by Jaid Black
Seeds of Yesterday
Jaid Black
The wealthy and influential Hunter family never thought much of Trina Pittman.
Born on the wrong side of the tracks, Trina wasn’t considered a worthy choice as a friend for their daughter Amy. Being disliked by Amy’s parents had been tough on Trina while growing up, but putting up with Amy’s older brother, Daniel, had been brutal. Those dark, brooding eyes of his had followed her around high school—judging her, reminding her she’d never be good enough for them. It was almost a relief when Amy was shipped off to boarding school, permanently forcing the two girls apart.
Fifteen years later, Amy’s tragic death reunites Trina with her past…and with Daniel.
Reader Advisory: This story has graphic sexual language and scenes—no closed bedroom doors (or other rooms) here!
An adult contemporary romance from Ellora’s Cave
SEEDS OF YESTERDAY
Jaid Black
To Carey, my first best friend. I haven’t seen you since we were little girls, but know that, even in your darkest hours, I still care. Beat the demons, girlfriend. You deserve so much more…
Seeds of Yesterday
Diary Entry
You died on a Sunday…
I haven’t seen Amy Hunter in over fourteen years, but yesterday morning when I found out about her death it affected me profoundly. I took the news as if we’d been an intricate part of each other’s lives clear up until the moment when she took her last breath.
Once upon a time, when we were young, Amy and I had been inseparable. We’d done everything together, gone everywhere together, earned detention at school together—hell, we even lost our virginity to the same asshole. (How Amy ever forgave me for that one I’ll never know.)
I suppose that’s why it hurts so much to lose her, even though, if I’m honest with myself, I’ve hardly thought about her at all over the years except in one of those rare moments of nostalgia when I remember days gone by. And yet, knowing that she is gone from the world hurts in a way I simply can’t quantify or qualify.
Maybe it’s because we were so young when we met, both of us just fourteen. Maybe it’s because I loved Amy when I was a kid, back before I grew up and became the jaded person adults can’t seem to help but become.
When you’re fourteen, everything is so damn easy. You love others quickly and completely, you hurt others quickly and completely and you forgive others quickly and completely. It’s nothing like being an adult, a time when you look at the world through skeptical eyes. A time when love comes slowly if at all, hurt happens rarely because you’re expecting it, and forgiveness is for the TSTL—Too Stupid To Live—types.
But with Amy—
Oh God, Amy…
I can’t believe you’re dead, sweetheart.
5
Jaid Black
I suppose her death shouldn’t have surprised me given her precarious health even back then. She’d had to shoot up with insulin three times a day long before I’d ever known her. At fourteen one never gives much thought to what childhood diabetes can do to a little girl’s system. When you’re that young, death is too far removed from your vocabulary for you to feel anything less than invincible. I’d always known that Amy had health problems. The fact that she could die from them never so much as occurred to me.
And now as I sit here in front of the computer screen, typing out my thoughts some eighteen years later, I find my eyes misting up as my gaze continuously strays toward the black-and-white photograph of a thirty-two-year-old Amy Hunter in Sunday’s obituary section of the local paper. Same laughing eyes, same dent in her chin—a hereditary dent she shared with her father Gus and her brother Daniel. Same everything…almost.
What was gone from the thirty-two-year-old Amy was the innocence of youth, the belief in invincibility that makes fourteen-year-olds do stupid, reckless things. In its place was a quiet calm, an acceptance of mortality and of what could not be changed. In that way the photograph resembled her older brother Daniel more than it did good-time, always-up-for-a-laugh Amy—the Amy I had known and loved with my whole heart.
Her brother Daniel—Daniel Michael “Straightlaced” Hunter. Now there is a name I haven’t said aloud in years. Once the bane of my existence, now a distant memory recorded in the annals of my brain.
My senior by just two years, that age difference had seemed like a lot to me, way back when. I respected him in my own way—it’s hard not to respect such a rigidly controlled superhuman who knows exactly what he wants in life, where he is going, and how he plans to get there—but I didn’t like Daniel the first time I met him.
No, that’s not true, precisely. It was Daniel who didn’t like me.
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Seeds of Yesterday
At the time I had no idea why. All I understood was that he was very confrontational toward me and very worried about any potential bad influence I might have on “sweet little Amy”. Now, as a woman, I’m able to look back and see his attitude for what it was—a protective older brother who didn’t want his sickly sister in with the wrong crowd.
Amy and I were what they called “burnouts” back in high school. An ironic misnomer for me, given that I never touched drugs and excelled in my schoolwork. I was, thankfully, all talk and no action where the recreational habits of said clique were concerned.
But, of course, Daniel didn’t know that. And it wasn’t like I was going to tell him I’d never done a drug in my life. I had a rep to maintain, after all. A golden boy, jock-type, all he saw when he looked at me was the label “burnout” and the slutty, dope-using reputation that came with it. Definitely not the kind of friend he wanted his diabetic sister to hang out with.
The weird part was that, unlike all of the other golden boy, jock-types at school, I cared what Daniel Michael “Straightlaced” Hunter thought about me. Not that I ever let on as much. I felt unnerved and intimidated by the way his dark, brooding eyes would follow me around, watching me, waiting for me to screw up. I felt saddened by the way he seemed to size me up and habitually find me lacking.
I kept my sorrow to myself. After all, I was supposed to be tough as nails. If only.
Ah, Amy. We had some good times, sweetheart…
And now I sit here at my computer, partially numb and partially pained, wondering whether or not it would be proper for me to attend the funeral of a woman I once called best friend. I want to be there for Amy, to let her know in my own way how much her life meant and how much her loss is felt. But at the same time I don’t wish to cause any undue stress to her family.
Amy’s parents have never thought much of me, you see. Daniel thinks even less—
assuming such is possible.
7
Jaid Black
How could you die on a Sunday, damn it? You deserved to die on a Friday night…
Sundays have always been my least favorite day of the week. There is something fundamentally gloomy and dismal about them. It isn’t right that someone as full of life and finesse as Amy Hunter should die on the most staid, apathetic day of the week.
Amy shouldn’t have died on a Sunday. She deserved to die on a Friday—the liveliest, most charismatic night of the week.
Oh sweetheart, I should have been there for you…
But then, I wish Amy had never died at all.
8
Seeds of Yesterday
Chapter One
Sixteen years earlier
“Trina, he is too cute. Admit it!”
“Ick! What’s to admit? Your taste grows worse, Ames.”
“Ames—why do you call me that? It makes me sound like a chauffeur or something.”
Katrina “Trina” Pittman tucked a light brown curl behind her ear as she grinned at her
best friend. “Good, because I need one. That hunk of junk I bought from all those nights of waiting tables broke down again.”
Amy sighed. “Again?”
“’Fraid so.”
“Great. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to take the old-bag-mobile to Front Street this weekend, but it looks like it’s that or walk.”
Trina chuckled as she pulled a notebook out of her locker and slammed it shut. “If your mom overheard you talking about her precious Cadillac like that she’d ground you for a month.”
Amy groaned. “Please don’t say the M word. I am so sick of that woman! I love her to death, but I’m sixteen now. That’s, like, practically a woman. If she doesn’t stop treating me like a baby…”
“Hey, at least you’ve got a mom to worry about you.” Trina sighed as she glanced up at the hall clock. “Shit, I’ve gotta motor. Two minutes until English Lit.”
“Eeeeew. Hated that class. Better you than me, babe.”
“Gee thanks.”
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Jaid Black
Amy grinned. “Meet me in the parking lot after last period. I’ll give you a ride home in the old-bag-mobile.”
“Cool. Hey, I’ve got to split.”
“See you.”
“Later, Ames.”
Trina took the stairs two at a time, not wanting to be late for Mr. Brizio’s class. The guy was a jerk, truly enjoyed embarrassing people if they came in late. It wouldn’t matter to him that it was the last day of school before summer break and that everyone was running a little behind today.
Unfortunately, her class was supposed to meet in the library for its final session, which was clear across the other side of the school, two floors above the gymnasium.
By the time she’d reached the top of the third floor, her breathing had grown a bit labored. Nevertheless, she walked down the hallway at a brisk pace, telling herself she could still be on time. Or, she amended, she could if she knew where she was. She didn’t spend much time in the library, she thought ruefully, so this part of the school looked almost foreign to her.
Trina gripped the books and notebook tighter against her chest and jogged down the first corridor she came to. Wrong one—shit! She turned on her heel, preparing to dash back in the other direction, when her chin collided with a very hard, unrelenting chest. “Ouch!” she hissed as she fell back a step, dazed. The books fell from her grasp, crashing on the ground with a thud.
“You might want to watch where you’re going,” a very masculine and far too familiar voice murmured.
She stilled, her eyes rounding a bit. Her heart began to beat triple time in her chest, making her breasts heave just a little, just as they always did whenever he was near. She couldn’t quite bring herself to make eye contact, but everything below the neck looked as solid and powerful as it usually did.
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Seeds of Yesterday
But then Daniel Hunter would look solid and powerful even if he was skinny as a rail. He’d always had a presence about him. The football player muscles and vein-roped arms only added to it.
She took a deep breath and expelled it, collecting herself. She just hoped he hadn’t noticed her reaction to him, a reaction she’d give anything not to have. And why did she have that response anyway, damn it? He hated her. He’d always hated her.
“Sorry,” Trina whispered, her head coming up. Her nervous blue gaze clashed with his dark brown one. She felt a bit intimidated, but refused to show it. He always looked so rigid, so fucking emotionless. And so perfect. Not at all like her, with an average body given to chubbiness. “I’m supposed to be in the library, only I don’t know where…”
Her voice trailed off as it dawned on her that she had just unthinkingly confirmed the stereotype he held of her. Her mouth worked up and down, but nothing came out, as she tried to figure out a way to recover from the slight she’d just dealt herself.
Daniel snorted, sarcastically amused. “Shocking. You? Not know where the library is?”
Trina felt like crying on the inside, but she straightened her shoulders and showed him her tough outer shell. Someone like him, someone who had everything, wouldn’t understand what it meant to have to spend your every free moment waiting tables. But then someone like him wouldn’t have to worry about putting food on the table for a little sister because their father was too drunk to do it.
“Well,” she said in a clipped tone of voice, “it ain’t like they’re much use.” She wanted to cringe at her use of the word ain’t, but refused to. If he wanted a dopehead, slut bumpkin, then that’s just what he’d get.
“Your command of the English language is very impressive.”
His dark gaze ran over her face, down to her breasts, then back up to her eyes. She felt her cheeks grow hot and hoped he chalked it up to anger rather than to the weird thumping that had started in her chest when he’d noticed her breasts. Insofar as she 11
Jaid Black
knew, he’d never noticed them before. Other boys did all the time, for they were large for a sixteen-year-old girl. She’d always looked older than her age. She’d stood her current five-foot-six since age twelve.
“Yup. This school done learned me good.”
One of Daniel’s eyebrows rose at her obvious sarcasm. “Perhaps if you smoked a little less pot and did a little more studying, finding the library wouldn’t be such a difficult task.”
She wanted to grind her teeth together while flashing one of her many straight-A report cards at him. Instead, she assumed her cocky, haughty, whatever attitude.
“Thanks for your analysis,” Trina said as she ripped her books out of his hands. “I’ll make sure I go home tonight and ponder that.” She gave him eyebrow for eyebrow as she turned to walk away. “While I’m smoking all that great dope, of course.”
Two large hands seized her from behind. Her breathing stilled.
“The library,” Daniel murmured, “is that way. You were going the right way the first time.”
Trina flushed but said nothing. She could feel his unnerving gaze on her as she walked away and hightailed it to Mr. Brizio’s class.
* * * * *
“Daniel is such a dweeb.” Amy rolled her eyes as she took a hit off a joint. “Pay His Idioticness no attention. You want some of this?”
Trina shook her head. “No. I don’t really like how it makes me feel. Hey, Ames, I hear there’s a party down on the riverfront tonight.” She grinned. “Mr. D’Amato actually gave me the night off, if you can believe it. You want to go?”
“Of course.” Amy snubbed out the joint and packed it away in a cigarette wrapper, then turned her attention back toward the road. “Roll down your window. The last thing I need is for my bitch of a mother to smell this shit in her precious car.”
12
Seeds of Yesterday
“Maybe you shouldn’t smoke in it,” Trina said, frowning. “Especially while driving me around. I prefer not to die at sixteen, thanks just the same.”
Amy sighed. “Don’t start. You sound like—”
“Don’t say it! Do not say the D word. Or the M word. I’m not sure if you wanted to compare me to your brother or your mother, but I’m not up to either at the moment.”
Amy grinned. “Emotionless robot or Super Bitch. Yeah, I guess neither one is very complimentary.”
Trina snorted at that. She knew the last time Amy had got caught smoking dope in the car she’d blamed it on Trina. She’d called her best friend out on it and they hadn’t spoken for a week, but she wouldn’t put it past Amy to do the same thing again. She loved Amy, but even she, her best friend, saw how self-serving she was. “Just make sure the car is aired out before you go home,” she said pointedly.
Amy was quiet for a minute. “I said I was sorry—”
“It’s over. But please, not again…okay?”
Amy nodded her agreement. “So,” she said, changing the subject, “I’ll pick you up at eight. All right?”
“Sure.” Trina’s absent gaze flicked
toward the window. “Is Bobby going to be there, too?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. No way would I ever see him again after the way he played us against each other. Asshole.”
Trina chuckled. “Is he the asshole or are we? I mean, he dated us both for over a month, we’re best friends, and yet we never knew.”
Amy frowned. “He is the asshole. Definitely. He convinced me to keep our ‘love’ a secret because his ex-girlfriend was trying to get over him.”
“Same thing here.” Trina grinned. “Only the ex-girlfriend wasn’t an ex, any more than our ‘love’ was love.”
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Jaid Black
“I just wish I hadn’t given my virginity to the asshole. God! If you look up ‘asshole’
in the dictionary there’d be a picture of his hairy butt right there.”
“Dictionaries don’t have pictures.”
Amy chuckled. “All right. Encyclopedia then.”
“Oh, there’s my street.” Trina sighed. She gathered her stuff up from the back of the car then turned to Amy. “I need to make dinner for my sister, but I’ll make sure I’m ready by eight.”
“That’s not right. Your father should be the one—”
“But he doesn’t.” She flashed Amy a smile as the Cadillac rolled to a stop in the gravel driveway. She didn’t like to discuss her father with anyone. Not even with her best friend. “See you at eight.”
“Cool. Hey listen!” Amy called out as Trina alighted from the passenger side.
Trina poked her head through the open window. “Yeah?”
“Wear something really kick-ass tonight. I plan on us finally getting the attention of Eric and his friends.”
“Oh geez. I don’t have any clothes that—”
“Just find some,” Amy interrupted as she put the car in reverse. “Otherwise we’ll be mismatched.”
Trina sighed. “What are you wearing?”
“Something that shows off my tits. See you at eight.”
“Fine,” Trina said, bemused. “Eight. Tits. Gotcha.”
