by Nancy Bush
By
Nancy Bush
Published by Nancy Bush
Visit Nancy Bush’s official website at
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Copyright © Nancy Bush, 1990
Cover by Extended Imagery
e-book formatting by Guido Henkel
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Author’s Note
We’ve all had them. Those long ago romances that began in high school, or maybe even before… Recently, I even ran into a college boyfriend from over thirty years ago.
It’s amazing how your brain just goes right back there. Wow. That spring term when everything felt possible…
DEAR DIARY is that kind of story. Rory Camden and Nick Shard meet in the third grade and become fast friends, and as the years unfold, though they kind of want to try a relationship, Rory’s basic mistrust of men—from witnessing her father’s infidelity—keeps her from trusting her feelings.
But Nick has other ideas and while Rory writes down her hopes and fears in her diary, Nick plans ways to subvert the walls she’s built around herself. He thinks he’s making serious progress until tragedy strikes and puts any chance they have to be together in jeopardy.
DEAR DIARY is one of my favorite stories. (I know I always say this, but I really mean it!) And Nick and Rory are two of my favorite characters.
Enjoy!
Nancy Bush
To reach Nancy, visit her website at www.nancybush.net or check out her blog at www.nancybush.blogspot.com Enter your e-mail address if you would like to receive a reminder when she posts a new blog.
DEAR DIARY — NANCY BUSH
Prologue
Rory Camden sat on the edge of the pier, her knees drawn to her chest, the weathered boards beneath her smelling of heat and salt and seaweed. She turned her face to the dusty blue afternoon sky and inhaled deeply. Nick would be returning any minute. Her pulse beat rapidly, and she was anxious, almost giddy. The time was now, to bare her feelings, to admit how much she cared. She’d waited too long, been too guarded in the past and it was time to take a leap of faith.
She drew several quick, hard breaths. Her insides were a mass of quivering jelly. It was difficult to cast all her old doubts aside, but she was ready for the confrontation, the moment she would tell Nick what she felt for him. Shivering in spite of the heat, Rory rubbed her arms. It was strange to think about taking that next step with Nick; they’d been friends for so long.
And the truth was she loved him. She’d finally faced it, though it had been very hard for her to do so. She’d hidden her emotions deep inside for years, behind a protective wall of indifference. She didn’t want to suffer the same miserable tangle of hatred and bitterness that both her mother and her sister had. No way. She’d believed she would never trust her heart to a man because she knew how that ended.
But then she hadn’t counted on Nick.
She shook her head, sun-kissed streaks of blond shimmering in her shoulder-length dark-brown tresses. The movement caused her sunglasses to slip down her nose. Pulling them off, she concentrated on the horizon, searching for an approaching black dot. John Marsden’s yacht should be pulling into the marina anytime now. Nick had asked Rory to come fishing with him, but she’d declined, and her refusal had led to their argument. He’d told her he loved her, and those same words had frozen in Rory’s throat. Fear had won out. She’d gazed at him mutely, her eyes widening with the sting of tears, but she simply couldn’t muster the words. God, what an idiot she’d been. And now she’d paid the price because he’d walked out.
Leaping to her feet, Rory dusted off the back of her jeans, grinding her teeth together in self-disgust. What was wrong with her? Running away from her feelings hadn’t changed them. If anything, it had just deepened them. Hadn’t she learned anything from her parents’ divorce?
Searching the eye-blinding horizon, finally she saw the outline of an approaching boat. Its hull was white and there was a bit of blue. Rory shaded her eyes with her hand, her heart beating hard and deep. The Aqua Knot would be docking soon.
The sun’s rays beat into her scalp and perspiration dampened her throat and hands. She began pacing the dock, annoyed at herself. This was no time to be faint-hearted. When Nick arrived she was going to hit him with the truth, and after that… well, it was up to him.
Stopping at the end of the dock, she lifted her chin and waited. The breeze off Puget Sound blew strands of hair across her face, but she scarcely noticed. Her hands were clenched at her sides—a brave soldier facing an uncertain future.
The yacht grew closer and Rory’s whole body slumped, half-relief, half-disappointment. It wasn’t the Aqua Knot. She watched as Camille’s Folly bumped and rubbed squeakily against the pilings as it docked. The captain, if one could believe his rank by the insignia on his hat, jumped inelegantly from the boat’s bow, landing a few feet from Rory.
He turned toward her as if he’d been expecting her. “Has the Coast Guard left?” he asked tersely.
“The Coast Guard?” Rory repeated blankly.
“Have you seen them?”
“No, I, uh…”
He wasn’t listening. He turned and yelled back to someone on board. “They didn’t pass through here. Are you sure they got the message?”
“Positive,” the man on board declared.
“Well, hell.” He sucked air through his teeth.
Rory watched as he made quick strides past her to another man in a mechanic’s jumpsuit. What’s wrong? she thought, unabashedly listening in on the two men’s conversation, dread creeping up the small of her back.
“We got a mayday call from the Aqua Knot,” the captain relayed to the mechanic. “She was taking on a lot of water around one-thirty this afternoon. She mighta sank.”
Sank? The blood left Rory’s head.
“You radioed the Coast Guard?” The mechanic pressed.
“First thing,” he snapped back, then reported the facts tersely, as a newscaster might. “Their GPS was faulty, it happened so fast we barely got a word of warning. No one knows for sure where they were.”
Rory took a step closer to the two men, straining to hear.
“The Aqua Knot’s captain sent the distress call to you?” the mechanic asked, reaching into his pocket to grab a rag and wipe the grime and sweat from his forehead.
“Sounded like a hysterical passenger. She said the captain was dead and the boat was taking on water.” He glanced back, his expression taut. “I’m gonna check with the Coast Guard and see about going back out there.”
“I have a radio inside and some other numbers to call,” the mechanic said and the two men disappeared into the nearby office.
Nick… They were talking about Nick’s boat. Sank? Rory thought in a panicked disbelief. No. She yanked her cell phone from her pocket and searched the call log for a message. Nothing. No text. No voicemail.
Unable to stop shaking, she placed the phone back in her pocket, then covered her mouth, fighting a silent scream.
Nick.
I love you.
DEAR DIARY — NANCY BUSH
Chapter One
Brentwood Elementary
I met a new boy at school today. He’s in the third grade in my room. He got hit
by those mean sixth-graders. There was lots and lots of blood. He saved my life!!!! His name is Nick.
Rory Camden narrowed her eyes at the sight of Tommy Whitlock and Sean Prior poking something on the ground with a stick. The boys’ chuckles were deep and malicious. Hate and injustice filled Rory’s nine-year-old heart. There was only one reason those awful sixth-graders would be enjoying themselves: they were torturing something.
She flung down her book bag and ran up behind them, too incensed to care there was no one else on the footpath that wound through the Scotch broom behind Brentwood Elementary.
“Stop that!” she yelled. “You stop that!”
Tommy’s head jerked up and Sean jumped. They both whipped around to glare at Rory. The dirt encrusted frog lying on the dusty ground scrambled upward, one leg dragging a little as he tried to head toward the stagnant pond on the north side of the trail.
“You hurt it!” Rory cried, her small hands fisting at her sides.
“Shut up.” Tommy turned his back on her. He caught sight of the maimed frog and jabbed his stick at it again, missing it. He then drew back his arm for another attempt to poke it. Rory launched herself at him like a flying missile, hitting him squarely in the middle of his back.
“Hey!” he bellowed.
She flailed and kicked with all her strength, prudence lost beneath a blinding anger. Tommy swore a word that singed Rory’s ears. Then Sean grabbed her by the hair and yanked so hard it brought tears to her eyes.
“Get outta here!” Sean screamed, dragging her off Tommy and shoving her backward.
Rory tripped over an exposed root, breathing hard. She could hardly see through the tears welling in her eyes. Her hair had been pulled free of its ponytail and fell in front of her face in a riotous tangle. “Leave it alone!”
“Mind your own business, you stupid bitch!” Sean hissed.
“Go play with yourself,” added Tommy.
“I’m gonna—I’m gonna—” Rory choked while getting up. “I’m gonna tell.”
“Oh, I’m scared. I’m really scared.” Tommy held up his hands, rolled his eyes and made faint, whimpering sounds, then he picked up his stick again. Sean stood right in front of Rory, facing her. He started shoving her shoulders with his hands, short, vicious thrusts that sent her stumbling backward again.
Her spine suddenly connected with a warm body.
“What’s going on?” a boy’s voice asked from behind her.
Rory turned swiftly, so thankful for a witness she could scarcely speak. “They’re hurting that poor frog! It’s half-dead already. And they’ve been pushing me around and calling me names.”
She recognized the boy right off. He was new. He’d started school that morning, and he was in her third grade class, she thought with sinking hopes. The sixth-graders would kill him.
“Beat it, dickhead,” Tommy snarled.
“Leave that frog alone.”
Rory glanced sideways at her newfound friend, filled with horror tinged admiration. Did he know what he was inviting? Tommy and Sean would have been happy to pulverize her to the ground. What would they do to him?
“Who’s gonna stop me? You?” Tommy taunted. His eyes grew smaller and meaner as he glared at the boy.
“Maybe,” he answered.
Nick. Rory suddenly remembered his name. He was tall for third-grader, over a head taller than Rory. But he didn’t have the meat or muscle of the two bullies. He was doomed to lose.
“You and what army?” Sean sneered.
“You pull the wings off flies, too?” Nick responded. He was tense and sober. Rory realized he didn’t know what was going to happen to him. She longed to leave before he got hurt.
“Come on,” she said, moving closer to him.
But Nick had thrown out a challenge. Tommy smiled a mean smile, swung his stick around, then crashed it down on the frog.
Rory screamed. The frog leaped, unscathed. Tommy swore a blue streak. And Nick hurled himself against Tommy in a flying tackle that sent the older boy tumbling into the scum-covered pond.
The smell of rotting vegetation filled the air. For a moment there was utter silence.
With a roar of rage, Sean pounced on Nick, slugging him with the power and experience of three extra years. Nick fought back, but Sean kept right on beating like a boxer. Scared, Rory jumped on Sean, digging her fingers into his scalp and pulling on his hair the way he’d pulled on hers. He shrieked with pain.
Tommy staggered, dripping, from the pond. “My shirt!” he bellowed. “My new shirt! I’m gonna kill you, you little fucker!” he growled in fury.
“Get her off me!” Sean howled, and Rory was jerked away and tossed aside like a rag doll. She staggered to her feet.
Nick lay completely still on the ground.
Tommy, too infuriated to notice, savagely kicked the toe of one soggy tennis shoe against Nick’s thigh. Nick’s eyes stayed closed.
Sean was breathing hard, looking down at him. Blood trickled from the corner of Nick’s mouth.
“You killed him,” Rory sobbed. “You killed him.”
“No, I didn’t! Shut up!” Sean yelled.
“You’re gonna go to jail,” Rory said in a shaking voice.
“Let’s get outta here.” Sean’s face was turning white.
Tommy’s was still red and angry. “No, I—”
“Come on!” Sean shouted, grabbing a fistful of Tommy’s shirt. “He’s dead. I killed him!”
“Let go!” Tommy roared.
“I’m outta here!”
Sean tore down the trail, disappearing in a plume of dust kicked up by running heels. Tommy stared down at the unmoving Nick. Fear crawled slowly across his bulldog face. He then turned and followed after Sean, at first slowly, then racing faster and faster as if from the devil himself were on his heels.
Rory felt ready to faint. She didn’t do well with the sight of blood. She never had. Little sobs issued from her throat as she bent down to touch Nick’s unmoving form. “Are you dead?” she asked, scared.
“No.” He squinted open his eyes. “Are they gone?”
Rory bobbed her head in relief.
“I thought playing dead was safer.” He tried to sit up, groaned and managed to prop himself on his elbows. “My chest hurts.”
“Maybe you have broken ribs.”
Nick thought that over. “Maybe.”
“And you’re bleeding—” Rory pointed in horror at the thin trickle of blood drying on his lips and chin “– from your mouth.”
“A lot?” he asked hopefully.
She nodded vigorously.
He probed the damage with his tongue, wincing a bit. But his expression lightened. “My lip’s gonna swell up.”
“Your whole face is gonna swell up.”
He bent forward and Rory decided it was time to help. She grabbed part of his arm and half-hauled him to his feet. He was covered with dust. His black hair had turned a strange gray color. One eye was starting to shut.
“Did he kill the frog?”
“No, he missed.”
“Good. What a dumb ass.” Nick shook his head.
Rory agreed. “The frog got away. I think he’s back in the pond.”
“What’s your name?” Nick asked. “Aren’t you in my classroom?”
She nodded. “Rory Camden. You’re new. Do you live around here?”
He pointed toward the far ridge where the more expensive homes in Piper Point lay, then sucked air between his teeth and winced with pain.
“Hurt?” Rory asked, grimacing with sympathy.
“Not too bad.”
“My house is right over there.” She swept her arm toward the tract homes nestled at the bottom of the hill. “You want to come over and get fixed up?”
Nick pondered that seriously for several moments. “Yeah, okay,” he said at last.
Rory led the way down the trail to where it ended at the small neighborhood roadway. She asked curiously, “You still got all your permanent teeth?”
“I think so.”
He was beginning to look really terrible. One side of his face had swollen up as badly as when Rory’s little sister, Michelle, had gotten stung by a wasp. Rory began to feel anxious. She wanted her mom to make sure Nick was okay.
Rory’s house was the second one on Maple Street. It was white with black shutters and there was a pot of yellow petunias on the front porch. She took Nick around the back and opened the kitchen door. Her mother was standing at the sink, peeling carrots. “Mom? I brought a friend home. He got beat up by some older kids.”
Mrs. Camden glanced at Nick and tsk-tsked. But she hardly changed expression.
Rory’s chest tightened. She recognized that look. Mom had gone inside herself again, and it was kinda like she wasn’t there. It seemed to be happening a lot now, too. Rory had learned to walk softly when Mom was in one of her moods, because otherwise her mother would scream or burst into tears. Only Michelle, in kindergarten, could still be her spoiled childish self when Mom was low; Mom didn’t seem to mind that Michelle didn’t understand.
“Take him to the bathroom Rory,” her mother said on a sigh, then to Nick: “What’s your number? I’ll call your mother.”
“I can call her,” Nick said.
Mom looked skeptical but gave in easily. Rory saw the telltale smudges of mascara around her eyes and knew she wasn’t really thinking about Nick at all. Not wanting to be the reason her mother might break into tears again, Rory hurried Nick away from the kitchen and to the bathroom.
He stared at his reflection in the mirror and looked infinitely happier. “Wow.”
“You’re gonna have a black eye.”
Nick grinned and glanced her way. “So are you.”
“I am?” Rory crowded into the bathroom, staring at her own face. Her cheeks were streaked with grime and her brown hair was the same dusty gray shade as Nick’s. There was a small cut above her eye and now that she could see it, she felt the swelling.