by Sheri Leigh
"Shane," she gasped. "I was only—"
He pulled her tightly up against him and she tensed, waiting for him to do something, anything—and then he kissed her, his mouth slanting harshly across hers. She opened her eyes wide and gasped in surprise—it was all the opening he needed and his tongue touched hers.
His hold tightened, his hands moving down her uniform and then up the backs of her thighs. She relaxed against him for a moment, stunned, and his mouth grew soft and more gentle but still insistent, his hands wandering upwards. She gave into him, responding with a soft moan, letting herself melt against his hardness. She pushed him away only to stop herself, but she still couldn’t break free from the tight circle of his arms.
"Let me go," she said, unable to keep her voice steady, her eyes narrowing. Surprisingly, he did.
"You're a goddamned tease," he gasped, and his eyes looked pained.
"No, I’m not." She felt herself trembling and hoped he couldn’t see it.
He laughed softly, never taking his eyes from her. Chris watched them, open-mouthed, but he wasn't their only audience. Lee watched them, too, standing near the juke, and Sam's eyes were glued to the scene as he leaned on his broom.
"Prove it, then." The dark look in his eyes caught her breath and held it. He stepped in front of her, tilting her slightly quivering chin up with one finger. “Meet me at the path tomorrow at nine."
She hesitated, looking at him, hating him, hating herself. She regained her voice by swallowing past something lodged in her throat and narrowed her eyes at him, jerking away. "It'll be a cold day in hell before I meet you anywhere."
His soft laughter followed her as she turned and walked away.
Part Two
Accusation
Chapter Eight
"How do I look?" Dusty eagerly questioned James Thomas once they were out on the front porch. He looked at her in the moonlight, seeing her as she had seen herself in the mirror five minutes ago, dark hair hanging in loose curls down her back, dressed in jeans, boots with no heel, a white blouse and a black suede jacket that had once been Nick's.
"Fantastic, as always," he told her. "But are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yeah." She took his hand and started toward his car. "Don't worry about me."
"He's dangerous, Dusty," James told her, getting into the car. Dusty fastened her seatbelt. "If I take you out there, you realize there's no phone within a two mile radius and cell service is real spotty. So be careful, okay?"
"Yes, Daddy." She rolled her eyes and he laughed. "Now will you please drive?"
James started the car and pulled away from the house. Dusty looked back at it for a moment, thinking of her father sitting in the living room watching T.V., Julia reading. She felt a twinge of guilt.
"I still don't like the idea of you out there without your own car." James shook his head.
"Oh, shut up already!" Dusty said, not unkindly, flipping the radio on. Led Zepplin, Stairway to Heaven, blared out of the speakers. Dusty turned it up until the sound was distorted.
* * * *
"Maybe I should wait here with you," James said as she opened the door. Dusty sighed.
"James, go home!" she cried. "I promise, I won't do anything you wouldn't."
"That leaves it pretty much wide open," he said with a grin. She laughed and shut the door. He leaned over and rolled down the window. "Just be careful, okay?"
"Will you—"
"Go home," he finished. "Yeah, yeah, I'm going."
He turned the car around and she watched as he left, going out the only entrance and exit there was to the path. The little car fit easily between the long path of trees, but Dusty had seen trucks come down with only a foot of room on each side.
She turned back to look at the circular stretch of land. Cars were parked haphazardly around a large bonfire burning brightly in the center. The entire stretch of land was surrounded by pine trees, the bare, unbranched part of their trunks taller than she was.
She began walking between cars, looking for Shane. A few radios competed and most people sat on their cars or on the grass, drinking, smoking, making out.
"Hey, Dusty! What are you doing here?" Billy came up behind her, giving her a strange, puzzled look as she whirled around.
"I'm looking for Shane," she told him matter-of-factly, ignoring the surprise on his face. "Have you seen him around?"
"Sure, come on, I'll show you." He took her arm and started to lead her, but then he slowed and stopped, looking down at her. The bonfire blazing brightly next to them threw shadows on his face and she waited for him to speak.
"I don’t know if you want it, but I have Nick’s guitar," he told her finally. "I thought I should tell you…offer it to you." He stopped and looked away. Dusty saw him fighting tears. "God, I miss him."
“You can have it, Billy.” She blinked back her own tears, hating the way they came like that, as if she weren’t in control of her own body. “I didn’t even know he played.” Dusty took Billy’s hands in hers, giving them a squeeze.
“I was teaching him.” Billy gave her a sad smile. “Said he wanted to learn before…” His voice trailed off and he turned and looked into the fire. “Anyway, he was actually really good. He learned fast.”
“He was good at everything he ever did.”
Billy nodded, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his ripped and faded jeans. “He was the best.”
There was laughter and talking and music all around them, but a sudden, silent understanding between them in that moment.
"Come on," Billy said finally. "This way."
She followed him and saw Shane sitting on the hood of a black Mercury. He was laughing, his arm draped across the shoulder of a girl who was also laughing, tucking her blonde hair behind her ear. His profile in the fire light made Dusty’s chest tighten. He leaned over and whispered something into the blonde's ear that made her giggle. She kissed him on the cheek.
Three cars made a semi-circle around the fire. A bunch of six-packs sat on the roof of the Mercury and Aerosmith wailed "Sweeeet Eeeemoooooooootion..." out of someone's car speakers.
Jake and Evan sat on the hood of Shane's black Mustang, tossing beer caps into the fire. Chris swayed with a dark-haired girl Dusty assumed was Teri, his wife, although it seemed absurd to be dancing slowly when Aerosmith was on.
A girl came up behind Billy, covering his eyes with one hand. In the other, she was holding a beer.
"Guess who?" She giggled. Billy turned around and hugged her around the waist, swinging her around. She squealed. "You're going to make me spill!"
"There’s always more where that came from, Meg. Right, guys?" Billy called, starting toward their circle, his arm wrapped around Meg's waist. He motioned for Dusty to follow them.
"We got plenty." Shane tipped a beer at them and winked, but when he lifted the bottle to his mouth, he saw Dusty and met her eyes, lowering it slowly. For a minute he looked stunned and pale, even in the glowing light from the fire. Billy sat next to them on the hood, pulling Meg onto his lap. Dusty stopped about six feet away.
"Well." Shane smiled slowly, shaking his head. "I never thought..."
"Thinking really isn’t your strong suit.” Dusty closed the distance easily, standing in front of him and hooking her thumbs in her belt loops.
"Same old Dusty."
"Same old Shane," she countered, glancing at the blonde girl.
"Oh, where are my manners?" Shane exclaimed, and Jake and Evan found this statement hilarious, going off into gales of laughter. "Dusty, this is Beverly." He squeezed Beverly's shoulder. "Bev, this is Dusty." He gestured his introduction with the beer bottle.
"Hi,” Dusty said.
"Hi." Beverly was looking at Shane, but his eyes were on Dusty.
"I think we have some unfinished business?" There was a light flutter in Dusty’s stomach when she looked into Shane’s eyes. He hopped to the ground and Beverly looked at him, bewildered.
"Can you give Bev a lift
home?" Shane asked Billy. "I have to go. Got some, uh," he looked sideways at Dusty. "Unfinished business."
"Sure," Billy said. They were all watching now, and Dusty felt uncomfortable.
"Get off my car," Shane told Jake and Evan, who were still snorting the laughter of the impossibly high every once in a while. Dusty followed him and got into the passenger's side.
"Are you morons going to get off my car or am I going to have to hurt you?" Shane leaned on the open driver's side door. Jake and Evan started howling again, doubling over, but they managed to roll off the hood.
Shane muttered something under his breath as he ducked into the car and started it up. He put the Mustang into reverse and, putting his arm across the back of the seat, he quickly and effortlessly backed the car up onto the gravel running along the edge of the path. Shane put the car into drive and accelerated. Dusty twisted around to see Beverly still sitting on the Mercury's hood, looking stunned.
"That wasn't very nice," Dusty told him, turning back around.
"I'm not a nice guy, remember?" Shane glanced back at them in the rearview mirror. Dusty didn’t dispute this. He guided the car along the gravel. It was little more than a path outside the ring of grass and inside the ring of trees.
"Where are we going?" Dusty asked as he turned the car and started up the path leading out to the main road. Dusty looked out the side window and, in the fading light from the fire behind them, all she could see were the trunks of the pine trees. The branches were high above them.
"You'll see." Shane came to the end of the short path and turned right onto another dirt road, this one made with two cars in mind. Dusty reached for her seat belt, and found there wasn’t one.
"Where are your seat belts?"
Shane laughed, flipping on the radio.
"What's so funny?" Dusty demanded.
He looked at her and shook his head.
"You," he replied, still laughing, Robert Plant on the radio proclaiming he was a soldier of love.
* * * *
"You know." Shane shut the car off. "It's funny, I never read anything lately about the devil becoming a Frigidaire salesman."
He clicked the headlights off. They were up on Shadow Hills Bluff and Dusty was thinking of Tommy. It was the last place she’d seen him alive.
"Since when do you read?" Dusty asked, but her mind wasn’t on conversation. She looked across the hood of the car, at the lights of the city below.
"Dusty," Shane said and she looked at him. He touched her hair, rubbing a stand of it between his fingers. "You up to finishing that piece of business?"
She didn’t answer him.
What am I doing? What if this goes too far? What if it has gone too far?
She knew it had. Something fluttered in her stomach, and a dull ache began to pound in her chest. Looking at him, she tried to think of Nick, of Tommy, but they both seemed far away. Everything seemed gone, except Shane, sitting her next to her, close and getting closer.
He leaned over and kissed her, pulling her toward him. His hands were eager, insistent, and she let herself into his arms. Snuggling up to him and exhaling, she rested her forehead on the soft spot of the side of his neck.
She unzipped his jacket and undid the buttons of his shirt, running her hand over the hard, planed muscles of his chest and stomach. There was a line of hair starting at his navel and disappearing below the waistband of his jeans, blackly exciting. Dusty touched it, her breath quickening.
"Dusty," he said hoarsely, almost pleading. She lifted her head to look at him, aware of the power she held. He put one hand behind her head and pulled her mouth to his. She became soft and pliable in his hold, relaxing against him. He tasted like beer and it excited her.
She didn’t know how long she was in his arms. A familiar smell filled the car—heated Old Spice and White Lilac. She had expected to have to fight him off, but he was slow and gentle, his hands and mouth expert but tender and caressing. Her mind rejected this as impossible, but her body responded with a fervor that frightened her. He was the first to push her away and she looked at him in the dimness, drawing shaky breaths.
Silent, he looked out across the lights of the town below. She moved back toward the passenger door, smoothing back her hair, self-conscious now. Shane closed his eyes and shook his head, as if to clear it. She sensed an undercurrent of emotion, but couldn’t decipher it.
"What in the hell are you doing here?" Shane barked, and Dusty jumped, startled. He laughed, leaning his elbow on the steering wheel and his forehead in his palm. "What am I doing here?"
He leaned back, running his hands through his hair. Then he looked over at Dusty. "I don't get it. I could deal with the flirting and the teasing—that was harmless enough."
Dusty didn’t say anything.
"But this!” he said, his voice hoarse. “I never expected you to show up tonight. Not in a million years.”
He laughed again, looking out the windshield. "When Nick was alive, I wasn’t anything to you…now all of a sudden you're flirting with me, teasing me, coming onto me, and then this..."
"I wanted you.” His voice tightened. “And you knew it. I've wanted you since the first day I saw you. But I don't want you like this. As some sort of sacrifice? Is that what this is?"
She was silent, head down, her long, dark hair a curtain.
"Are you doing this because of Nick? Are you, like, punishing yourself? Is this some weird, backwards kind of atonement?" He was greeted by her silence.
"I see him." Shane’s voice was low in the stillness. "Every time I look at you, I see him."
Shane reached over to push her hair out of her face, his hand brushing her cheek. The radio radiated a greenish glow as Pat Benatar sang about a hell for children.
"I miss him," he told her. "I missed him when he left town, but this is different. This really…hurts."
She closed her eyes, understanding his pain but not wanting to. It hit her, too, over and over, just little things, like, “Gee, I guess Nick won’t be driving his Jeep anymore,” or “Nick won’t care if I borrow his jacket,” and they were morbid thoughts that slipped in, oh, so casually, their aim sharply precise and accurate.
"You’re so beautiful," he whispered, running a finger over her cheek. "I want you more than I've ever wanted anything. I've wanted you since the day we met. Do you remember that day, Dusty?"
She didn’t reply, didn’t look at him, all too aware of his hand on her face, but she did remember. As much as she would have liked to do a shearing job on that memory with her mind-scissors, the stupid thing was made of steel.
"You saved my life..." He paused and looked at her. "I remember what happened afterward, too, you know. It was...it was a really nasty thing for me to do to you. I know I've never told you but…I'm really sorry."
Dusty shook her head, putting her hands to her head in a silent gesture. He couldn’t do this to her. He wasn’t supposed to do this!
She had expected the mind games, the flirting, the usual tough exterior—but not this, not the genuine feeling suddenly and unexpectedly surfacing between them. In all the time she’d known him, Shane Curtis had never, ever apologized. But now here it was, hanging between them like a piece of dirty laundry.
She didn’t want this now. It might have helped if it had come when they were kids, after he’d hurt her, humiliated her in front of everyone, but they were useless words now. They meant nothing.
"I know it's why you hate me." His voice was closer. "At least, that's a big part of it. It was just stupid kid stuff, you know? I had a reputation to protect."
Why now? This was a side of him she’d never seen, never let herself see, and she didn’t want to acknowledge the sincerity in his voice.
"If I could take it back, I would," he said, his words coming out a little hoarse. Were there tears in his voice? She couldn’t believe it.
She felt his hand on her hair and she thought of that bright, hot June day, thought of their laughter, his snide remarks. She refused
to believe he was sorry, and she hated him, hated him...
"I swear to you, I never wanted to hurt you." He cupped her chin in his palm.
No, no, no, her mind screamed, and she shook her head, her chest closing up. She tasted the saltiness of tears in her throat.
"Cross my heart and hope to die," he said softly. She heard the smile in his voice, but knew he was serious, too. "Stick a needle in my eye?"
When had she last heard that phrase? When they were twelve, thirteen? They only used it when they were being totally honest about something.
"Stop it!" she cried, the tears already started, and she had to get out, get away from him. He couldn’t see her cry. She couldn’t let that happen.
"I don't want to hear this," she choked out, pushing the car door open with a shove. She stumbled toward the guard rail on the edge of the bluff. She couldn’t stop the memories or the tears. Her mind-scissors were dull from use, and she collapsed, her hands gripping the steel railing.
"Dusty?" His voice, behind her.
"Go away!" she screamed through her tears. "Just go away!"
She opened her eyes and looked down, the city lights a dull blur. I could jump, she thought. Nothingness would better than this. Shane took her by the shoulders and helped her stand. She tried to push him away, but he was insistent.
"I hate you," she insisted, looking into his eyes, over-bright in the moonlight.
"I..." He hesitated and touched a trembling hand to her cheek. "I loved him."
He pulled her against him, so tight. She sobbed, his face and hands buried in her hair, her tears wetting his jacket, the cold stinging her face.
"Oh, god, I miss him so much, Shane," she whispered.
"I know," he managed and held her closer. She clung to him then, and they grieved together, taking what comfort they could from each other's warmth.
* * * *
"So." Shane looked at her as the radio played, radiating its eerie glow in the dimness.
The Mustang idled, headlights throwing twin beams of light across the gravel driveway onto the garage door. Dusty searched the upstairs windows for a sign of a face but saw nothing.