The Secret Sin by Darlene Gardner

immediately take her turn, instead crossing to her husband and saying something to him. Her husband turned and looked at them.
    “Did you have to tell her you had a thing for me in high school?” Annie kept a smile on her face, acting as if nothing was wrong. “It’s not even true.”
    “Yeah, it is.”
    Annie wasn’t interested in his lies. “She’ll tell everyone she knows what you said.”
    He shrugged his broad shoulders. “So what?”
    “So she’s a gossip.” She winced at the volume of her voice. She deliberately lowered it and moved a step closer to him, loathe for anyone to overhear. “What do you think she’ll make of it when she sees Lindsey with us? What if she figures it out?”
    “How could she figure it out?” he asked. “It’s not like you had a crush on me in high school.”
    Her stomach rolled.
    “You didn’t, did you?”
    She’d been careful during their long-ago night together not to let him find out. She lowered her eyes, wishing her honest streak wasn’t so wide. “I don’t have a crush on you now.”
    A burst of childish laughter rang out, followed by a golfer’s shout that he’d made a hole-in-one, but the silence between Annie and Ryan seemed deafening.
    “I don’t understand. Then why did you blow me off when I called you from Spain?” He moved closer, lowered his voice even more. “It was before you knew you were pregnant.”
    A part of her wanted to hurt him the way she’d been wounded. “Maybe the fantasy was better than the reality.”
    He winced as though she’d struck him.
    “Hey, you two! You’re holding everybody up.” Lindsey hurried toward them, gesturing that the hole they’d been waiting to play was free. “Lowest score goes first so I’ve got honors. Again.”
    Annie was so aware of the change in Ryan that she could barely keep her mind on her golf game. He was quieter, more contemplative, no doubt because of her childish, cruel comment.
    She had no luck putting through the front door of the little red schoolhouse, onto the right lane of the metal bridge or into the clown’s mouth. By the time they reached the eighteenth hole, she couldn’t stand it any longer. While Lindsey was lining up a putt, considering it from every angle, Annie edged over to Ryan’s side.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
    “Why not? You meant it, didn’t you?” He didn’t wait for an answer, inclining his head in the direction of Edie and her family. “Edie’s been watching us all night.”
    She blinked up at him, surprised by the abrupt change of subjects. “I noticed.”
    “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said, “and unless we act like a couple, people might wonder why we’re together.”
    “I don’t under—”
    He kissed her before she could finish her sentence, just leaned down and captured her mouth. His lips felt warm and soft, and he smelled…intoxicating. Like his kiss.
    His mouth moved over hers, his lips tasting and teasing, coaxing her into forgetting the very valid reasons she shouldn’t be kissing him. Remembered sensations swamped her so that she couldn’t distinguish between the past and the present. They blended together, creating one perfect moment.
    One perfect kiss.
    Somebody whooped.
    Ryan’s lips clung to hers a moment longer, then he lifted his head and smiled into her eyes.
    “Did you see that putt?” Lindsey called, swinging her head around. Annie’s brain wasn’t fast enough to signal her feet to move. Lindsey caught them not quite in the act.
    Lindsey smiled knowingly. “If you’re not too busy, Annie, it’s your turn.”
    Annie hit her golf ball, dismayed that she could still feelthe imprint of Ryan’s mouth on hers. She was angry at him for kissing her, but livid at herself for reacting to him.
    It had taken her years to recover her self-confidence from what he’d done, time in which she’d grown up enough to learn to protect herself.
    Even though one day she might be able to forgive