Keeping Score

by Shannon Stults

  “Why do you have all this stuff?” she asked. She doubted that he just happened to carry two warm blankets and two thermoses full of hot coffee with him all the time.

  “I had a feeling we’d need it,” he said, separating her clothes from his on the seat between them.

  And he’d left the Bronco running the whole time, making sure it would be nice and toasty for them. “You knew what the challenge was?”

  “I didn’t know for sure, though the thought did cross my mind.”

  She pulled the blanket even tighter around her. “How did you know?”

  “There are only so many possibilities when you tell me to meet you at the dock in the middle of the night.”

  “Then why didn’t you wear a bathing suit or something that would keep you warm?” Almost anything had to be better than thin, cotton boxers.

  “And ruin your obvious attempt to see me in my underwear? I’m not heartless,” he said with a wink before he handed Logan her jeans and T-shirt. “You need to change and get out of your wet suit.”

  She stared at him. She knew he was right, but there was no way she was changing in front of him.

  So instead, she pulled the blanket even tighter around her and crawled into the open space in the back. She had to shove a few things aside—a fishing pole, a toolbox, a paintball gun.

  “Seriously.” She snorted, unable to stop herself. “Aren’t you a little old for paintball?”

  “Paintball is a man’s sport. And the fact that you don’t know that makes it pretty clear you’ve never played before.”

  It was true, she hadn’t. Not that she’d give him the satisfaction of confirming it. “Whatever.” Despite the objects in the back, there seemed to be enough space for her to change comfortably, as long as someone kept his eyes to himself.

  “No peeking,” she muttered, leaning over the seat and twisting his rearview mirror to the side so he couldn’t see.

  “Nothing I haven’t seen before,” he reminded her. And there it was. The first reference to what happened the night of the big farewell bonfire.

  “But something you will never see again.” She lay down in the back, trying to stay covered and out of sight as she struggled to get out of her bikini and into her jeans and sweater. Getting dressed in the back of Cole Tucker’s Bronco while he sat a foot away in the front seat—just one more to add to the long list of things she would never tell Jacob.

  Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought ahead enough to bring a bra or pair of underwear, which only made the situation worse.

  When she was finally clothed, she grabbed the blanket and crawled back into the front seat where her coffee thermos awaited her. She took a long sip once it was open, looking over at Cole. He’d changed clothes, too. His wet boxers and shirt sat on the seat between them.

  Logan picked them up carefully between her thumb and forefinger and threw them into the back.

  Minutes passed in silence as they allowed the heat of the truck to warm them up. The radio was playing some of the country songs they’d grown up listening to.

  “I should go home,” Logan finally said when Dierks Bentley’s “Feel that Fire” ended. She’d finished her coffee, finally feeling warm enough to get out of Cole’s truck and into her own. She grabbed her boots from the floor in front of her and started putting them on.

  “Too bad,” Cole said. “I was thinking we could go down to Wade’s and you could buy me a drink in honor of my win today.”

  Logan shook her head. “I wasn’t kidding when I said I was done with all that. I may have slipped up the other night, but that can’t happen again.” The further she fell back into her old ways, the harder it would be for her to crawl back out when she needed to.

  “It’s just one beer, Lo.”

  “No, it’s one beer with you. And we both know that one beer with you will turn into another and another until one or both of us is wasted.” She pulled her jacket on over her shirt. “Being drunk or making a bet seems to be the only way we can stand to be in the same room.” It was certainly the case for her.

  “We’re sober right now.”

  “Yes,” she said patiently, “but we also just jumped into the freezing cold lake to see who could stay in the longest. We’re not the types to just go to the bar and kick back one beer together. We’re not friends, Cole. Maybe we were at some point, but not now. Not anymore.” Not after that night.

  Logan opened the door beside her and climbed out with her wet bikini in hand, leaving the blanket and the thermos behind.

  “Well, I’ll be at Wade’s anyway since I have to tell Lilly to add a letter to your name,” he said through his now open window. “Swing by if you change your mind.”

  “I won’t.” Logan climbed up into her truck. As soon as it started, she watched Cole slowly turn the Bronco around and drive up the narrow gravel drive that led back to the park’s main entrance.

  Why had she let herself get into this? There was a reason she’d avoided this town while she was gone, and now all her hard work was unraveling. This competitive drive she had around Cole was not good for her, and the sooner she grew up and ended it the better.

  She could always refuse to humor him and his challenges. But knowing him, he’d consider her refusal to play as a forfeit. That left her with only one option.

  Winning.

  As soon as she won the challenges, she could be done with Cole, and he would never bother her again.

  Just a few months. After that, she’d be free and clear of this town and Cole Tucker. She’d finally get to be the girl Jacob needed her to be.

  And she’d be happy.

  *

  September—Junior Year

  Cole stood at the workbench inside the otherwise empty barn, holding the rod of a branding iron in one hand and a propane torch in the other. Old Man Carithers’s signature C glowed bright red at the end. His grip tightened on the rod as he cut off the torch. He waved the iron around the open space above the workbench, watching the trail of red it left in its wake.

  “Cole Tucker!”

  He jumped, the red-hot iron slipping from his hand and, thankfully, onto the barn’s cement floor.

  “Jesus, Kase!” he yelled as he bent down to pick the iron rod up by the middle. “Don’t you know not to scare a guy holding a hot iron? I could have burned myself.”

  He turned to find her standing in the open doorway, hands clenched into fists. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes were wild and fiery as her chest rose and fell rapidly. She looked like a Valkyrie or one of those fierce Amazons they’d learned about when covering mythology in middle school. Beautiful and pissed.

  “You’ll wish you had when I’m done with you,” she growled, stomping over to him and shoving him hard in the shoulder.

  “Take it easy.” He set the iron down on the workbench behind him and turned back to her.

  She shoved him again. “Don’t you tell me to take it easy! Where is it?”

  Cole wiped his sweaty forehead on his arm. “Where’s what?”

  “You know damn well what. The note. The one Carly and I were writing in Spanish. I know you have it, so just give it back!”

  His head tilted. “Now why would I go and do that?”

  “That note has personal information you have no right reading!”

  He bent down, shoving his face close to hers as the corner of his mouth curved upward. “You mean you didn’t leave it there on the floor just for me to find? I wish I’d known that before I read all about your little crush on the new kid.”

  She gasped. “I knew it! You just couldn’t mind your own damn business, could you? How many people have you told?”

  He gritted his teeth. “You really think I’d do something like that?” On the contrary, the last thing he wanted to do was tell the whole school Logan had a crush on Ryan Baker. Ryan was a spoiled rich kid who was used to getting whatever he wanted. He wasn’t right for Lo, and he sure as hell wasn’t good enough.

  “I know exactly what kind of guy you a
re, Cole Tucker. I bet you’ve already told half the school by now.”

  “Not sure why I’d need to. Anybody could tell you like him the way you’re fawning over him all the time.”

  “I am not!” Her scream echoed through the barn. “Just give it back!”

  He stood tall, his arm reaching back behind him. If she wanted a reason to be angry with him, he’d give her one. “Fine, you want it so bad?” he asked, pulling a small, folded piece of paper from his back pocket. “Take it.”

  He lifted his hand overhead. Logan rose on her tiptoes trying to reach it, but it was too high. She punched him again. “I mean it, Cole Tucker. Hand it over or I will kill you with my bare hands.” He held the note higher, and she tried to jump for it.

  He lowered his arm and held out the note to one side and to the other, then back again.

  Logan continued grabbing at it as he proceeded to pull it away at the last possible second, leaving her hands clutching nothing but air.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that,” he taunted.

  He held the note behind his back, and she lunged forward. He turned to the side just as she tried to reach around him. She lost her balance and stumbled into the workbench behind him.

  A piercing scream sent painful tremors up his spine and straight to his heart.

  “Logan!”

  The smell of burning cotton and flesh singed his lungs. He reached for her, the folded paper he’d been holding forgotten as it fell to the floor.

  Chapter Ten

  It was amazing how easily time seemed to stand still in Willow Creek. And even more how everyone supported each other, whether friend, family, or neighbor, because that was what people did in this town. Like one impressively large family. Logan hadn’t realized until now just how much she’d missed that.

  She’d just left Macy’s Market with a bag full of groceries for her momma. Following the sidewalk back to her truck, she took her time as she gazed through the storefront windows of the dozen or so shops and boutiques that still looked the same as when she left.

  Even Tucker’s Hardware Store, from what she could tell staring at it from across the street. Logan hadn’t been inside it since eighth grade, but it boasted the same display of tool kits and power drills and the like as if she hadn’t been gone the last four years.

  At one familiar green door, she stopped. She’d been wrong. This one had changed drastically for the worse. The large window to the right was dirty but still proudly carried the name Willow Creek Art Gallery in black, elegant lettering. The lights were off and the space inside was empty. On the door was a sign that read Out of Business.

  It broke Logan’s heart to see it like this, the one place that had felt like her home away from home. She’d spent most afternoons here after school, much to her mother’s pleasure, since she’d hoped it would keep her wild girl out of trouble.

  That November in her senior year when Ms. Snyder told her she was packing up and moving to Maryland, Logan had lost more than her after-school sanctuary. She’d lost a very dear friend. Logan had kept in touch for a while, but when she left Willow Creek, she left just about everything that reminded her of it behind, too. Including contact with Ms. Snyder.

  When she reached her truck, Logan threw the small bag of groceries her mom asked her to pick up into the passenger seat. Just as she was about to place the key in the ignition, her phone beeped in her pocket, alerting her to a new message.

  She pulled it out and glanced at the screen. A text from Cole. It was Saturday, more than a week since she’d last heard from him that night at the dock.

  Logan tapped the screen to open the message.

  Fairfield Woods 1 hr.

  Logan sighed, her head dropping back against the headrest. The last thing she needed right now was one of his challenges. Carly was getting back to town today. Logan was supposed to meet her and Jacob for dinner tonight, and she really needed to go home, shower, and get her hair and makeup ready. And she still had no clue what she was going to wear.

  Can it wait a day? Almost immediately, her phone beeped again.

  Forfeit? That H will look a lot better with an O next to it.

  Logan groaned. She had no choice, really. She could either do this and win or condemn her relationship with Jacob and ruin any chance she had of proving to her mother that she could be the daughter she always wanted.

  She glanced at her watch. There were still a few hours before she absolutely had to get home and start getting ready. Fine, she would do this. But only because it was for the greater good. As soon as she won this challenge, she would be one step closer to besting Cole Tucker once and for all.

  Logan tapped on her phone, her competitive fire already starting to flare up inside her.

  Fine. 1 hour.

  *

  She was more than a little concerned when she saw that not only was Cole’s truck not parked on the outskirts of the thickly wooded area where she was told to meet him but that there were at least ten other vehicles that she didn’t recognize. She pulled off onto the side of the road and across the grass to park by the extensive line of trucks, cars, and Jeeps.

  A crowd of men gathered just at the edge of the woods, all wearing head-to-toe camouflage.

  What had she gotten herself into now?

  Logan ignored the pit in her stomach as she approached. She recognized most, if not all, of the men standing around chatting in front of her.

  She grinned when the big guy in the middle turned to face her.

  “’Bout time, Lo,” Cowboy said, cutting through the crowd and giving her a giant bear hug. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “I didn’t know you would be here,” she said as she hugged him back. She pulled away only to find several others from her high school class lining up to hug her and ask how she’d been—Roy Finnick, Justin Fisher, and even Levi Rossetti. They all looked just about the same as they had four years ago, give or take a few pounds.

  She recognized a few others who’d graduated in the years before and after her. It was hard to come across a stranger in a small town like Willow Creek, and they all seemed to have stayed updated on her while she’d lived in Texas, thanks to her mom and dad and the town gossips, she was sure.

  “Where’s Cole?” she asked once the catching up came to an end.

  “He’s marking off the boundary lines with flags,” said Wilson Oliver, one of Cole’s firefighter buddies he’d abandoned at the bar two weeks ago. “Should be back any minute.”

  “Cole says you’re gearing up with us,” Justin Fisher said in his Southern drawl, though it came out more like a question.

  “Um…I guess so.” She had no idea what he was talking about.

  He nodded, a grin lifting his freckled cheeks. “Cool. We’ve never played with a chick before. This should be fun.”

  Logan turned to Cowboy, still close by her side. His white-blond hair was hidden beneath a camo Bass Pro Shop hat instead of his usual black UGA cap. “Play?”

  Cowboy’s eyes narrowed. “Cole didn’t tell you?”

  She started to shake her head when several of the guys’ attention turned to the Bronco pulling onto the grass near them. Seconds later, Cole Tucker stepped out in full-body camo, his eyes landing on Logan.

  “I see our guest of honor is here.” He reached back into his truck to pull something out and then tossed it straight at Logan, who caught it easily enough. It took her only a moment’s examination to realize it was a rather large camouflage shirt. “You ready to see what kind of shot you are?”

  “Are we going hunting?” she asked slowly. Some of the guys chuckled.

  “Let’s gear up,” Cole called out. Everyone turned on the spot, heading to their trucks or cars. Cowboy was now at the back of the Bronco, shifting around boxes and tools and fishing rods as he looked for something specific. “Here,” Cole said as he placed a large gun in her hand.

  Not a real gun, she realized. A paintball gun.

  She rolled her eyes. “You mad
e me come down here to play paintball with you?”

  “You said you’ve never played before, so I thought we could change that. And if we knock another challenge out of the way while we do it, all the better.”

  “But I don’t know how to play. I don’t even know any of the rules.”

  He took her hands in his and held the gun up for her, moving her right hand and index finger into place. “The only thing you need to know how to do is pull the trigger.” He dropped his hands from her gun, turning to grab his own out of his seat in the Bronco.

  “As for the rules,” he said, turning back to her, “we usually play teams. Blue versus red.” He indicated the red band now wrapped around Roy Finnick’s upper arm.

  She stared at Cole. Did that seriously mean the only difference between shooting the enemy and one of their own guys was that small strip of color?

  He grinned. “Don’t worry. Since this is your first time, we’ll have some special rules in place for you.”

  “What kind of rules?” she asked. She didn’t like the idea of special treatment, but she also knew how intense most of these guys could get when it came to their sports. She did not feel comfortable being thrown headfirst into a game she’d never played with them. Especially when she really needed to win this challenge.

  “You are free to shoot whoever you want, red or blue team, but they’re not allowed to shoot you.”

  “They’re okay with that? Doesn’t seem fair.”

  Cole shrugged. “We all agreed it would add an interesting twist to the game. You’re the wild card. It’ll keep us on our toes. And if you manage to hit anyone, they’re out.”

  Logan liked the sound of that. Wild card. Maybe that would be her official paintball name. Not that she was ever playing again after today. This was purely for her and Jacob’s relationship.

  “What about you?” she asked Cole. “Can you shoot just anybody?”

  He chuckled. “Trust me, that wouldn’t be fair for the other guys. No, the only person I can shoot is you. And you are the only one who can shoot me. The first one of us to get a clean shot at the other wins.”