Her hand drifted to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand why my dad never told me about this.”
I felt myself burst through a wall of emotion as I retold the story. It’d been years since I’d gone into the details.
“After he died, I went into a spiral. Me and my sister both did. We drank and drank, out at parties, late nights. Drugs. My mom, too. We were all beside ourselves. I started taking odd jobs that summer so we wouldn’t have the house foreclosed on. It was a dark time.”
“I don’t get it. What does this have to do with you hating me?”
“I’m getting to that. After a few months, an independent report came out about the mining accident, and, you have to understand--we were all crushed, and irate. But the report found no wrongdoing, and essentially made it impossible for any of us to sue your dad’s company for damages. There was big, national coal money that got put into keeping the story quiet. Meanwhile I was working my ass off, trying to help my family make ends meet as a sixteen year old. But we knew your old man Toft had oodles of money. We didn’t know what he was doing with the profits, though. So me and two of my close buddies--Jared and Bob--we scrounged up some cash and got a lawyer to look into the situation for us. Turned out, he’d been putting all of his profits into a trust for his only daughter--you.”
I saw her shiver. “What are you talking about? I’ve not heard a single thing about a trust for me.”
“Seriously?”
She shook her head.
“Odd. We can talk about that in a moment. So Jared, Bob and I, we did some research on you. Found out where you were living then, in Florida. I also had a vendetta against you because you never got in touch with Louisa after you left. Some friend, I thought. But you were going through your own shit--I get that now. Anyways, we came up with this plan to get payback on you. We were drunk, and it was crazy.”
Natalie clutched a hand over her neck. “What was the plan?” she muttered.
I took a deep breath, scrubbed a thumb across my stubble, and brought my eyes to her.
“We were going to kidnap you, hold you for ransom, and get your moneybags father to give us a true payout.”
She stood up. “What the--why are you telling me this? Are you fucking serious right now?”
“I’m sorry. I just thought you should know.”
“That’s fucking sick! You’d actually consider doing something like that? Like you weren’t just joking around?!”
“I know people say things all the time. I didn’t think I was serious, but things were said. And now,” I cleared my throat. “Now that you’re back, Jared and Bob have been talking crazy, like they might actually do something to you. The most recent thing they mentioned was nabbing you and putting you down in the mine to teach you a ‘lesson.’ I don’t know if they’re into the money anymore.”
She frowned, her face twitching, and her eyes welled with tears.
“You’re serious?”
I nodded. “Sadly.”
Her lip quivered, and her eyes darted back and forth on the floor until they landed on me.
“Who the fuck are you, Shane North?”
A pang of guilt ate away at my insides. But I knew this was the right thing to do.
“I’m trying to come clean and put all of the cards on the table here.”
Her voice shook now as she spoke. “This isn’t even remotely okay. So you’re telling me, that any moment I’m here, a couple of guys--Jared and Bob, you said?--they might try to fucking take me and do something awful to me for some sort of silly high school revenge plot against my father? What is this, a Liam Neeson movie?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds crazy. But these days, these guys are so drugged out, who knows how far they’d go.”
She put her hands on her hips and stepped toward me. “Jared and Bob…they’re your friends?”
I hesitated. “I’ve known them my whole life.” Friends was a stretch. Especially these days.
“This is not okay. We’re done--whatever this was, for starters. I can’t believe I--God, what was I thinking?! I saw them at the bar! It could have happened then!” She returned my gaze, her eyes disbelieving. “And I felt like a crazy person for following you today. You made me feel crazy. Turns out, my instinct was right. You were hiding something huge. I just didn’t follow you at the right time.”
I clenched my jaw, feeling the muscles in my neck tighten. There was not much I could say to that, aside from yes, you’re right.
As she headed for the stairs, all I could think about was how tragically gorgeous she looked in that red dress which was riding well up her mid-thigh.
I balled and unballed my fists as I stared out into the cold, dark night, fury pumping inside me.
A flashback whirled through me.
The last storm we had like this was the night Louisa had set out to drive home from a party at one of her friends’ houses.
She didn’t make it back.
I remember torturing myself in the months that followed.
Why wasn’t I at that party? I should have stopped her.
I spaced out for a few moments. A powerful sense of regret bubbled up in me that I hadn’t done anything to save Louisa.
Was telling Natalie the whole truth the right thing to do?
It seemed silly in a way, to bring up some high school revenge plot, but Bob and Jared were serious. Whereas I had admitted it was cloud talk, they stuck to their guns.
And there was something about Natalie that made me know deep down I couldn’t keep anything from her. She was generating feelings in me that I’d buried for so long, and I didn’t know how to act around her.
For goodness sake, she’d just offered me her V-card. If it weren’t for that, I might not have been inspired to tell her all this. But she trusted me, and I refused to betray that trust by a huge lie of omission that could potentially impact her future.
Hell, maybe even her life. Who knew how crazy Bob and Jared could get. Sometimes, they got this empty look in their eyes that made me question their full capacity to empathize with another human being.
Natalie came back down the stairs, wearing sweatpants, a hoodie, and carrying her suitcase. I watched as she put on her coat and then her boots.
“I found a motel two hours away that has an open room,” she said. “So I’ll be going. I don’t feel safe here.”
“You don’t feel safe because I told you the truth?” She nodded. “Goodbye, Shane. Pleasure meeting you this weekend.”
My eyes narrowed at the word. Pleasure.
She opened the door to leave and a gust of wind blew in, knocking her off balance.
Striding up to the door, I closed it.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you go,” I gritted out. “It’s too dangerous out there.”
“I’m afraid you’re just going to have to let me go. Excuse me.” She tried to push my arm off the door, but I didn’t budge.
“So just like that? You’re going to walk out of my life and you never want to see me again?”
“That’s right. If you’re making plans to kidnap me, it’s in my best interest.”
I kept my hand on the door, unwavering.
“Fine. But there’s something else you should know?”
“What?”
“You might see your father as this perfect human being, but the fact is, he did have a chance to fix the mineshaft. And he did nothing. Jared and Bob might not have forgiven him for that, but I have. I’m trying, at least. Seeing you has made me rethink things.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I shrugged. “So I’m going to tell you the truth about coming up with a plan to kidnap you, and then make up some lie about your father?”
“I-I don’t even know what to think any more. I’m not thinking straight.”
I stepped in front of her, crossing my arms.
“Damn right you’re not thinking straight. Especially if you think going out
there in that fucking storm is a good idea. Twenty-nine inches, Florida. And that’s not an exaggeration. It’s really coming down out there.”
“I’ll live.”
That’s probably what Louisa thought, too.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you take that risk.”
“I’m not a little girl, I’ll make my own decisions. Move.” I didn’t budge.
“If you don’t move, I’m calling the cops.” I balled and unballed my fists. That’d be the worst possible scenario. She’d be on the McTeelys’ radar.
“Please, don’t go out there. I’m asking you nicely.”
She held up her phone. “I told you, I don’t feel safe right now.”
Heaving a sigh, I stepped aside.
“That’s better. I hope you have a wonderful night alone here. Asshole.”
I took in her words and swallowed, searching for anything to say that would result in her not leaving.
I couldn’t think of anything—apart from tying her down.
And I didn’t want to have to do that.
The door shut again, and an eerie, almost deathlike calmness set into the house as I watched her put her things in her car and get the snow off her window.
I didn’t like it one bit.
16
Natalie
FOOL.
I was a complete and utter fool.
I wiped my teary eyes as I drove down the two lane highway at a snail’s pace. It was seeming more like a one lane highway with the thick snowfall crashing down around me.
That didn’t matter though. I needed to get away from Black Mountain. From Shane.
Shady Shane.
From the start, my instinct was that he gave off a slightly shady vibe, and I should have trusted my gut. He made me feel like I was a total nut job. Turned out, I should have trusted my gut from the start.
I’d fallen for some sexy but shady guys. However, falling for a man who had plotted in the past to kidnap me for real was a first.
I cranked up the heat and pulled up my phone, careful to keep my eyes on the road. I wasn’t a fan of phoning and driving, but I needed to call my mother and let her know where I was in case something happened. She didn’t even know I was spending the night at Shane’s place.
I pressed her number, but the call dropped before it even rang once. I tried again, and a third time. No signal. I was lucky the GPS was even still working.
Tossing the phone into the empty passenger’s seat, I kept my eyes focused on the road. I’d never driven in the snow before this week, let alone a crazy snow storm like this. But it was all good. I just had to make it two hours in the dark.
A thought crept up in me that two hours in thick snow would probably end up being more like four hours.
Well, at least I had a belly full of chili.
I considered going back to my father’s house, but with what Shane had told me about Jared and Bob, that didn’t seem safe, cold not withstanding.
I blew out a frustrated exhale. The vibe of this entire town had been off ever since I set foot here last week. I’d been catching weird looks everywhere I went, even at the funeral, for goodness’ sakes.
My mind raced a million miles a minute as I gripped the steering wheel with two hands. Was it possible that what Shane said was actually true about my father?
That he’d known there was a fault in the mine shaft, but ignored complaints to please shareholders?
I zoned back in when a car came my way, seemingly out of nowhere. The visibility was so bad, neither of us saw each other until our cars were fifty feet away from each other.
“Holy shit!” I yelled out loud as I swerved to the right, feeling the ridged concrete bumps on my tires, which indicated I was getting close to the edge of the road.
We came within inches of each other, and I slammed on the brakes to avoid going straight down into the ditch.
When I came to a halt, my heart pounded furiously, and my hands were shaking.
What if Shane was right?
Not only about my father. About this storm, too.
Looking to the right, my eyes about bulged out of my head when I noticed there was a semi truck on its side one hundred feet or so ahead, off the road.
I rubbed my eyes in disbelief, took a deep breath, and put the car back into gear.
It’s probably only dangerous for big cars, I rationalized.
Or hoped.
I drove on, proceeding at a snail's pace, totally wired from the adrenaline bump I’d just gotten back there.
Was that a near death experience? It was all surreal.
The entire last week had been in that category.
I couldn’t believe I was seconds away from letting Shane take my virginity! He had tried to press his tip into me. If he weren’t so big and if I hadn’t been so tight and nervous, he might have….
I gave myself a slap on the cheek.
I needed to snap out of this daze.
Shane was an asshole, like too many of the men I’d met so far who were romantically interested in me. Sure, he’d been skilled with his tongue and fingers and converted me into a withering pile of mush. But that didn’t make it okay for him to plan a fucking...a what, exactly? How was throwing me into a mineshaft going to make up for my father’s sins, even if he had known about the mine’s imperfections?
A lightbulb went off in my head as I continued on cautiously through the storm. I did have the answers. The journals! And they were in my trunk!
If there was anywhere he might have divulged something from those years, it would be in there. He’d never told me about them, and the way they were hidden in the closet, it didn’t seem like he ever intended for anyone to read them. Maybe if I read the journals around the time of the accident, I could get some insight into my father’s innocence.
Surely he had nothing to do with that accident. I couldn’t imagine him looking the other way like Shane had said.
And I didn’t know a thing about this trust fund.
With a long drive ahead of me, I decided to put on the radio. I didn’t feel like I could take my eyes off the road for even a second to put my music on from my phone.
The first station I found was an older sounding DJ telling everyone to stay safe out there before he put on the song American Pie.
I got into a rhythm of driving, and I started to think that things weren’t going to be so bad.
I’d wait out the storm in this other town, have plenty of time to go through my father’s journals, then head back to my father’s house, make sure it was reasonably clean, and get the hell out of here.
I knew I didn’t want to spend a single second more here than I absolutely had to.
A Bob Marley song came on the radio, and I took that as an omen. This didn’t seem like a Bob Marley type of station at all, and here they were playing Three Little Birds.
I wasn’t going to worry about a thing.
Sometimes omens are false, though.
And as the song neared the end, I saw the truck coming in the distance toward me, using what really seemed like the middle of the road. A clear path still hadn’t really been made in the snow, though, and I couldn’t see the traffic lines, so I couldn’t be sure if the truck was on my side, or I was on the truck’s side.
I swerved to the right as far as I could, but he was still bearing down on me.
He honked a few times, and it jolted me.
I had no choice. To avoid crashing head on into the truck, I swerved right, hard.
And then I figured out why. Invisible ice on the highway.
The next half second seemed like it took five minutes.
In slow motion, I saw my own car go off the road and into a snowy ditch, feeling more like a spectator than a driver.
But that’s what black ice did. It came out of nowhere and you were relegated to your fate. It made your steering wheel worthless.
I felt the airbag deploy.
And then everything went black.
17
; Shane
I WONDER how she liked being stalked?
I was giving her a taste of her own medicine.
Following Natalie without her noticing was easy with this snow. Hell, I couldn’t even make out who was behind or ahead of me myself.
I couldn’t just let Natalie head out into a record snowstorm all by herself. Even though I had no plan aside from, ‘make sure she gets where she’s going safely,’ I knew I was doing the right thing.
I gripped the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white.
Inhaling a deep breath, I let my mind wander back to that fateful night when Louisa hadn’t come home. I’d figured she was staying over at a boyfriend’s, as she’d become accustomed to in the wake of my dad’s death. I think she yearned for a male presence. I’d always blamed myself for not being there enough for her.
I’d grown distant from my family at that time, too. Gotten into drugs and other things that weren’t good for me.
Now wasn’t the time to dwell on the past, though. It was time to lock in and focus on the road.
A car zoomed toward me, way too fast for a storm, and I slowed way down to keep from losing traction as I moved my truck to the right.
Thank God for my truck and four-wheel drive.
I saw the red lights of Natalie’s car up in front of me, so I came to a complete stop, hoping she didn’t see me behind her.
Not that it really mattered at this point. What was she going to do, stop me from escorting her home?
I took a deep breath as she pulled away again, and we drove on in the dark, the snowflakes seeming to light the way in an almost fluorescent manner.
My father, before he died, had told me one thing that always stuck with me.
The truth will set you free, son. You gotta turn your own bullshit detector up to one-thousand percent. Besides, other people might not appreciate that you’re not telling the truth, sometimes. But guess what--you will. And you’ll judge yourself for it. Whatever you feel like you can’t say out loud—that’s what controls you.
Even though coming clean with Natalie had pushed her away, I felt lighter afterward, like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Now she knew I wasn’t hiding a damn thing from her. And if I’d slept with her--and God damn, did I want to--if I’d taken her virginity while I was thinking about that in the back of my mind? Shit, I wouldn’t have been in the moment. I would have been thinking, ‘if she really knew what I could be like…’
Black Ice: A Standalone Enemies to Lovers Romance Page 14
