Dark Memories (The DARK Files Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

bare hulk stood like a ghostly sentinel, lending the clearing an ominous air.
    Crossing her arms, Laura sat on a boulder. She glared at him down her nose. “You said we have to talk. So talk.”
    Her princess manner peeled away his professional resolve. Was he angry at things he couldn’t change, or at her?
    “Seeing you on that tennis court takes me back. Sports for rich kids who don’t have to work.” Like that summer after she started college. He’d mucked out stalls for horses he never rode while she and her preppy friends learned jumps.
    Rolling her eyes, she shook her head. “Are you still hung up on that rich-girl image of me that your … biker buddy put in your head?”
    He gave a derisive snort. “Hell, if I forgot, my old man reminded me.” She was rich in lots of ways he couldn’t even begin to express. Outta your league, boy. He shoved his dad’s slurred put-down back into the vault where it belonged. “They just voiced what I already knew.”
    He’d lived with his drunken father in a two-room garage apartment smaller and way grubbier than her cabin here. No family. No real home. Had never had. Never would have. He scooped up pebbles and leaned against a birch to toss them into the stream.
    “I know you had a rough time. But you excelled in your AP courses and later at the community college no matter how long or hard you worked outside school.” Her earlier reserve had eased a notch.
    “Yeah, at the stables and the cycle shop. Biker bums don’t get white-collar jobs. Right, Laura?” Hell. That was his old man talking. Seeing her exhumed the defeatist attitude he thought he’d buried.
    Her eyes shot sparks. “I know all that. You practically raised yourself. But, as the kids say, get over yourself. You seem to be doing all right these days. And I meant what I said yesterday. General Nolan can send someone else. After the way you treated me ten years ago, why would I want anything to do with you?”
    The unfair remarks heated his simmering enmity to a boil. He dumped his remaining pebbles at his feet. “The way I treated you ? I didn’t notice you complaining when we made love in front of the fireplace. Or twice in the bed. Afterward you wouldn’t even accept my calls. When I really needed you.”
    Before he could draw another breath, she leaped to her feet. She waved a fist and yelled back at him. “Needed me? For what? To post bail? Of course I didn’t take your calls. I knew that bike gang was trouble. Did you think I’d help you get out of jail after what you did to me?”
    “All I did was make love to you. And it was love, dammit.” He was rolling now, roaring with all the invective he could muster. “I thought we had plans. But I was just stud service, wasn’t I, babe? So you could return to campus with experience and enjoy the high life.”
    Tears welled in her eyes, and she held her arms close to her middle as if trying to hold herself together. “Stud service? If that’s the way you looked at it, no wonder you decided to pass me around to your friends.”
    The stream burbled over rocks and fallen branches. A light breeze stirred the pale green birch leaves.
    The only other sound was his heart thudding in his ears. “What the hell do you mean, pass you around to my friends?”
     

Chapter 4
    FOR THE FIRST time, a sliver of doubt crept into Laura’s mind. “You know, Ray Valesko. He…um.” Oh, how could she say the words? “He came to see me that Monday morning. Sent by you.”
    The set of his jaw and the fierce scowl that drew his ebony brows together were her answer.He stepped closer and grasped her shoulders. “I sent nobody. What did that weasel-faced bastard do? Tell me.”
    She shot him a wary glance and tried to pull away. She’d never told a living soul, not even her cousin Angela, in whom she always confided. For ten years, she’d believed the worst of Cole.
    Doubt wedged a splinter into her heart. What if Valesko had acted on his own? “We were supposed to