Familiar Stranger. Sharon Sala

he said her name, and as he did, he saw confusion and then panic as it registered on her face.

      “Cara.”

      She gasped, then in spite of the heat, shivered.

      He took a step toward her, and then another. Cara started to shake.

      “Cara, don’t be afraid.”

      “No,” Cara moaned, and covered her face. “No ghosts. No ghosts. I don’t believe in ghosts.”

      Suddenly his voice was right beside her. She opened her eyes.

      “I’m not a ghost.”

      “David?”

      His stomach knotted. After all these years, hearing his name from her lips was more painful than he would have believed.

      Before he could answer her, she shook her head in vehement denial.

      “You’re not David. David is dead.”

      This was harder than he’d imagined. “Cara… I’m sorry…so sorry.”

      He reached for her hand. When he touched her, she shuddered once, then her eyes rolled back in her head.

      He caught her before she fell.

      “Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered, as he carried her unconscious body to the shade of the porch.

      Choosing the nearest chair, he sat down, cradling her carefully as he looked at her face, trying to find the girl that he’d known in the woman he held in his lap, but she was gone.

      It wasn’t until her eyelids began to flutter and he saw the clear, pure blue of her eyes that he found the girl he’d left behind.

      “Are you all right?” he asked.

      Her hands cupped his face—her eyes wide with disbelief.

      “David? Is it really you?”

      A car drove past on the road beyond the house, and David looked up, suddenly aware of how public their reunion had become.

      “Let’s go inside. We need to talk,” he said, and started to carry her inside when she slid out of his lap and threw her arms around his neck.

      “How? Why? Did you—”

      He put a finger across her lips, momentarily silencing her next question.

      “Inside…please?”

      Cara grabbed him by the hand and led him inside the house. The moment they entered the hallway, she shut the door behind them then stood, staring at his face with her hands pressed to her mouth to keep from crying.

      David ran a shaky hand through his hair, then gave her a tentative smile.

      “I don’t know quite where to start,” he said. “Do you want to—”

      Tears rolled down her face, silencing whatever he’d been about to say.

      “Oh, honey, don’t. You know I never could stand to see you cry.”

      And then her hands were on his shirt, moving frantically across the breadth of his chest, then up the muscular column of his throat, then tracing the outline of his features. He grabbed her fingers, trying to put some distance between them so he could think. But there had already been forty years of distance, and for Cara, it was forty years too much.

      His name was just a whisper on her lips as she wrapped her arms around his neck. Before he could think, she’d kissed him—a tentative foray that went from testing ground status to an all-out explosion. It was instinct that made him pull her against his body, but it was need that kept her there.

      “If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake,” Cara muttered, and then pulled his shirt out of the waistband of his slacks.

      His stomach flattened as he inhaled sharply. The feel of her fingernails against his skin was an aphrodisiac he wouldn’t have expected. Then her arms were around his waist as she lifted her lips for his kiss. David was broadsided by the sexual tension erupting between them. He’d planned for everything—except this.

      “Cara…God, Cara, we shouldn’t be—”

      “Since when did shouldn’t become part of your vocabulary?” she asked.

      She caught him off guard, and he laughed. And the moment the sound came out of his throat, he wanted to cry. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d known joy. His eyes narrowed hungrily as he began pulling at her clothes, undoing buttons and shoving aside fabric. Her hands were on him, as well. Somewhere between one moment and the next, his shirt was on the floor and his slacks were undone. He lifted her off her feet and then spun around, pinning her between his body and the wall. Her arms were around his neck, her legs around his waist and she threw back her head and laughed when he slammed into her.

      One hard, desperate thrust followed another and another, as if they were trying to destroy all the bad memories with this sexual act. Somewhere between one breath and the next, it began to change—turning into a dance between lovers.

      Cara’s eyes were closed, her lower lip caught between her teeth as she followed the rhythm of his body and was taken by surprise by the force of her climax. While she was still riding the high, David spilled himself within her in what seemed like endless, shuddering thrusts.

      The silence that came after was as abrupt as their mating had been. David’s hands were slick with sweat as he eased her down, and when she moved away and started rearranging her clothes, David followed suit. He could tell that she was as shaken by what they’d done as he, and was afraid she’d withdraw in embarrassment before he had a chance to explain. He touched her shoulder, and when she turned, he cupped her face in his hands.

      “Look at me,” he said.

      Cara hesitated, then lifted her head, meeting his gaze straight on. Again, disbelief came and went as she stared at him. Then she touched the swollen edges of her mouth, as if needing the reminder of pain to assure her what had happened was real.

      “I see you,” she said. “Oh, David, there are so many things I have to tell you. After you left, I found out I was pregnant. We have a—”

      “I know,” he said. “Bethany.”

      A look of shock came and went on her face and then her eyes narrowed sharply.

      “You knew we had a daughter?”

      He nodded.

      The timbre of her voice rose a notch. “You knew and you still didn’t come back?”

      David felt as if he’d been sucker punched. He should have seen this coming, and yet after what they’d just done…

      “It wasn’t like—”

      “No. Wait. Let’s start this meeting all over again.”

      The anger in her voice was blatantly apparent now, and he knew there was no going back.

      “David Lee Wilson, just where the hell have you been?”

      Chapter 2

      “Cara, please…can we do this somewhere else?”

      She made no attempt to hide her pain. “Maybe we should adjourn to the bedroom to talk, since we just had sex in my hall.”

      David inhaled slowly, using every mental skill he had to remain calm.

      For Cara, his silence was stronger than any denial he might have made. Courtesy demanded she apologize. She lifted her chin.

      “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for. What happened just now was more my fault than yours. If you don’t mind, I’d like to change my clothes. The guest bathroom is just down the hall if you’d like to…uh…I’m just going upstairs now and…”

      “Ssh,” he said softly, and lifted a lock of her hair with one finger, gently pushing it into place. “Go