Eruption (Yellowblown™ Book 1)

by Hughey, J.

  The echoing pop of a single gunshot after dusk clicked my resolve into place. I knew what I was going to do and what I was going to say.

  Excited chatter erupted downstairs. I rolled to my feet, fairly certain SuperBoone had shot Bambi. The air in the house chilled me after the warmth of my bed. The new Violet shoved the minor discomfort away.

  Dad and Grampa were headed out the back door, each armed with a flashlight. The windows were steamed up on the inside, blocking any view of what might be happening. I sat at the kitchen table with my feet on the seat in front of me, all folded up as I ate a bowl of ramen noodles, the salty brew balanced between my knees. I knew Mom must be stressed if she’d produced instant soup for dinner, especially with Grandma in the house.

  Danny and Sara were still in the living room. “Did she do anything all day?” I asked Mom resentfully.

  “I know, but she hasn’t seen Danny in over a week.” She bit her lip.

  I slurped up broth, unimpressed by Sara’s plight.

  Beams of light flared against the windowpanes about a half hour later. Dad jogged to the garage then circled back around with a rope in one hand and our tallest stepladder balanced in the other.

  Grandma opened the back door. “What do you have there?” I followed her to the patio. Grampa shined his light forward so Boone, obviously pulling a load, could see.

  “He made a heckuva shot, Bittie, ’bout a hundred yards away from the house,” Grampa said. “Clean kill. Nice doe. I think it’s cold enough to let her hang overnight, don’t you?”

  “Yup,” she said. “You almost got yourself a cussing board mark there, too, Herb. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

  “I owe you three,” Boone said.

  She clucked her tongue. “Looks like you gutted out your deer, and I’m guessing you’ll be skinning it in the morning, so consider your chores done.”

  As if on cue, the electricity came on. Random lamps and heaters clicked on all over the house. We cheered. “Sara, turn on the news,” Mom yelled as she ran to the laundry room. A load had festered in the washer for days. I’d heard talk of needing a clothesline and wondered with a sinking heart who would dig the holes for those posts.

  I flicked on the patio light. The doe lay on her side. She didn’t look like she was sleeping. Her eyes stared, wide open, sleek fur dotted with leaf litter, back feet hog-tied together, and a slit up her stomach like the zipper on a fur coat. Steam rose out of the body cavity. I pointedly did not look for the killing wound, not wanting to see brains or ripped flesh.

  The circle of life song throbbed to a crescendo in my head. Life and death. Hello and goodbye.

  Dad and Boone used the ladder to sling rope over a tree branch. They hung the unlucky doe head up, opposite from the poor upside-down chickens.

  “Why are they doing that?” I asked Grandma.

  “Mainly to cool it. Some people let them hang for days, but Grampa and I never did. Get it done and put away, we always said.”

  “Will we have to can it tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow or the next day,” she said. “We’ll see if the power stays on.”

  Once the water heater got up to temperature, we all indulged in fast showers. I went last because it served my dastardly plot to get some time alone with Boone. We sat on the couch to watch the bad news. Dad finally gave up and went to bed, but only after giving me a sharp look to suggest he’d try to lie awake until he heard me climb the steps.

  Whatever.

  I waited a while before turning to Boone. His hair had been freshly spiked though it had grown longer than I’d ever seen, giving him a rebellious look rather than his usual clipped discipline.

  “I understand you have to go,” I said, gesturing toward the TV where a satellite image showed the pale haze muting the entire continent to faded greens and browns. Tonight’s news featured pictures of everything he’d described earlier, and more. Bodies sprawled beside a fuel truck. Babies crying and coughing in refugee camps. People begging, holding out empty Dasani water bottles like tin cups.

  He took my hand. The rough skin of our fingers abraded. “That means a lot to me,” he said.

  I rubbed his thumb with mine and took a deep breath. “I want to go with you.” I smiled as I remembered the first text I’d ever sent to him. Hi Boone this is Violet. Id like to go. Where and when

  My statement confused him. His eyebrows crashed together as he concentrated like he was a first-semester student in a foreign language I was speaking.

  “I want to go with you,” I repeated, stronger this time.

  “No,” he said. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “Excuse me? What am I, your kid? You don’t get to say ‘absolutely not’ to me.”

  He sighed. “This isn’t about me being bossy, Violet. You can’t come because I have no idea what I’m driving into.”

  “I know. That’s why I should come. I can help. We make a good team.” I realized I probably sounded lame to a guy who used to be a quarterback.

  “We do make a good team, but I’m not going to endanger you like that. I’m pretty sure I can feed myself and protect myself if I have to.” He shook his head against something he pictured. “I’m not going to risk you out there.”

  “You seemed pretty good at protecting me today,” I said.

  “That’s kind of the point,” he said harshly. “Multiply today’s weirdo by a hundred. You won’t be safe out there.”

  “It should be my choice.”

  “Well, it isn’t. I can’t take responsibility for you. It’s my truck, going to my ranch, to find my parents. You’re not invited.”

  “I don’t want you to feel responsible. I can take care—”

  “Violet, this isn’t a negotiation. I said no.”

  I pulled my hand away. “It’s just like the freakin’ formal. You decide how it’s going to be, and I have to suck it up.”

  “Are you seriously going to beat me over the head about the Valentine’s formal for the rest of my life?”

  “No. I’m apparently only going to beat you over the head with it for thirty-six more hours.”

  He leaned his head back on the couch cushion and closed his eyes. “Can we please not do this?”

  The new Violet was not above pleading. “Boone, I’ll be smart. I’ll stay in the truck when you tell me. I’ll practice with the shotgun and be your lookout and—”

  “No, Violet. That won’t work for me.” The words were delivered with calm conviction. No regret. No longing. No wiggle room. After a minute, he opened his eyes to watch the TV again.

  Well, hell. This was not the conversation I’d heard in my head at dusk. This was not my brave new future. Even worse, his decision sounded more like rejection than protection.

  We sat for a long time, him shut off and me staring at his straight arrow profile. I finally gave in. I snuggled against his side, starved to be close to him. Panicked, really. He tucked my feet between his thighs and wrapped both arms around me. My hands were trapped between us. I uncurled one so I could feel his heartbeat and his breathing. We sat, a cocoon of two, no kissing and no more words, more like survivors than lovers.

  If he felt anything close to the ripping desperation I did, he didn’t show it.

  Text to Mia:

  Delicious aromas turned my stomach in the morning. Scrambled eggs, toast, coffee. The glorious power still warmed my room. I brushed my teeth and washed my face and concentrated on today, the day we would spend together, instead of what would happen tomorrow at this time when he drove away.

  Downstairs, I looked out the back door and immediately regretted it. Boone and Grampa were up to their elbows in Bambi’s mother who’d been skinned and placed on a tarp on the oval patio table. Chunks of purplish-red meat filled the tubs we’d used for the chickens. I refused Mom’s offer of eggs. “Thanks. Maybe later.” I poured a cup of coffee then joined Grandma at the table.

  She patted my hand. “Since we have the refrigerators cold, I thought we could wait until tomorrow
to can the venison. I might boil up some broth from the bones today, but that’s the easy part, isn’t it?”

  So everybody knew. They’d decided to host a pity party for Violet.

  I’d take it.

  I escaped with Boone while Sara grudgingly worked as today’s kitchen slave in a restoration of the sibling equality of labor.

  When he pulled into the Sycamore Stop’n’Pump, I briefly considered asking him to try another gas station. Nikki’s father owned the place, though he didn’t work here. He was in the upper echelons of the Gardenburg Bank, and I’d avoided that building too, like the plague, since spring of senior year.

  Boone was already sliding out of the driver’s seat, so I opened my door to help him with his gas cans. He was on the building side of the truck when local lightning struck again.

  A perky voice called, “Hey, there. How can I help you today?”

  Of. Course.

  “Oh. Hey,” Boone said, though I heard the Oh shit in his tone.

  I waltzed around the back of the truck to the gas cans. “Hiya, Nikki,” I called as I released a bungee cord. We’d emptied the contents of the containers into the SUV this morning because Boone said gas could get stale. Who knew?

  Nikki’s glance flicked from me to Boone and back again. He got real busy with the credit card swiper.

  “That’s the guy I was telling you about,” I said to her, referring to my single text sent weeks ago.

  “Oh.”

  He passed in front of her with the pump nozzle in hand, and she took the opportunity to check him out, hard. He set the first can on the ground before unscrewing the cap. I followed suit to prepare the others while he filled the first. When I’d done all I could to help, I stood back.

  Nikki studied Boone’s physique and searched for a topic of conversation. Despite her flip-out potential, she’d had good manners ingrained by her role of perfect daughter at country club luncheons and executive dinner parties. “Umm, going on a trip?”

  The innocent question crushed me. I swallowed while Boone kept his head down. “He’s heading home, to Nebraska, to find his parents.”

  “Oh.” She knew me well enough to recognize my unhappiness, despite the poker face I tried to maintain. “Too bad.”

  “So, you work here full time or just filling in today?” I asked to direct the conversation away from the one topic that might make me burst into tears in front of Nikki Hollingshead Snider.

  She flushed. The Sycamore Pump’n’Jump had always embarrassed her. “I’m the manager.”

  “That’s good.” I meant it. Compared to my prospects, she’d hit the employment lottery. “Seems like a good time to be in the fuel biz.”

  “I guess.” She shifted and definitely checked out Boone’s butt as he inserted the pump nozzle into the truck and clicked the auto-fill latch in place.

  He slipped his arm around my waist. I sagged with gratitude as I made the introductions. His other arm shot out automatically to shake Nikki’s hand.

  She smiled with the same flirtatiousness she used on every male she’d ever met. “I’d ask if you two’d been together long, but it doesn’t much matter if you’re getting ready to leave.”

  Boone’s fingers tightened on my hip.

  Her smile thinned to cruelty. “That’s a change of pace. I’m not sure Violet’s ever been the one left behind before.”

  Boone pulled over on the shoulder when we were out of sight of the Pump’n’Jump.

  “Wow. So, definitely the wrong gas station,” he said quietly as he killed the engine.

  I nodded.

  “She’s a real piece of work.”

  “She’s actually a ton of fun when you’re on her good side. When you’re on her bad side, look out. As you saw.” I brushed a streak of dirt off my black leggings.

  “What does she have to be pissed about, though? Like Sara said, she’s the witch in this scenario, not you.”

  Dr. Potter told us once the earth’s polarity could flip, north becoming south in a geologic instant. Quite a jolt, I’d expect, and I felt like I sat on the edge of just such an upending. A sigh escaped. I didn’t have the energy for anything extra. There wasn’t enough positive in me to offset all the negative.

  “I don’t want to tell that story today. Okay?” The story nobody knew, except Nikki and me. Unless she’d told somebody, and I doubted she had.

  He studied my profile for a few seconds then started the truck, aware he couldn’t demand to be my confidant one day while planning to disappear the next.

  He got cash out of Titan Bank—thank God not the Bank of Gardenburg—after showing the reluctant teller a driver’s license, a credit card, his student ID, and plenty of his Dudley-Do-Rightness.

  At home, we filled water containers and packed the supplies Mom kept foisting on him.

  I felt like an accessory to a crime, productive and supportive while I signed my own death warrant. For a crime against my heart, I thought melodramatically.

  After dinner, he emptied his possessions out of the camper. The pistol returned to its berth in the glove box. His bike stood like a sail, alone, on the roof.

  He led me to the camper’s narrow couch where we sat much as we had the night before. I knew the couch folded out to a double bed, but Boone kept it upright and proper.

  He reached behind a throw pillow for a worn green baseball hat. “I want to give this to you, though it’s kind of a mess.” He traced the chocolate brown embroidery on the front with his finger. “This is our brand at our ranch.”

  He turned the hat so I could see the capital V with a capital R connected on the right wing.

  “Vernon Ramer homesteaded our land in the 1800s. Called it the VR Ranch. When I was reorganizing my stuff this morning, I saw this, and the letter V made me think of you.”

  I touched the stitching as he had before setting it aside. “It’s perfect,” I said. I cupped his cheek with my hand. Smooth again, shaved in the steamy nirvana of a bathroom with hot running water. Maybe his last shower for a while. His eyes looked years older and sad. “Please, please take me with you,” I begged again.

  “Violet,” he whispered. He kissed me, infinitely gentle.

  I leaned into him, not interested in snuggling. He was leaving me. I needed every ounce of him, every touch, for as long as I had him.

  My hands crept under his shirt. He turned toward me, holding his torso away even though I sensed his desperation matched mine. I straddled his waist as I tugged at the bottom of his shirt. He half-heartedly tried to stop me then let me bare his upper half. My sweatshirt tightened around me as he grabbed handfuls but didn’t do anything with them. After a few more minutes, feeling frustrated, I lifted it myself, leaving my tank top on.

  “Dammit, Violet,” he groaned as his hands curved over my bare shoulders and down my arms, leaving a trail of white heat in their wake.

  He palmed my breasts, and our shared flame pulsed through thin cotton. I couldn’t tear my eyes away as he watched his hands on me, saw my nipples tighten and rise under his caress. With a growl, he leaned forward to trace a fiery path up my neck with his lips. I arched back, offering what I knew he wanted, feeling pressure and need in the exquisite way that was pure Boone. I wanted him, and despite the betrayal of his planned leaving tomorrow, I trusted him.

  I tugged his head back so I could kiss him again, voracious. He moaned as he squeezed my ass through the thin fabric of my pants. My hands slid down his chest. His stomach muscles flexed as I continued a path south to find the button of his jeans.

  His fingers closed around mine. “We’d better not,” he whispered.

  “I want you. I want you to be my first,” I begged against his lips. “Please.” I twisted the button open.

  “Baby, don’t,” he said, belatedly pulling my hand away when I tried to slide a finger beneath the elastic of his boxers. Plaid, of course. “I can’t.”

  I stripped my tank top off. He swore under his breath as fever flared in his eyes.

  “Yes, y
ou can,” I insisted. “I want it to be you. I want this with you.”

  I pressed against him, skin to skin, the light fur on his chest peaking my tits into hard points. I let my hips roll, used every enticement my innocent body possessed to urge him on.

  I wasn’t enough.

  He lifted me bodily off of him, setting me to one side with his hat, a toy he had finished playing with. Except he hadn’t finished. He’d simply decided he was done. “Violet. Come on,” he growled. “I can’t have sex with you for the first time then drive away in the morning.”

  “I want you,” I said. “Why won’t you let me have this one thing, the one perfect memory?”

  “Because it complicates everything. It tangles us up even more.”

  I stilled. “And being tangled up with me is a bad thing?”

  He shoved his hands into his hair. “Don’t twist what I’m saying. I don’t know what’s ahead of me. I can’t promise I’ll be back. You understand that, right?” He pulled his shirt back on, inside out. “Someday another guy is going to show up here, and you’ll both be glad I said no.”

  “That’s archaic.” Anger seethed beneath my skin.

  “No. It isn’t. Because it means the world to me that you waited, and you would want to be with me now.” He took a shaky breath. “I’m stepping aside for a man in your future —″

  Rage boiled out of my pores like magma, frothy and ugly, with the power to incinerate the world with its violence. “Go to hell, Boone Ramer,” I shouted as I leapt to my feet, still naked to the waist.

  His head jerked back.

  “Go straight to hell with your morality and your sanctimonious decisions for me.” I tugged my sweatshirt on and jammed his ranch hat on my head, and then got hung up fumbling with the door latch.