Romance on the Edge 01 - Hooked

tears tease behind her eyes. She’d believed in them once. Believed that they could be happy together, that they’d marry, have a family. They had so much in common, made sense where she and Garrett didn’t, but she couldn’t go back. She was either too frightened or too obstinate to try. At some point, her feelings had changed. Whether it was that night he’d shown her a side of him she had no idea existed or later, but something inside her refused to change.
    “I don’t believe the worst of you, Aidan.” She placed her hands on the sides of his face. She’d loved this face. The strong jaw, the warm brown eyes, the sexy tilt of his lips when he smiled at her. She reached up and softly placed her lips against his one last time. Stepping back, she gazed at him with remorse. “I’m sorry. I can’t go back.”
    He pulled her to him and desperately took her mouth. She let him kiss her, tried to even feel what she’d felt with him before. There was nothing. What she felt with Garrett was so much more than she’d ever felt with Aidan. It saddened and scared her at the same time. Aidan’s grip loosened, turned gentle as he tried to coax a response from her that she didn’t have in her to give. Finally he set her back from him, and let her go. His expression one of resignation.
    “It’s Hunt, isn’t it?”
    “No. Yes. Hell, I don’t know.” She shook her head. “He’s not the best choice of man for me to become involved with, but I did…at least, I think we are…involved that is.” She bit her lip.
    “You barely know the guy.”
    “How long you know a person doesn’t really mean anything. Does it?”
    The stain of humiliation colored his face. He slowly shook of his head. “We’re never going to get past this, are we?”
    “Yes, we will. But we’ll never be more than friends, Aidan. You need to understand that and move on.”
    His heartbroken gaze met hers. “I don’t think I can live with that, Sonya.”

    “You and Sonya looked cozy,” Earl commented from the shadows of the porch. The red butt of his cigarette flared to life as he took a long draw. When he exhaled, smoke curled around his head like a crown of death. Aidan had seen this vision many times in his life, even drew one of his seedy characters in his graphic novel after his dad. Not that Earl ever caught on. He’d have to read one of Aidan’s novels to see it and that was one thing he knew Earl would never do.
    “We were saying good-bye to each other.” Or at least good-bye to what they could have been.
    “What do you mean good-bye?” Earl’s bushy brows hunched over beady eyes. “You going somewhere?”
    “She doesn’t care about me the way I need her to. We’re over. Finished.”
    “Change her mind. What kind of a sissy-boy are you?” Earl stood and ground the butt of his cigarette under the heel of his boot. “In my day, you wanted something, you went after it until you got it. Show some backbone, boy, and go and get what’s yours.”
    “She isn’t mine to get. Besides, she cares for someone else.”
    “Women are fickle. They change their mind like they change their outfits. Get him out of the picture and chances are she’d be wantin’ to wear you.”
    Aidan gave a humorless laugh. “Right, like what? Bump him off?”
    A smile cracked Earl’s yellowed, leathered face. “Now you’re thinking like a Harte.”
    The last thing he wanted to do was think like a Harte. It hadn’t gotten him anywhere positive in the past. “I’m not going down that road.”
    Though it would be nice to see the last of the fish cop.

    Sonya had spent most of the evening catching up her grandparents on the happenings of the last twenty-four hours. Who knew life could change so much in that length of time? As she had expected, they scolded her for brawling with Kendrick at the Pitt. Peter had given her a heads up over this, but he needn’t have bothered. She knew she’d get called on the mat over her actions as soon as they saw her. The news of Kendrick’s death went better than she’d hoped, though they were shocked and dismayed over their family having to be a part of something so tragic. The point that they focused on was the development between Garrett and her. Sonya really hadn’t wanted to tell them that she’d slept with the fish cop, but figured she needed to prepare them in case the news had to come out. They also took this much, much better than she’d hoped.
    “I knew you and Garrett would hit it off the