Ava chimed in. “She really likes to read by the pool. Y’all should go out there.”
My eyes flashed in panic between these two traitors. How could they do this to me?
Grinning like the devil he was, Cole waved me over. “Come back and finish your lunch. We have all afternoon.”
I swear, I couldn’t move. Fight or flight had definitely failed me.
“Good grief. He’s right, Elise,” Mama scolded, taking in my plate. “You need to finish your sandwich, at least.”
I was fifteen years old, and with that one sentence, I felt all of five.
No escape to Alberta’s was possible now. I couldn’t refuse Cole Whitehurst’s sweet offer in that moment any more than I could have lit up a joint or gotten a tattoo. Walking like a wooden soldier, I made my way back to the table and sat.
“Now that that’s settled,” Ava said. “My white shorts. Do you know where they are Flora?”
“Let’s check the laundry room. I think I dried them this morning.”
Completely unwilling to meet Cole’s stare, I kept my eyes on my plate as they swept out of the kitchen. But he was staring at me. I could feel it. Just like I could feel his smile of triumph without seeing it.
Why the hell he wanted to torture me, I had no idea. My one hope was that he didn’t really and truly want to read Jane Eyre to me.
I took a bite of my sandwich, which now tasted like sawdust, and thought that one over. He’d just gotten back from a spring break trip. Surely, he had friends in town he wanted to see or girls he wanted to date. He wouldn’t seriously be ready to burn hours of his vacation on a nineteenth-century novel.
With that hope stoking me, I swallowed the dry bite that had seemed to swell in my mouth. Maybe I could talk Alberta into helping me. She wasn’t much for books either, but she was my best friend. And beyond that, maybe I could barter jewelry with her.
I forced myself to look up at Cole. “You don’t have to do this,” I murmured softly so Mama and Ava couldn’t hear. “I’m sure you have better things going on today.”
Cole’s smile opened to reveal white teeth that contrasted with his golden-brown tan. He shook his head. “Nope, it’ll be fun.”
Who was this person? I’d avoided Cole for two years, and now I couldn’t figure out his motive. Cole never did anything without a reason — a reason that helped him, and I was a little terrified that I couldn’t puzzle him out.
Then his brow crimped, and his smile held, making him look wicked. “Unless you just want me to tell you how it ends and save us both the trouble.”
“No!” I practically shouted, and he burst out laughing.
A growl crawled up my throat.
He laughed harder and shook his head. “I won’t do that.”
“You’d better not,” I said, fuming. Then, unable to stay there a minute longer, I took my plate to the trash, grabbed my book, and headed for the back door.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” he said, still clearly amused.
I only grunted a reply and left.
Torturing me seemed to be Cole Whitehurst’s new favorite thing.
Chapter 8
ELISE
“What was that for?” Cole asked, yanking me out of Jane Eyre’s narrative.
I frowned at him. “What was what for?”
The left side of his mouth turned up. “You sighed. Are you bored?” He gave a shrug. “It’s pretty boring.”
My eyebrows leapt. “It is not boring,” I defended, clutching the arms of my lounger. “I was sighing with relief. Thank God, she left that missionary. I was worried she’d marry him.” Jane was finally headed back to Thornfield where she belonged. That was worth a sigh of relief.
For the first few minutes outside with Cole, self-consciousness kept me from slipping back into the story as he read. But when Jane heard Mr. Rochester’s voice calling to her in the night, I’d immediately tuned in.
How could he say it was boring?
“Keep reading,” I ordered.
Cole made a noise in his throat that sounded like a snort or a swallowed laugh, but he kept his smile benign. He picked back up on Jane’s thirty-six-hour coach ride. And, yeah, that part might have been a little boring. Or maybe I was just ready for her to get back to Thornfield.
Whatever it was, my eyes drifted over the still surface of the pool, and I found myself listening to the sound of Cole Whitehurst’s voice. Reading Jane Eyre, he sounded nothing like himself. Nothing like Ava’s older brother who had taunted me and called me names and told me he couldn’t be bothered to help me.
His voice was rich and not exactly smooth. It had a rumble to it, like an idling car engine. Or maybe it was a purr. I enjoyed the way it paired with Jane’s story, so serious and poetic. Of course, Charlotte Bronte’s words were far better than anything Cole had ever said to me. Maybe I would have liked his voice a lot sooner if he’d ever actually said something nice before.
My attention jolted back into the novel when I learned that Jane found Thornfield in ruins, and I listened, transfixed, combing the details for any sign of Mr. Rochester as Cole read. I gasped when the innkeeper spoke of his “late” master. But then I held my breath as Cole read the story of the fire. The loss of Edward Rochester’s hand and eyes.
“I think I’ll take a quick dip.”
My neck wrenched enough to give me whiplash. I shook the images of death and destruction from my head. “What?” I asked, staring stupidly at Cole. Instead of answering me, he set the book aside, stood, and in one fluid movement, pulled off his T-shirt.
And I found myself gaping at the chest of a man.
I’d never seen anything like it. Not in real life. Not up close. I was an only child without a father. I hadn’t grown up with any men. Mama’s father, Grandpa Frank, had died when I was four, and even though I remembered him, I didn’t remember seeing him with his shirt off.
But I couldn’t’ imagine he would have looked anything like Cole Whitehurst.
Golden skin stretched over hills and valleys of muscle. His stomach was both flat and ridged as he moved. My scandalized eyes fell to the shockingly dark trail of hair that started below is navel and disappeared under his swim trunks. I jerked my gaze up to escape that sinister trail, and I saw he also had a faint dusting of dark hair around each flat nipple, and those nipples, I noticed, were the same pale pink of his lips.
I’d known what beauty was my whole life, but I’d never seen beauty so raw, wild, and dangerous as I did in his half-naked body. The sight terrified me. And I was glad it only lasted an instant. Because an instant after he swept off his shirt, Cole jumped into the pool.
And I, thank God, returned to my senses.
He broke the water’s surface after his cannonball, pushed back his now wet-darkened hair, and beamed.
“You’re crazy,” I told him. “That water has to be freezing.”
Cole gave a careless shrug. “It’s cold, but it’s a good cold.”
I pulled a face. “A good cold? There’s no such thing.” I could stay outside all summer. In August or September, most students complained when a classroom had a busted AC. Not me. That was the only time I didn’t need a sweater at school.
“Yeah,” he said with a doubtful shake of his head. “You probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
My teeth ground together. “You’re just saying that to get me to jump in.”
His mouth twitched. “You’re an easy target, Cormier. You always have been.”
I saw red. “And you’re a jerk. You always have been.”
Cole threw back his head with a laugh.
“You know what’s different, though?” I observed with a scowl. “You’re less grumpy. But more annoying.”
This made him laugh harder. Cole swam to the edge of the pool and with one powerful thrust, he hoisted himself onto the ledge. Water streamed down his body, the muscles in his back and his obliques now standing out as he pivoted.
I pulled my eyes away from the confusing allu
re of his form, hating the heat it brought to my cheeks.
“There’s a reason for that,” he said, his voice dropping low.
I turned my gaze back to his, willing myself to focus only on his eyes. They’d always reminded me of icebergs and frost. Nothing alluring about that. “A reason for what?”
He blinked water from his lashes, the corners of his eyes crinkling with a smile. “For why I’m less grumpy.”
I knew he was just going to say something annoying, but I didn’t see any way around it. “Oh, yeah?” I asked, sounding bored on purpose.
“I bought a gun.”
My spine shot up, arrow straight. “You what?”
Still dripping, Cole stood and grabbed the towel draped on the back of his lounger. He looped it over his shoulders before scrubbing his hair the way someone would dry a dog. “I bought a handgun.” His gaze never left mine. His mouth smiled, but the smile didn’t crimp the corners of his eyes the way it had before. “And the day I got my conceal-and-carry permit, I walked into Garrett’s office, shut the door so his secretary wouldn’t pee herself, and I pulled it out.”
My heart was beating from somewhere, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t in its assigned place in my chest. Maybe the organ had traded places with my tonsils. I opened my mouth to say something, and it hung open for a good five seconds.
“Wh-what did you say?”
His features hardened further, and his blue eyes drifted away from mine — just a fraction, but enough to show me he was seeing a memory.
“He’d told me that no son of his was going to some crappy Louisiana public school. If I wanted to go to college, I would take Tulane’s offer or go out of state. So, I bought the gun, and I told him if he hurt Ava or Mom while I was gone, I’d kill him.” Cole brought his eyes back to mine and blinked, as though realizing I was still there. “I told him that everyone would believe it was self-defense. There’s enough people who know what it’s been like here who would back me up.”
I gulped. He was talking about me and Mama. At least us. If he came home and killed his daddy, would I cover for him?
I couldn’t say for sure, and I hoped it would never come to that, but I thought maybe I could. Yes. Maybe I could do that.
I felt a little bad all the sudden because I realized I hadn’t heard the telltale signs of trouble in the Whitehursts’ home lately. I hadn’t seen any fresh bruises on Mrs. Abigail or Ava in… well, in months. And I hadn’t thought twice about it.
Was that all it took for a man to stop beating his wife and children? A gun?
Or was it the son of that man who made all the difference. I looked at Cole and guessed that it wasn’t just any son who could walk into his father’s office and threaten to kill him. Judging from what I knew about Cole, I bet he’d done it without even a tremor in his voice. I bet he’d been as cool as those blue eyes.
And I could just about imagine that anyone looking into those eyes with a gun pointed in their face would probably think twice about calling his bluff.
So, unless Ava and Mrs. Abigail also knew about the threat (or promise, depending on how you looked at it), and they’d decided to keep any abuse hidden even from us, Cole’s plan appeared to be working.
And I told him so.
“I think you’re on to something,” I said. “It’s been pretty quiet here.”
He nodded. “I know.” His eyes narrowed. “I make sure I know.”
I frowned. “What? Is Mama giving you like daily reports?”
Cole’s mouth might have twitched. He shook his head. “I don’t bother Flora with that. She’d be too rattled to be in contact with me as often as I need.” Then his chin dipped, and his voice lowered. “But she knows to call me with anything urgent.”
This directive made my sweet, simple Mama sound like a secret agent. The thought sharpened my frown. I’d helped him out of a few scrapes. Why hadn’t Cole thought to deputize me? He must have read my mind.
“And don’t go getting offended, Cormier. You’re still a kid. You don’t need to be worrying about that stuff.”
Offended and stung by his dismissal, I crossed my arms over my chest. “Well, who else is on your little task force?”
Cole pressed his lips together, clearly amused by my outburst. “No one you know,” he said cryptically. “But they are people I trust. And no kids.”
Then a shadow passed over his face. “No kid should have to do that.”
As I watched him, Cole Whitehurst suddenly seemed a lot older than eighteen. And, maybe in a way, he’d always seemed older. Maybe that had been one of the reasons he was so hard to like.
That and because he could be a total jerk.
“So,” he said, collapsing in his lounger and effectively abandoning all talk of handguns and homicide. “You want to find out if plain Jane marries that crusty, one-armed blind dude?”
Chapter 9
ELISE
Christmas at the Whitehursts’ was like a Hollywood production. Mrs. Abigail hired a decorator; special lights were set up on the front lawn to feature the larger-than-life Christmas bows and garlands that outfitted the front door and the house’s Roman columns, and a professional photographer came the Saturday after Thanksgiving to take pictures for the family’s holiday card.
And just like a Hollywood production, almost all of it was fake.
Every year, the weekend before Christmas, the Whitehursts hosted the holiday party for Mr. Whitehurst’s law firm, and a framed copy of the family’s Christmas card would stand on a table in the entrance hall. The table was usually covered with expensive fabric and oversized ornaments that matched Mrs. Abigail’s theme that year, whether it was traditional red and green, red and gold, or, for more of a “Winter Wonderland” look, silver and ice-blue.
Cole, I’d noticed over the years, never smiled in the family picture. Ava always did. She smiled with reckless abandon, always standing between her mother and brother. Mrs. Abigail smiled too, but something in her eyes always looked a bit strained. As if she had to hold a grape between her front teeth while balancing on her tiptoes. Mr. Whitehurst’s expression couldn’t really be called a smile, but he looked immensely satisfied with himself. As if he was a man who had it all.
I wondered how the rest of the Whitehursts’ set saw the picture. I mean, I wasn’t in their circle, but I knew the family better than most people. Did their fake friends think that unsmiling Cole was just a surly young man? Or did they look at his expression as a kind of tell? Could they see the brittleness in Mrs. Abigail’s smile? The way Ava was so desperate for happiness she had to imitate it?
This was Christmas in the front of the Whitehursts’ house. But in the back of the house, Christmas felt real. From the week of Thanksgiving until the Feast of the Epiphany, stepping into Mama’s kitchen was like being wrapped up in a cinnamon-scented hug.
Mama always cooked good food, but during the holiday season, she was like a force of nature. She baked non-stop. And every day, she kept a saucepan on the stove with either wassail or hot chocolate. Her wassail recipe consisted of orange juice, apple cider, allspice and cinnamon sticks, but the secret ingredient was Red Hots candy. The Red Hots turned the wassail a light, rosy color and gave it just enough heat to balance the sweet. The tart, spicy smell tickled my cold nose when I’d come in from school. As soon as I entered, she’d ladle a mug for me, and I’d start my homework, warmed inside and out. On the days she made hot chocolate, between Ava and me, we’d guzzle a half gallon. And when Cole came home after his finals, that would jump to a gallon, easy.
Our space in the guesthouse was just as full of our own brand of Christmas cheer. The living room wasn’t big, but we could fit a small tree in the corner. We had ornaments we’d collected over the years, but for the last three, I’d made a series of beaded ornaments that Mama loved. I loved them too, especially the ones fashioned like gyroscopes that I could flatten or open with a little swivel at the center. The red beads caught the Christmas tree lights like stained glass. Over the years
, these ornaments had become some of my best sellers at the farmer's market during the fall months.
Another thing I loved about Christmas was my snowflakes. When I’d been five or six, I’d made paper snowflakes that Mama taped to the window. She had saved them and hung them up in the guesthouse windows every year. There was just something about a paper snowflake that felt a lot more Christmassy than a spotlight on a red bow the size of a golf cart.
They never said anything about it, but I think Ava and Cole felt the same. They gravitated to the kitchen during the holidays. Lured in by Mama’s wassail, her cocoa, and peppermint cookies, they’d sit at the table all afternoon during Christmas break — if they weren’t staying at one friend’s house or skiing in Colorado with another. And, if I wasn’t at Alberta’s, I’d be there too.
And a week before Christmas when I was sixteen, while Lafayette, Louisiana, and, indeed, all of the deep south, endured a particularly bitter cold front, Ava introduced me to Twilight. Without warning, I fell heart and soul in love with Edward Cullen. Who cared if I was two years late to the party? I’d seen the tempting apple-covered hardback all over Comeaux High’s campus, but it was still a book. And a damn big one. I had enough reading to do for school, anyway. But Ava had sprung it on me during the break, and I was a goner.
The first time Cole caught us reading it at the kitchen table, he was merciless.
He stopped on his way to the stove for a mug of hot cocoa. “No,” he said, shaking his head at his sister. “Just no. You are not filling her head with that trash.”
Ava had just read the part about Bella nearly fainting in Biology. Edward had just lifted her in his arms. (What was it about the name Edward? Edward Rochester… Edward Cullen…) As he carried her to the nurse’s office, I felt a fluttering in my tummy as though I’d been lifted off my feet into a pair of strong arms.
“It is not trash,” I defended. Before Cole walked in and spoiled everything, I’d been enjoying the shocking realization that there was a world of books that weren’t meant for school. To Kill a Mockingbird and Jane Eyre were one thing, but books like Twilight… well, those were glorious. School books were like the four basic food groups. But this was like… like… dessert.
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