Don't Forget Me by Meg Benjamin Read Free Book Online Page B

him a cool glance. “It’s not that far. I can walk it.”
    “It’s night. You shouldn’t be walking around Main.”
    “That’s ridiculous.” She shook her head. “I’ve walked around Main my whole life.”
    Tom Ames cleared his throat. “Actually, he’s right. Things are a little rougher around here at night. We’ve had a few problems with drunks over the past month. If you can wait a little while until the evening rush dies down, I can walk with you.”
    Kit shook her head. “No, don’t do that. I can walk home by myself. Really. Don’t bother.” She turned toward Deirdre. “Tell him to stay here, okay?”
    Deirdre shrugged. “He’s right, as a matter of fact. There was a mugging in the park last week. It’s really not as safe as it used to be, unfortunately.” She cast a quick look at Nando. “Not that the police aren’t doing a good job, but we’ve got a lot more people around town now than we did when you visited as a kid.”
    “But I don’t want to take you away from your work, Tom.” Kit cast another slightly desperate glance around the bar.
    “I’ll walk with you,” Nando muttered.
    Her eyes widened slightly as her lips compressed. She looked as if she’d prefer taking her chances with the muggers.
    He held her gaze for a moment, keeping his own desperation to a minimum. “You said it wouldn’t take long.”
    She blew out a breath, then gave him another of those grimace smiles. “I think I can guarantee it’ll take no time at all.”
     
    Kit wondered which of them would break first as they walked up the street. Actually it was more like a trot than a walk. Clearly, he didn’t want to be walking along Main at her side any more than she wanted him to be. Still, talking would probably have been an improvement over the strained silence between them. Except that she couldn’t think of a thing to say that didn’t sound idiotic.
    When they reached the intersection of Firewheel Lane and Milam, Nando turned toward her. “I saw you in town.”
    She stiffened. So he had seen her that afternoon. She took a breath, trying to think of some way to downplay the whole panic thing. “Oh?”
    “Yeah, you were talking to Docia.”
    Docia. She blinked. “Oh. A couple of days ago.”
    “Yeah. I should have said hello I guess. I didn’t…” He shook his head. “Look, we need to talk.”
    Kit pulled herself up, wishing she had on heels that would bring her eye-to-eye with him. “About what?”
    “We’re living in the same small town.” He sighed, stabbing his fingers through his hair. “We know the same people. We go to the same places. We’re going to run into each other regularly. We need to agree on how that’s going to go down, or people are going to start running in the other direction when they see us coming. I mean, you saw how everybody acted tonight—like we were going to explode or something.”
    Kit’s jaw tightened. She wished she could see an error in his logic, but at the moment she couldn’t. “So?”
    “So how about a truce?” Nando looked at her directly for the first time since they’d left the bar. She’d forgotten the depth of those brown eyes, sort of like black coffee. As she recalled, they turned to velvet when he was aroused.
    Pull it together. Now. “A truce involving what?”
    “Polite conversation when we have to. Silence as long as we can do it without making other people uncomfortable.”
    “Works for me.” She kept her gaze on his Adam’s apple.
    He sighed. “All right then.”
    She glanced up the street toward Aunt Allie’s house. “I can go on home by myself from here.”
    He nodded. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you around.”
    Not if I see you first. She watched him start up the street, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the pinch of her conscience. “Nando.”
    He half turned back. “What?”
    “Thanks for walking me home.”
    He nodded. In the dimness between the street lights it almost looked like he gave her a small grin. “ De