by Amber Malloy
“Wait here.” After grabbing a basket from behind his seat, he got out. He threw the blanket across the hood before he ran around to her side to help her. Suddenly, he was glad he brought an extra blanket since the dainty pink dress she wore didn’t have enough cover for her.
He hopped onto the hood and offered his hand. She laid her soft palm into his and he pulled her up. Thankful for the hard metal, he didn’t have to worry about the hood caving in.
“Ready?” he asked.
“For what?”
“Levi!” the drive-in owner called out.
He turned to the small booth at the back of the lot and gave the thumbs up. The roll of the projector began and the light shone across the enormous screen.
“Have you ever been to one of these before?” In two weeks, the drive-in would open for the season. During the summer, he would take the owner and his family out on the resort’s cabin cruiser. Mr. Theo didn’t seem to mind returning the favor.
“No.” She laughed. “I didn’t know they existed anymore.”
“Well, you’re about to see The Notebook … whatever the heck that is. It’s not even out in the theaters yet.” He screwed off the top of two bottles of IBC Root Beer and passed her one.
“To Chesterfield’s new prom queen, graduation, and a good summer.” They touched their bottles together and sat back against the windshield as the opening credits rolled.
****
Levi found himself watching her more than the movie. She sat forward, entranced with the romance that played out. Rich girl, poor boy fall in love, he couldn’t relate. Unlike Noah, Allie couldn’t dig his family into a financial hole that the leading man couldn’t get out from under. He wanted to get into the show but he couldn’t. However, a clap of thunder gave him a good distraction before the sky opened.
“Oh shit.” No one reported rain that day. He scrambled to get off the truck and held his hands out for her to jump.
“Levi, I can’t.” She gestured toward her dress. Rain poured down in buckets while she tried to negotiate her pretty pink gown.
“Trust me.” He chuckled at her predicament. “The rain will ruin it anyway.” When she scooted to the edge and leaped, her skirt rose up and he got a peek. He covered her head with the blanket. The rain soaked them while he fumbled with the door. Cayden rushed in and tried to crawl over the console in the most lady-like manner but failed miserably. Her skirt went up again.
Lacy underwear hugged her brown ass. While the rush of rain battered his cab, he had to adjust the crotch of his jeans before he got in. Flipping the knob for the windshield wipers to clear off the rain, he still couldn’t make out the movie screen.
“Sorry, I think it’s a wash for the movie.”
“No big, I have a feeling the ending was going to be sad anyway.”
Reaching over, he moved a wet curl from her cheek.
“What color are they?” she asked.
“Huh?” Frozen in his spot, his heart pounded hard in his chest.
“My underwear, what color are they?” She didn’t glance away or grow timid, instead her intensely beautiful brown eyes met his.
For a split second, he wanted to lie, and with anyone else he would have. “Pink, a little lighter than your dress.” His gaze dropped down to her lips. “Lace. They look awesome against your skin.” He pulled her pretty face closer to his.
“Did you see anything else?”
“No, but not for the lack of trying.” Inches away from her lips, he could smell the sweet candy scent of her breath. “Why didn’t you let Dale take you home?”
“Do you really want to talk about Dale right now?”
Slipping his hand in her hair, he brought her close to his mouth.
“I don’t care if we never talk about him again.” Levi claimed her lips. Not the slow-motion, romantic-type of deal he thought it would be. As he sucked on her soft mouth, he hoped she overlooked his clumsiness. He’d wanted to kiss her for so long he didn’t want to mess it up.
She moved her lips to match him. Sweet and warm, he sought out her tongue. With a fast buildup of need he wanted to relieve, he teetered dangerously close to the edge while he pulled her on top of him.
Moving down to her neck, he kissed the bubble of her breasts, which were still incased in her pink dress. His dick throbbed. Something stopped him from freeing her perfect, round tits from their glittery prison. Levi fought the urge to lick her nipples. His fingers searched for the side of her underwear.
The way she moved her crotch tortured him.
“Crap.” He thrusted into her pelvic area just once before he buried his face into her cleavage. “When’s you’re birthday?” Little by little, he pulled the sides of her panties down her thighs.
“August eighteenth.” She moaned into his mouth as he sucked on her lower lip.
“We have to stop.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my boss,” he hissed. “And more importantly, jailbait.”
Cayden pulled away from him with that teasing smile he yearned for. “Are you sure?” She slid the strap of her dress off her shoulder, close to revealing her areolas.
He wiped the corners of his mouth with his fingers.
“Positive,” he told her before pushing her dress back up with a groan. “We’ll revisit this in August.” He placed a sweet peck to the middle of her chest. Pulling her underwear up, she moved off of his lap and back to the passenger side of the truck. Instantly, he felt her absence.
“Now what?”
Levi started the truck and tried to talk his dick down, but it refused to soften.
“First you can tell me why you were running out on your own prom.”
She sat back against her seat and gazed out the window.
“I’m going to bug you about it all the way home,” he told her.
The beautiful pink goddess blew a curl out of her face before she faced him. “This stays between us, okay?”
He nodded his head, afraid whatever she said would surely piss him off.
“I overheard Dale talking to his friends about banging me after prom in that shitty hotel up the road. He wanted to see if I was worth wasting a prom ticket on.”
Levi tightened his hand around the wheel while he thought about killing the privileged idiot.
“So, I snuck out before the crowning ceremony and put a hole in his two front tires.”
“You’re shitting me.” He laughed, which helped loosen the burning heat in his chest.
She shrugged with a lopsided smile. “Couldn’t take me to the hotel with no tires, right? I was going to hitch a ride with another couple but decided to take the trail after the prom king and queen announcement.”
“The trail’s not safe,” he told her, thankful he caught her before she hit the creepy path. “Now let’s get you home for curfew. If you don’t make it on time, who knows what your business partners may do.”
“Me? How about you?”
“Doesn’t matter, they don’t even know I’m gone.” He put the truck in gear and drove away from his non-date with the Holy Grail, Chesterfield’s prom queen.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Present Day
Belle barked outside her cabin door. Cayden let her in ahead of her to shut her up. The blue beast ran around the sexy man who took up most of the space in her kitchen.
“I thought you were asleep.” Levi stood in front of her sink, washing out his travel mug.
“My cabin, I ask the questions here.” She shut the door behind her. “What happened to hunting?”
“Sucked. Your turn.”
“Someone’s parents came home early, which I’m guessing is why you’re in my cabin.”
He finished drying out his mug and wiped his hands on the drying towel. “I saw the Winnebago pull up on my way back.” He nodded at her. “What did you do, sneak out?”
“Yeah, Belle almost blew it for me, she started going nuts.” Cayden snagged an apple off the counter, but before she could bite it, h
e took her arm and guided the fruit to his open mouth. He took a huge chunk out of the sweet Fuji. Not sure how to measure his mood, she stepped into the living room and nibbled on the other end.
“Are you going to tell me what Wes wanted, or am I going to have to pry it out of you?”
“Pry it out,” she challenged him.
“Have it your way.” When he tackled her on to her big couch, she squealed. Nearly knocking the wind out of her, the apple hit the floor. Within seconds, Belle gobbled the rest of it before she spit out the core.
“Was that necessary?” Cayden huffed in a tangle of Levi’s limbs, trying to push him off.
“Pretty much, but just imagine what I’m going to do to you next if you don’t talk.” He shifted his weight and spooned her from behind.
It was a custom model couch where they could both fit comfortably. Toned but huge at six-five, she bought it with his size in mind. She didn’t want to roll on the floor every time they were on it together.
“Now ’fess up.”
“Where’s my Starbucks?”
He kissed the temple of her head as the fog of exhaustion finally sunk in. “Sleep first, then coffee.”
“When I wake up?”
“Fine,” he murmured against her ear.
She didn’t remotely believe him.
“Two girls who resemble Shana have gone missing in the last thirteen years,” she blurted out, unable to hold it in any longer. “While two others were found murdered.”
“Four all together!” He pushed up from the couch and away from her. “In Illinois?”
After Levi left early that morning, she did a remedial search for missing teenage girls, around the same age and general appearance. Two were left in a field, strangled.
“One was found fifty miles from here, and the other girl was discovered in a neighboring city of Wisconsin. The two who were never seen again were kidnapped from towns beyond the Iowa border.”
“But no one was taken or killed in this state?”
“No.” He moved from behind her. As he covered her up with one of Lydia’s quilts, Cayden immediately felt the coolness from his absence. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere, I’ll be around. Just close your eyes.”
Happy to get a margin of the heaviness off her chest, she faded into that weird space that hovered dangerously close to deep sleep.
****
Expecting the worst, Levi took a deep breath before he stepped through his back door.
“Honey!” his mom shouted over the music—Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl”. Tipsy bordering on drunk, she had once again taken over his house. Pots boiled on his stove while she chopped vegetables on the counter.
He placed the Starbucks cup on the farm table.
“Enjoy your trip?” He kissed her on the forehead.
“Spas and room service,” she sang. “How was the wedding?”
“What wedding?” While she dried her hands, he dug into the candy jar full of Peanut M&Ms. Mom never went out of her way to get junk food. He wondered about the strange appearance of the candy.
“This one?” She pointed to her tablet, which held the Rich America Instagram page, with a picture of him leaning into Cayden and untying her shoe. Their foreheads touched and their bodies were only inches apart.
“Who’s the rugged hottie?” his mother read off the comments. “I sure wish he would take off my shoe… So sexy, this is what Cayden Young is hiding, lol.”
“Don’t feed the trolls, Mom.” He reached over and turned off the tablet.
“Why not?” Cayden walked into the room from the living room. Dressed in jeans and t-shirt, she stepped into the kitchen appearing every bit the beauty queen. His heart skipped a beat. He wished it didn’t, but he had little to no control over his heart since their teenage years.
“What is with all these nuts?” he asked, changing the subject. Acorn decorations hung from the door and five different jars of M&Ms, separated by color, lined his counter.
“No clue. I unpacked the box on the porch,” his mom admitted before Cayden grabbed her for a dance around the kitchen to Joe Cocker’s “A Little Help from My Friends” while they laughed. A sweet, endearing moment he didn’t want to get used to. Cayden twirled her around from what appeared to be punch-drunk silliness.
He turned to the stove and stirred the pasta his mother had put on. “For my quilting club.” She laughed, out of breath once they were done dancing.
“You do know you don’t live here anymore, right?”
“Ha, ha, funny man, and where are my piano and Louis the IV chair?”
“In storage,” he told her flat out. “And if you want me to put it in your cabin, let me know.”
Her face fell into mighty frown before she grabbed the spoon and shoved him out of the way.
“Now you.” He pointed at Cayden. “What’s with all the nuts?”
She shrugged innocently. “’Tis the season. Thanksgiving is coming up and nuts are all the rage.” Her right eyebrow twitched at the lie.
He made a move around the table but she dodged him and picked up the Starbucks cup.
“Greg stopped by,” his mom said over her shoulder. “He wanted me to tell you that the offer is still on the table if you want it.”
“What offer?” Cayden asked. She drank her candy mix of sugar and cappuccino while slipping him the evil eye over the rim of the cup.
“Probably the same one that came with the nuts.”
“Well, I’m certainly glad you two are playing nice,” Mom hissed. She quit stirring long enough to confront them. “My quilting club will be here soon and I’d hate to subject them to this crazy tension.”
“Are you seriously kicking me out of my own house?”
She pinned him with the same pissy look he gave her about the furniture. “I think that dimwitted Assistant DA has donated enough to the gossip mill for at least another week. Trust me, you two should scatter.”
Never easily embarrassed, he felt the color drain from his face. “Fine… We have an appointment anyway,” he muttered. “Clean up your mess when you’re done.”
As his mom turned up her nose, she went back to preparing her food. Walking out with the same ominous dread he walked in with, Levi grabbed Cayden’s hand and guided her out the door.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Levi drove them thirty minutes to a hospital in Oak Brook. Cayden hated hospitals in general. The building smelled of disinfectant, urine, and other bodily fluids. Her short stint with pneumonia kept her out of the place ever since. Antsy, she played with the tongue dispenser container, then moved on to the medical gloves.
When she blew into the white latex and tied the bottom off to make a turkey, she could feel Levi’s eyes on her. The easiest animal, she figured, playing with the fingers.
“You’re going to get us kicked out before we have a chance to see her.”
“Hate hospitals,” she muttered, not sure why they were there. Levi recognized a name in Shana’s stuff and felt they should follow up.
“Okay, I’m here to see one Levi—” A woman in a white coat pulled back the divider and walked into the room with a clipboard. “Oh, my gosh!”
“Lora.”
The plump blonde hugged him. “You’re kidding me! What’s it been, twelve years?” Before Cayden could hide the turkey glove behind her back, she pointed at her. “You.”
“I found it that way,” she lied through her teeth, even though she’d just debated whether or not to take her lipstick out and give Tom the Glove eyes.
“Young? The rich girl.” The woman’s face nearly split wide open with her smile. “Meghan hated you.”
“Hate is such a strong word… Did she say she hated me?” Cayden couldn’t control her smile.
“Oh, wow! I can see why … you’re freaking gorgeous. Best day ever!”
Cayden clutched her chest. “Are you in the market for a new best friend? Because I am.”
“Okay, you two, this is getting girly
weird.” Levi interrupted their lovefest and pushed off the wall. “I thought you and Meghan were close.”
“Nut-uh.” She set down her clipboard. “We were the freaking plastics, except dumber … if that’s possible.”
“The what?”
“Movie, Mean Girls,” Cayden explained, officially tickled by this woman.
“It was survival of the fittest after Shana left for Chesterfield, and high school was brutal.”
“Uh, that’s why we’re here,” Levi said. “We found Shana.”
“Oh.” Lora covered her mouth. “That must have been awful for you.”
“Yeah, things changed all right, and not in a good way.” Levi ran his hand through his hair. He never talked about that day, but Cayden knew what it did to him. “After she left, did you two still keep in touch?”
“Sure, when we could. Unfortunately, our relationship kind of got lost in the shuffle and dwindled down to texting.”
“Did she tell you anything was wrong or that she was in trouble?”
Lora tapped her finger against her lips. “Not that I know of. You have to remember we were teenagers. Self-absorbed was the nicest thing I could say about us at that age.”
“Was she seeing anyone?” Cayden asked.
“No, and if she was, she wouldn’t tell. Shana came from a religious family. I was surprised they even let her go off to a school like Chesterfield.”
Sighing, Levi leaned back against the wall. Used to leads that bottomed out, Cayden didn’t take it personally. Cold cases tended to go into different directions. Levi would have to be patient on this one.
“What are you guys trying to do, solve her murder?”
“Something like that,” Levi muttered.
“I have insomnia.” Short on explanations since he went into the Marines, Cayden cut in. “I’m afraid it started around the time we found Shana.” Her trouble sleeping had haunted her way before they found the girl. At this rate, she should put in for a job as a professional fibber.
“That sucks. Have you tried Restoril? It’s pretty good.”
“The craziest thing happened … some know-it-all blond troll got a hold of them and flushed them down the toilet.” They glanced at Levi, who rolled his eyes in response.