Page 5

Archie tried not to wince. Loud noises were still difficult. Loud noises and bright lights, and this room with its sparkling chandeliers and walls of mirrors and polished windows—so many shining surfaces—crowded with guests all talking at once, was feeling less and less like a social occasion and more and more like running a gauntlet.

“Archie, how wonderful to see you!” Priscilla Beckham joined them. Pris was tall and trim. Her red hair had darkened to a chestnut brown, but her eyes remained a dazzling green. She was in her late sixties and still very beautiful. She hugged him warmly. “John said you might pop in and say hi.”

“Hi!” Archie said.

Leo and Priscilla laughed, but then Priscilla’s perfectly shaped brows drew together. “I think you should be in bed, kiddo. Am I allowed to tell an FBI agent to go to bed?”

No. That would be felony fussing. Archie kept his mouth shut.

Leo laughed. “I just told him he looks great.”

“He doesn’t look great. He looks like he should be in bed. He just got out of the hospital.”

This was...a lot. In fact, it was too much.

“Where’s John?” Archie glanced around.

Priscilla glanced around, too. “He’s here somewhere. I saw him just a little while ago.” She squeezed his arm. “It’s so good to see you. How long has it been? You look so…so…”

Please don’t say grown up.

Nope, Priscilla said, “John’s missed you so much.”

“Yes, he has,” Leo confirmed, looking suddenly serious.

Yeah, Archie didn’t want to hear that, either. Didn’t like the idea he had let John down, inadvertently inflicted pain.

“Have you seen Beau yet?” Desi popped back into the conversation. Her expression was sly, knowing.

Archie’s smile seemed to freeze along with his heart. “Beau? Is Beau here?”

Desi trilled a little laugh. “God, no. I just wondered if you’d seen him since you got back.”

“No.”

He’d only arrived in Twinkleton the day before. But had he arrived six months earlier, it was doubtful he and Beau would have reconnected—unless Beau had changed a whole helluva lot in seven years.

Desi was gurgling, “Oh, my God. Remember when you two were the talk of Heceta High?”

It was unexpectedly brutal, that casual reference. Like that frantic, feverish first love—complete with Beau’s fear of being outed and Archie’s pain at being dumped—had all been one big, long-running joke?

He drawled, “We were all hard up for entertainment back then.”

“Ooooh. Ouch. Poor Beau.” Desi’s smile was malicious. “You know, you have dust on the back of your collar.”

Archie started to respond, but seriously, what was there to say? He didn’t have the interest or energy for resuming their adolescent sparring.

“Archie? You made it after all!”

He managed not to jump, but Jesus Christ. Gauntlet was right. He turned to face yet another ghost from the past: a tall, very thin, striking brunette in her well-preserved sixties. This one took him a moment.

Dr. Mila Monig. She had been John’s partner in his medical practice and they’d dated for a time.

“Mila. How are you?”

He didn’t catch her answer over the thumpety-thump of the blood throbbing in his temples. He kept smiling, staring at the blank oval of her face, wondering what the fuck he was doing there.

He hadn’t seen or even thought of these people in seven—in most cases, over ten—years and, nothing personal, he’d have been fine going another ten without a reunion. He’d told himself it might be a good idea to be forced out of his thoughts for a while, but he wasn’t ready for this. Not physically. Not emotionally.