From Glowing Embers

Chapter 7

  Gray wasn’t sure which was worse, Dillon’s occasional snore or the thunder outside. He had left the drapes cracked so he could see the frequent flashes of lightning, and the room was filled with light more often than it was dark. It wasn’t the sound effects, the celestial fireworks or the man beside him that was keeping him awake, however.

  He still seethed over Julianna’s refusal to try to bury their past. He wondered if she had gone right to sleep after their encounter, or if she, too, still lay awake thinking of things that were better forgotten.

  She had her revenge, if it was revenge she had hoped for all these years. Now she knew that she wasn’t alone, that he had suffered, too. He wondered if it had helped. It didn’t help him to know how the past had scarred her, and no matter how deeply hurt she had been, he couldn’t believe she was lying awake in the other room taking satisfaction in his unhappiness.

  He had hoped that talking to her, being with her, would help him put the past behind him. Now it loomed over him, a tangible presence in the room, and, despite the storm, the hotel decor and Dillon snoring next to him, he was twenty-one years old again and back in Granger Junction.