by Lucy Connors
It took Coach and three other guys to pull me away.
Then I went after them.
Principal Scott suspended me again, this time for a week. All the better to get going on my new drug and guns business. After all, I’d accomplished the one thing I’d come to school for today. I’d destroyed the only girl I’d ever loved, and done it so thoroughly that she’d never want anything to do with me again.
She’d be safe. From Anna Mae’s plots and, especially, from Baron and his gang of pure evil.
About this one thing, Ethan was right. I didn’t deserve her. I froze in the middle of starting up my bike. He hadn’t said she was too good for me, actually. He’d said, “She’s too good for us.”
What the hell had he meant by that?
I decided it didn’t matter, because none of it mattered anymore. I was a criminal now. I headed for home to get cleaned up. Had to look my best, in case today was the day I had to deal with any more of the criminals who had stolen my future.
But first, I was going to go see my sister. Verify for myself that she was fine and the girls were fine and she was being guarded. That was the only thing left to me now that my future had gone up in an explosion every bit as powerful as the one that had destroyed that meth trailer. I could—and would—take care of the people I loved.
Even if they didn’t know it.
• • •
I idled the bike on the street in front of the Laundromat and fought the bile rising up in my throat at the sight of Baron’s henchman—the big guy—leaning against a corner of the front wall of the building. He looked up from the knife he’d been using to trim his fingernails for just long enough to give me a one-finger salute.
I kicked the bike back into gear and took off. I had no choice but to work with Ethan. Baron hadn’t been bluffing when he’d threatened my sister. I thought back to the look in his flat, dead eyes and I shuddered, ice spiking through me.
I suddenly got the feeling that Baron never bluffed. We were dead meat.
Chapter 63
Victoria
It took me more than an hour to make the fifteen-minute drive to my house, because I kept having to pull over when I quit remembering how to breathe. Denise had wanted to drive me, but I didn’t want her to get in trouble for ditching school again just to help me.
I hoped desperately not to have to run the gauntlet of disapproving stares at home for my now world-class truancy, but I thought I might be safe. My parents had planned to be gone to a meeting in town all morning, and Buddy was at school . He’d been very excited about having everyone sign his cast.
I so very much wanted to be nine again. Nobody made casts for broken hearts.
I was in shock—shaking so hard from the pain of Mickey’s terrible, terrible words that my teeth were literally chattering. I could feel myself sinking into the same black hole I’d fallen into after I watched Angel die.
How much could the human body take before it shut down? I almost wished, for the first time in my life, that I was the kind of person who could escape into alcohol, just for long enough to numb the pain, but then I thought about Melinda, and my dad, and his dad before him.
Maybe not.
After I made it to my driveway, it took almost ten long minutes for me to work up the energy and the nerve to leave the sanctuary of my truck and go into the house. I didn’t even see Gran sitting on the porch until she called my name. I dropped my backpack and walked over to her on shaky legs; my will to put one foot after the other was the only thing that kept me moving forward and not succumbing to gravity’s pull and slumping to the ground.
I’d thought the expression was overly melodramatic before: “a broken heart.” But now that mine was, I realized it was an understatement. My heart wasn’t broken at all.
Mickey had shattered it.
Gran looked a question at me, and I knew she was wondering why I was home from school barely more than an hour after I’d left home.
“Mickey,” I whispered.
“Tell me,” she said simply.
So I did. I had no pride left.
I told her about our dates, about our time together, although of course not about making love to Mickey—some things were not for a grandmother’s ears—and about the things he’d said to me, both on Friday and today.
“How could he do that to me? How could I be such a bad judge of character?” I lifted my face to the cool breeze, wishing for a miracle—that the cool air would calm my emotions as well as my skin.
“Maybe you’re not,” Gran said, pushing the swing a little.
“What do you mean?”
“I met that boy, too, and I saw the way he was with you, Victoria. If he was lying to you with not just words, but even with his facial expressions and body language, then he deserves an Academy Award.”
I attempted a smile that was a grisly failure, judging by the way Gran flinched, so I patted her arm instead.
“I love you for it, Gran, but you’re wrong. If he cared about me even a tiny bit, he never could have destroyed me like that.”
• • •
Buddy wasn’t having the easiest time with his new crutches. With the resilience of youth, he’d recovered his spirits and energy after a broken leg far more easily than I would ever recover from a broken heart, but carrying his backpack and hobbling around without falling wasn’t working out all that great. I was helping Mom walk him to his classroom today, but when I caught sight of Mrs. Rhodale I literally could not force myself to take one more step in her direction.
I mumbled an excuse and ran out of the school, and then I walked the two miles to Clark High just so I could avoid any of Mom’s annoying and occasionally insightful questions. When I reached the school parking lot, the first thing I saw was Mickey’s bike, flashing silver in the morning sun, so I turned around and walked to a secluded area of the Clark Municipal Park and sat there, unmoving, all day long.
I wasn’t a coward. I’d face him the next time.
• • •
In another few days, Pete was ready to come home from the hospital, and Gran and Mrs. Kennedy and I set up his place with groceries, fresh flowers, and balloons. He lived in the biggest cottage on the ranch, and the cleaning team had been in the day before, so it was sparkling clean. I hadn’t been in his place in years, since Dad had told me that Whitfields didn’t “fraternize with the help,” so I was surprised and touched to see that he had a picture of me and Mel as kids, both of us up on Angel’s back, on his refrigerator.
We welcomed him home with much fuss and a few tears, and eventually he threw everybody out so he could “get some rest.” Knowing Pete, that meant he’d spend three hours catching up on all of Gus’s notes on the foaling mares.
I took a few extra minutes to clear up the plates from the welcome home cake, but when I turned to leave, Pete stopped me with a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m so sorry about Angel, honey.”
I swallowed, hard. “I know. Me, too. The sheriff still doesn’t know who it was or what they wanted. They didn’t take anything.”
“Well, you better believe we’re going to have better security around here from now on.”
I just nodded. Saying “too little, too late” would have hurt both of us.
“I know what happened,” he said
I froze. I wasn’t sure which “what” he was talking about.
“I want you to know that I don’t believe Mickey had anything to do with me getting shot,” he said, his face grim. “I know what it’s like to be blamed for something your family does, and it’s not right. I sure wouldn’t have been the one to cast stones at Mickey Rhodale.”
That caught my attention. He never talked about his past. “What do you mean?”
His eyes narrowed as if he were glancing back at some long-buried memory. “Nothing you and I will ever discuss. I just wanted you
to know that loyalty to me shouldn’t interfere with your, ah, life. I got the feeling there was something between the two of you.”
I shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, but Mickey’s voice rang in my memory: “Don’t be pathetic, Victoria.”
“No. He . . . he decided we weren’t . . . I wasn’t worth his time,” I said, swallowing hard to get the words past the lump in my throat.
“Well, one of you is a damn fool, and I’m not sure which,” he snapped, shocking me. “I saw the way he looked at you. The way he kept up the search for Buddy even after he cracked his head on that rock. Maybe he’s not what everybody thinks. He could never deserve you, that’s for damn sure, but that doesn’t mean he can’t try to live up to becoming what you need.”
“What are you talking about?” I had to clutch the countertop for support, because the planet had clearly flipped sideways. Pete was talking about feelings.
“Boy reminds me of me, that’s all,” he said gruffly. “Now get out of here. I’m in pain. I’m an invalid, don’t you know?”
“Invalid, my butt,” I said, and then I stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek because a huge light bulb had just gone off in my head, and it had the word “epiphany” written all over it.
I ran out of the cottage and headed straight for my truck. The ravaging mass of pain inside me was taking a halting step toward hope.
I almost fought it, because hope meant the possibility of new pain, but it refused to be denied. The thing with feathers, indeed. Maybe Emily Dickinson had gotten it right in her poem all those years ago.
I texted Mickey before I started the truck.
I know why you did what you did. Meet me. Our place. 20 minutes.
So now we’d see.
Chapter 64
Mickey
When Victoria’s text came through, I was idling at a stop sign. I took off and threw a U-turn so hard that I nearly rolled my bike. What the hell was she up to now? She was going to get herself hurt, or killed, and I only knew so many ways to try to drive her away. I’d crushed her once already, and I didn’t know how I’d ever find the strength to do it again.
I rode up to Lonesome Ridge as fast as I dared to go, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t really be there.
Hoping against hope that she would be there.
When I rounded that last curve and saw her truck, my entire body breathed a sigh of relief completely against my will, as if to say, Yes. Now the world is right again.
Now I just had to keep her from seeing any of that on my face.
I parked the bike, threw off my helmet, and stalked over to her.
“What the fuck does it take to get rid of you?” I was deliberately crude, hoping she’d get disgusted and run far away from me, to someplace safe from Baron. Far from Ethan, Anna Mae, and all the rest of the Rhodales. Especially me.
Her face flushed a hot rose pink, but she lifted her chin and stood her ground. “Simple. Convince me you don’t love me.”
I stumbled to a stop and stared down at her. Simple.
Right.
“Well? Make me believe that you don’t love me, that you’re not trying to push me away to protect me from the feud and your family.”
I thought of how much I wanted her, and then I forced myself to think of the cold, dead look in Baron’s eyes.
“You’re being pathetic again,” I said, sneering down at her. I strode off, back to my bike, clenching my hands into fists in front of me to keep them from reaching for her.
“You’re a coward,” she called after me, and I stopped walking, but I didn’t turn around.
I was a coward, but I wasn’t afraid for myself. I was afraid for her. After seeing Baron’s thug at Caro’s place—yeah. I was glad to admit to cowardice if it kept Victoria safe.
But she didn’t give up. She ran across the ground and circled me until she was facing me again. There were tears in her eyes, but she hadn’t let any fall.
“You didn’t say it. You can’t say it. But if you really want me to leave you alone, forever, then it’s simple enough, Mickey. Just tell me that you don’t love me.”
Her bottom lip was trembling, a dead giveaway that she was terrified, and I admired her even more for taking this stand. She had so much pure, shining courage that she almost blinded me, but she was afraid I would hurt her again. The cold, ruthless part of me that had grown stronger over the past week told me I could take advantage of that. Take advantage of her.
Keep her safe.
“I don’t want anything to do with you,” I said roughly. I tried to go around her, but she caught my arm.
“You’re trying to protect me from your brother, I know it,” she said brokenly. “We can figure this out together. You don’t have to do it alone.”
I shut my eyes and wished desperately for a way to make her understand.
She sighed. “Ethan—”
My self-control snapped. “It’s not Ethan, okay? It’s somebody so much worse than Ethan, and I can’t take it if he hurts you, Victoria. Not that. Not ever.”
“We can face this together—”
“No.”
“Fine,” she snapped, her own temper flaring. “Just do it, then. Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll never bother you again.”
I stood there, staring at her, for a very long time, while my brain shouted at me to say the words. Once and for all to be done with her.
Except I couldn’t. My heart wouldn’t let me.
“I don’t know how to do that,” I said slowly. “Because it’s not true.”
She froze, and then she leapt across the space between us and threw herself into my arms, and I kissed her until neither one of us could breathe.
Chapter 65
Victoria
I knew it. I knew it,” I said, holding him so tight that he couldn’t let me go again. Never again.
He kissed me; hungry, desperate kisses that told me how much it had hurt him to put on that act at school.
“Don’t ever do that to me again,” I ordered him, and then I punched him in the shoulder. Hard.
“I won’t. I swear it. I don’t deserve for you to forgive me. I don’t deserve you.”
“That’s not you talking. That’s Ethan, or Anna Mae, or any of the idiots around here who judge you for being a Rhodale,” I said firmly. “We deserve each other, and we can’t let them tear us apart.”
Mickey kissed me again, a deep, claiming kind of kiss, and I was dizzy by the time he stopped, but his smile at my dazed expression faded quickly. “If we do this—”
“We’re doing this.”
He nodded. “Okay. We’re doing this. But there’s a lot I need to tell you, and we’re going to have to play by new rules.”
We went to sit in the truck, and he told me about Baron.
“Mickey, no! You can’t—”
“I have no choice,” he said bleakly. “They’ll hurt Caroline and the girls. Or they’ll kill my dad, just to make a statement.”
“You have to move. Take your whole family and go into witness protection or something.” The thought of losing him again when I’d just found him was almost too painful to contemplate, but compared to the danger he was in? There was no choice at all.
“That only works in the movies. We don’t have any information to offer. And we can’t move on our own, because my parents are upside down in the mortgage since the housing market crash. Sheriffs and teachers don’t make a lot of money.”
He took my hand and put it on his cheek, and then closed his eyes. “I only see one way out of this, for now, and that’s doing what Ethan wants. Baron and his gang of criminals can never, ever find out about you. So we have to be icy, distant, and even enemies in public.”
“But only in public,” I said, putting my arms around his neck. “And only until we can figure out a way to escape.”
&nbs
p; “I love you, Victoria.” He looked into my heart with his achingly blue eyes. “I’m so sorry I hurt you. I couldn’t think of another way to keep you safe.”
I flinched a little at the remembered pain, but then I nodded. “I understand and I forgive you, but never, ever do that again. I don’t think I could survive it.”
“I promise.”
He kissed me again. “What are we going to do now?”
I took a deep breath and finally dared to say the words that I’d been afraid to let him hear, afraid that he’d have too much power over me if he knew—afraid that the universe would play its merciless games with me if I let the secret out.
“I love you.”
He kissed me and then he cupped my face in his hands and looked intently into my eyes. “Say it again,” he demanded.
“I love you. I don’t know how I know, or when I figured it out, or how I even understand such a huge emotion, but I love you! I love you, Mickey Rhodale, and we’re going to find a way to be together.”
“Tell me again. One more time,” he murmured against my lips.
“I love you,” I whispered.
He smiled at me, and it was like the sun breaking through the clouds on Derby morning.
“I love you, too.”
He kissed me again, and I kissed him, and we kissed each other, and then the fear and anguish and relief and love we’d roller-coastered through for so long took over, and both of us needed to be closer and even closer to each other. When we made love, it was like coming home to the place I’d always dreamed of being; there was such tenderness between us that it soothed and healed the jagged, broken pieces of my heart.
Afterward, we got dressed, and then I sat wrapped in his arms on our mountain for the next couple of hours, deciding what we’d do next. Knowing that whatever we decided to do, we’d do it together. In the distance, the blue Kentucky hills stood silent sentinel, guarding and surrounding us as if reminding us that history and tradition could be built from love and family instead of violence and hatred.
