by Lisa Jackson
“Sure. I don’t plan to hang out here any longer than necessary.”
“What’re you going to do?”
“See as much of the world as I can. Maybe join the army. My dad thinks I should enlist first and let the military pay for my schooling when I get out.”
“You want to go into the army?” she repeated.
“Why not?” He slanted her an uneven grin. “You know, join the army, see the world.”
“I don’t know. It sounds so...rigid and well, kind of like prison.”
“It’ll be a challenge.”
“You have a thing for guns, or something?”
“I have a thing for adventure.” His eyes glimmered a fraction as his teeth crunched down on the ice cube. All at once she could imagine him creeping through some foreign jungle, rifle slung over his back, searching out the enemy. There was a part of Ben Powell that seemed dangerous and forbidden—a part of him that longed to walk on the edge.
“It’s peacetime, remember?” she said, feeling more than a little nervous. She hated guns. Hated war. Hated the military.
“There’s always action somewhere.”
“And you want to be there.”
“Beats sitting around this Podunk town and ending up hoping that the mills don’t shut down and praying that some jerk like H. G. Monroe III keeps on handing out paychecks that barely cover your bills.” He frowned darkly and his jaw grew hard. “I don’t plan on working at the Bait and Fish for the rest of my life and I’m sure as hell not going to sign up with the Monroes or the Fitzpatricks.”
“But you would with the army.” Carlie didn’t bother hiding her sarcasm. Her father had worked at Fitzpatrick Logging for nearly thirty years. He was a foreman and made decent money. Time after time Weldon Surrett had told his only daughter that Thomas Fitzpatrick had given him a job when there was no work, he’d kept the logging company running in bad times and good, he’d spotted Weldon as a dedicated worker and promoted him. Carlie was convinced her father would lay down his life for Thomas Fitzpatrick, even though she didn’t completely trust the man.
When Roy, Thomas’s eldest son, had been killed last fall, her father had cried and forced his small family to attend the funeral. It had been painful that rainy day and the fact that Carlie had sided with Rachelle in defending Jackson Moore had caused friction in the family as well as friction at Weldon’s job.
Almost everyone in town believed that Jackson Moore had killed his rival. Everyone but Rachelle and her friend, Carlie. It had been an argument that simmered around the apartment for weeks after Jackson Moore left town.
She took a sip of her drink. “I, um, think Thomas Fitzpatrick isn’t all bad,” she said, though, truthfully, the few times she’d met him, she’d been uncomfortable. Thomas, tall and patrician, had looked at her intently each time and his smile had seemed to have a hidden meaning that chilled her blood.
“I’d hate to see what you consider ‘all bad.’”
She wiped a drop of dew from the side of her glass. “Look, years ago, Fitzpatrick gave my father a chance and he’s kept him on, even when Dad was out with back surgery. Dad never missed a paycheck.”
Ben’s jaw tightened into a harsh line. “Yep. Fitzpatrick. Helluva guy. He and Monroe. Peas in the same dirty pod.” He scooted back his chair, handed her his glass and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “I guess I’d better shove off. Big day at the Bait and Fish tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to leave,” she said, hating the fact that they’d come very near an argument.
“It’s late.” With a bitter smile he strode to the front door and she followed. “Thanks for the drink.”
She thought he might kiss her again and he stared at her for a heartbeat that caused her throat to catch. His gaze lingered on hers a second longer than necessary. “Good night, Carlie,” he whispered, his voice rough.
She leaned forward, expecting to be taken into his arms, but he opened the door and disappeared, leaving her feeling empty inside.
Disappointment curled in her stomach as she watched him through the narrow window. The pickup bounced out of the parking lot and disappeared into the night. Touching the tip of her finger to her lips, she closed her eyes and wondered if she’d ever see him again.
* * *
“I HEARD YOU were with Carlie.” Kevin lifted his head from beneath the hood of his Corvette long enough to stare his brother hard in the eye. “At the lake the other night. Some of the guys said you met her at the Daniels’s place and wound up taking her home.”
“Does it bother you?” Ben asked, wishing he hadn’t stopped by Kevin’s rented house unannounced. His brother was checking out his one prized possession—a six-year-old Corvette with engine problems. Keeping the car running cost Kevin nearly every dime he earned at the sawmill. Glossy black and sleek, the car seemed to hug the asphalt of the driveway.
“Bother me?” Kevin slammed down the hood and leaned a hip against a low-slung fender. “’Course it bothers me. She’s trouble, man. I told you that before.”
“You also said that you were through with her, that you were going with someone else...a girl from Coleville.”
“Tracy,” Kevin agreed, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. “I am.”
“So it doesn’t matter—”
“Like hell!” Kevin said, bending a little so that the tip of his nose nearly touched Ben’s. “That little bitch gave me nothing but grief. Nothing! If you’re smart, you’ll stay away from her!” He opened the car door, slid inside and started the Corvette with a roar from the powerful engine. Blue smoke jetted from the exhaust as the sports car idled for a second, backfired and died. “Great,” Kevin ground out. “Now what?”
Ben ignored his brother’s question. “You’ve still got a thing for her.”
Kevin stiffened, but his mouth twisted into an ugly little smile as he glared up at Ben through the open window. “No way. I’m through with her. Used goods.”
Ben’s fists clenched and he gnashed his back teeth together to keep from uttering a hot retort. He hadn’t come over to Kevin’s to pick a fight with him. No, he’d just stopped by to clear his conscience and make certain that Kevin didn’t still hold a torch for Carlie because, for the past three days, ever since taking her home from the lake, Ben had thought of little else than her easy smile, glossy black hair and blue eyes. During the day, when he was supposed to be stocking the shelves or selling fishing tackle, thoughts of her had invaded his mind. And the nights were worse—he’d already lost three nights’ sleep, tossing and turning, remembering the feel of her body against his when he’d kissed her.
Muttering under his breath, Kevin climbed out of the car, checked under the hood one more time and, in exasperation, tossed the dirty rag into a box of tools. He reached into the pocket of his shirt for his cigarettes and his face creased into a frown. “Probably needs a whole new engine.” Then, as if he remembered why his brother had stopped by, he added, “Look, if you want Carlie Surrett, I’m not standin’ in your way. She’s all yours. She doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
“You’re sure?”
Kevin flicked a lighter to the end of his cigarette, then let out a long stream of smoke. “It’s your funeral.”
Ben wasn’t convinced that Kevin didn’t still harbor a few unsettled feelings, but it didn’t really matter. Ben had laid all his cards on the table. “So how’d you find out that I was with her at the lake?”
Kevin snorted. Smoke curled from his nostrils. “This is Gold Creek, remember? Bad news travels fast.”
Chapter Two
BEN DIDN’T CALL. Not the next day, nor the day after. Carlie began to believe that she’d imagined the passion in his kiss.
“Face it,” she told her reflection as she stared into the oval mirror mounted over her bureau. “It wasn’t a big deal to him.” She brushed her long hair until it crackled, then braided the blue-black strands into a single plait that fell down the middle of her back. Shadow was curled on the window
seat in her room, washing her face and obviously unconcerned about Carlie’s love life.
“I shouldn’t care, you know,” she said with a glance at the gray tabby. Shadow did her best to ignore Carlie and continued preening. In disgust, Carlie tossed her brush onto the bureau. “You make a lousy sister, you know,” she said, wishing she had someone in whom to confide. She considered Brenda, but shoved that idea quickly aside. Brenda was too gregarious; she didn’t know how to keep a secret. But she could always confide in Rachelle.
Or she could just forget Ben. He obviously wasn’t interested in her and she wasn’t the type to go chasing after boys. Or she hadn’t been until she’d become interested in the younger Powell brother.
Grabbing her purse, she headed for work. Upon her mother’s urging, she snatched an apple from the fruit basket on the table, and walked outside. The morning air was already hot, the dew melted away. She left the windows of her car rolled down and turned the radio up as she drove the few miles to Coleville and her summer job. What she’d do come September, she hadn’t really considered.
She didn’t have enough money to go away to school, and she’d applied at a local junior college, but she wasn’t convinced that academics was in her future.
Neither is Ben Powell, she told herself firmly as her mind strayed to him. Why had she met him this summer, when she was already confused about the rest of her life? She didn’t need to be so distracted by a boy who hardly knew she existed.
Disgusted that she couldn’t put him out of her mind, she spent the next five hours in the photography studio concentrating on her work. She developed negatives, helped frame some of Rory’s, her boss’s, most recent shots and generally tidied up the studio. Rory didn’t seem to believe in the connection between cleanliness and God.
“I have to be creative,” he’d told her when she mentioned the general mess. “I can’t be bothered with trivial things.” He was joking, of course, but Carlie had taken it upon herself to pick up the clutter around the studio, clean the kitchen and bathroom, and vacuum the carpets. She couldn’t bear to work in a pigsty.
Rory didn’t seem to notice. However, he was adamant that she model for him when he was doing an advertising shoot for local merchants or creating his own portfolio.
Rory had told her time and time again that she was wasting her time on the wrong end of a camera.
“Thousands of girls would die for what you’ve got,” he said as he set up the studio for a shoot. Mrs. Murdock was coming in with her two-year-old son and her border collie. “The camera loves you. Look at these—” He waved pictures he’d taken of Carlie, showing off her high cheekbones and blue-green eyes. “The face of an angel with just the hint of the devil in those eyes of yours. I’m telling you, Madison Avenue would eat these up.”
“I like to take pictures, not pose,” she’d replied, though the idea of modeling held more than a little appeal.
“So spend a few years in front of the lens. Make some bucks, give it your best shot before you grow old and fat, or God forbid, fall in love.” Rory was a tall man, thirty-five or so, with a dishwater-blond ponytail that was starting to thin and streak with gray. His face was perpetually unshaven and he never wore a tie. “Now, do we have any Christmas props? These pictures are a Christmas gift for Mrs. Murdock’s husband, even though Christmas is what—seven months away?”
“Five,” Carlie said. “I’ll check the upstairs.” She climbed the rickety staircase and opened a door. The attic was sweltering and dusty. She dug through some boxes and came up with several sprigs of fake holly, some red candles that had already melted a little and a stuffed animal that looked like a reindeer. She even uncovered a rolled backdrop of a snow-encrusted forest.
Carrying the box downstairs, she blew her bangs from her eyes. “There’s not much,” she admitted as the front bell chimed and Mrs. Murdock strolled into the reception area. She held a perfectly behaved border collie on a leash and her dynamo of a two-year-old son was wearing a white shirt, red-and-green plaid vest and black velvet shorts. Red knee socks and black shoes completed the outfit.
She offered Carlie a tired smile. “I know this won’t be easy,” she admitted as she licked her fingers and tried to smooth a wrinkle in her son’s hair. He jerked his head away with a loud protest. “Jason’s in the middle of the ‘terrible twos,’ but my husband would love a picture of him with Waldo.” At the moment Jason was tugging hard on Waldo’s leash and the dog was sitting patiently.
Carlie led the entourage back to the studio where Rory was adjusting the light.
Mrs. Murdock’s prediction was an understatement.
Jason pulled at his bow tie, cried, pitched a fit and generally mauled the dog, but both the collie and Rory were incredibly calm. By the end of the shoot nearly two hours later, Carlie’s patience was frayed, Mrs. Murdock had lost her smile and Rory wasn’t convinced any of the shots he’d taken would be satisfactory. “Keep your fingers crossed,” Rory suggested as they locked up for the night. “I’d hate to go through that all over again.”
The thought was depressing. “I’m sure at least one of the shots will turn out,” she said, hoping to sound encouraging.
“If today was December twentieth, I would worry. As it is, we still have a lot of time for retakes.”
Carlie groaned inwardly at the thought. She drove home in her hot little car and felt positively wilted. Sweat collected at the base of her neck and dotted her forehead, and her clothes, a black skirt and white blouse, were wrinkled and grimy.
Wheeling into the parking lot, she nearly stood on the brakes. Ben’s truck was parked in the shade of a larch tree and he was leaning against the fender, arms crossed over his chest, as if he had nothing better to do.
He glanced up when he saw her and shifted a match from one side of his mouth to the other. His lips twitched in what one might consider a smile.
She cut the engine and climbed out.
“Thought I might find you here,” he said, taking the match from his mouth and breaking it between two fingers.
“Have you been waiting long?”
Shaking his head he glanced at his watch. “A few minutes.”
She couldn’t stop the wild beating of her heart. He looked much the same as the last time. Again he wore faded blue Levi’s, but this time a white T-shirt stretched across his chest. His gaze was lazy when it touched hers. “I wondered if you wanted to go for a drive. Up to the lake or something.”
“I thought you’d forgotten all about me.”
Again the sexy smile. “Forget you?” He let out a silent laugh. “Is that possible?”
“It’s been a while since I heard from you.”
“I’ve been busy.” He leaned one hip against the truck’s fender and waited. “So what do you say?”
“Just let me grab my suit.”
The apartment was empty and Ben waited downstairs while Carlie dashed into her room, stripped out of her work clothes and threw on a one-piece sea-green swimsuit. She couldn’t believe that he was actually waiting for her. Her heart pounded as she stepped into a pair of shorts and a sleeveless blouse with long tails that she tied under her breasts. She ran a brush over her hair, touched up her lipstick and was back downstairs in less than ten minutes. She felt breathless and flushed as she wrote her parents a quick note and let Shadow inside.
Once they were in the parking lot, he unlocked the truck and held open the passenger door for her. She climbed into the sun-baked interior and wondered why, after hearing nothing from him for the past few days, he’d decided to pick up where they’d left off. Or had he?
With a roar the old truck started and Ben eased the Ford into traffic.
“Did something happen?” she finally asked.
His brows fastened together as he squinted through the windshield. Frowning, he reached across her, into the glove compartment and extracted a pair of sunglasses. “Happen?” he asked, sliding the shades onto the bridge of his nose.
“Well, I just figured that you didn
’t want to see me again.”
“You figured wrong,” he said with a trace of agitation. He stopped for a red light, rolled down the window and rested his elbow on the ledge. “Besides, I thought I should make sure that I wasn’t stepping on Kevin’s toes.”
She nearly dropped through the seat. “What’s he got to do with this?”
“Nothing. But I wanted to double-check.”
“Double-check? This is my life—” she began, but held her tongue. It didn’t matter anyway. Obviously Kevin understood how she felt and Ben was here with her now. Still, the thought galled her.
As they drove through the outskirts of town, Ben fiddled with the dial for the radio and found a station that mixed old songs with newer recordings.
“I thought that didn’t work.”
“Fixed it.” He sent her a quick glance as they approached the sawmill. Ben’s expression changed and his jaw grew hard as the truck sped along the chain-link fence surrounding the yard. Thousands of board-feet of lumber were sorted according to grade in huge stacks and a mountain of logs waited to be milled. Trucks, many bearing the logo of Fitzpatrick Logging, roared in and out of the yard and men in hard hats waved to the drivers.
Cranes hovered over huge piles of logs and forklifts carried planed lumber from sheds. The shift was changing and men sauntered in and out of the gate. They laughed and smoked, shouted to friends and brushed the sawdust from their shirts and jeans.
Kevin’s sleek Corvette was parked in the lot between the dusty pickups and station wagons.
“So why don’t you work at the mill?” she asked, sensing him tense as they sped past the activity at the sawmill.