Put It Out There

by D. R. Graham

  “What?”

  He laughed. “Evan, Steve, and now Mason Cartwright. I’m going to know everything about every guy in town if you two keep this pace up.”

  I angled my eyebrows and glared at him, not because he was doing background checks again, but because he didn’t want to be on the list of potential suitors. “It’s rude to interrogate someone you don’t even know about their personal life, don’t you think?”

  Unaffected by my visual daggers, he squeezed his arm around his sister as we crossed the parking lot towards the 4Runner. “Don’t worry. We were only making small talk. He had no idea he was being screened.”

  “Even if Mason were a candidate, which he’s not, I’d prefer if you stopped interfering in my life,” I snapped. Apparently I was wiped, and grumpy about the Inn being sold, and irked by the undeniable proof that I had been delusional when I read too much into Trevor’s dinner and play offer.

  “Yeah!” Kailyn said defiantly. “You’re not the boss of us.”

  His expression turned serious. “I know I’m not the boss of you, but if anything happened to either of you, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” He opened the passenger doors for us. We both stood staring at him.

  He looked really hurt. I felt bad that I took my bad mood out on him, so before I climbed into the back seat, I said, “Sorry. I know you do it because you care. Thank you.”

  Kailyn wrapped her arms around his waist and said, “I’m sorry too. You’re the best brother in the whole wide world.”

  He kissed the top of her head, then helped her climb in and put her seatbelt on. As he was doing that, a vision flicked through my mind.

  A row of headlights shone on ice. Then it was pitch black and freezing cold. I was in the water and couldn’t breathe. I swam up and hit ice from beneath. My hands ran along the smooth surface, searching for an opening. I couldn’t find it.

  My vision ended and I gasped for air as if I had actually been drowning.

  Trevor stood by the open passenger door and studied my expression. “What did you see?”

  I shook my head, about to deny seeing anything, but it seemed so vivid. So real. “Someone fell through the ice.”

  He closed Kailyn’s door and walked around the front of the truck to get in the driver’s side. “Could you tell where?”

  I closed my eyes to concentrate. “I don’t know, but it seemed familiar. Around here somewhere. I can’t even guess when.”

  Trevor turned on the engine and pulled out of the parking lot. I had read the intuition book he gave me. Twice. At the end of every chapter, the practice exercises were designed to fine-tune natural intuition. The goal was to observe whatever popped up without analyzing or attempting to attach meaning to it. Just observe. Don’t force anything. Unfortunately, I hadn’t had any strong intuitions since Giselle’s accident, so I hadn’t tested it yet. The fact that the visions were only coming before a serious event worried me. I missed the old days when I was only predicting pop quizzes and telephone rings before they happened. I exhaled and tried to relax my mind to see more details like a face or a vehicle or a place. I saw a hockey game.

  “Oh my God!” I gasped.

  “What?” Trevor glanced over his shoulder at me.

  “Steve and his friends are playing hockey on Skawnee Lake. What if it was one of them?”

  “It’s on the way home. We can go by there and check it out if you want.”

  “Okay. Hurry.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It took fifteen minutes to get to the turnoff that accessed the rocky logging road to Skawnee Lake. About ten cars were lined up on the shore. The headlights lit a makeshift hockey rink. We pulled up at the end of the row and parked. Everyone was safe and sound. The guys looked like they were having fun.

  Trevor turned off the engine but left the headlights on. “What else did you see?”

  “The headlights and someone trapped under the ice.” I sat forward, anxious because it did all feel familiar.

  “The ice is thick enough for playing hockey. Maybe it happens some other time in the future.”

  “Yeah. Sorry.” Partly relieved that nobody was in danger and partly disappointed that the vagueness of my intuition had let me down again, I rested my chin on Kailyn’s seat back. “I’ve been doing the exercises in the book you gave me. Apparently, it isn’t helping my accuracy that much.”

  He smiled as if he was proud of me for at least trying.

  “I’m cold,” Kailyn complained.

  Trevor turned on the engine and cranked the heat for her. Each of the guys left the ice and threw their hockey gear into their trucks. A couple of vehicles backed out and disappeared down the logging road, so Trevor shifted the 4Runner into reverse to leave. A Jeep spun its tires. Then the driver four-wheeled over the rocks of the lake shore. Two other trucks followed, and the three of them spun around doing doughnuts on the ice.

  “Idiots. The ice isn’t thick enough for that,” Trevor said and leapt out of the truck.

  “No, no, no,” I repeated. Panic surged as I realized one of them was about to live through what I’d seen.

  The driver of the Jeep gunned it and drove out towards the middle of the lake. He obviously pulled the hand brake to spin the Jeep in three-sixties. Guys from the shore yelled at him to stop screwing around, but he either couldn’t hear them or didn’t care.

  Trevor stood in front of the 4Runner and watched the three trucks race around on the lake. My eyes were locked on Trevor when a horrendous cracking echoed through the valley. It was literally thunderous as it bounced off the surrounding mountains. The Jeep dropped and disappeared into the lake. The two other trucks gunned it back towards shore.

  Trevor ran and opened the back of the 4Runner. I got out of the truck as he grabbed some ropes and put on a life vest. “Call 911 and tell them a vehicle is submerged in the lake with a person trapped inside.”

  I tried not to sound hysterical as I followed his instructions and told the 911 operator what was happening. She had to tell me to calm down three times. My voice kept getting high-pitched and super-speeded up as I watched Trevor. He walked out onto the ice, then slid along his stomach as he got close to the gaping black hole.

  Fortunately, Kailyn was engrossed in one of her magazines, unaware of what was going on. I took deep breaths to try to calm down, for Kailyn’s sake, but it wasn’t working. I rushed over to where all the other guys stood on the shore. “How many people were in the Jeep?” I asked Steve.

  “Derian? What are you doing here?”

  “I’ll explain later. How many people were in the Jeep?”

  “Just Luke.”

  I relayed the information to the operator, then ran back to Trevor’s truck to get a blanket. The rope Trevor had set up stretched between the bumper of his truck and his waist. It pulled tight as he leaned forward and thrust his arm into the water repeatedly. It was taking too long—he couldn’t find him.

  I ran, gave my phone to Steve, and told him to talk to the 911 operator. The intuition book mentioned that physical touch on a significant object could sometimes aid with the clarity of a vision. Eager to help, I stepped tentatively onto the ice, pressed my hands flat against the cold surface and closed my eyes. In the vision, the hole in the ice was to Luke’s left. “Reach your right hand out,” I yelled as Trevor dipped his lower body into the water.

  Trevor glanced up at me, and with the same trusting expression he had when I showed up on a sunny day in my snowsuit, he leaned sideways to his right. He moved in a jerky way and finally, with one arm, he yanked a body halfway out of the water. Trevor grabbed his belt and heaved him again, flinging him farther onto the ice along his stomach.

  Trevor pulled himself out of the water by inching his hands along the rope. Then he edged on his stomach across the slick surface and pulled Luke by the collar of his jacket away from the hole. Luke looked as if he wasn’t moving on his own. Trevor had to keep dragging him as they made their way across the ice a few feet at a time. When the
y got close to shore, a couple of other guys ventured out onto the ice and carried Luke the rest of the way.

  Trevor stood and scrambled up onto the rocks. I wrapped the blanket around Luke and watched as Trevor rolled up his ropes and headed back to the truck. He took off his wet clothes and got another blanket for himself. As the ambulance and Fire Rescue truck arrived, Trevor hopped into the 4Runner. Two of the firefighters were friends of Trevor’s dad, so I wandered over and told them what I witnessed as the paramedics attended to Luke. A police officer arrived and also interviewed me before I walked over to Trevor’s window to check on him. He rolled it down. His lips were blue and he was shivering. Kailyn was asleep in the passenger seat.

  “Fire Rescue wants to talk to you.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Pete and Frank. Are you okay?”

  “No. I feel like punching Luke in the face for being such a jackass. I can’t go near him.”

  “Stay warm. I’ll tell Pete to come over here.”

  I sent Pete to talk to Trevor and watched as the ambulance took Luke away. Steve stood next to me and wrapped his arm across my shoulders. “Here’s your phone.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That rescue was really impressive. It was lucky Trevor was here. Why were you here?”

  “Um.” I searched for an answer that sounded plausible, since I saw it happen before it happened was not something I wanted to advertise—not that he’d believe the truth anyway. “Trevor had to get something from one of the guys. I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

  He frowned because I was a bad liar. Fortunately, he didn’t call me on it. “How did the food drive go?”

  “Great. We filled all the trucks.”

  He stared at me as if he still thought it was curious that Trevor and I randomly showed up at precisely the right time.

  To avoid having to answer more questions about our unbelievable timing, I said, “Trevor must be cold. I should probably get going. I’ll see you at school on Monday. We can go for coffee if you want.”

  “Okay. See ya.” He hugged me, then got into his truck and backed out.

  Pete was still talking to Trevor, so I walked over and stood next to him. “You better get home and warm up,” he said to Trevor. “Bye Derian. Take care of him.”

  “Sure.”

  Pete walked away. Trevor pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. His teeth chattered and his body convulsed with each shiver.

  “Do you want me to drive?”

  He laughed. “No. You only have your learner’s permit. I want to make it home alive.”

  “Ha ha. I’m not that bad of a driver.”

  “I just need to warm up some more. Get in quick and close the door.” He rolled up the window.

  I opened the back door but didn’t get in. I took my coat off and threw it into the backseat. Then I stripped off my sweater, my T-shirt, and then my thermal underwear top. Kicking my boots off one foot at a time, I shimmied out of my jeans and threw all the layers into the back before closing the door. I stood outside his door in only my underwear and boots. My turquoise push-up bra actually matched the turquoise-and-white-striped boy shorts I was wearing. It wasn’t a super sexy look, but it wasn’t shabby either, which was good enough since the point of the strip down was to prevent hypothermia, not seduce him. He stared at me through the window. His expression was indecipherable, as if he wasn’t sure what to think. I reached my arm forward and pulled the handle.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as the door swung open.

  “Saving your life.” I moved his arms to open the blanket and climbed into the truck to sit sideways on his lap. I crammed my legs in tightly until I could shut the door. He wrapped the blanket around my body to cover us both. Although I hadn’t meant for it to be, it was the most suggestive thing I had ever done. He didn’t seem to mind, so I worked up enough courage to run my hands across his chest and down his abs. “You feel like ice.”

  “Mmm.” He blinked slowly. “Who taught you to strip down to save someone from freezing to death?”

  “You did.”

  He bit his lip as if he wanted to prevent himself from speaking. After a very sexy pause, he smiled and ran his hand over the curve of my waist. “Well, we wouldn’t want me to die, would we?”

  “No, we wouldn’t want that.” I kept moving my hands over his skin, which made it warmer inside our blanket tent. I moved to rest my cheek against his and let my lips linger close to his neck so he would feel the warmth of my breath. I arched my back a little to press my chest snug against his. He tensed his arms and pulled me even tighter. It made my heart alternate between racing and missing beats, as if it were malfunctioning.

  When I slipped the fingers of my right hand through his wet hair, he closed his eyes. His shivers disappeared as I ran my other hand up his arm, over his muscular bicep, and back across his chest. He opened his eyes and stared at me. His lips parted slightly.

  Kailyn woke up and pointed at us accusingly with a big grin on her face. “Hey. Are you guys going to kiss?”

  I smiled and waited. Our faces were literally centimetres apart.

  He leaned his forehead against mine and inhaled slowly. “No, Kiki, we’re not going to kiss,” he finally said. “She’s just keeping me warm.”

  I didn’t mind too much that he said no, because it seemed by the way he said it, that maybe no wasn’t what he wanted to say. I ran my hands down his arms and curled my body to rest my cheek on his shoulder.

  “You did it,” he whispered and his breath tickled my neck.

  “Did what?”

  “Your vision saved him. He would have probably died if we weren’t here.”

  I shook my head to disagree. “You saved him. I just stood around and watched you being amazingly brave.”

  “I wouldn’t have been here if it weren’t for you.”

  “That actually makes me feel worse. It means I could have prevented my dad’s death if I had known to stop him from driving that day.”

  He exhaled heavily before he spoke again. “Maybe there are some things in life that are meant to be changed and some things that aren’t. Everything happens for a reason, Deri.”

  Tears built up along my eyelids. “I wish it didn’t happen.”

  “I know.” He kissed the top of my head, which felt so comforting. “We make a good team.” His hand slid slowly over my hip and down the outside of my thigh.

  “I’m hungry. Let’s go,” Kailyn said impatiently.

  I lifted my head to look at Trevor, wondering if being a good team could have multiple meanings. His cheeks were rosy from the heat that radiated off his body.

  He smiled. “Thanks. I think I’m warm enough to drive home now.” He moved his arms and opened the blanket to let me out of our little cocoon. After a reluctant pause, I twisted and crawled over the console into the back of the truck. I put my jeans back on, and when I looked up he was watching me in the rearview mirror. I didn’t know what any of it meant, but it was the best feeling in the world.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Trevor never mentioned anything about the hypothermia incident after it happened. I hoped it had maybe propelled our relationship to the next level—obviously it hadn’t. He seemed to only think of it as a lifesaving technique with benefits. To me, it was more than that, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt to touch his bare skin. I was pretty much obsessed. I asked Sophie for advice on how to handle it in case I got another opportunity. She said if sitting on his lap in my underwear didn’t do the trick, I was a lost cause. She did, however, suggest I might have been more successful if I had attempted it without his sister sleeping right beside us.

  In early December, a guy wearing a suit walked into the Inn. I was stationed at the front desk, reading. “May I help you?”

  One side of his mouth lifted, but not exactly like a smile. “You must be Derian.”

  I figured he was one of the developers, so I acted cold. “How may I help you?”

  He
reached his arm out to shake my hand. I just stared at him, leaving him hanging. He eventually withdrew the handshake offer and said, “My name’s Bill Waddell. I’ve been working with your grandpa on a deal for the Inn.”

  I studied his eyes and tried to place him. I’d heard that name before, but his face wasn’t familiar at all. “Waddell?”

  “That’s right.” He opened the end of an architect tube and pulled out a roll of papers. “Would you like to take a look at the preliminary designs we’re proposing for the development?”

  “No thanks, Mr. Waddell. I wouldn’t want to waste your time.”

  He chuckled in a way that made it clear he found me more than a nuisance. “Listen, kid. You can pout and stomp your feet all you want, but the facts are that your grandpa has debts he can’t pay off unless he sells the place, and the only reason anyone would buy an old building like this is to redevelop the land. Grow up.”

  Waddell. I remembered where I’d heard the name before. It was the name on the insurance document. The guy who had sent the rejection letter—Len or Ken or something. “Do you have any brothers, Mr. Waddell?”

  He shook his head in a confused and impatient way. “I have two brothers. Why?”

  I frowned as the pieces clicked together. “Just wondering.” I went back to reading my book, hoping he would leave. If he and his brother were working together on a scam, it would explain why the insurance investigation was taking unreasonably long.

  “Is your grandpa here?”

  “Nope.” I stood, prepared to walk away to end the interaction.

  “When do you expect him back?”

  “Hard to say.”

  “Could you call him, please?”

  “The reception in the mountain is sketchy. I’ll give him the message that you dropped by.” I smiled at him in an artificially sweet way.

  He lifted his eyebrow, not impressed with my attitude, and placed the architect tube on the desk. “Take a look at the drawings. This place costs a fortune to run, and the renovations add up to more than your grandpa will ever be able to earn back unless he sells. You don’t seem like the kind of girl who would want an old man to die exhausted and penniless. You might as well get on board.”