Read Online Explosive Memories by Sherri Thomas - Free Book Online

wanting to block out the words. God, he assumed they had witnessed the fights, but prayed he was wrong. The things that flew out of her mouth were embarrassing in themselves, some truths, some not. He wasn’t sure which bothered him more, the lies or the details she revealed, usually intimate ones spouted in jealousy—how he paid attention to that other woman when she spoke, the way he touched her when they caressed, the way he held her in the pond. April had seen it all and made sure all of Amarillo heard her when she screamed the accusations. If she hadn’t threatened to kill herself anytime he broke it off, begging him to understand how much she loved him until guilt ate at him and he gave in, he wouldn’t have turned a blind eye to the problem for so long. Having his girlfriend live on the ranch when her apartment complex burned to the ground was the second biggest mistake he’d made—the first being the proposal. Every one of his relatives witnessed her temper-tantrums at one point or another. The fact she’d approached each member claiming Trent “ignored her” bore no help.
    The recollection gave him enough fuel to struggle and manage to extract his hand out from under a leg and land one last punch to his brother’s eye.
    “Son of a…” Nick hit him in the jaw.
    Stunned by the contact, he shook away the stars dancing in his head. “You jackass.” He thrashed his body from one side to the other, but got nowhere.
    Using all of his weight to hold him, his captor chuckled. “God, it’s good to see you alive again, but are we done now? I’m getting to old for this shit.”
    Was he? Yes. Damn it. After all, he wasn’t mad at the ox sitting on his chest. He was angry at himself for missing the signs with April, and for letting Lynn—Jordan—walk out of his life that morning.
    “Yeah.” He relaxed his body to prove his words. “Yeah, I’m good.”
    His opponent got up and extended a hand.
    Accepting the assistance, Trent rose to his feet and rubbed his jaw as an uneasy feeling settled in his gut. That last night, when he came home after picking up a bull from Lubbock, April accused him of going to see a Jordan. Before he got a chance to ask who Jordan was, his fiancée drew a gun and shot him, twice. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital groggy from surgery. He hadn’t even known a Jordan, until now…was there a connection?
    “It’ll do you no good trying to figure April out,” Nick stated, fingering the skin around his eye.
    “I gave that up a long time ago.” Wondering if his black-haired beauty was awake, he glanced at the first cabin. One small light shown in the window, but he couldn’t make out any movement.
    A hand touched his shoulder. “Put some ice on that.” His brother nodded toward his face.
    “You, too.”
    Trent shook his head and ambled off toward his own bungalow for what he figured would be a restless night’s sleep. The past floated around his head, starting with a raven-haired beauty dancing in the moonlight.
    ****
    Jordan tossed and turned until she fell into a fretful slumber. Memories circled in and out of her dreams… Trent’s lips on her neck, sliding down her body, biting her nipples, licking the beaded pebbles. His heart beating fast under her palm as she ran her hand up and over his chest, the thin, course hair ticking her skin.
    Her mother’s face came into view. “Don’t go out again. You just got home.”
    “Jordan Lynn!” her father bellowed out the living room window. “You better be home by midnight, young lady.”
    Then heat, scorching heat on her skin. Smoke choking her very breath.
    Jordan shot up, coughing, and with a shaking hand, reached for the water next to her bed on the nightstand. The clock blinked bright in the darkened room. Four a.m.
    Stretching out on the mattress, she concentrated on her breathing. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Her pulse beat loud in her ears. If she lay here long enough, maybe the