“I’m great now,” she said, leaning across the console and kissing him passionately. He met her demand and gave it right back, clearly recognizing she needed action now, not talk. They were both breathing hard when she pulled back.
“Well,” he said, “I can see why you didn’t want me to pick you up at home.”
“Oh, that.” He’d been uneasy about her setting out on foot, as had Maudette, but she just couldn’t sit around one more minute. She raked her hair back from her face. “I just needed to get away. Ever since the radio did its thing last night, Maudette has been hovering close enough to smother me. I finally rebelled and told her I was going for a walk.”
He glanced down the road toward Maudette’s house as Ashlyn clipped her seatbelt. “You sure she’s not following you?” he asked, only half joking.
Ashlyn laughed. “No, she’s not following.”
“She’s just worried about you,” he said, taking her left hand in his. “I’m worried about you, too.”
She looked up at the sound of another vehicle approaching. It passed slowly, the sole occupant giving them a close look over. Ashlyn was sorely tempted to lay another lip-lock on Caden just for their benefit, but restrained herself. “Hey, maybe we should get outta here. I have it on good authority there’s an abandoned gravel pit off Dugan Road.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“Relax, Caden. I’m not going to ravish you. Much. Probably.”
He laughed and put the SUV in gear. Eight minutes later, on the rocky floor of a long-idle gravel pit, he put the vehicle back in park again and killed the engine. They sat there a moment listening to the tick-tick-tick of the cooling engine.
Ashlyn glanced around. Alders and other scrub brush had largely reclaimed the space, but the use to which the pit was put these days was clearly evident. From where they sat, she spied two beer bottles, an empty Southern Comfort bottle, a Dr. Pepper can, and an empty Camels pack. Lord knew what else lay strewn in the bushes and between the rocks.
“God, what a mess,” she said.
“Yeah. But I’m thinking people don’t come here for the scenery.” He glanced at her, his eyes at half-mast, sleepy, sexy. “Or were you thinking maybe we should take a walk?”
“Okay, I lied,” she confessed. “I did persuade you to bring me here so I could ravish you.”
“Really? I’m shocked!”
She grinned, popped her seatbelt, leaned over the console and grabbed him by the shirt. He met her mouth hungrily. Before long, they were running their hands over each other. Ashlyn broke away, panting.
“Let’s get in the back seat,” she said.
The dazed look in his eyes seemed to clear. “Uh, Ash … I don’t know. That’s probably not a good idea.”
“Are you kidding?” She placed the flat of her hand against his chest, which she’d bared a moment ago by opening his shirt. His heart thudded fast and strong beneath her spread fingers. “It’s the best idea I ever had.”
He closed his hand over hers, pinning it there before it could roam lower. The boy must be psychic.
“I don’t know how to say this, so I’m just gonna come out with it,” he said, and Ashlyn felt his already pounding heart accelerate beneath her hand. “I’ve never done this before.”
“In a car?”
“In an … ever.”
She blinked, processing the information. “You’re a virgin?”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, even as he dipped his head.
She snorted. “I should hope not. I am too. I was just … surprised.”
“Wait … you’re a virgin too?”
She grinned, eyeing him with wicked intent. “For the moment.”
Then she pulled her hand free of his. Before he could stop her, she drew her feet up under her and scrambled between the bucket seats into the back seat.
“Ashlyn!”
“I know. I’m a bad girl. Maybe you should come back here and punish me?”
The sound he made was half laughter, half exasperation. “Ashlyn, this is so not a good idea. You’re only seventeen. We shouldn’t be doing anything like that until we’re at least eighteen.”
“You’re already eighteen,” she observed.
“But you’re not.”
“I will be soon enough. Besides, seventeen is the tipping point. By then, fifty percent of American teenagers have had sex at least once.”
“Well, if you’re going to be with me, you’re going to fall on the other side of that….” He tipped his head. “Wait a minute, American teens? How do you know that? You’re Canadian.”
“Yeah, but the Internet’s not. Google it yourself and see what answer you get.”
“You Googled the average age for losing one’s virginity?” He lifted an eyebrow. “Concerned you’re falling behind?”
She shrugged. “Sex ed course last year. And if you’re interested, the Canadian average is 16.5 years. Now come on back here.”
“Ashlyn….”
“Okay, then, forget about sex. We don’t have to have to go that far. I just need to feel you, Caden. Your hands on me, your skin on mine, your weight against me. Please?”
A strange sound came out of him. Then he opened the door and bailed out of the SUV.
Oh, Ashlyn, you idiot. She lifted her hands to cover the hot embarrassment flaring in her face. You pressured him too hard and now he can’t even sit in the same car with you!
Then the back door opened and she dropped her hands.
“Move over,” he said, in a voice that had grown deliciously husky.
She scrambled to make room. He slipped into the car, closing the door behind him. But now that he was here, exactly where she wanted him, she found herself hesitating.
“Caden, if you don’t want to do this—”
“Baby, I want to do this more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything in my life. Swear to God. But we have to be so careful, Ash. We can’t get too carried away.”
“Oh, thank you!”
“Come here, then.” He helped settle her sideways on his lap, supporting her back with one arm while his other hand rested on her hip, and kissed her.
It was enough for a while, those sensual, drugging kisses. She could almost forget about that evil conductor when she was in Caden’s arms. Forget the radio and its terrifying message. Forget her mother’s problems and her father’s fate. Forget this ever-present, stomach-churning conviction that she was going to have to board that train….
Ashlyn curled one arm around his neck and hung on to his shirtfront with her other hand as they traded kisses. But soon her hand wasn’t content to sit there anymore. She let it roam his chest and flat, muscled abdomen, which produced a distinct, thrilling reaction. Then his free hand returned the favor, and she thought she’d die from the sweet, desperate yearning his touch evoked.
Without a conscious plan, she pulled back, but only so she could change her position so she was straddling his knees, facing him. The position had the advantage of freeing their hands completely. In seconds, he had her shirt unbuttoned.
“God, Ash, you are so beautiful.”
She felt beautiful, with his eyes on her. “Then touch me.”
He did, through the light material of her bra. Ashlyn arched her back, feeling her toes curl in her runners.
Suddenly, she had to know what it would feel like to be held against him like this, semi-bare skin to bare skin. She grabbed at his wrists.
“Sorry.” He pulled his hands away quickly, obviously thinking he’d been too aggressive.
“No, it’s not that. I just want to be chest to chest.”
He groaned. “You’re going to kill me, baby.” Despite his words, he shifted so he half lay on the split bench seat.
She didn’t need any encouragement to follow him down. And the contact! The shock of it made them both gasp. Quite involuntarily, she slid against him, then did it again. It was so good. So good with Caden. He was so clean and strong and kind and sexy and she was pretty sur
e she was in love with him. And oh, God, maybe this would be their only time. Maybe the conductor would take her before….
Mortifyingly, tears sprang to her eyes at the thought. Dying a virgin would be sad. Dying without having made love with Caden … that was too tragic to contemplate. She sucked in a tremulous breath.
“Ash, are you okay?” He pushed her off him far enough to examine her face. There was no point trying to hide her tears, because one of them plopped right onto his chest and rolled down his side. “My God, Ashlyn. What is it?”
He tried to sit up, but she pressed him back. “Make love to me, Caden.” She bent close again and kissed him. Or tried to. His mouth had gone slack. “Please,” she murmured against his mouth. “It has to be now. We have to!”
Her tears had frightened him. And now, her pleas were probably freaking him out. But then his lips moved under hers and he was kissing her fiercely. For about ten seconds. Then he sat up and pulled her back onto his knee. She might have persisted, but he was crushing her against his chest now, her head cradled under his chin. His voice soothed her as she wept, as did the hand on her back.
The storm didn’t last long. Just long enough to give her a runny nose and make her face look a wreck.
“Oh, God, I’m an idiot. I’m so sorry,” she said, wiping her face with her hands.
“No you’re not. You’re just under a lot of stress.”
She snorted a laugh. “Yeah, you could say that. Thank you for being the responsible one. I didn’t really mean to put you in that position.”
“Which position?” He gave a lock of her hair a gentle tug. “You put me in quite a few, if I remember.”
She dug her elbow into his belly and laughed. “You know what I mean. When I talked you into the back seat, I wasn’t planning to … you know … ambush you like that. Well, okay, yeah, I planned to jump you, but I also planned to stick to the ground rules.”
“Something you said … it has to be now.” His hand resumed petting her hair. “What did you mean by that?”
“I was just … I was thinking…” She tightened her arms around him and pressed her face to his chest again. “I was thinking I didn’t want to die before we had a chance to do it. I mean, I know it’s gonna hurt and be awkward — I honestly don’t have any unrealistic expectations — but—”
“Whoa! Hold it right there.” His hands tightened on her.
“Hey, no insult intended. It’s just that a girl’s first—”
“What’s this about dying any time soon?” He pushed her away from his chest so he could see her face in the deepening dusk. “You’re not going anywhere near that train, right? So nothing’s going to happen.”
She raked her hands through her hair. “Hey, it’s not like I want to die.”
“But you are going to stay away from the train?”
“Rachel thinks the message is about her. She thinks it’s her inescapable destiny to get on that train.”
“I know. You told me in your text messages.”
“I explained to her over and over again why it was about me and not her, but she won’t listen. She’s sure it’s about her. I mean, dead sure. Fatalistically sure. Which means she’s not going to stop turning up at the tracks, looking for her ticket.”
Caden’s hand tightened on her thigh. “So every time the whistle blows, you plan to rush down there and try to stop her.”
“She’s my friend.” Ashlyn lifted her shoulders in a helpless shrug. “She’s our friend. Nobody has ever tried to save her. Not her father, not her mother, not the teachers at school. She’s had to save herself. But oh, Caden, if you could have seen the look on her face last night. I don’t think she can do it anymore.”
“You can’t go without me,” he said, his voice breaking. “Don’t ever go without me, Ashlyn. If you hear the train whistle, wait for me. I can be at your place in five minutes. I can pick you up and get you there faster than you can get there on foot.”
“Okay,” she said, and this time it was her turn to soothe him by stroking his hair. “I promise. I’ll wait for you.”
They stayed like that for a few minutes, until she felt his heartbeat gradually slow beneath her hand.
“Ash, tell me again why you think the radio’s message is for you?”
She sighed. “The radio, the train and the Caverhills are inextricably linked. My great grandmother Catherine Brennan put her son on that train when he went off to war, with that very conductor. The flesh and blood conductor, or so he appeared then. But she knew something was wrong. Then she bought that radio — that perfectly ordinary radio — and bent her attention to it so completely that her obsession somehow put a supernatural whammy on it. So my great uncle got on that train and left his soul there. Between the train and the radio, my great grandmother’s life was ruined. My father….” Her voice broke as she remembered her father calling to her the other day, warning her. What retribution would the furious conductor have meted out for that? She wet her lips and continued. “My father got on that train just before I was born. My mother left town to escape it. And poor Maudette — she’s been hiding from that radio her whole life.”
“But why does it have to be about you? Maybe it is about Rachel.”
“The song, Caden. I told you about the lyrics. Ain’t gonna break till the end of the line. Well, I’m the end of the line. The end of the Brennan/Caverhill line. That’s why the conductor wants me, I guess. And he won’t stop with Prescott Junction … with Rachel … until he gets me. He’s obsessed with claiming my soul. That’s why he came in the middle of the frigging morning and tried to talk me on board.”
“I can’t believe he did that,” Caden said. “No one even knew he could come in the daytime.”
Ashlyn shivered. “Rachel thinks he’s afraid of me. She thinks that’s why he went to all that trouble to present himself when I was alone. When I was vulnerable to his lies. If my dad hadn’t intervened….”
“What the hell? Your dad intervened?”
Whoops. She hadn’t told him that part, about how close she’d come to actually taking that ticket. Caden had been so far away, and she hadn’t wanted to make him too crazy.
“Yeah, sorry. I didn’t quite tell you everything.”
“Dammit, Ashlyn!”
“What? As it was, you were ready to come racing home, leaving your mother in a strange hospital. I should have dumped that on you, too?”
“Okay.” He bent his forehead to hers. “Tell me now.”
She did. She was tempted to downplay how close she’d come to taking that ticket, but he needed to know. And even more, she needed to tell.
He hugged her tight when she was done. “Oh, baby, no wonder you’re stressed. You’ve been through hell.”
“True that.”
He glanced outside, noting that the sun was down already and the day was rapidly losing its light. “For Maudette’s sanity, I think I’d better get you back before dark.”
“Good idea,” she agreed. “Again, good thing someone is being responsible.”
“Responsible.” He pulled a face. “That makes me sound so … boring.”
“No, that makes you strong. Strong and incredibly sexy.” She kissed him quickly, then scooted off his lap and crawled into the front seat. She started doing up the buttons of her shirt. “See? I can be responsible too.”
He laughed, then joined her in the front seat, but via getting out one door and climbing in the other. “You realize we’re going to have to park in the driveway for like, ten minutes or something. Just so Maudette thinks you got those swollen lips in her yard.”
“We get to make out again so soon? Well, I guess that’s some small consolation for not getting my booty.”
“Hey, that was last-chance, goodbye booty you were looking for, babe. And that you don’t need. ’Cuz nothing’s going to happen to you, I’m not going anywhere, and soon you’ll be eighteen.”
She tilted her head. “Know anyone with a talent for doctoring official documents? Becaus
e I’ve got this birth certificate at home that I’d like to modify by a few months….”
He flashed her a grin and started to say something, but his words were cut short by the distinctive sound of the ghost train’s mournful whistle.
They both froze, gazes locked. Ashlyn was pretty sure the horror in Caden’s wide eyes was a mirror image of what he was seeing in hers.
Oh, God help them.
The conductor had come already.
Chapter 19
ASHLYN’S HANDS SHOT OUT to brace herself on the dash as Caden cornered hard, carrying them out of the gravel pit and onto Dugan Road. They had to get to the train bridge before the train did. Before the conductor arrived to claim another unsuspecting soul.
Or before he claimed a soul who more than suspected — one who believed she knew.
Ashlyn glanced at Caden. If his grim profile wasn’t confirmation enough that he feared for Rachel’s safety just as much as she did, his driving sealed it. He kept the gas pedal damned near to the floor as they tore along the old dirt road, throwing up billowing clouds of dust in their wake. At the corner where the dirt road joined the main drag, he slowed just enough to navigate it safely before nailing the accelerator again.
“Caden, look out!” Ashlyn braced herself in the seat.
Caden quickly swerved to his right and onto the shoulder to avoid a car barreling toward them, straight down the middle of the road. The SUV churned in the gravel for endless, white-knuckled seconds until Caden fought it under control. He swore as the light-colored Acura streaked past, its horn blaring. And as it passed, a beer bottle came flying out of the window, missing the SUV by yards and smashing to pieces on the side of the road.
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