“Um . . . yeah,” I replied hesitantly, swaying my arms to stay afloat. “And in my dreams, too. I mean, a lot lately.”
I felt his body slip up against mine in the water, and it made me shiver.
“You must have the sight,” he whispered in my ear. “Just like Granny. It’s been running in your family for generations.”
Startled by his closeness, it took me a moment to wrap my head around the idea that Granny and I might actually be related. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful, or totally spooked.
Creek wrapped his arms around me and nuzzled against my neck, sending my heart into a few aerial swoops and dives. Yet his whole body felt like a second skin now—as if he were a part of me in this watery darkness. It was as though our souls had slipped off their casings when we’d removed our clothes down to our underwear on the beach, and now we were set loose.
As free as ghosts.
But then another tremble worked its way down my spine.
Creek’s grip tightened around me, as if his skin had detected it.
“Creek,” I said, “do you really think my mom is still alive? Because the way my dad talked about that box, it just made me wonder if he keeps her,” my voice cracked a little, “you know . . . her ashes in there.”
Creek swiveled me around to face him.
I couldn’t see him very well—it was if he’d become the darkness itself, as stealthy as the night, yet his grip and strong legs supported me in the water. But I could feel the warmth of his breath against my forehead, and it comforted me a little.
“Your dad’s a hard read sometimes,” Creek replied. “There’s a thin line between what’s truth and what’s fantasy. Both are so real to him. That’s why he could pass you guys off in high society. But if he kept news clippings of the de Bargona family in a secret box all these years, like he said, then we’ll be able to check the dates, Robin. Maybe there’ll be a more recent article about Alessia.”
I nodded. It had taken us a full hour in the trailer, but we’d gotten my dad to tell us, in his slow but surprisingly smooth English this time, that his secret box was under the humidor floor in the cigar parlor of our old house. And along with articles about my mom’s family, it held the numbers to my dad’s Swiss bank accounts.
So maybe we weren’t broke after all?
But that wasn’t what shocked me the most.
What really floored me was that my dad had said there were photos—
Of my mom!
All my life, I’d never seen a single picture of her. Only in my dreams—sometimes as a nun, sometimes in a black lace shroud—which of course, I didn’t know if I could trust.
Could Creek be right? Could I really have the “sight” and be sensing my mother across a distance? Or had I just been seeing a dead woman’s ghost all along?
Suddenly, the lake water felt very cold, making me quiver to the bone.
Creek ran his hands along my face, cupping my cheeks. “We have to go now,” he said with a kiss so tender that he made me feel as if he held my heart in his hands. “It’s time to for us to find you the most beautiful dress on earth.”
“What?” I shook my head, confused.
Creek’s answer took the form of grasping my hand and all of a sudden towing me through the cool water with powerful kicks toward the shore. As we glided in the dark, I glanced up and saw stars twinkling above us. They seemed as far away from me as Alessia . . .
When we reached the beach, Creek grasped my elbow and helped me to my feet. And then he looked up at the stars, too.
“You deserve answers, Robin,” he said. “So we’re going to get that box.”
I could see him better in the dark now, the moonlight reflecting off his wet hair and even creating a sparkle in his eye. To my astonishment, Creek collected my hand and did a slow, formal bow. I thought I saw him smile.
“May I request the pleasure of your company,” he said, giving me a little twirl in the sand, “tomorrow evening at the ball?”
“Now sit yerself up straight so this’ll turn out right, sweetie!” Brandi ordered in her good-natured way, fluffing up my hair. Her quick wrist action and finesse with a teasing comb screamed years of trailer park styling experience.
Brandi piled my hair high on top of my head. Her fingers worked nimbly with bobby pins and gel as well as several cans of aerosol spray that she had in her bunker, which was lined with every hair tool imaginable. Yet strangely enough, Brandi still wasn’t wearing one of her wigs. She’d drawn little daisies and hearts on her bald head with markers instead, then added colorful body glitter.
I so wanted to reach up and caress her shaved skin—to promise her that Creek and I were doing everything in our power to get more money for her medical treatments.
But I was afraid.
Because somehow, even to speak of it felt like I might be trespassing on her fragile dignity. In spite of how drained she appeared, it was as if she’d already won some kind of duel with the Devil—stared him straight in the eye with her arms crossed and refused to surrender her courage. And I sensed that it might not be my place to barge in on her raw territory. So I just kept quiet with my hands folded in my lap and let her boss me around, hoping she might find some delight in playing with my hair. But after Brandi combed out another section of curls and added a few more bobby pins, she stopped.
She set her comb down and patted me gently on the shoulder.
“It’s okay, darlin’,” Brandi said softly. “You know, Dooley wanted to touch my head, too. It’s only natural to be curious.”
My cheeks instantly grew warm. She must’ve caught me staring at her, I thought, so I swiveled to face her. Brandi’s green eyes looked so pure, and even though her skin was still grayish, her face appeared sweet and welcoming. She smiled and dipped her head a little.
And I couldn’t believe she was generous enough to share even this with me.
So I did it—I reached out my hand and ran my fingers along her scalp. Her skin was warmer than I’d expected, and some of the glitter came off on my palm. But then I felt the slight ridge of a vein on her head, pulsing steadily. In that second, I couldn’t help saying a silent prayer. Please God, I asked, please keep Brandi alive until we can get her more help.
It wasn’t until Brandi lifted her head from my hand that I realized I’d closed my eyes. Her comforting grin grew wide.
“All righty!” she clapped her hands with a touch of scolding in her voice and winked at me in her sassy way. “You might be pretty as a picture now. But that won’t do you a lick o’ good when you get to that ball if you act like a hog.” She shook her finger. “So you’d better stuff in more of Lorraine’s chicken pot pie. C’mon now, a big helping!”
Obediently, I sighed and lifted a large forkful of Lorraine’s comfort-food paradise to my mouth that had been sitting in a pan on a stool. The flavor explosion that hit my tongue was enough to send a girl reeling.
And I saw a glow of pride surface on Brandi’s face, regardless of her ashy skin.
“Ready for yer transformation?” she said brightly. “Be prepared. Ya just might not recognize yerself!”
She spun me around on my stool to face the mirror.
Heavens, I looked just like . . . Rapunzel?
Piles of shimmering red locks were swept into a loose updo with delicate tendrils that perfectly framed my face. And the most peculiar thing of all was that those strands were mine. Brandi had convinced me that high society people could spot a wig in a heartbeat—so she used a hair rinse on me that she claimed would come out in a few washings.
But this hue was so rich and vibrant and red that I sincerely had my doubts.
“Lordy!” Brandi squealed. “That color really brings out the warmth of your eyes. Why, you look just like a fairy princess.”
Dooley glanced up from the workbook he’d been coloring on the carpet and scampered up to the mirror, gazing at me with awe. I saw him stand on his tiptoes to try and trace his fingers through a lock of my hair, so he could
touch something sparkly.
“Are these diamonds, Brandi?” he said with child-like wonder.
I studied the mirror intently, my eyes catching little reflections of light.
Oh my gosh. All over my hair were tiny, faceted crystals that Brandi had somehow brilliantly woven in.
Even I gasped now.
Brandi had performed what she called her “Makeover Magic” by applying eyeshadow and liner, mascara, rouge and lip gloss. Secretly, I feared when she was done that I might look like gussied up trailer trash. But to my disbelief, I actually appeared . . . sophisticated.
All at once, I realized that this moment was like getting ready for the prom I’d never had. And I was genuinely . . .
“Bee—oo—tee—fullll,” I heard a voice say slowly behind me.
Startled, I turned around and saw my dad. I thought he’d been sleeping on the sofa. But he must’ve gotten up all by himself and somehow made it to the mirror.
He was panting hard, his good hand white-knuckled around a cane, and he looked completely exhausted.
“Daddy!” I yelped, getting up to bolster him before he fell over. “You should’ve waited for one of us to help you.”
“No,” he replied, shaking his head and trying to stand on his own. He closed his eyes for a second, as if he were drawing strength from deep within.
“I’mm . . . loooosing . . . my . . . girrrrrl.”
For a moment, I was breathless.
“No, no you’re not. It’s simply a fundraiser. You’ve been to hundreds of them,” I assured him. “Creek and I are just going to bluff our way in, since Tweedle hasn’t seen me since I was little, and get that box. Then we’ll split and be right back.”
My dad didn’t appear to register a single thing I said. Instead, he gazed at me strangely, almost like he was studying my face to remember and hide somewhere in a deep corner of his heart. Even though I kept rattling on, he cut me off.
“Yooov . . . groownnn . . . up.”
“Oh Daddy,” I rolled my eyes. “I don’t even have my driver’s license yet—”
“Buuut . . . Creeeeek . . . hazzzz . . . yerrrr . . . heart.”
A lump cinched my throat. The longing in his eyes—it was just like the sad yearning he’d had all those years for Alessia. And in an unusual move for someone in my family, I found that I just couldn’t bring myself to lie to him.
He’d totally nailed it. My heart did belong to Creek.
I gazed down at my bare feet with the pretty peach nail polish Brandi had applied, then over at the sparkly, high-heeled pumps she was loaning me for the ball.
And I cleared my throat.
“Daddy, what did Creek say to you,” I asked him pointedly, “when you two talked at the hoedown behind Granny’s wagon?
A stone face met mine.
A face that didn’t flinch or show weakness.
A face that had won a thousand court room battles.
And a face that knew he was losing his daughter forever.
“Thaaat . . . izzz . . . betweeeeen . . . men,” he replied.
Chapter 20
My sneakers pressed into the soft soil in the dark as I carefully avoided rocks and sticks while clutching Brandi’s pretty shoes to my chest, afraid of getting them dirty. I was supposed to meet Creek this evening at the spot where the forest trail makes a fork. To the right is Bender Lake, and to the left is . . .
Our future?
If we succeed in stealing my dad’s box tonight, with his Swiss bank account numbers inside.
A raspy screech interrupted my progress, making me jump.
Then I heard the flapping of wings.
My heart leapfrogged. After being a city girl for so many years, I still hadn’t gotten used to walking in the woods alone once the sun went down.
“Creek?” I whispered, hoping he was close. “You here?”
The forest was silent.
I stepped further down the trail, pretty sure I hadn’t passed the fork yet. Creek had warned me never to use a flashlight or a candle that could give my location away. There was no telling if Bob was still pissed off, and now there was Cinci Federal to think about, too. “The darkness is our great equalizer,” Creek had insisted back at the tree stand. “Remember, nobody can hurt you if they can’t find you.”
That may be true, I thought, but couldn’t we at least have arranged for a secret whistle?
I pushed aside more brush and bravely kept walking.
Only to run into a wall—
“Ugh!” I yelped, my elbows stinging. I reached out to touch what blocked my path. It felt smooth and metal with a window pane beside it, like the side of a . . . car?
But it was so dark I couldn’t even see.
To my astonishment, a light flipped on in the interior.
It was Creek! And he’d just opened the door of a . . . limousine?
“Need a lift, Mademoiselle?”
“W-Where did you get this thing?” I gasped, marveling at its size. If I didn’t know better, I’d have pegged it as a barge suitable for floating down Bender Lake.
“A guy up the road owed me for saving his ass in a knife fight last summer,” Creek replied. “Works at a limo and shuttle service, so he loaned me this for tonight.”
Creek patted the side of the massive vehicle like it was his pet elephant. “But be careful,” he added, “at midnight she just might turn into a pumpkin.”
“She?”
“Sure, I figure our magic coach deserves a name. So how about . . . Sadie? She’s taking us to the dance, after all.”
Creek’s mouth slipped into a smirk, illuminated by the dome light, and I could tell the dagger scar on his cheek had crinkled into place again.
God, he was the sexiest chauffeur I’d ever seen! All cleaned up after the water tower disaster, he had on a slim-fitting black t-shirt and ripped jeans, perfectly setting off every inch of his hard, muscled physique. And his long blonde hair looked full, skimming his shoulders. Unable to resist, I lifted a finger to stroke a lock.
“You washed your hair,” I exclaimed, relishing its softness.
Creek shook his head.
“Naw, that was Granny. She grabbed me by the ear and shoved my head into a bucket with her homemade soap. She said if we were going to a ball tonight, it was high time I stopped looking like a lake rat.”
I giggled a little, but the way Creek gazed at me in that moment stole my breath away. His eyes roamed slowly over the pretty crystals Brandi had woven through my hair, piled high on my head with tendrils dangling, and he appeared transfixed by what he saw.
“Wow,” he muttered softly, “you look like someone from a . . . fairy tale. The kind my mom used tell me and Dooley before we went to bed at night. Brandi did an awesome job.” He gripped my hand with resolve. “C’mon, let’s see if we can return the favor. And save her life.”
He opened the long side door of the limo. “Ready?”
“No way, Mister,” I shook my head, fists perched to my hips. “I’m riding shotgun next to you. We’ve come this far side by side, and that’s how it’s going to stay.”
“Fair enough,” Creek nodded and let it swing shut. He gallantly opened the front passenger door for me, then walked around the limo to slide behind the wheel. As he started up the engine, which purred like a kitten compared to our growling motorcycle, I racked my brain for the name of the dry cleaner our maid used to go to. My stepmom always insisted that her designer outfits should only be handled by the “best.” And she would know—before she lit out for monastic life in Tibet, her gowns used to run over fifty grand a pop.
“Bell . . . we need to head for a place that has the word bell in it,” I mumbled, glancing over at Creek. “Bella Donna—that’s it! Perfection Is Our Poison—Never a Wrinkle or Crease Out of Place their TV ad always used to say. It’s on a corner at the edge of my old neighborhood in Indian Hill.”
Our plan was to bust in and pick out a tuxedo and a gown that my dad had already paid to have cleaned, before hi
s stroke. They were the usual frocks he and his fourth wife wore to society functions. So as Creek guided our limo over the bumpy forest road without headlights, then ambled onto a dark country lane, I tried to recall a few of my stepmom’s swanky dresses that I could choose from. One was emerald green and satin with thin spaghetti straps. Another was ruby with a bazillion sparkles. Yet another was stop-in-your-tracks purple with eye-popping cut-outs in sexy places. After all, my stepmom didn’t snag my dad by being a nun.
“Care for some music?” Creek asked, turning on the radio. I assumed the speakers would spill light classical notes intended to soothe discriminating limo riders. But instead they bleated a wailing country sound:
“Oh moon, oh moon just set me free,
’Cuz she’s as pretty as a girl can be.
My heart done sailed to the stars tonight,
And it ain’t comin’ back till the mornin’ light.”
“Guess Roscoe likes his bluegrass,” Creek laughed. “Most of his riders head for river boat casinos. Not exactly the crowd you’re used to, huh?”
Just then, Creek turned on the headlights and veered onto a lonely highway. That’s when I noticed the limo upholstery was a black and gold leopard pattern, and there were fuzzy pink dice hanging from the rear view mirror. In the glow of the dash, I could see half a dozen stickers with large 3s on them and the words Dale Forever scrawled across a bumper sticker stuck to a visor.
“NASCAR,” Creek pointed out, catching my gaze. “Official Religion of the Boondocks. And speaking of faith,” he slipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out a small, white feather. “Just because we ain’t hitting a bank doesn’t mean tonight won’t be . . . dangerous.”
Creek reached over and let the feather fall slowly to my lap.
And shivers scampered down my neck.
Because I knew he was right.
Charles Tweedle was a certified asshole. On steroids.
He’d always looked mean, like a hefty, trapped badger ready to bite—even in slick photos from the society pages of the Cincinnati Enquirer, where he always boasted about the law opponents he’d destroyed. Plus, there were persistent, shadowy rumors about witnesses who happened to just “disappear” whenever cases finally came to trial—always in Tweedle’s favor, of course. Did he really have underworld ties? All I knew is that there was no telling what Tweedle would do to protect his money. His being a rather loose interpretation of that word.
Robin in the Hood (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 1) Page 17