Keep No Secrets by Julie Compton Read Free Book Online Page A

higher, as if protecting herself. Their shoulders are still touching underneath the sheet.
    "It depends. Yes, I trust you again. But it's a very fragile trust and I can't promise you that it can withstand anything you might say." She pauses. He knows what she's about to ask. "Have you done something to break that trust?"
    "No, I don't think so. But . . ."
    The light goes out in the hall, the room grows even darker.
    "Don't keep me waiting, Jack. Just spit it out."
    Her voice has changed. It's louder, clearer. And stronger. She's braced herself.
    Under the covers, he reaches for her hand. She lets him take it.
    "Jenny's back."

    CHAPTER FIVE

    THE WORDS HIT Claire like a sucker-punch. She'd bend over if she weren't already lying down. Fear clutches at her throat, making it impossible to speak. It's worse than the fear she felt four years ago. When he first asked the question, she thought he was about to admit to an attraction to another woman, a different woman. Nip it in the bud by telling her.
    But now she realizes how ridiculous this was. Of course it's Jenny. Who else could it be? Although he's always radiated a boyish innocence that charms women—
    all women—without even trying, he's never been a player. It's why she fell for him.

    Jenny is the only other woman capable of harnessing his light for herself.

    It's almost as if she's stopped breathing.
    He can't hear a thing, not a thing.
    Suddenly she springs up and sits on the edge of the bed, her lovely, naked back facing him. When he reaches over and touches her lightly, she shudders.
    "Claire?"
    When she speaks, he hears the tears in her voice. "Listen to me," she says. "I'm not going to ask you questions. I don't want to have to guess at what questions to ask, even, to pry it out of you. I just want you to tell me everything." The statement reminds him of what he said to Jenny in the café in Hannibal.
    "Okay," he says quietly. He can do this.

    He can tell her everything without fear because he's done nothing. Nothing, at least, that he can't tell her about. He's already convinced himself of that. The one single thing he won't tell her about—
    the brief kiss in the tunnel—had nothing to do with him; he's already convinced himself of that, too.
    "Last night," he begins, "heading to my car from the law library, I was walking through the underpass, and she was there, waiting for me." It sounds so freaky now that he's said it out loud. It sounds as if she was stalking him. At the time, after the initial shock of seeing her, he didn't find it so odd. It was as if he'd been waiting for that moment for four years.
    As if he knew, eventually, it would happen. He simply hadn't known when, or where. But the fact of it, the certainty?
    Yeah. He always knew.
    "She didn't say anything, not then . . ."
    Claire twitches, then fiddles with the covers to disguise it. She doesn't miss a thing. She knows, simply from his words, that he's seen her twice already. Just since last night. "Only that she needed to talk to me. She wouldn't say why." He waits at first, but remembering this isn't a normal back and forth conversation, he goes on.
    "She wouldn't tell me anything at first.
    Not where she'd been all this time, nothing. She wanted to go somewhere right then, but I said no. I told her I needed to get home." Claire grunts, an editorial. Jack's not sure if it's directed at him or Jenny. "But . . ." He breathes in deep. The next statement will be the hardest for her to hear, even though she's already expecting it. "I told her I'd meet with her today, and I did." Her shoulders fall.
    Everything. He needs to tell her every detail. That's what she asked.
    "I picked her up this morning from a motel in St. Charles. That's where she's been staying, I guess, I don't know how long, and we drove up to Hannibal. We sat in a café up there and talked."
    She lifts hand to her face. She still has her back to him, but he knows what she's doing. She tugs at the sheet, pulling it up.
    He reaches