His Secret Heart (Crown Creek)

by Theresa Leigh

  "How you doing today Mr. Prince?" she asked brightly.

  Yeah, I’d given her a fake name. And a stack of fifties for not asking to see my license. I thought I was buying her silence. I didn’t realize I’d just piqued her interest.

  I looked up at her. "Fine," I said. Then - when that didn't seem enough - I gave her a polite smile.

  She stared in wide-eyed shock and I wondered if this was the first time I’d actually looked her in the eye. Then she smiled right back. "Hope you have a wonderful day!" she trilled as she pushed my meager bag of provisions across the counter.

  There was something I needed to say... I could feel it. A bit too late I summoned the words, “You too,” in an effort that felt almost exhausting.

  She smiled again, and I nodded before retreating back out the door.

  All through the walk back to my trailer I replayed that strange exchange over and over in my head. Wondering why it had felt so significant. Why today felt different. Why being alone now felt less like solitude... and more like loneliness.

  The threatened rain finally came late that afternoon. I looked up from the book I was barely reading and watched the first fat drops hit the window of the trailer.

  I'd parked the bus at an angle, far back from the central dirt road that looped around the perimeter of the campsite. I’d paid for the privilege of solitude and space, but I didn’t mind the view either. I could look out one window and see nothing but looming pines stretching straight into the darkening sky.

  But if I looked out the other window, I saw the rest of the campsite. That's the one I was looking out now.

  I wasn't sure what I was searching for until I found it. The neon blue tent across the road there, set up on a tiny lot perched right by the roadside.

  That had to be her tent. She'd come from that direction last night, and she'd gone back in that direction this morning. It was raining like crazy all of a sudden, and Sky was there in the middle of it. If that was her tent. Which I was pretty sure it was. Except I wasn’t sure at all.

  Fuck, why did I care?

  All of a sudden, I was pissed. I smacked my palm against the glass. Who knew she was even there? Who knew if that was even her tent? Not me. Why was I straining so hard to catch some glimpse of movement that I was giving myself a headache? I'd had one strange night with her, and then we'd said goodbye.

  Or, more precisely, she’d left without a backward glance. I didn't owe her anything.

  There was a distant rumble of thunder and suddenly I was on my feet and moving.

  The biting rain slashed at my face, soaking my shirt to my skin in seconds. I was pissed at myself first. And then I was pissed at her for being the reason I was doing this.

  "Sky!" There was no door, obviously, but I knocked against the blue nylon wall all the same. "Are you in there?”

  I didn't hear anything from inside. No movement, no answer. And then I wondered what the hell I was doing.

  I turned to leave.

  Then, underneath the noise of the rain, the lash of the wind, and the now constant rumble of thunder, I heard something else.

  A sniff.

  And then a stifled sob.

  I dropped down to a crouch before I knew what I was doing. "Hey," I called staring awkwardly at the bright blue wall of her tent. "It's fucking raining like a bitch out here. Don't you want to get out of it?" When there was nothing but silence I raised my voice higher. “Sky! Come on, it’s a fucking thunderstorm, are you insane?"

  The tent zipper shot up so fast it was a blur, and suddenly Sky was there. Her face was wet, and for a second I wondered if her tent was leaking. Until she I saw her red rimmed eyes. "Are you crying?"

  "Goddamnit leave me alone!" she shouted, reaching for the zipper and starting to pull it shut again.

  I shot my arm out, stopping her. "You're sitting in a tent crying in the rain? Are you like, actively trying to catch pneumonia and die here?"

  "It's none of your damn business what I do."

  "You're right it's not, but too bad. If you wanna die of pneumonia, don't do it on my watch."

  I was startled to hear those words coming out of my mouth. You want to kill yourself, don’t do it on my watch. How many times had Beau said that to me?

  I shook my head and glared at the girl in the tent. Since being myself sucked so much, maybe I should keep this going. What would Beau do? "Come on." I softened my voice so that it sounded much more like my brother’s. "Let me help you. Come on and get warm.”

  Chapter Ten

  Sky

  He was right. I was cold.

  But getting mad that he was right warmed me up fast. “I’m warm enough, thank you,” I retorted, reaching to close the tent flap again. “I’m fine.”

  “Liar,” he said softly.

  I froze mid-zip. “What did you call me?”

  It was a full body reaction. Starting with a clenching pain my stomach and a ringing in my ears. I started to shake my head, slowly at first, the faster. “No. I’m not a liar. I never lie.” Not like him. I’m nothing like him. “Don’t call me a liar.”

  Finn watched me steadily, waiting until I had to pause to take a breath before he clarified. “Look at your hand,” he said mildly.

  I looked and saw that it was shaking. I was shivering that hard.

  Chastened, I drew it away. “I’m not a liar,” I protested.

  “Sure you’re not.”

  “Why are you being nice to me?”

  “Am I?” He smiled. “Huh. Weird. No idea. It’s never happened before.” He stood up, brushing the dirt from his knees and then reaching out his hand. “Come on. You built me a fire last night. Consider this me paying you back.”

  I lifted my hand, then hesitated. He rolled his eyes and snatched my wrist, yanking me up and out of the tent so fast I went airborne. Then, with a whoop, he half led, half-dragged me across the dirt-road-turned-streambed, and up the two-step ladder into his trailer.

  The warmth hit me first. Inside of Finn’s luxury trailer, it was so deliciously warm that the tips of my fingers tingled. I hadn’t even realized they were numb. I lifted them to my lips and blew on them as I looked around.

  This morning, when I’d woken up in that very bed, I’d been so wrapped up in shame and disbelief that I’d barely registered my surroundings. Now it was like I was seeing everything for the first time. “This is yours?” I asked, completely nonsensically.

  Because Finn, for all of his surly grumpiness and unruly beard, was a fucking rock star. He and his brothers, they’d played the soundtrack to my tween years. Whether I’d wanted to pay attention to them or not was a moot point, because they were literally everywhere back then. They toured non-stop for years. Toured in this very bus.

  This morning I’d wondered if I’d died and gone to heaven. This trailer was heaven.

  Finn raised a sardonic eyebrow. “One-quarter of it, yeah,” he corrected before walking down the central hallway to the back.

  At the rear of the bus curved a full kitchen, complete with marble topped counters and stainless steel appliances. Including the espresso machine he’d used to make me coffee this morning. Built into the wall across the central aisle was a table with four chairs. They were all bolted into a central beam underneath the table so they could swivel freely as the bus moved. The middle of the bus was an open area outfitted with a fluffy shag rug that made me raise my eyebrow. “We’d practice here,” Finn explained, as if reading my thoughts. “See the plugs on the wall?”

  I licked my lips, nodding. It was beautiful in here, and it made me feel small and shabby to be dripping all over the floor the way I was. “Nice,” I said, and tried to suppress a shiver.

  I was keeping myself deliberately turned away from the bed that took up the front of the bus by the driver’s seat. But when he saw me looking over my shoulder at it, Finn shrugged. “I took out the bunks.”

  I nodded. “I guess it makes sense that all four of you didn’t sleep there. Even though it is a really big bed.”<
br />
  He jerked a little, like he’d touched electricity. “No.” Then he stalked past me and knelt at the drawers built into the wall across from the bed. Wordlessly, he handed me a old T-shirt, and a pair of basketball shorts. "These are definitely not your size," he said making the awkward, obvious joke.

  I tried to smile, because he was being nice. Because this was very kind. Something I wouldn't have expected from him.

  "You're really Finn King,” I said.

  "Nah, I'm Beau,” he said, yanking a towel off a rack by the bathroom and holding it out for me to grab. Then he skirted past me and heading towards the kitchen.

  I raised my eyebrows. Okay. That was weird. I filed it away to ask about later. Once I gave him back his clothes.

  "You want some hot chocolate?” he called, keeping his back to me so I could change.

  "You have hot chocolate?" I asked. That was surprising.

  "I like hot chocolate," he grumbled. "I can spike it if you want."

  “Ooh, manly hot chocolate.” I pulled his shirt over my head before wiggling out of my wet one. “Hot chocolate befitting a rockstar?"

  He glowered at the counter and wouldn't look at me.

  I wrung out my hair into the towel he's given me and twisted it up into a knot at the top of my head. Warm and dry, and surround by the scent of him, I felt like I was back on stable ground. More like myself. “You’re not Beau,” I pressed. “We already went over this. Why are you lying?"

  His shoulders rose and then fell. “Because you seem to hate the idea of Finn King.” He turned with two mugs and walked over to hand me one. “Not that I blame you.”

  I accepted the mug, feeling guilty. But I shook it off. Because I was realizing as I stood here, that maybe Livvy wasn’t my only chance to get some answers. “So let’s see if I remember my King Brothers lore. You’re from around here, right? Crown Creek?”

  "Born and raised." He lifted his mug to his lips. Lips I could very clearly remember the taste of.

  I pushed that thought aside. I had a mission. “Do you know the Knights, then?”

  One eyebrow arched over his green-hazel eyes. “The Knights?” For a moment I thought he was going to deny it. Then he shrugged. “I mean, yeah. Everyone knows them.”

  That wasn’t what I needed. “Do you know the Knights?”

  His other eyebrow rose to meet the first one. “I said everyone knows them, didn’t I?”

  I took a deep, steadying breath. I wrapped my fingers around the mug and tried to draw strength from the warmth. “Okay yeah, I suppose you did. So you know Bill Knight then?”

  "Yeah?” Finn sounded confused.

  I gripped the mug tighter to keep my fingers from shaking. “Nice guy?"

  Finn was watching me warily. “I’ve never actually talk to him face-to-face."

  "You're being careful."

  "Yeah."

  "Why?"

  "Because I don't know what you're getting at."

  No more dancing around. I lifted my chin, ready to tell him, but the words felt too big to fit my tongue around. It took several tries before I got it out. “Bill Knight is my father.”

  Finn’s eyebrows dropped into a scowl. “You’re one of the Knights?” The way his emphasis landed heavily on the last name confirmed my suspicions. The Knights were infamous in Crown Creek.

  I shrugged. “So it would appear.” A small, mirthless laugh escaped my mouth.

  He narrowed his eyes. "I don't remember you," he said before shaking his head. “And you said your last name is Clarence.”

  “I said I thought it was Clarence.”

  Finn stepped back and paced a tight, frustrated circle. “You know you sound like an absolute lunatic, right?”

  “I feel like one too,” I exhaled.

  That stopped him short. “Start again?” he hissed through clenched teeth. “At the beginning, please, I’m not that bright.”

  His eyes snapped so sharply green at me that I felt unsteady. I closed my eyes, and found it was easier to form words without having to see them. “Up until about twenty-four hours ago, I knew who I was. I was Sky Clarence. Only daughter of long distance trucker Bill Clarence of Reckless Falls.” I opened my eyes and locked on to Finn’s hazel ones. “But it turns out that single dad Bill Clarence of Reckless Falls is - was - actually respected husband and father Bill Knight of Crown Creek. Bill Knight had a mistress there for a few years, it seems.” I spread my hands. “Resulting in… me.”

  “Shi-it,” Finn drawled.

  “Yeah. I’m not his daughter. I’m his dirty little secret.” I paused, clenching my teeth. "Or I was his dirty little secret. Until I showed up for his funeral. Now it's not so secret anymore.”

  I watched Finn carefully as I said this. I didn’t know why it was important to me that he believe me. Except that it was.

  His expression was cycling through every emotion in the book - surprise, sympathy, amusement - until it finally settled on one. The worst one possible.

  Disbelief. “That’s one hell of a story there, Sky.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “I’m just saying it’s a little much.” He smirked. “Don’t you think? I mean, I already told you I knew the Knights. You could have picked any other family in town, someone I don’t know. That would have made it seem at least a little bit less far-fetched.”

  His disbelief was a punch in the gut. How could I make him believe me when I could barely believe it myself? “You think I'm lying?”

  He shrugged.

  And just like that, I knew something for certain. Something that I would hold myself to for the rest of my life. I lowered my voice, and fixed him with my gaze, forcing him to look me in the eye. I felt the weight of the declaration settle around my shoulders like a blanket I could wrap myself in. "No,” I said. “I don't lie. I always tell the truth.”

  I sniffled and then drew my shoulders back. I looked at Finn like I was seeing him for the first time.

  I saw a man with secrets. I saw a man in denial. I saw a man who didn’t want answers. Who, like my dad, didn’t even want to hear the questions.

  And you know what?

  Tough shit. Because I didn’t work that way.

  Not any more.

  Chapter Eleven

  Finn

  “I’m telling the truth,” she repeated.

  This chick was out of her goddamn mind. I held up my hands. "Okay psycho, you don't lie. I get it.“

  "I don’t!”” She said it with such conviction I could tell she believed herself. I had to hand it to her. However insane her story was, she believed it.”

  "Fine, you don't lie. Now I know.” I turned away, ready to be done with this conversation.

  "And what about you?"

  I turned back. "What about me?”

  "You’re Finn King."

  "You keep saying that like it's the name of some infectious disease."

  She ignored that. "What the hell are you doing in a campground?"

  "I told you. Camping."

  "By yourself?"

  "Is that weird? I mean, you're doing the same thing."

  She rolled her eyes. "I'm not famous rockstar."

  "You sure about that? Maybe you should add it to your story. You can be Bill Knight’s long-lost secret rockstar daughter. That’d be fun.”

  She glared at me murderously. “Does anyone know you're here?"

  "Sure." The owner of the campground did. Not a lie.

  "Really?" she probed.

  "What do you care?"

  Her impossibly blue eyes flicked back and forth across my face like she was reading me... and I was several steps below her reading level. “No one knows you're here,” she declared. “Why are you hiding?”

  I turned away again. “Are you done with your hot chocolate?"

  "Stop avoiding the question."

  "Stop asking questions.”

  She drew up taller. “I am
alone and vulnerable in a strange man's weird trailer,” she said. “And I just drank some liquid he handed me too -.”

  “It’s hot chocolate. And I’m starting to regret offering it in the first place.”