“I’m the only monster in here.”
I looked up. “Don’t say that. You’re not a monster.” I hated when he talked about himself that way, even if he was only joking.
He swam closer until he stood, the water reaching his waist. “There’s a block of limestone here you can stand on. It’s solid.”
“Okay.” I lowered myself into the water, resting my shaky hands on the rock I’d been sitting on and keeping my back to Johnny. The water seeped into my shirt. I tried to breathe slowly, to settle myself. Now that I had him, my mind kept trying to figure out what it would take for me to lose him. Why was I suddenly feeling less secure than when we were only beginning? I supposed it was because I knew what I stood to lose. Falling in love was a strange mixture of euphoria and trepidation.
Johnny’s hands curled around my waist from behind, and he stood so close I could feel the warmth of his chest on my back. “You okay?” he asked softly.
I spun around and slowly lifted my head to look at him. I searched his eyes, and there he was. My Johnny. I relaxed slightly, because this was my person, the one who listened well and made me feel understood. “I want things, Johnny. With you. It’s overwhelming and wonderful and too much and not enough.” I put my hands on his bare shoulders. He was holding himself so tensely, I thought my touch might help him relax. It seemed to have the opposite effect, as his muscles tightened under my hands and he started breathing faster.
“I don’t want to go slow. I don’t want to be careful. But we should. We have to. But sometimes, when I’m near you, I feel like I’m going crazy. I want things I can’t have yet, and I need you to know I’m not ready for the next step.” I trailed my hands down his chest, marveling at his smooth skin, and rested them above his wildly thumping heart.
Johnny, having been quiet through my little speech, leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Audrey, I’m going crazy, too. You have no idea. But it’s okay if we go slow. There’s no hurry. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Are you sure? It’s really okay if we take it slow?”
He put a hand on the back of my head, cradling it. “Of course it is. Why are you worrying?”
“I don’t know. I guess because this is so new. I don’t know what you expect from me. I like you so much I feel almost desperate about it, I can’t even explain it. But instead of enjoying it, I get nervous that all this will disappear.”
He was quiet for a moment. “It amazes me when you say the things I feel.”
I pulled back so I could see his eyes. “You worry about these things, too?”
“I worry. I’m desperate. I get nervous.” He touched my bottom lip with his fingertips. “I want.”
I pushed off the rock, lifting myself to wrap my legs around his waist. I shoved my fingers in his hair, and I kissed him. He bent at the knees, lowering us into the water, and we kissed, drifting out into the quarry.
I handed Ruby a peach ice cream cone, then scooped my mint chip one. “Bye, Mary,” I said to my boss, and Ruby and I stepped out of the air conditioned creamery into the heavy heat of the early evening.
“I wish I had a pool,” Ruby said. “If I bought a sprinkler set, like I had when I was a kid, would you run through it with me?”
I laughed. “Sure.”
She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “Even if it was at my house, and my brother was home?”
I squeezed her arm. “Oh, Ruby. I’m sorry for the way things are. But of course I’d come and run through your sprinkler.”
“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Thinking about it now, it makes more sense. At the time I thought you were giving up a lifetime of love with my brother for a few weeks of heat with Johnny. Now I see that lifetime of love was something my mom and Keaton made up. It wouldn’t have happened even if Johnny weren’t part of the picture. It’s weird, but now I can’t even really picture you and Keaton together. You are more like brother and sister.”
“You know what scares me?” I asked, trying to lick my ice cream fast enough to stop it from dripping all over my hand.
“What?”
“I can absolutely imagine a different version of my life where I said yes to Keaton. Where I married him and lived a life together where I wasn’t really happy, but everyone else was. I was this close to doing it, Ruby. It would have been so wrong, but I almost did it. It’s scary and strange to me that we’re allowed to just make decisions. I know I’ll make a million mistakes in my life, and lots of wrong decisions, but I’m glad that one was interrupted by a motorcycle riding rebel.”
She laughed, but then sighed. “You’re totally right. I’m sorry I didn’t see it from the start. Did you know your mom came over for lunch today?”
I whipped my head around to look at her. “Really?”
“Yeah. I listened in to part of it.”
Heart racing, I asked, “What did they say?”
“I’ve never seen your mom so angry. I’ve never seen the two of them argue. It was a little scary, to be honest. But they talked a long time. I think your mom was able to convince mine that you and Keaton were never meant to be, and my mom was able to help yours understand that her son’s heart was broken and that was painful for her, too. I think they got through to each other. There was crying, but I think they’ll get past it.”
“Thank goodness,” I said, relief flooding me.
“My mom can be such a drama queen. And I’m sorry to say, but I think Keaton inherited that gene from her.”
I rubbed my palm over the ache in my chest. Even though I was confident I’d done the right thing, I was sorry some people were hurting, I didn’t like the way my family’s friendship with the Ashers was changing. I missed the easy Sunday dinners, that closeness. We hadn’t even sat together at the fireworks on the Fourth of July like we always did. Mom said things would settle in time, but it made my stomach hurt if I thought about it too much. “Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?”
She frowned. “Keaton doesn’t need to forgive you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I guess. But I mean, do you think things will ever go back to normal?”
“No, Audrey. I don’t. But I think a new normal will come about. Keaton will find another girl, and someday you’ll go to each other’s weddings. It might be awkward for awhile, but it really will be okay.”
I wasn’t sure Ruby’s mom would ever like me again, but I hoped Ruby was right.
“Oh no, look,” Ruby said, pointing at the sky.
I looked where she pointed and saw a dark plume of thick smoke rising above the northwest side of town. “That looks like it’s near my dad’s office.”
Ruby’s hand landed on my shoulder. “Maybe it’s someone burning their trash.”
I dropped the rest of my ice cream cone in the nearest garbage can and we headed toward the smoke. Halfway there, sirens rang out, breaking the silence of our peaceful town. The closer we got, the more certain I was that it was my dad’s office. Ruby kept assuring me it wasn’t, but when we turned the last corner, we saw that it was.
The smoke billowed from the windows at the back of the building, and people stood in clumps on the other side of the street, watching the firefighters work. There were police cars, too, and there was chaos on the office lawn.
My heart sank when I spotted my parents standing on the sidewalk. I ran to them, and Mama pulled me into a hug. “What happened?” I asked, speaking loudly to be heard above the spraying water and the sirens of the newly arriving police cars. There was an ambulance, too, and worry curled in my belly.
“We don’t have many details yet,” Dad said. “The security alarm went off, and I got a call saying there’d been a break-in, and police were on the way. When I arrived, the police were here and the fire was blazing. There were several 911 calls, and I was told several young men had been spotted breaking a window in the back.”
Realization dawned, and Mama tightened her grip on me. Ruby stood at my other side. “The pharmacy.”
Dad nodded.
Alden was too small a town to have a real pharmacy, so Dad got a license to dispense some medications at his office. He kept a small stock of the most commonly prescribed medications in a special room in the back of his office. It was little more than a closet, but it worked out well for people who couldn’t, or didn’t want, to drive to a bigger town to get them. My guess was someone broke in searching for pain pills.
I watched as police officers escorted two people to the police cars parked on the corner. They were cuffed, and when one of the officers shifted so I could see who it was, I gasped. It was Adam Jones. The other one was Rick Hall. This was terrible. Clay was going to be so upset, which meant Johnny would be, too.
Then, to my absolute horror, two officers escorted a third handcuffed person around the side of the building. The color drained from my face and my entire body went numb as the officer placed his hand on top of Johnny’s head and shut him into the back of the sheriff’s cruiser.
I broke out of Mama’s grasp and ran down the sidewalk in the opposite direction. Ruby shouted after me, but I was too fast to catch. I felt nothing but the wind on my face as I raced home, my heart in my stomach, repeating with every step that it couldn’t be true.
I flew into the house, calling for my twin sister. She came out of her room right as I made it to the top of the stairs. Sobbing, I let Valerie put her arms around me and tell me everything would be okay.
Chapter 24
Johnny
Across the cell, Adam’s sniffling turned into full-on crying. He was trying to be quiet about it, but failing. I made fists with my hands and pressed them into my thighs.
“Should we go talk to him?” Graham whispered.
Graham and I sat side by side on the low bed, and Adam was curled into a ball on the floor. “You can if you want, but if I talk to him, I’ll yell. Or worse.” I didn’t bother to lower my voice. I wanted Adam to know I was angry. My anger was a white-hot beast inside me.
Clay was hurt. Badly. And Audrey had been there today. She saw me get put into the back of a police car. I watched her run away right after I watched the EMTs load my best friend into an ambulance.
“But I never know what to say,” Graham said.
“I already know all the things you want to say to me,” Adam said, standing and glaring at us. He paced the length of the cell, huffing with anger. “I know it was my fault. I know my brother is hurt because of me, and I know I’m a stupid idiot who wrecks everything. You don’t have to say a word.”
I hopped up off the bed and stalked over to him. Standing toe to toe, I towered over the kid. He had the decency to look nervous. “You know why I’m mad? Because you know all that, and you still have a chip on your shoulder. You act like I have no right to be on your case, like I should be comforting you or something. You can take that nasty tone and shove it down your throat, Adam, because you take your brother for granted, and what happened today could have gotten him killed. Maybe it did get him killed. We don’t know that yet, do we?”
Adam’s nostrils flared, and he looked about ready to fight back before his face crumpled and he took a few steps toward the wall.
“Now is not the time when I feel bad for you,” I said to him. “Now is the time I worry about Clay. If you’re more worried about yourself than him, I have nothing to say to you.”
“Of course I’m worried about him,” he snapped.
I took in a slow breath, and Graham put a hand on my shoulder and steered me back toward the bed. Restless energy built inside me, and I wanted to scream, to run, to throw something. I did none of those things. Instead I calmed my mind and imagined what it would be like when they told me Clay was going to be okay. Because he had to be okay.
I couldn’t think about him anymore, and I didn’t even want to try and imagine what Audrey was thinking right now—was losing her the price I paid for today?—so I ran through what I would say to my mother when I was allowed to call her. Telling her I was in jail again was not something I looked forward to. At least this time, it was a misunderstanding. As soon as everything got sorted out, I’d be released. I hoped.
Doubt crept in. Most of the cops around here knew me. They knew my dad, they knew my history, and most of them knew I’d turned things around. But what if my past made it so that they didn’t believe me? Rick and his guys were here somewhere, giving their side of the story and no doubt trying to pin it all on me. Was there any way to prove I’d been there to stop the proceedings rather than instigate them?
Clay’s stab wound might be proof enough. A painful knot tightened in my chest. There had been so much blood, and it had seeped through his gray T-shirt so quickly. I’d never forget the look on his face, and the way his eyes changed the moment he understood what had happened.
Graham’s knee started to bounce. He tapped his fingers on the mattress and looked at me nervously. “Did we screw up? Are they gonna lump us in with Rick and his crew?”
Apparently Graham was having the same worries I was. “I don’t know, man. The most we can do is tell the truth and hope the others don’t try to pin it on us.”
He ran a hand down his face, and his knee bounced faster. “Oh, they will. I’m sure of it. Why wouldn’t they?”
He was starting to panic. As far as I knew, Graham had never seen the inside of the police station. I wasn’t sure he’d ever been in real trouble. “Listen, I’ll call my mom. You know she’ll be able to help us. And your dad’s pretty understanding. Didn’t you say he was kind of a troublemaker when he was a kid?”
Graham sighed. “I just want this to be over. I want Clay to be fine, and I want to be home.”
I glanced at Adam, who had pulled up his shirt to wipe his face. He really was just a kid. Only fifteen. I was plenty dumb at fifteen, too. He looked scared, and I was familiar with the insane guilt that came after making such a disaster of things.
“Adam,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “What?” he muttered.
“It’s going to be okay. You’re young, and as far as the cops know, this is your first offense.”
He was quiet a long moment. Then he nodded. “What about Clay? Do you think he’ll be okay?”
“I do.”
We sat in silence then, until about a half hour later when an officer came and unlocked the cell. “Time for questioning. I need all three of you to come with me.”
We were put in separate rooms, and questioned. The first thing I asked was if there was an update on Clay, but they didn’t have any answers for me. So I laid it out, giving them every detail I could remember, hoping that somehow it would help Clay. It was all I could do, making sure they knew he was on the right side of what went down today.
It was a relief to finally get the chance to explain what happened. I told them how I’d gotten out of the shower after work when Clay called, telling me he overheard Adam on the phone talking about robbing the pharmacy. I saw red, partly because of how fast and how far Adam was taking this, but mostly because that pharmacy was in Dr. Sparrow’s office. No way were Rick and his guys messing with the Sparrows.
The police asked about my relationship with the Sparrows, and I told them I was dating Dr. Sparrow’s daughter. One of them actually laughed. I glared at him, and so did the other officer. I continued my story, telling them that Clay, Graham, and I planned to meet up at Helton’s, and ride over in Clay’s car. The plan at that point was only to locate Adam and stuff him the backseat and bring him home.
But I got to the auto shop first, and called the police before my friends arrived. “We have records that show he was the one who made the first 911 call,” a woman in the room taking notes said. My shoulders dropped in relief. I hadn’t had much time on that call. At the time I hadn’t even been sure the person on the other end understood we needed help at Dr. Sparrow’s office, so I’d been pretty sure she hadn’t taken note of my name, as fast as I spewed information at the beginning of the call.
“You didn’t want your friends to know you were
calling the police?” One of the officers asked.
“They like to handle things on their own,” I said.
“And you don’t?”
I lifted my chin. “I used to.” All I’d been thinking on the drive to the shop was Audrey asking me why I hadn’t called the police instead of hitting that guy who grabbed Christina at Chambers. I liked the way Audrey saw the world, and something she saw that I didn’t was that it was possible to ask for and receive help. So this time I called.
“Well, it’s a good thing you called, son.”
I bristled. I didn’t like it when men called me son, but I tried to ignore it. “We got there too late,” I said.
“You got there before us,” One cop said, and I smiled.
“True. But they’d already broken in. They were inside when we arrived.”
“Who was inside? I need names if you know them.”
I hesitated. This didn’t feel right, but I supposed I had no choice. “Rick Hall, Dustin Hall, Will Rogers, and two other guys I don’t know.”
“What about Adam Jones?”
I chewed my lip. “He’s fifteen.”
“We know that.”
I hung my head. The time for protecting Adam was over. Today would teach him something, and I just hoped he’d take the lesson to heart. “He was inside.”
I proceeded to tell them how Clay charged in, so Graham and I went after him, and Rick punched him in the face. There were a few more punches thrown, until Dustin pulled out a gun.
They nodded like they knew this already. “You don’t look too banged up.”
I held out my hands so they could see my fists. I’d landed at least seven punches and my knuckles told the story. They took pictures of my hands, and it forced me to look at them. Audrey would see these hands. My hands had changed since she came into my life. Now they were hands that held her. Hands that caressed her soft skin. Hands that held hers and offered her the world. She wouldn’t want them to hold her now.
Broken Rebel (Sparrow Sisters Book 2) Page 16
