by E. M. Moore
I ignore him and head past Lucas to get my truck. I can always stay with Dickie. I didn’t want to wake him in the middle of the night because of the surprise factor, but I’m desperate. Here’s to hoping he doesn’t have another heart attack when he hears me knocking on his door well past midnight.
Lucas jogs ahead of me and leans against my truck door with his arms crossed. “Sorry, Wild Girl. You’re coming with us tonight.” His gaze turns serious as I approach him, and he lowers his voice. “It’s not safe for you here. Plus, there’s an extra bed and everything. You won’t have to sleep on the couch or on the floor. Also, I promise there are locks. Exterior and interior.”
I look around. Todd’s probably passed out, Dickie’s house was always a last resort, and an extra bed with locks sounds too tempting. It’s obviously my best bet, not that they’re going to let me get away with staying anywhere else. But, if I decide now, then they’re not making me, and I can still keep some of my dignity. “Fine,” I say. “But tomorrow, one of you assholes is fixing the lock on my door. Got it?”
Lucas is already sharing a look with Wyatt and Stone well before I get the demand out. There’s something about it that unnerves me. They warned me about someone else looking for the treasure. Maybe they were right. Or maybe this is just some elaborate plan they concocted to make sure I follow through on my word.
Whatever the case is, I’m still on my own and the plan hasn’t changed.
13
I follow Wyatt’s truck out of town. The blazing red taillights cut through the dark night as Lucas sits stiffly beside me on the bench. He’s acting differently than when we made our way to the dorms after the party. I’m itching to ask him what he thought about my room being fucked with, but I can’t quite make myself say the words. I’m still debating on whether I think they had something to do with it even though my intuition is telling me otherwise. For once, I think it might be wrong.
Wyatt puts his signal on and turns down a driveway. I don’t ever come this way out of town because it’s in the opposite way of the mountains, so I have no idea what’s in store for me until the house looms into view when we’re halfway down the driveway. It’s set back from the road about a half-mile, and I almost choke as it comes into full view. It’s legitimately the nicest thing in all of Clary.
I’m astounded, and a trickle of unease courses through me in the next moment. I’m so out of my league. I grew up in a rustic cabin without my own bedroom. Sometimes, we didn’t even have running water. My dorm is a five-star hotel to me. This may as well be a palace.
“Nothing but the best for the Jacobs,” Lucas says, sighing like he can already read my mind.
“You’re staying here?” I ask.
A tick flutters in his jaw. “Lance had it built because he knew we were going to transfer to Saint Clary’s.”
“Why did you transfer anyway?” I ask. I park behind a garage bay while Wyatt pulls his truck into it.
“Why do we do anything?” Lucas says cryptically.
His words hang in mystery, and I just can’t stop myself. I take the bait, if that’s what it is. “Why do you do anything?”
He flicks his gaze to me, then gives me a small smile before pushing the door to my dad’s truck open and jumping out. He’s definitely sobered throughout this whole ordeal. With his sobriety brings more guarded behavior. Ridiculously, I liked the Lucas that opened up to me more. Even when he was saying shit that pissed me off, at least it wasn’t this Lucas who’s retreated back inside himself.
My truck door swings open with a loud creak. I cringe at the sound of the rusty parts moving together when we’re in such opulence. Stone doesn’t seem to mind though. He offers me his hand like I need help getting out of the truck I’ve spent my whole life jumping down from.
I roll my eyes and lower my feet to the ground on my own, making him move back just a little. It’s a small win. Like regaining some of my territory that I’ve lost throughout this. The Jacobs seem to know how to infiltrate someone’s life.
Wyatt is nowhere to be seen, but the garage door lowers as Stone gestures toward the main walk of the house which Lucas is striding up now. On either side, flowery plants dot the landscaping. Every little detail on the outside of the house has been thought of, even ones I doubt the guys have looked twice at.
“Come on,” Stone says. “It’s just a house.”
I fight the urge to snap at him. Not that he doesn’t deserve it but I’m worried that if I do, he’ll see right through me and realize the discomfort I’m feeling from just being next to a house like this, let alone inside it. Seeing something this nice makes me think about everything I didn’t—and don’t—have. I don’t like feeling this way because I know my father did what he could. At least, he did what he could while also fixating on the treasure. My father was a brilliant man who could have made something of himself. He just had one priority above all else, and that never panned out the way it was supposed to.
“Why do you even want the treasure if you’re already rich?” I ask.
As soon as I say it, I want to take it back. It doesn’t show my discomfort, but it does scream jealousy. Not a good look on anyone.
“It’s not about the gold, Dakota,” Stone says, somehow sounding demeaning and scolding at the same time. “You know that.”
Well, I do. Sort of. The gold would be nice though. When you’re Stone Jacobs, you don’t have to worry about that. You can think about what else the treasure means. Finding a missing piece of history. Getting your names written down in the history books.
Lucas pulls the front door open and looks over his shoulder at us. The look he gives me spurs my feet into gear. I didn’t just drive all the way out here to be too intimidated to walk into a nice house. I know that. As soon as he sees that I’m moving again, he disappears inside, leaving me with Stone, which somehow seems like the greater of two evils.
As I make my way up the stone walkway that’s flecked in colors that reflect the porch light, I try to look at the Jacobs objectively, removing any preconceived notions I might have of them. No matter how hard I try, I still keep coming up with the word assholes. It’s branded in my brain.
If I thought the outside of the house was nice, I wasn’t ready for the inside. It’s a one-level ranch house with everything meticulously decorated right down to the curtain rods. The Spanish-style design boasts white stucco walls. I can’t keep myself from gazing up at the high ceilings and the modern furniture that’s so different from the couch from the 50s that I called my bed back home. If ever there were two homes that were opposite, it’s this one and the house I grew up in.
“I’ll show you around really quick,” Stone says. The door shuts behind me, and beeps sound. I glance over my shoulder to find Stone punching numbers into a keypad. When he turns to find me watching, he shrugs. “Can’t be too safe.”
“Apparently,” I say, lifting my brows. From then on, when he takes me through each room, I spot security cameras in the corners. There’s one in almost every room. It should make me feel safe, but it also sends warning shivers through me too. Who could possibly need this much security?
The kitchen looks like it’s straight out of a spread from a magazine. Stainless steel appliances, white cupboards with a sparkly black countertop. The bathroom just off the hallway is decorated the same. He leads me further into the house where the hall opens up to a room that spans the length of the back wall. Glass walls encase the space that looks out onto a huge pool complete with deck chairs, a hammock, a grill. It’s like Lowe’s threw up on the patio, but even better than that is the backdrop of the same rugged terrain I grew up in overlooking it all. In this light, the mountains couldn’t be more beautiful.
The less-than-picturesque view from my house is out a small window that needs a good scrub to actually be clean. Once I look past the decaying, rusty mailbox, we have partially the same view, but it’s nothing like seeing it like this. These windows bring everything outside in. It’s being one with nature instea
d of separating us from it.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I swallow down the emotion clogging my throat. My first thought is that I wish Dad could see the mountains like this. But I also know he wouldn’t set foot in a Jacobs’ house. Not even if his life depended on it.
I push past the guilt. “It’s...nice,” I say, even though I’m bursting to say more. If Stone was anyone else, I’d gush about how awesome this house is. How beautiful the scenery, and just how crazy it is that the house actually adds to the landscape. It’s not just some metal box that doesn’t go with the terrain. No, the roof is a burnt copper terracotta, matching the color of the mountains in every way.
Stone grits his jaw, a muscle ticking. I almost smile. So, it pisses him off when people don’t gush over his opulence? Good. Now I know.
Wyatt moves past us. He pulls open a square in the glass, revealing that they’re doors. They open like an accordion, bringing the outside in and the inside out. He turns, a mischievous smile on his face, as he drinks from a beer clutched in his hands.
“Come on,” Stone urges.
I bite my lip as I follow them out onto the pool patio. The pool is sunken in, and before my eyes, Wyatt flips a switch that makes pool lights blaze, showing off colors that slowly fade from turquoise to red to green to purple. Other bursts of color light up the surrounding fence every so many feet. He dims them using a remote, the lights turning soft, allowing us to see the mountain landscape again.
Christ, this is the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.
I’m smiling, and when Stone walks past me, he smirks, so I know he’s seen my delight. Fuck. I school my face into a frown. I can’t give him an inch because I have a feeling he’d keep taking and taking until there’s absolutely nothing left of me.
Stone sits in a patio chair while Wyatt shucks his cowboy hat, jeans, and shirt off and jumps into the pool. Stone groans. “How many times do I have to tell you that boxers aren’t acceptable swimwear?”
“A lot,” Wyatt says as he breaks the surface. He knocks on his skull. “Thick head, remember?”
Stone just smiles and shakes his head. Behind me, a sound makes me jump, but when I turn, it’s just Lucas joining the party. He takes a seat on a half-moon type bed that has a wicker sunshade overhanging half of it. He lies right down, taking up all the space just like he did in my car. He winks at me. “Have a seat, Wild Girl.”
“Wild Girl?” Stone scoffs. Then, he scrunches up his face as if he’s thinking it over. “I like it.”
“Too bad. Get another name,” Lucas says. “That one’s taken.”
I decide that Blue’s Clues is much more condescending, so if he wants to call me Wild Girl, I guess he can, even if I don’t measure up to that moniker.
“You should have a seat,” Stone says. “We need to talk about what happened.”
I eye a seat next to him and pull it over the concrete, giving us a good few feet of distance between us before I sit in it. Stone’s jaw tightens, and Lucas pretends not to smile behind his hand that just so happens to be wiping over his mouth at the right time. “Good,” I say. “I have—”
“First,” Stone says, interrupting. He glowers at me. “I thought I made it quite clear that you weren’t to have anyone else touch you but us.”
My mouth drops, hanging open like I want to catch some flies. I snap it shut. “I thought we were going to talk about the state Lucas and I found my dorm room in. The whole reason why I’m here.”
“The reason why you’re here is because you didn’t listen to simple instruction,” Stone explains. His voice is so haughty and proper. There’s no twang or velvety tenor like Lucas’s. He’s city all the way, and yet, he’s not at the same time. He knows what he’s doing up in the mountains even though the attitude he puts off would say otherwise. “Todd is a grunt, nothing more.” Anger lances Stone’s face, and he bares his teeth. “That he even thought he could touch you.”
His words hang in the air. I keep waiting for someone to explain the big deal to me, but no one does. “Oh, okay,” I say, letting how puzzled I am about all this seep through. “You’re serious about this. So, for starters, fuck you. I’ll touch who I want.”
Lucas chuckles in the corner, but it’s drowned out by Wyatt’s laugh and splashing in the pool as he kicks away from the opposite side to glide across the water and heave himself out of it. “Ah, look. Stone looks confused.”
“Fuck off, Longhorn.”
Wyatt doesn’t heed his warning. He goes to the side of the patio, rummages in a cement shelf and pulls out a towel. He rubs it over his face and then through his hair. It’s the first time I’ve seen him without his hat or without the hat hair he’s usually sporting. It’s— Who am I kidding? It doesn’t matter what Wyatt wears—or doesn’t wear—my body instinctively wants to climb him like a tree.
I catch something Stone says as I tear my gaze away from Wyatt’s abs. His voice is filled with disdain. “...you don’t need to stoop to their level.”
“Wait. Whose level?”
“Fuck boy Todd,” Lucas helpfully supplies.
“Todd isn’t—” But then I shake my head. Why does everything they say make me want to argue against it? “Yes, he’s a fuck boy, but I wasn’t going to sleep with him. Not that anyone I sleep with is any of your business.” Jesus. Just because he’s some sort of local celebrity doesn’t mean he gets to tell me what to do.
Stone’s gray-blue eyes capture mine. He’s always intense, no matter what he’s doing. I wonder how the cogs in his brain do so much overtime. It must be exhausting to be him. To want things just the way he likes but thwarted at every turn because there are mere mortals in the world who can’t easily oblige him. “It is, actually, my business,” Stone says. He puts up a hand when I start to argue with him. “Because we have a real problem on our hands, Dakota. We don’t actually know exactly where it’s coming from, so we have to be careful about who we talk to.”
“You mean you guys have a problem,” I say. “Not me.”
“The condition you found your room in would say otherwise.”
I groan. “Then you brought the heat on me.”
Wyatt chuckles as he moves to one of the chairs beside Stone, drying off his chiseled chest in the process. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen it glistening with water, and it’s really nice. Both times. “The heat?” he questions with amusement.
“Shut up,” I say for lack of a better comeback.
“It was only a matter of time before they came to you,” Stone says.
“Who?”
“I told you. We don’t know.” He runs his fingers through his hair, pulling the ends for a moment before he maneuvers it back into place. It falls perfectly, and I suddenly hate him even more. He has no idea how I’ve struggled with my hair for ages. Ages, I tell you. I tug my hair out of its elastic because the weight of it on my head is adding to the headache the guys are giving me. I tame it down my shoulders as best I can and then blink when I realize I have the attention of all three of the guys. They’re staring at me intently as if I’m an animal in a zoo exhibit.
I calm my beating heart for a moment, schooling it back to beat out an even rhythm with a deep breath. “But Todd? I’ve gone to school with Todd since middle school. He’s harmless.”
“It only takes a wise man to arm someone.”
I narrow my gaze at Stone, but he stares back with the same even stare that looks like it belongs in boardrooms and not the untamed nature around us. Despite the fact that his statement sounded more like it came from a fortune cookie than a twenty-something year old, I suppose he’s not wrong.
At that thought, the wind picks up, tossing my hair around my face. I quickly tuck it behind my ear.
“You’re lucky we got to you in time,” Stone says.
I laugh at that. “Are you kidding? Quit acting like I’m some sort of naïve little princess who lives in a castle at the top of a hill surrounded by an alligator-ridden moat.”
“That
was oddly specific,” Lucas says.
Okay. I’ve had like years of daydreaming and book reading to come up with lots of shit, but they don’t need to know that. “I don’t need your help, Stone Jacobs. I don’t need any of you.”
To prove my point, I stand from my chair and stride through the house. If there’s one thing I can’t fucking stand it’s superiority complexes. Stone and his friends have one a mile wide. They sit in their fucking castle and throw stones at people like me. Sure, I didn’t grow up in a life like his, but that doesn’t make me weaker. It makes me much stronger than him.
I pass the living room and yank open the front door. As soon as I do, a blaring alarm sounds. I shield my ears with the palms of my hands until a body moves to the keypad near the door, quickly shutting the horrendous sound off. “You were saying?” Stone asks. He turns toward me, arms crossed. “That is an alarm that keeps bad people out and good people in. Wherever you think you’re going right now, do they have this? Hate me or not, beautiful, but you can be rest assured that when you’re in my presence, you’re safe. Is that really something that you want to risk right now?”
I close my eyes, breathing in deeply until I can form better thoughts. While I’m just standing there, Stone shuts the door and reengages the alarm. He walks back down the hall, leaving me to myself.
I really hate that he’s fucking right.
14
When I wake the next morning, I’m pretty sure I slept on clouds. Heavenly clouds sewed by the angels themselves. I lift my head off the soft white pillow only to place it right back down again. I’ve never slept in a bed so nice. Hell, I only got a bed when I moved into the dorms. I guess being rich definitely has its perks.
I finally find the willpower to turn over, the heat of the sun calling me. I borrowed one of Stone’s muscle shirts to sleep in. It’s entirely too big, but that was the last thing on my mind when I slipped my tired ass into bed last night wearing just the shirt and my panties.