Compulsion

by Martina Boone

  “Talk to me, Bear.” Eight turned his shoulders and studied her profile, hard enough that Barrie felt the scrutiny and felt the flush rising up her cheeks. “Tell me why you’re mad and why you don’t want to tell me about the letters.”

  “I told you, I’m not mad. I just need time to think things through.”

  “And how long are you expecting that will take?”

  “As long as it takes.”

  His jaw tight, Eight unclicked his seat belt before she had even slowed the car at the gate. The Mercedes was practically prehistoric, so there wasn’t much to driving it. Barrie only pretended she needed to focus as she lurched to a stop, and she pretended she didn’t mind when Eight slammed out of the car and strode toward the gatepost. She leaned on the fender while he took out the old receiver and installed the new one, watching the way the muscles played in his forearms and knotted in his calves, the way his Achilles tendon stretched when he crouched on his heels. The sun picked up both blue and copper lights in his hair that made it look like the fire on the tannin-laden river. He glanced over at her and grinned when he saw her watching.

  He was perfect. Not perfect in an only physical way, more in how who and what he was shone out of him. Maybe he was perfect just for her, Barrie thought, making a memory sketch to preserve the moment. Even the yunwi didn’t scare her as much as he did. They could only hurt her physically, but Eight could break her heart.

  He paused, the blade of the screwdriver poised in the air and his shoulder braced against the gatepost. “Is there a reason you look like you want to murder me?”

  “Not particularly. You have that effect on people.”

  “I’ve heard that.” He nodded solemnly and came over. Placing his hands on the hood on either side of her, he leaned closer until her back arched. “I feel an irresistible urge to kiss you,” he said. “I wonder if this is how a crack addict feels.”

  “Can you get doped up on someone else’s want?” She wiggled out from under him.

  “You think I want you only because you want me?”

  “Are you sure that’s not the reason?”

  “I have some self-control. If that was how it worked, I’d be pining after Gilly or . . .” He glanced away, looking sheepish.

  “Or any of the dozens of other girls who want you,” Barrie finished for him. “That’s what you were going to say? Very nice.” Her hands shook, and she folded her arms across her chest as if that would protect her heart from him.

  What was she going to do? How had she ever, for even a second, thought it would be easy to have a fling? With Eight. A guy like Eight. She ought to strangle Mark for even suggesting it. For making her think it might turn out okay. She walked away a few steps and watched the glint of sun on water on the other side of the road. The landmarks were different, but the river itself looked much the same as it did from her balcony.

  Eight swept the screwdriver off the hood and strode back to the gatepost. He continued installing the new intercom with an angry intensity, throwing tools into the toolbox with sufficient force to send the curious shadows skittering. When he finished, he packed up the empty receiver box and the old intercom parts and tossed them into the car without saying anything. The passenger door closed behind him with an emphatic snick, and he sat in the passenger seat staring straight ahead.

  Barrie slid behind the steering wheel. “You don’t get to be mad at me, you know.”

  “Why the hell not? Every time I think we’re making headway, you find another reason to blow me off.”

  “What are we making headway toward? And what’s the point?” She stared at the gearshift a moment, then pulled the knob from park to reverse. Looking over her shoulder, she started to back onto the grass to turn around. But the car went in the opposite direction than she expected, heading straight for the gatepost. She panicked and hit the accelerator instead of the brake.

  “Other pedal.” Eight grabbed the wheel.

  She mashed her foot down, and the car stopped. “You’re supposed to be telling me what to do!”

  “You want to be in control. Isn’t that the whole point?”

  “You get training wheels on a bicycle. I should at least get instructions.” She threw the car back into drive, pulled it forward, and then backed it onto the grass beside the gatepost more slowly. She felt ridiculously elated when she maneuvered onto the lane heading for the house.

  “See?” Eight said. “You’re doing fine.”

  “No thanks to you.” She accelerated, and gravel pinged the fenders, dust pluming behind them.

  “You might want to slow down a bit there, speedy.”

  “Now you’re going to tell me what to do?”

  “You know, at the rate you’re going, you’ll convince yourself you hate me long before I go anywhere.” Eight stared fixedly out the window. Then he swore beneath his breath.

  “What?” Barrie asked.

  He didn’t answer. Barrie had to concentrate on pulling into the circular driveway without running into Eight’s car or flattening the peacock. It took her a moment to notice that Cassie was waiting for them, poised on the lawn as if the sun were her exclusive spotlight. In scalloped lace short-short-shorts and a flowered bikini top, the girl commanded as much attention as she had in her hoopskirt and Scarlett curls. She was like a reverse chameleon, making herself stand out no matter where she was.

  Barrie slammed on the brake, and the car rocked to a stop.

  “Hey, y’all! I tried to call you this morning, but no one picked up. I wanted to see if you were up for going to a cook-out.” Cassie leaned her elbows on the edge of Eight’s open window while she smiled across at Barrie.

  “I’m supposed to be helping Pru,” Barrie said. Which was what she should have been doing in the first place, instead of driving around with Eight. “Anyway, I thought you had to work today.”

  “My shift got changed. And I asked Pru just now. She said it was up to you if you wanted to come.”

  “Whose cookout?” Eight pushed open the door while Cassie’s face was still uncomfortably close to his. She backed up a scant step, but not enough to give him room.

  “Your crowd.” Cassie waved a hand and smiled up at him blindingly. “I figured you’d want Barrie to meet everyone.” She held Eight’s eyes a beat too long before turning to wait for Barrie to get out of the car. “I rowed over, but I thought Eight might sail us down. . . . Unless you’re still mad about last night, of course? I’ve been hoping you meant what you said about being friends in spite of that whole silly argument with Daddy, because I couldn’t stand it if you didn’t!”

  If she’d meant to deliberately play on Barrie’s guilt, Cassie couldn’t have phrased it better. Barrie couldn’t imagine having Wyatt for a father. That would have been far worse than having no father at all.

  “Of course I meant it. Eight?” She turned to him. “We can go, can’t we?”

  “If you want.” His tone was flat, making it clear it wasn’t his first choice.

  Barrie couldn’t tell whether that was because he was tired of arguing with her, or if he didn’t feel like going to a cookout, or if he was reluctant because he knew she didn’t really want to go. For that matter, he could have been picking up on something Cassie wanted.

  Trying to understand Eight’s gift was going to make Barrie nuts.

  “I’d love to come,” she said. “Although I think Eight has other plans—”

  “Just you try to go without me.” Eight’s voice dropped to a growl.

  “You’ll need a bathing suit if you’re coming,” Cassie said. “And sunscreen. We wouldn’t want you to get a burn.”

  How was it possible that Cassie managed to be infuriating even when she was being nice?

  Barrie stalked up the steps. She looked back when she reached the front door, and Eight stood with his hands at his sides, tension etched into every line of his body as he said something to Cassie too softly for Barrie to hear. Cassie shook her head and snapped something furious in return. Then, abruptl
y, her body language changed. She stepped toward him, trailed a finger up his bare forearm, tipped her head, and smiled. Whatever she said next was obviously very friendly. Barrie waited for Eight to step away. But he didn’t. And Cassie moved even closer.

  An enraged ball of want formed in Barrie’s chest. She wanted Cassie to stop, she wanted Eight to push Cassie away, she wanted it not to matter if neither of those things happened. She slammed the door and sped up the stairs. Shadows chased alongside her at knee level, leaping ahead, tumbling behind. Their shapes were still blurred and ephemeral, but Barrie could pick out long, thin limbs and eyes that watched her with a little too much curiosity.

  Shivering at the thought, she rummaged through the armoire for the bikini Mark had told her was adorable, and for a plain, red tank dress to cover it up. She took off her necklace and Mark’s watch and set them on the desk.

  “Those had better be there when I get back,” she told the yunwi.

  Hearing herself, she rolled her eyes. She was getting too used to talking to shadows. Cassie or no Cassie, she needed to get away from Watson’s Landing for a few hours. She raced back down the stairs, trying to ignore the breathless ache that came with the thought of leaving, and the small voice of doubt in her mind that wondered what would happen when she tried.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  There was no rational reason why Cassie needed to go with Eight while he rowed her boat to the Beaufort side of the river. Barrie bit down a protest when her cousin climbed in, smiled at Barrie, and said, “We’ll be back to pick you up in no time.”

  Barrie nodded. She sat and waited, dangling her toes off the end of the weathered dock. The water was bathtub temperature, but she felt cold watching Cassie’s boat surge and slow with the rhythm of Eight’s steady strokes, while Cassie leaned back, chatting to him.

  It wasn’t as if Barrie thought he wanted Cassie with him. Still, the way Cassie touched his arm as she got out of the boat at the Beaufort dock, the way she watched him while he pulled off his shorts and shirt and started to prepare the sails of his boat dressed only in his bathing suit. The way she stood on the bow like a figurehead with the wind blowing back her hair . . . How could Eight not notice?

  “Is it bad for me to kind of hate her?” Barrie asked the yunwi. The shadows went still, as though they were listening, and then pressed in around her as if to offer comfort.

  Eight’s boat drew closer. For the first time Barrie noticed the name painted on the side: Away.

  She refused to register any kind of reaction. Swinging her legs up onto the dock, she rose and dusted off the back of her dress. Shoes and bag in hand, she waited for Eight to pull in close enough to help her into the boat. He raised an eyebrow in a silent Are you doing okay? check. Barrie gave him a You bet smile and settled herself on the seat.

  It surprised her that she was okay. Part of her, a big part, still didn’t want to leave Watson’s Landing even for a cookout, but she wasn’t panicking at the thought of leaving. Maybe whatever she had done last night wasn’t going to be so bad.

  Eight adjusted the lines until the sails went taut. The boat pulled out into the river. Shadows raced with them along the shore, but stopped at the head of the creek at the plantation’s eastern edge, where they paced like cats afraid of water. Pressure built in Barrie’s head, crushing her skull in a vise of pain as soon as the boat was past the boundary.

  “Don’t you just love sailing?” In the seat opposite Barrie’s, Cassie kept her face turned into the wind. “Skimming over the water is the next best thing to flying.”

  “Sailing is great because it’s sailing,” Eight said, sitting at the tiller behind them. “What’s the point of liking something because it’s almost as good as something else?”

  “Because it’s fun. Don’t you ever do anything just for fun?” The purr in Cassie’s voice made the words a challenge. An invitation.

  Irritated, Barrie burrowed deeper into her life vest. The boat cut through the choppy water, and loss washed over her in waves of misery.

  “You all right, Bear? Another headache?” Eight trimmed the mainsail to tack into the wind.

  “I’m fine,” Barrie said, although she wasn’t. She’d had a headache every damn time she’d left Watson’s Landing, but it had been nothing like this. Pru had mentioned migraines. Lula’s life had been one long migraine, especially the past three years.

  Barrie’s stomach rebelled against every rising and falling motion of the boat. She swallowed down her nausea and squinted her eyes against the sun.

  Cassie dug into her big straw bag and pulled out a pair of oversize sunglasses. “Try these. Might be the glare off the water. That does it to me sometimes.”

  Barrie could hide behind the glasses. Taking deep breaths, she schooled her features until she thought she could fake some semblance of normalcy. Eight, fortunately, was too occupied with sailing to be able to pay much attention. The tide was out, and sandbars and round-backed swollen tree stumps protruded from the water as the boat neared the ocean. Eight crooked his finger for Barrie to come sit closer to him. Before she could move, Cassie started chatting again.

  The mouth of the river opened wide in front of them. A fleet of boats, fourteen or fifteen of them—rowboats, dinghies, and sailboats smaller than Eight’s—was anchored off a sandbar. The wind whipped strands of music toward Barrie, and on the bar itself the sand bristled with chairs and grills and coolers and teenagers dancing or baking in the sun. The partygoers all stopped as if someone had hit the pause button on a DVR when Eight threw in the anchor and Cassie jumped out of the boat.

  Barrie hesitated, rubbing her wrist where Mark’s watch would have been.

  “Come on. Use the ladder. You’ll be all right.” Eight went ahead and held her steady.

  Her feet stinging from the salt, Barrie waded to shore through thigh-deep water, holding the hem of her dress clutched tightly in her fists. Everyone gaped at her.

  So much for not wanting to stand out.

  “Hey, y’all.” Eight pulled her forward through the last feet of surf. “This is Barrie.”

  As if someone had pressed play again, the crowd surged, pushing her and Eight together. “Do you want names,” he asked, “or should I leave them out so you won’t feel bad when you forget?”

  “I’m happy to let my bad memory be your fault,” she said, relieved when people laughed.

  “It’s always going to be Eight’s fault. He’s male, isn’t he?” Cassie squeezed through from the edge of the group. “But what are y’all doing? We need to crank up the music, get the party started. Barrie’s used to lots more excitement in San Francisco. We don’t want her to think we’re a bunch of hicks down here in the South.”

  Barrie nearly choked. “It wasn’t very exciting at home,” she said, which came out sounding condescending. Or like an outright lie. Way to start things off. “Not that I mean it isn’t exciting here,” she added hastily. “This is great. I didn’t know there were places like this.”

  She ran out of steam, and the conversation lapsed into an awkward silence. The other kids shifted their feet, looked away. Barrie racked her aching head for something to say, something not completely lame.

  “I loved San Francisco.” A girl with a round, open face and a galaxy of freckles pushed toward Barrie. “My mama and I went out there last summer to visit her roommate from college. I couldn’t believe the shops and restaurants. Fisherman’s Wharf and Sausalito and Chinatown. And Lombard, that crazy crooked street. I loved it. We crossed the bridge to Muir Woods to see the redwood trees, which was awesome in the literal sense. You forget what that word means until you see something that actually leaves you struck with wonder.”

  Barrie opened her mouth to say she knew exactly how that felt, but Cassie cut her off with a throaty laugh. “My cousin has trees of her own, Jeannie. Acres of them. You know, at Watson’s Landing?”

  Why wouldn’t Cassie please shut up?

  “Ours are nothing like Muir Woods,” Barrie said. “But then
you’ve got the Devil’s Oak here in town, and that’s as amazing as any redwood.”

  “Not when we grew up climbing all over it. I guess it’s harder to feel awed by something that you’ve draped with toilet paper at two o’clock in the morning.” Jeannie grinned as everyone laughed. She moved with an athletic, unconscious grace in her bikini as she wound through a couple kids to stand with Barrie. “The Devil’s Oak is pretty to look at, but walking through Muir Woods? That was like walking straight into a cathedral from Jurassic Park.”

  Barrie nodded, Jeannie’s words settling over her with a sudden, throat-closing rightness. She remembered Mark’s reaction to the place. He had worn his new wedge sneakers, which had been his idea of appropriate footwear for tromping through the woods, and he’d complained the moment they’d left the rental car that he wasn’t cut out for “any nature shit.” Then they had reached the trees. He had fallen silent, walking with his head tipped up to take it all in, and for the first time in Barrie’s life, he hadn’t seemed gigantic.

  “So what else did you do while you were in San Francisco?” she asked Jeannie. “What was your favorite place to eat?”

  “Don’t judge, okay? Bubba Gump’s at the Wharf.” Jeannie smiled, the kind of smile that said she didn’t mind whether people laughed with her or at her. “I love the Tom Hanks movie. I ended up getting a Stupid Is as Stupid Does T-shirt and eating enough popcorn shrimp to make myself sick. We watched sea lions—there must have been fifty of them—climbing all over one another on a floating raft. One would get pushed off; then he’d get back up and shove another one off—”

  “Barrie, you’re probably starving,” Cassie interrupted, linking her arm through Barrie’s. “We should go get food. The grill’s right over there.”

  Barrie pulled away and rubbed the elbow she had knocked on the steps. “No. Thanks. Not yet.” She gave Jeannie an apologetic smile and looked around for Eight, who had snuck off without her realizing it. He was splashing through the surf with a cooler and a stack of folding chairs. “I ought to go help Eight,” she said.