she knew she didn't feel comfortable with it.

"W-What do you mean?"

He lifted one shoulder in a motion eerily like Jason's.

"Well, he's the one who got the girl, now isn't he?"

To be continued...

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