3
“Don’t!” Cindy’s snapped command had Deek jerking back his fingers as if they’d been burned.
“What? What did I do?”
“Nothing,” but her arms were clenched so tightly about her chest he was afraid she would shatter. “Just don’t touch me like that.”
“Okay.” But he’d always wanted to touch her like that. He’d only ever held her once, that single moment captured in Jimmy’s damned photograph. It was the day he’d taken them to Central Park to celebrate—the day after he’d convinced their father that there were worse things than dying if he ever touched either of his children again.
All the women he’d ever been with, he’d ended up wishing they were Cindy Borman instead. Not one of them had been able to purge her wholly from his thoughts.
She was the standard that no one could ever live up t
