“But those jeans would chafe something awful,” Sara finished for him. “Come on.”
She led him through a set of swinging doors into the kitchen area where her father stood behind the grill.
Ridley followed as she marched through another door to a smaller room where the washer and dryer stood. She turned to see him unbuttoning his pants.
“Sweet Jesus,” she breathed.
A jolt of electricity sizzled through her before turning her heart and stomach over. He stood between her and the only escape route. What the hell should she do?
In less than a second, he’d kicked his boots off, and then stood before her in tight, black boxer briefs. He tugged his white tee down for modesty, but not before she’d managed to accidentally ogle the goods.
She sucked in a breath that caught in her throat. An apron. He needed something to cover up with or she’d spontaneously combust.
Sara snatched the jeans he offered and tossed them into the open dryer, then turned to her employee locker. As she rummaged for a moment for the clean apron she knew was in there, she took a deep breath to steady herself.
Sure, she’d imagined this moment before. Well, not this moment. She’d dared to daydream about Ridley undressing in front of her, but never in that fantasy had he taken his pants off because she’s dumped ice water on him.
Her fingers wrapped around the apron, and she turned and offered it to him with what she hoped was a smile.
“Here. You can cover up with this.”
He glanced at the stiff black cloth for a second and then shook his head. “I’m okay.”
Sara willed herself not to glance at the front of his shorts again. She should have turned away or left the room. Instead, her fight against one peek turned into a slow perusal of his body from shoulders all the way to ankles. Broad shoulders and tanned arms, narrow hips, flat stomach with the slightest hint of washboard, leading to thickly muscled legs, all courtesy of hard work under a hot sun.
God, she was such a perv. She even paused somewhere below his waist for a second, all the while berating herself for not having the strength to look away.
When she finally shifted her gaze back to the dryer, Ridley let out a small snort—so quiet that she barely heard it. But she did hear it, and her cheeks burst into flame.
“Uh, so if you don’t want the apron, I guess…”
“I can wait,” Ridley said, a wicked smirk pulling at the corner of his lips.
“And you don’t need me.” Sara didn’t bother to phrase it as a question.
She squeezed past him, desperate to avoid touching him in any way. How had she gone from victory to abject humiliation in less than five minutes?
And all the rest of the road crew still waited for their breakfast. She just couldn’t face them yet. Instead, she crouched down on a plastic crate in the corner break area and buried her face in her hands.
After she’d been missing for a few minutes, her father opened the door a crack and peeked through. Sara reached up from her seat on the milk crate and grabbed blindly for something on the table. Her fingers wrapped around a soiled napkin, and she waved it feebly.
“Just cleaning up a little.”
He grinned. “Right. You just keep tidying up in here. I’ll take care of the guys.”
The dryer buzzed a few minutes later, but Sara didn’t move. Ridley was a big boy. Really. He could figure out how to get his jeans on without her.
She didn’t look up when she heard him open the door to the little laundry room. His boots came into view and paused. Then paused longer.
A warm hand landed on her shoulder, and she jumped. Tingles traveled down her arm and through her chest, amplifying the heat in her face once more. She couldn’t not look now.
When she finally lifted her head, Ridley was smiling without a hint of the arrogance she’d seen in his earlier smirk.
“Hey, it’s all good. Really.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “For the spill and the…ogling.”
“Yeah.” He pulled his hand away and rubbed his chest. “Funny enough, the ogling part was okay, too.”
He didn’t wait for her response, which was nothing more than a squeak, before bursting through the swinging doors to go finish his breakfast.
Just before her shift was over at two, Audrey and Kristen came crashing through the front door, their arrival announced by the jangling bell. Sara’s dad looked up from the cash register and smiled when he saw them.
“Hey, girls. Finally wake up? Sara’s almost done. Have a seat and I’ll get you some pie.” He always doted on them and had since Audrey and Sara were six years old and starting first grade together. When Kristen had joined the little group, he’d included her as if she’d always been there.
Sara waved from her spot in the kitchen. She had a few more pans to scrub before she was free for the rest of the afternoon.
The bell to the door jangled, and Sara groaned. Another diner meant another round of dishes to load into the dishwasher. She peeked through the window and caught a glimpse of a police uniform.
“How’s it going, John?” Her dad set to work pouring coffee as the sheriff placed his hat on the bar beside his silverware.
“Weird. You know old Hank, lives in that little cabin on Salt Lick Road? He up and killed himself last night.”
Sara dropped the heavy pot she’d been scrubbing, sending a wave of water down the front of her shirt. The warm suds seeped through the thin cotton and turned cold almost immediately.
“You okay?” The thud from the kitchen had distracted her father from the sheriff’s story.
“Yeah.”
Was she? She strained to hear more. How had they discovered the body? More importantly, why had she even been out there in the middle of the night?
“Far’s we can tell, it’s suicide. Can’t think of anyone that would want to hurt old Hank. Guess the lonesomeness got to him.”
“You almost done?” Kristen called.
Sara looked down at her shirt and sighed. “Yeah. We’ll have to run by my house so I can change. I just made a mess.”
“That’s okay.” Audrey waved her off. “The movie marathon doesn’t start until four. We’ll have time to get snacks and stuff from the store so we don’t have to pay the theater prices.”
“Well, you better hurry, girls. It’s an hour drive to Asheville, and I don’t want you speeding on these roads.” Dad gave her friends a stern look, but he couldn’t hold it for long. After all, how many dads needed to worry about their daughters getting into trouble at a classic film festival?
Sara gave her father a quick kiss and threw her apron into the laundry pile before following the girls out the door. Audrey’s aging convertible waited at the curb, looking like the vessel of freedom it was. Seeing it gave Sara a little twinge as she remembered her strange sleepwalking episode from the night before. When everyone was buckled in, she turned off the radio amidst her friends’ complaints.
“I love that song,” Kristen said with a pout.
“It’s on my iPod. We can listen to it all the way to Asheville if you want. I just wanted to tell you about my weird night before we get home, in case Momma’s there.”
“I knew you snuck out!” Kristen’s favorite song was forgotten in her triumph.
“Yeah, but listen.”
By the time she got to the part about passing out on the dirt road in the middle of nowhere, the car pulled into her driveway. She’d left out the part about recognizing Salt Lick Road. After hearing Dave’s story at the diner, that part was just too weird.
Sara dragged them both from their seats, through the front door, and up to her room. While she dug around for a new shirt that wasn’t waterlogged, they examined the floor at the base of the bed.
“It looks like blood.” Kristen scuffed at the mark with her toe.
“Yeah, because it is.” Sara paused and peeled back the bandage to show them the small cut from the stone that had awakened her.
“So y
ou’re sleepwalking now?” Audrey looked worried and amused at the same time. “I mean, I guess it’s not a big stretch. You just went through major upheaval, what with graduation and everything. Some people deal with these stressors in strange ways.”
“Thanks, Doctor. Doesn’t explain how I ended up on Salt Lick Road. That’s a long way to walk in my sleep, isn’t it?” Sara grabbed another bandage from her bedside table.
Both girls turned to her with wide eyes. Shit. She’d let that little detail slip.
“So, you aren’t sleepwalking then. It had to be a dream. There’s no way you could get that far and back home in one night. Or maybe you were sleepwalking in your own backyard and cut your foot while you were dreaming about being out by the swimming hole.”
“That sounds plausible.” Kristen nodded quickly, probably eager to have the creepy stuff out of the way. “But it’s kinda weird you were dreaming about Salt Lick Road the same night some guy shot himself.”
“I don’t care if I was here or there.” Sara stopped and thought for a moment while pulling a purple T-shirt over her head. “Okay, so being there is weirder. Either way, sleepwalking is freaky. Do you think I walk with my arms out like a zombie?”
She stumbled around the room with palms facing forward. Kristen shrieked and lunged for the door.
“Argh.” Sara panted like the zombies on television, and groped Audrey’s butt before tripping out the door into the hallway.
“You’re such a geek.” Audrey followed Sara out with her oversized purse.
Sara stopped in the kitchen to switch everything from her little clutch to the big bag and then piled in contraband candy. Audrey would have carried in her own microwave popcorn if the fake butter smell wouldn’t give them away.
“Here.” Kristen thrust three cans of soda into the tote.
“We can’t take those. Someone will hear us open them.” Sara grabbed one of the drinks and pulled, but Kristen stopped her.
“We’ll just pretend to sneeze while we pop the tab. Easy as. Come on.”
“Sara, you behave yourself!” Mom shouted from her study.
Sara froze, wondering if she should go say hello or something.
“Remember, Asheville is not so far away that people don’t know who I am,” her mother finished.
Rolling her eyes, she yelled back, “No worries, Mom. I’ll be a paragon of virtue.”
Under her breath, she added, “Like I always am.”
Her friends shoved her out the door before a fight could break out.
2
Ridley O’Neill knew Sara Donovan as well as anyone else in Cedar City did. Mayor’s daughter, waitress at her father’s diner, valedictorian of her class. Hell, she’d probably even been prom queen.
She’d always been a pleasant smile in the morning as he enjoyed his French toast—the only luxury he allowed from his earnings as a road construction worker. She was a kind word if someone passed her in the grocery store or a helping hand to anyone in need. These facts were common knowledge, just as everyone knew his father was an abusive drunk. Most suspected that son of a bitch had killed Ridley’s mom when he was only four years old.
What Sara’d never been, as far as he could remember anyway, was beautiful. As Ridley drove the familiar mountain roads, he remembered Sara’s sparkling blue eyes—a shade darker than his own—and shy smile as she’d teased him over breakfast. Then the heat in those eyes as she’d run her gaze over his half-naked body in the back room of the diner.
He may never have noticed if not for Jerry, the loud, rough-around-the-edges crew member who’d commented on her ass as she fetched hot coffee for the team. As if seeing her for the first time, Ridley had focused for a moment on the tight jeans covering said ass.
He should be shot. Or hung. Or both. Eighteen or not, Sara was still a kid. Only, she didn’t look like one anymore, with curves in the right places, light brown hair that curled just over the tops of her breasts in her sleeveless shirt, and those eyes. Innocent but knowing at the same time. How had he missed those eyes before?
When Ridley pulled into the parking lot by the foreman’s trailer-slash-office, he locked Sara away in a box to deal with later. Several of the guys from breakfast were already pulling reflective vests over their dirty white shirts and loading into the trucks that would carry them to the construction site.
A mudslide from late spring rains had obliterated a section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Cedar City had nearly fought against the repairs, as many tourists driving the famous highway had to pull into town and get directions around the broken road. Most spent a few hours in the diner and their dollars in some of the local gift shops. At the very least, they filled up their cars at one of the three gas stations in town.
He joined the rest of the guys and took his vest with a sigh. Jerry was still talking about Sara.
“Donovan’s daughter grew up overnight. Did you see those tits? It’s like she wanted me to grab ‘em.”
White heat flashed behind Ridley’s eyes and then crawled up his spine. Jerry Garber had to be fifty if he was a day. Balding, with a belly hanging over his torn and muddy jeans, he’d probably been nothing to look at even in his twenties. The thought of his fat fingers anywhere near Sara… Ridley’s hand clenched into a fist as that box he’d locked Sara into burst open.
“You’ll keep your damn hands off her,” he growled.
“Who, Sara?” Jerry laughed and grabbed his crotch. “Bite me, Pretty Boy.”
“She yours or something?” Rick Dobbins asked.
Dobbins was an okay guy. A step above delinquent, but so was Ridley. At twenty-five, he was probably Ridley’s closest friend on the current construction crew, but that didn’t mean he’d trust Dobbins near Sara either.
“Nah, man. She’s just young. And Jerry’s disgusting. She doesn’t deserve to have some old bald guy pervin’ on her.”
“Don’t hurt nothin’ to look.” Jerry muttered. “Even if she was yours.”
Bile churned in Ridley’s gut. Pulse pounding in his ears, Ridley fought the red that crept into his vision. “You’re a sick bastard. Stay the fuck away from her.”
Jerry lunged, belly flopping over his belt buckle, arm pulled back and ready to swing. Ridley, who’d seen that particular stance on his dad more times than he could count, squared his feet and raised an eyebrow.
“Garber!” The construction foreman yelled from the trailer’s tiny porch.
Fist frozen in place, Jerry turned with a scowl. “Wasn’t doin’ nothing.”
Ridley turned on his heel and left a protesting Jerry behind. As the crew loaded into the trucks, he chose one that was almost full. The older man tromped to the last truck in line and flung the door open.
Ridley seethed all the way to the worksite, running through all the things he could say to Garber and eventually discarding them. Some protective streak he never knew existed had reared its ugly head, but anything he said would hint at something more. And there wasn’t more. Nothing more than a guy who’d just noticed a girl’s ass for the first time.
Well, that wasn’t fair to Sara. Or honest of him. Sometime about two years ago, he’d noticed that she wasn’t the gap-toothed middle schooler he pictured every time he heard her name. Hell, he was only three years older than she was, but that was dangerous thinking.
Never mind that she was an adult now, at least in the eyes in the law.
“You put gas in my truck?” Charlie O’Neill’s voice crackled with phlegm, a consequence of decades of smoking. Sure enough, as he stared down his son with rheumy eyes, thick fingers fumbled though a pack of Marlboro Reds and then struggled with an ancient Zippo.
“Yeah, Dad.”
Ridley should have learned lessons his father inadvertently taught, but his own work-roughened fingers itched for a cigarette to hold. If he didn’t figure out how to quit—the cigarettes and the whiskey—he’d no doubt age as quickly as Charlie. No one in town even knew how old the man was. He could have been anywhere from fifty to eighty.
“It’s payday, isn’t it?” A light filtered through bloodshot eyes. The old man loved payday—a chance to take money he didn’t earn.
Ridley resisted the urge to pat his pocket, where a wad of bills rested. He should have thought up a good lie before getting home, but he’d been too busy thinking about the utilities that needed to be paid. If Charlie got ahold of the money first, every cent would go to whiskey and cigarettes. As much as Ridley had once enjoyed a good smoke, they needed electricity and water more.
“Boss wasn’t in the trailer when I got back from the work site,” he finally mumbled. “I’ll get it tomorrow.”
Charlie exhaled a plume of smoke and stared his son down through narrowed slits. “You lyin’ to me, boy?”
“Oh, fuck off, Dad. I’ll get your damn money tomorrow. You’ll have it drunk before we get to pay the bills, but whatever.” Ridley threw his hands up and shouldered past his father into the house.
Stale smoke and Jack Daniel’s permeated the air. How could they keep living like this? Would he ever manage to make something more of himself?
“You’ll pay me what I’m owed. I let you live here, don’t I?”
Ridley didn’t even acknowledge his father. Words. Just words. He didn’t see a point in reminding his father that they still had a house because Ridley made all the money and paid the taxes.
Instead, he cut through the tiny kitchen and flung open the door to the back yard. Before Charlie could muster another angry word, Ridley had flipped on the lights to the tiny workshop just outside. Anything his father said would soon be drowned by the wailing of hammers and table saws.
A rough-hewn table occupied most of the available space. He couldn’t decide if he should sand and stain it or keep the wood close to a natural state. The style could go either way, so he had to think about who might buy. Some of those rich real estate investors in Cherokee or even Gatlinburg might consider putting one in a cabin. If he knew how to sell one, anyway.
The idea intrigued him. The cabins would definitely need a rustic look, so he grabbed a sheet of low-grit sandpaper to smooth only the spots that might leave splinters. As edges smoothed, the tension in his shoulders eased. How had life gotten so shitty?
Shriek: Legend of the Bean Sídhe Page 2
