I pull the vial out of my pocket and hold it up to show him. When I see the way his eyes suddenly go cold and hard, I’m transported back to my childhood in an instant. I’m six years old again, in trouble for disturbing him when he was trying to read the newspaper. I feel my heart speed up, and I quickly shove my hands back into the pockets of my lab coat so he won’t see them shaking.
“Give me the sample, Hartley,” he says quietly, holding out his hand. When I hesitate, he looks at me in surprise and laughs under his breath. “You don’t trust me?”
Do I trust him? As much as I love my father, I know I have to be careful. Above everything, I need time to look at the samples more carefully and decide what I want to do about them.
“I’m sorry,” I say, dropping the vial into his outstretched hand. “Of course I trust you.” He closes his fist over it, and suddenly the wide smile is back, and he’s my dad again.
“Linda, can you get David in here please,” he says into his phone.
I look at him, confused.
“Why do you need David?”
It makes no sense at all. David is my long-term boyfriend, and he works on the 22nd floor: Legal. Before Dad has time to answer, David walks into the room, his face lighting up when he sees me. We try to be professional when we’re at work, so he doesn’t kiss me on my forehead like he usually does. Instead, he winks and looks me up and down when he thinks my dad isn’t looking.
“Hartley found the samples,” Dad says simply, as if it’s nothing, as if we’re talking about the weather or chatting about my sister Marty’s upcoming wedding.
At least David has the courtesy to look surprised.
“You knew about this too?” I gasp, looking at him wildly. He closes his eyes and presses a finger to his forehead, right between his eyebrows.
“Hartley,” he says, “you’ve got to calm down and think about this. Bridal Falls isn’t even a major waterway. It’s nothing.” He dismisses me with a flick of his hand.
“Nothing?” I can hear that my voice has gone high and thin and I know I’m losing control of the situation. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I whisper, swallowing hard.
“Do you like your house by the water, Hartley?” David snaps. “How about your new car or that watch on your wrist. Do you like those?”
I look down at the Cartier watch my parents gave me for my 23rd birthday and then up to meet my dad’s eyes.
“All of that goes away Ladybug,’ Dad says quietly. “If this gets out we’re looking at multi-million dollar lawsuits. Preston Industries will be shut down while they investigate. And there will be lawyers and court appearances, our photos in all of the papers. Mom and Marty – they’ll be dragged through it too. And all of those people out there, your friends? Their parents will be out of a job. And who will they blame when all this comes out? Not me, Bug, not me. No one out there cares about a little waterfall in the mountains somewhere. They care about food on their table. College funds for their kids. And when they’re looking for someone to blame, they’re going to look right at you.”
“No..” I stammer, my eyes swimming with tears. “This isn’t right!”
“Listen to your dad,” David whispers, moving closer so that he can put an arm around my waist.
I stand still for a moment, trying to digest what I’ve just heard.
“I’m going home,” I mutter, turning to leave. “I have a headache.”
I walk quickly down the corridor, past Linda, to the elevators. I can feel that David has followed me out, but I don’t turn around.
“I’ll come and see you after work,” he murmurs seductively into my ear as I step into the elevator. It’s all I can do not to vomit in my mouth but I smile obediently and nod.
When the doors close, I frantically start making lists in my head. I only have four or five hours until David comes by and figures out that I’m gone. Preston Industries may be happy to pour toxic chemicals into Bridal Falls, but there’s no way in hell that I’m going to stand around and watch.
Chapter One
Hartley
I smile in contentment as the ice cream dissolves on my tongue. Outside, gigantic gray waves thunder toward the shore and the wind is just about bending the trees sideways. It’s too cold for ice cream, but I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, any weather is ice cream weather. I look around the small shop. It’s almost empty, which isn’t surprising considering it’s winter. Across the room, a woman sits with her little boy in one of the booth seats that are in desperate need of repair. Other than the two of them, I’m alone. I reach into my bag and pull out my phone, checking it for messages for the hundredth time that day. There are 43 voice messages and 64 texts. I delete them all.
Behind me, I hear the door open and slam shut against the weather, and I turn to look. A man stands by the door facing the woman and boy. He raises his hand to say hello and then turns toward the counter. He’s tall; his head almost hits one of the tacky seashell lights as he walks. He’s dressed in worn looking jeans and just a white t-shirt, despite the biting cold. I quickly look back at my ice cream sundae before he catches me staring. Even from a distance and even without my glasses on, I can tell that this guy is ridiculously handsome. His hair is almost black, and it’s wet and messed up like he’s just run his hands through it. With his height and longish hair, wide brow and slightly fierce expression he looks otherworldly, more like a Viking warrior or someone who belongs on the cover of some romance fantasy novel than just a guy in an ice cream shop. No one should be that good looking really. Not in real life. It’s not fair to the rest of us. Although I have to admire the workmanship - he is beautifully made.
He walks up to where I’m sitting at the counter and rests his forearms on the bench top. They’re so close to mine that if I leaned to the side just a little, we’d touch. I steal a quick glance and see that his forearms are tanned dark by the sun and thick with muscle. They’re so different from David’s arms that I can’t help but stare at them for a moment. David works out five times a week and has his arms and legs waxed by a beautician who visits the house. His personal trainer carefully sculpts his muscles. They even have planning sessions about it. As with everything he does, David has exacting standards and ridiculously high expectations. He strives for an unattainable level of perfection in everything in life, including his body and lately, mine.
The arms next to me look rough and naturally strong. There’s a long scar running up the side of the arm closest to me, and three of his knuckles have fresh scabs on them. He looks like someone who does hard work, rather than work in the gym. We sit together for a minute, side by side but not saying anything until he leans over the counter as if he’s looking for something. He doesn’t acknowledge I exist, and why would he. I don’t need a mirror to tell me what I look like. The moisture and the wind have sent my long auburn curls haywire, and I didn’t put any makeup on this morning. I look down and immediately regret throwing on my dad’s college sweatshirt and my old pink yoga pants when I ran out the door.
There’s a crashing sound coming from the back room and then the owner appears. He’s a big guy, with a mustache that lies across his top lip and curls down each side to his jaw. His face breaks into a grin when he sees the guy next to me.
“Crew!” he cries, slapping one meaty hand on the counter top. “When did you get back? Jacob! Jacob get out here. You’ll never guess who just walked in.”
The guy next to me chuckles softly and reaches over to shake the man’s hand just as another younger guy walks out of the back room. He lets out a whooping sort of noise and runs at the counter. The guy next to me leans in and then they’re hugging and slapping each other on the back.
“Good to see you Jake,” the guy next to me says. His voice is deep with a kind of gravelly roughness to it. I recognize it from the times I’ve stayed out too late or drunk too much.
“Man, it’s been a long time, you just get here?”
“I just flew in this morning. I would
have come straight away, but I needed to get a surf in.”
The other guy laughs. I look up at him quickly and see that he’s one of those All-American guys, blonde hair, white teeth, and dimples.
“I’ll just get my stuff,” he says and returns to the back room with the older guy. The shop is silent again, and I begin to feel awkward sitting right next to someone who’s obviously pretending I’m invisible. I want him to turn in my direction so that I can see his face again, but he just drums his fingers on the counter top and stares straight ahead. I decide to leave. I’m just sliding off my stool when I feel a warm hand on my arm. I look up, startled, and suddenly I’m staring into the most intense pair of eyes I’ve ever seen. They’re green, but not your usual green. These are deep, river green, flecked with brown. I look down at where his hand rests on my sleeve and then back up at him. His mouth twitches at the corner and then lifts into a crooked smile that lights up his whole beautiful face.
“Hey,” he says quietly, reaching out a finger to touch my lip. “You have chocolate around your mouth.”
“Oh,” I stammer and instinctively poke out my tongue to lick around my lips. Only his finger is still hovering there, and I lick it by mistake. We both flinch at the contact, and I know without looking that my face has flushed bright red.
“I’m Crew,” he says and holds out his hand. I look at it for a second and then realize he’s waiting for me to shake it. I clear my throat, trying to recover a shred of dignity, and put my hand into his.
“I’m Hartley,” I hear myself say. My voice is shaky and nervous even to my own ears. I look up into his face, and suddenly I can see how tall he really is. The top of my head doesn’t quite come up to his shoulder. He looks down at me and smiles a little, and I wonder what he’s thinking. His skin is bronzed and a little weather-beaten like he spends a lot of time outside. There are little creases at the corner of his eyes that give his face character and a spray of dark stubble across his jaw.
“Ah, Hartley?” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “Do you think I could have my hand back now?”
I look down at my hand enclosed in his and realize that they’ve been hovering like that in mid-air the whole time I’ve been staring at him. I snatch mine back just as Jake comes out from behind the counter. He quickly takes in the scene and rolls his eyes at Crew.
“Already, man? You’ve been in town for what, five minutes?”
“You’ve got it all wrong dude,” Crew laughs back. He looks me over from the top of my out of control hair; down over my bare face and past my sloppy clothes to the Ugg boots I’m wearing on my feet.
“See you around kid,” he says lightly, and leaves.
Chapter Two
Crew
I walk up the dunes carrying my board, my feet sinking into the cold soft sand as I make my way up the incline and through the sea grass. The wind is blowing down the beach so that sand whips up around me as I walk, stinging my face like needles. The surf was probably too dangerous to be out, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to walk in and look Jake in the eye without clearing my head first. I make it to my beat up Jeep Wrangler just as the wind picks up a notch and starts to howl. When I threw some clothes into a bag yesterday, I didn’t think about the weather on the coast in the middle of winter, and now I’m stuck here with a pile of jeans and old t-shirts. For a moment, I let my mind drift back to the hot, thick air of the rainforest. It’s crazy to think that I was dripping with sweat and looking forward to cooler temperatures just 24 hours ago. I secure my board to the roof racks, and as I tie down the last strap, I look over the roof to The Sea Shack on the opposite side of the road. Shit. I’m not ready to go in there. My head throbs from jet lag and too much whiskey on the plane, and I’m in a bad mood. I know that as soon as I walk in those doors I’m going to have to pretend to be the guy they think they know, but the truth is, that guy hasn’t been around in a long, long time. I walk across the car park, reassuring myself that in 72 hours, I’ll be back on another plane heading out across the sky as far away from this town as I can get.
When I open the door of The Sea Shack and shut it behind me, it’s as if someone has suddenly turned the music off at a party. Everything is quiet. My footsteps sound too loud as I walk across the worn wooden floorboards toward the front counter. I see a girl I vaguely recognize from high school sitting with a boy covered in ice cream and raise my hand to say hello. I can tell by the look in her eyes that she wants to flirt with me a little, but I keep on walking. I can’t see Jake or the old man anywhere, so I stand next to a girl eating ice cream out of a milkshake glass and wait. She’s little, and she’s sitting on the stool with her legs crossed like she’s five years old. I try not to look at her ass. I stand next to her, a little too close, just to see if it makes her uncomfortable. Her breath hitches when I place my arm down on the counter next to hers, and she moves a little in her seat, trying to create some distance between us. I steal a look at her and can’t help but smile when I see her hair. It’s red and brown and a complete mess. The curls are all knotted up and sticking out, and there’s part of a leaf stuck near her ear. I want to reach over and pull it out. I watch out of the corner of my eye as she holds her hair back from her face, bringing the spoon to her mouth. But when she looks at me, I make sure my eyes are straight ahead. She doesn’t know it, but I’m reading the ice cream flavors on the menu board backwards just to stop myself from looking at her. I wait until she dips her spoon back into her ice cream before I steal another look. She has pale skin and a few freckles on her nose. Her hands are small, and she has chipped blue polish on her nails. I’m about to ask her why she’s eating ice cream out of a milkshake glass on a day like this when Jake’s dad walks into the shop. I rearrange my face into a smile and try to be the guy that they’re expecting, the one with the great life who flies in and out of town whenever he feels like it, the guy who really made something of himself. Jake runs out a minute later. He looks the same as he did when he was seventeen, and he’ll probably stay that way until he’s fifty. He has that clean-cut, baby-faced thing going on that made all of the girls and their mothers fall in love with him in high school. Jake and his dad head out back, and I know they’re going to shut the shop early today so that we can do what we always do when I arrive in town. I wish I could just tell them that it’s the last place on earth I want to be.
With Jake gone, the life has been sucked out of the room and it’s too quiet again. The girl sitting next to me is humming softly to herself, and I try to guess the tune. While she’s looking the other way, I quickly look down at her again. She’s so close to me that I can feel the heat coming off her arm and I can smell her hair. God, her hair is beautiful. I drum my fingers on the countertop to stop myself from reaching my hands into it. When she looks back, I don’t move my eyes away quick enough and she catches me. She’s got eyes that are more gold than brown, like caramel or amber, and they’re looking right at me. My eyes quickly flick over her face and I’m trying to think of something witty and sexy to say, but I’ve got nothing. She’s got a smear of chocolate sauce on the edge of her bottom lip, and before I know it, I’m reaching out and touching it. Her lips are pink and soft and I know that if I kissed her right now, they’d taste of sugar and all things good. She makes a noise and says something like “Oh,” and her voice is surprisingly husky for someone who looks so delicate. My finger is running along the edge of her lip, and then she reaches her tongue out and licks the chocolate away. For the briefest of moments, her tongue connects with my finger and we both jump. It’s like the time I stuck a knife into a light socket when I was a kid. A surge of heat darts over my finger and up my arm, and it doesn’t stop until I’m tingling all over. I want to laugh but then I see that she’s bright red, so I quickly introduce myself to cover her embarrassment. She puts her hand in mine and damn; I feel that electric bolt again. After a moment, she raises her head and looks up at me. I can feel her eyes traveling over every inch of my face. I want to do the same to hers, but something
stops me from meeting her eyes. The whole time she’s looking at me her hand is sitting lightly in mine, and it’s taking all I have not to pull her closer toward me.
Somewhere in the distance, I hear Jake coming out of the back room and just the thought of him snaps me back to reality in an instant. I look down at the girl, and I can see the emotion in her eyes. She looks sad and sexy and a little bit scared. What the fuck do I think I’m doing? Instead of asking for her number I do what comes easily to me. I act like an asshole and make her feel like the electricity between us is just something she imagined. And then I do the other thing I do best. I walk away.
Chapter Three
Hartley
Crew looks me over like I’m some kind of pathetic groupie, and then he laughs. It’s not the same warm, deep sound I heard earlier. This laugh could only be described as a snigger.
“See you around kid,” he says, smirking a little.
I don’t know who this guy thinks I am, but despite my rather unfortunate choice of clothing this morning I am not some love-struck college kid. In fact, I graduated from one of the top universities in the country when I was only 16, and I haven’t looked back since. I’m about to say something I’ll probably regret later when I look into his eyes briefly. I’m expecting to see smugness or arrogance, but he actually looks a little ashamed. And sad. Really sad. I lower my eyes back to the ground. Just like that, all of the fire in me is gone. His friend slaps him on the back and winks at me before they turn to leave. I watch Crew walk across the shop and slam the door behind him just as the woman with the little boy starts laughing from behind her magazine. I throw my bag over my shoulder and go.
The weather has gotten worse in the time I was at The Sea Shack, and now it’s raining too. I spare a thought for the heated seats in my brand new Porsche Macan before reaching into my bag for my jacket with a sigh. I reluctantly left my car in the garage when I skipped town because I knew that David would have every patrol car between Canada and Mexico looking out for it within 24 hours of me being gone. That little decision has left me with no transport in a place that rains for four months of the year and is volatile and moody for the rest of it. On the other side of the car park, I can see Crew and the guy from the ice cream shop talking inside an old black Jeep with a surfboard on the roof. The blonde guy is nodding and then he reaches out and puts a hand on Crew’s shoulder. He leans his head back on the headrest for a second and then suddenly slams his fist down on the steering wheel. Even though I’m watching from far away, it still makes me jump. I don’t want him to see me looking at him, so I pull the hood of my jacket over my head and turn toward home.
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