by Susan Sey
Not that the kid’s fury surprised her. Given how openly Einar had been flirting with Goose since the minute he’d declared his intention to join them for preseason conditioning this afternoon, she’d have been shocked if Yarrow didn’t hate her.
No, reading the girl so powerfully wasn’t what disturbed her. What really shook her was the sharp snap of recognition. She didn’t just know what Yarrow was feeling. She recognized it. She’d experienced it herself, years ago, but that didn’t dim the toxic, punishing clarity with which Yarrow’s hate-filled gaze brought it back. Only she hadn’t hated some stranger for stealing a man’s attention. She’d hated her sister.
“Get in, Yarrow,” she said, but couldn’t keep a note of sympathy out of her voice. Yarrow’s face twisted like Goose had sprinkled her with holy water and commanded out the demons. But she got in. Goose got in beside her, careful not to crowd her. And she wondered.
RUSH LEFT Einar leading the kids through a few warm-up laps around the high school’s track while he and Goose marked out the longer-mileage run through town they’d tackle next. Weather was unpredictable this time of year. They’d run while it stayed warm, switch to skis when they could. They’d likely be back to jogging midseason sometime. That was just the nature of the North Shore.
“Is it always like that?” Goose asked, wrestling the truck into first gear while Rush consulted the map.
“Like what?” he asked, distracted. The spicy, green scent spilling off her hair distracted him from the map on his knees and he found himself studying her instead.
She wasn’t conventionally beautiful, his Goose. Not with the aggressive jut of those cheekbones, the stubborn thrust of that jaw. Her nose was straight and fine, yes, but it was a bit too long for true beauty.
But her mouth. Lord, that mouth. If her face was a puzzle, her mouth was the bastard piece that looked like it had migrated over from an entirely different box. It was a wide, lush slash of emotion, and with the upper lip just slightly fuller than the lower. Something about that topheavy mouth made him think of fruit on the vine—full and sweet and begging to be plucked. It made him want to bite. Taste. Suck. Gently, then maybe a little harder, depending on what kind of noise she made when he gave it a shot.
He shifted uncomfortably on the old, butt-sprung bench seat of the Jimmy. Jesus, look at him. Dreaming himself half hard just looking at her profile. As if he needed a reminder of how low he was running on polite patience.
She’d made her move that first day, and he’d countered. Asked for more than she’d wanted to give. That had surprised her, but he’d given her plenty of time to get used to the idea. Now it was his turn to make a move, whether she was ready or not. He glanced out the window at the pale round of moon that hung against the day-lit sky, and half smiled to himself.
Soon, he thought. He’d move soon.
“Like that,” Goose said, pointing her chin toward the rearview mirror.
“Hmm?” Rush scrambled to pick up the thread of whatever she’d been asking him.
“Yarrow,” Goose said. “With the other girls. Is it always that bad?”
“Pull over here,” Rush said. He hopped out when she did and plunked an orange pylon down on the corner. “Six blocks straight ahead, then left.”
She wrestled the truck into first again, checked her mirror for nonexistent traffic and pulled out. “Did you even see what was going on at the track?” she asked. “It’s a warm day out, but things were subzero back there.”
Rush frowned. “What, you mean the way Yarrow doesn’t really talk to the other kids?”
Goose pulled her eyes from the road long enough to give him a disbelieving look. “Are you kidding me? She might not talk much but she was saying a hell of a lot.”
“Like?”
“Like ‘I’m not one of you losers.’ Like ‘Screw you.’ Like—”
“Life’s been rough on her this past year,” Rush said. “Cut her some slack. It’s not like she wanted to join the team, you know. Lila made her—”
Goose snorted out a sound that was all female derision. “Oh, please. Since when can you make a teenager do anything? She’s here because she wants to be.” She pulled over and nodded at the sidewalk. “There’s your next spot.”
Rush got out, planted his pylon and got back in frowning.
“A mile south next,” he said. “And why would she do that?”
“What, purposely alienate the only peers she has contact with?” Goose shot him a sidelong look as she headed south. “I gather Lila homeschools?”
“In her own way. Which, yes, means limited contact with other girls. So why would she turn up her nose at the chance to make friends?”
“Punishment.”
“She doesn’t even know them. Why would she punish them?”
Another of those exasperated looks. “She’s not punishing them, Rush. She’s punishing herself.”
“Herself?”
“You think it’s easy for a girl with Yarrow’s bones to ugly herself up the way she has? That takes some serious effort. I’ve got to think the same principle applies to her behavior. For some reason—you’d probably know what it is better than I would—Yarrow’s decided she doesn’t deserve nice things. Doesn’t deserve a pretty face. Healthy hair of a color found in nature. The friendship of other girls.” She shrugged. “Love in general.”
Rush considered her, this woman he’d initially taken for shallow. How had he missed the razor-sharp brain operating just behind those dark, sad eyes? How had he missed the fact that she didn’t miss anything? Probably because he was an idiot.
But even now he couldn’t quite connect all the dots the way she was obviously expecting him to.
“Which is why she drags her ass all the way into town?” he asked. “To shun friendship?” He nodded, as if pondering it. “Yes, I see. It’s convoluted, inconvenient, vaguely insulting. Totally Yarrow. Brilliant.”
She snorked out a laugh, something so different from her usual bell-like chuckle that he broke off to stare at her. Goose was a snort-laugher? How . . . fascinating. Everything about her was so polished and sophisticated, from the smooth fall of her hair to the calculating way she wielded that powerful smile. But every now and then the façade cracked and an oddball slice of daffy humor sparkled through. A humor Rush found thoroughly and unexpectedly . . . adorable. No other word for it.
Damn, he was in deep. Double damn if he wasn’t feeling unaccountably cheerful about it, too. Figure that.
“Very Yarrow,” she agreed, then her grin died. “But it does make sense. Think about it this way. It’s one thing to put yourself in the middle of everything you crave—community, gossip, cute boys, other girls—and reject it. But it’s another thing entirely to put yourself in the middle of everything you want most, and allow it—no, force it—to reject you.”
“You think she’s—” He broke off. She hadn’t said it outright, but she’d clearly circled back around to Yarrow as a suspect. A girl who would reject friendship in such a painful manner would reject love even more violently. And who loved her more gently, more persistently than Lila?
Which meant that his troubled young cousin was, in all likelihood, dabbling in black magic in an effort to do the one thing Lila might find unforgivable. And calling black magic for money? That just doubled the slap, which was likely the point. If Goose was right about the kid, she wasn’t in it for the money so much as the self-flagellation.
He’d have to make an uncomfortable phone call to Yarrow’s parents, ask some unpleasant questions. They’d clearly done a thorough job expunging the kid’s record if Goose couldn’t rustle up any information through official channels. Beyond that, though, he didn’t have the first clue what to do. Yarrow was a mystery to him, but she was family and therefore his responsibility. A precious responsibility, though he knew she wouldn’t believe that.
Goose would, though. Look at her there, practically holding her breath as she refused to put too fine a point on what she’d just said. She’d nudged
him toward it, then backed off so he could draw his own conclusions. Perhaps even take some action toward protecting the girl before Goose and her badge were obligated to step in.
She glanced his way, caught him staring and hitched a self-conscious shoulder. “It hurts more if you let them do the rejecting,” she said, then pulled over. “She’d want that. The hurt.” She nodded out the window. “There’s your last corner.”
Rush didn’t open the door. Goose frowned past him at the street sign. “You did say a mile south?”
He slipped a hand under the glossy black hair that spilled out of her hat and over her shoulders like night, cupped her warm nape in his hand. Then he pulled her forward and simply put his mouth on hers. The peppery scent of her hair, the shimmer of her surprise, the quick melt of that surprise into pleasure—it swirled around him in a dizzying updraft. And something inside him that had been silent for years, something he feared would never wake again, spoke.
Mine.
He pulled back, despite the sharp grind of hunger, the breathless surge of desire. He knew he should smile at her, reassure her. Probably apologize. Definitely laugh off the moment as impulse. But he wasn’t a smiler, he damn well wasn’t impulsive and this was nothing to laugh about anyway.
“What—” She broke off, blinked slowly and rubbed her lips together as if tasting him all over again. Rush ached to dive back into that barely begun kiss. “What was that?”
“Fair warning,” he said.
“Of . . . what?”
He caught her eyes with his, held them and took them deep. “I want you, Goose.” He said it baldly. Roughly. Honestly. Exactly as it was inside him. “All of you. Not just the pretty smile and shiny hair, either. No, I want the girl who snorts when she laughs and says ‘fuck’ when she’s angry.” He leaned in until he could almost taste the shocked desire in the air around and between them. “I want the girl who can look at an ugly, tumbledown cabin and see a snow globe. Who can look at an angry, unlikable kid and find her heart with both hands. I want you, Goose, and I’m about out of patience with waiting.”
He got out, planted his cone on the corner and slammed back into the truck. She was still gaping at him like he’d knocked her over the head with a brick. He reached over and gently nudged her drooping jaw into place.
“But what I have to do,” she said finally. “To you. To your family—”
He gave his head an impatient shake. “We’ve covered that already. I know exactly what you’re doing here and how it’ll affect my family. Just like you already know I’m okay with it.” He held up a hand to forestall her protest. “I’m not happy about it, but I’m okay with it. The law is the law, no matter who’s breaking it. I get that. But it doesn’t have shit to do with what I feel for you.”
“Rush.” She stared out the windshield, her hands on the wheel. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Then don’t try to make this about your job. You’re not scared of investigating my family. But you are scared of something, and sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me what the hell it is. Because I’m not going away and I’m not giving up.”
She closed her eyes for a long moment, and Rush entertained the terrifying notion that she might be fighting tears. When she finally met his gaze, though, her eyes were dry and steady.
“Fair enough,” she said. “But not today.”
He considered the tense angle of her jaw, the fiercely rigid line of her spine. “Not today,” he agreed slowly.
But soon.
Chapter 14
“SO, YARROW.” Agent Smiley Face jogged alongside her down the streets of Hornby Harbor, pacing her easily. Yarrow hated her and the endless legs Einar had so openly admired earlier. “You have a minute to chat?”
A greasy wave of pain crested in Yarrow’s gut. Einar was right, she thought bitterly. Lila thinks I was the one fucking around with the Stone Altar. Her own grandmother had sent a slick, smiling cop to do some kind of autopsy on her blackened soul. To figure out where everybody had gone so wrong. The pain receded and a swift clench of anger took its place. Fuck that. Lila wanted to figure out what inherent evil made her tick? She wanted to know exactly how upper-class, white-bread suburbia had spawned such a dangerous freak? She could ask for herself.
Right. Like that was going to happen. Her own parents refused to get within shouting distance of her. Keeping their good child alive was a full-time job, and they didn’t have any energy left over to trouble themselves about redeeming the bad one. Why would her grandmother—her step-grandmother, at that—go to more trouble than her actual blood relatives?
Not that she deserved redemption. She was bad news. Ask anybody. Ask Jilly.
Only Jilly wasn’t talking. Not to her, anyway. Not after what she’d done.
She picked up the pace one more punishing degree, but Agent Smiley Face wasn’t even breathing hard. “Jesus,” Yarrow said finally. “Talk if you’re going to talk. I don’t have all damn day.”
“How long have you been in love with Einar?”
Shock surged through her body at the sound of his name, same as it did every time he touched her. The electricity between them had all but knocked her on her ass the other night. And when he’d gazed down at her with all that gentle compassion in his warm, blue eyes, like he already knew her—freaky brain, damaged soul and all—she was a goner.
But she was also jailbait. She knew it, he knew it, and worse, Agent Smiley Face here knew it. There was only one person on this entire planet who understood her. Who accepted her. Who might even love her, if she worked hard enough at it. Problem was, loving her anytime in the next two years would get him arrested. Whoops.
She’d be damned if she’d let her love bring Einar harm, though. She’d be double damned if she’d let this woman with her slick charm, her scary badge and her nosy questions snuff out the one bright spot Yarrow could see in the endless fucking night that was her future.
“You think I’m in love with Einar?” She snorted out an ironic little chuckle. No easy thing with her heart in her mouth. “Oh my God. He’s so . . . old. Plus he’s, like, my cousin.”
“Stepcousin. No blood relation.”
“Still. Aren’t there laws about things like that, even up here in the wilderness?”
Goose sighed. “I’m not going to arrest you for crushing on your cousin, Yarrow. I’m just trying to help you.”
“Really.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but I’ve been where you are. I know what it’s like to be invisible, or to wish you were. I know what it’s like when you think somebody finally sees you in spite of that. I know how that feels, and how you’d do nearly anything for the person who performs that particular miracle. But, honey, that kind of gratitude, that kind of love? It’s real and God knows it’s intense. But it’s really, really dangerous, too. You need to be careful.”
Her words sprayed Yarrow like buckshot, a thousand stinging insults at once. They popped tiny holes in the blackness inside her where she’d buried the pain, the rage, the need. That awful, shameful need.
“You don’t know shit,” Yarrow said coldly as the old hurt bubbled up fresh and hateful inside her. “You know less than shit.”
“I know enough,” Goose said. She stopped running, grabbed Yarrow’s forearm, dragged her to a halt. Yarrow seized the woman’s hand—she meant to throw it off, to tell this woman where she could stuff her self-righteous bullshit, but she lost control.
The instant Goose’s skin hit hers, the freak that lived inside her took over. The freak who fed on the vicious swirl of dark emotion churning in her gut. The freak who not only fed on it but got off on inflicting it on others. She dug her nails into Goose’s palm, stared into those big, ridiculously sincere eyes and didn’t hide a thing.
She let it all loose on her face, everything she usually kept such a careful lid on—the hostility, the jealousy, the rage. The dark, keening love for Einar. The glittery shards of self-hatred and the lies from which that hatred had grown.
Goose snatched her hand back, her face pale, her mouth set with bleak knowledge. Yarrow’s stomach clenched with a mixture of disappointment and satisfaction. She was just as toxic as she’d always been. Toxic enough to nauseate a hardened officer of the law, anyway. No surprises there. The only person ever to look inside her head without disgust was Einar.
“Well, this has been just swell. Let’s not do it ever again,’kay?” Yarrow wiped her hand down her sweats with deliberate disdain. “Gotta run.”
And she sprinted down the street as if the hounds of hell were at her heels. Goose didn’t follow her, and she didn’t look back.
GOOSE WATCHED Yarrow race away, leaving her to gather up the shards of her composure. She thinks I’m disgusted , Goose thought, her throat aching. She thinks she’s disgusting.
She sensed more than saw the rest of the team jogging up the street toward her at a more dogged pace. Einar led the pack, while Rush brought up the rear, encouraging the stragglers. They streamed around her, all heaving lungs and the occasional wheezed curse. Rush pulled up beside her.
“Goose?” he asked, a thrum of concern in his deep voice. “You all right?”
“Yes,” she said. But she wasn’t. Far from it. Yarrow had meant to slap at her, and she’d landed a good one. That harrowing, fast-forward spin through the girl’s bleak emotional landscape had sucker-punched her but good. It had been wretched and familiar all at once, a confusing stew of high passions, self-hatred and fatalism. At a certain point she hadn’t been able to tell, entirely, where Yarrow’s feelings left off and the memories of her own ill-fated sixteenth year began. She knew only that the overlap was huge and painful.
She had to give the girl credit. Maybe it had been a wild punch, but she’d landed it pretty solid. Her little tromp through Goose’s psyche had tripped more land mines than she could have possibly imagined. But the girl had also revealed more than she’d intended. Way more.
