Live Wire (Blue-Eyed Bomb #1)

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  He reached forward and pulled me toward him, holding me around my waist.

  “It really was.” His head moved slowly toward mine, and I closed my eyes, anticipating the touch of his lips.

  But it never came.

  Instead, an unexpected knock on the door pulled our collective attention away from our almost-kiss. Gabe made his way into the living room to answer it while I took the opportunity to make a run for the bathroom. I couldn’t see who had stopped by to pay Gabe a visit, but it didn’t take long to figure out that it wasn’t a stranger.

  His mother never stirred.

  “Hey Gabe,” Cheryl said to greet him. My skin crawled instantly. Her tone was so casual and friendly, I almost forgot how big a bitch she’d been the other day. Though I understood her anger at having been brought to the house under false pretenses, her reaction had still seemed excessive.

  I hid inside the piano room, pressed against the casing of the doorway that separated it from the living room. This was a conversation I wasn’t willing to miss. As carefully as possible, I peeked around the corner, wanting to see every second of their interaction.

  My curiosity was morbid indeed.

  “I don’t have your money yet, Cheryl. I said I’d get it to you and I meant it—”

  “I’m not here for that,” she said, shaking her head. “I came to make sure the animals were okay. I’ve had a lot calls after the crazy storm that hit, and I wanted to come and make sure yours were all right.”

  “I would have called you if they weren’t,” he said, sounding tired. Tired enough not to want to get into the conversation that would have inevitably followed if he'd told her that Mason was dead.

  “Would you?” she countered, stepping through the doorway into the living room. The look on her face told me that she hadn’t come for the horses. That much was clear. Exactly what she had come for, however, remained to be seen.

  I felt my irritation rising the longer she stood there, staring up at him with a beseeching expression. Though I didn’t really care for her much, she hadn’t done anything to me to make me dislike her—at least not as much as I did. That’s what made it so hard to understand my desire to walk up to her and slap her in the face.

  “Gabe…I know you. I know you wouldn’t have called me after how I left last time. After I—”

  “The animals are fine, Cheryl. Thanks for coming all this way to check in.”

  Her shoulders sagged a bit when she exhaled, but she squared them only seconds later, not yet ready to admit defeat.

  “You know I didn’t come out here just for them, right? You have to know that,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “I know we agreed to end things because of your demands here on the farm and with your mom, but I can’t help feeling like there’s still something between us, and I don’t want to just walk away from that.”

  He stood there silently, staring down at her. I watched in slow motion as she pressed up onto her toes, her face angled up to his. My heart raced wildly, my eyes laser-focused on what was playing out before me. She was touching him. Touching what was mine.

  And that would never do.

  An unthinkable rage settled over me, clinging to me like a second skin. I wore it so easily that it should have frightened me, but it didn’t. It fueled the fire roaring inside me. The one I was ready to unleash.

  But the fire never came.

  Instead, an unholy wail escaped, accentuated by the unmistakable shattering of glass on the far side of the piano room. Before I realized what was happening, I was halfway up the stairs, stomping up them as if my ankle weren’t the size of Texas. I don’t know how long my fugue would have lasted, but seeing Gabe’s mother turn her head to look at me snapped me from it. There was fear in her eyes as she gazed across the empty room to me. The look of fear that only recognition or realization can bring.

  With the return of my consciousness came the pain in my ankle and I cried out again, crumpling to the steps in a teary heap. I stared through my cage of balusters while Gabe rushed into the room. But all I could see was the look on his mother’s face. Before then, I’d been the one who was scared of her.

  In that moment, our roles had been reversed.

  “Jesus, Phira. What happened?” he asked, scooping me off the steps.

  “Is she okay?” Cheryl asked from somewhere in the distance. Her voice alone beckoned the rage back to me.

  The tension in my body seemed to tip Gabe off and he sent her away.

  “Not now, Cheryl. Whatever you came for, I can’t give to you, okay? Just go.”

  The sound of the door slamming behind her was music to my ears.

  Then the anger slowly dissipated and I was left a shaking, confused mess in Gabe’s arms.

  “Phira…what’s happening? Did you remember something else? Something about the attack?” he asked, taking me upstairs to my room.

  “I…I don’t know,” I whispered. I could feel the cold of shock taking over me, and judging by Gabe’s reaction, he could see it too. Whatever had just occurred downstairs had brought up dark, ugly memories that I still couldn’t grasp. What I did know was that I couldn’t afford for them to surface again.

  “What did you see?” he asked, setting me down on the bed. He knelt before me, his arms resting on my knees.

  “I didn’t see anything. I just felt…anger. Hatred.”

  “Like before? With Nico?”

  “No. This was worse, Gabe. It was darker. Vengeful.”

  He looked at me, his brow furrowed as he mulled over my explanation.

  “Did Cheryl…was it somehow triggered by her?” he asked, delicately dancing around the subject as best he could. Essentially he was asking if I'd been jealous and that had set me off.

  Yes. Yes I was, and yes it had.

  “I guess so, but my reaction seemed so excessive. Cheryl’s not my favorite, and I wasn’t a huge fan of what she’d come for, but…”

  “But what?” he asked, pressing closer toward me.

  I sighed heavily, not wanting to say what I needed to.

  “But we’re not in love, Gabe. And the way I just freaked out implied some kind of deep connection.” I could see him flinch at my words, and I instantly regretted them. “Shit…I didn’t mean it like that. I just…what I’m trying to say is that we’re not there yet. Does that make any sense?”

  His fallen expression slowly turned to one of mischief.

  “You’re saying I’m going to have to work a bit harder?” he asked with a laugh. “Girl, you picked the wrong boy to throw a challenge like that at. I’m a farmer. Don’t nobody work harder than a farm boy.” He’d turned on his slang, which forced a smile from me, easing my anxiety. He seemed to always know how to do that, and I appreciated it more than I could ever express.

  “Like a dog for a bone,” I replied, shaking my head at him. “It’s just shameful.”

  He shrugged.

  “I ain’t too proud to beg.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “Well now that we’ve got that all cleared up…”

  “I’m off to fix a tractor,” he finished, heading for the door.

  “Can I come?”

  I wanted nothing to do with his mother. Staying holed up in the house with her for another day sounded like the worst idea ever. He looked at me for a second and then shrugged. I took that as a yes.

  “Maybe I’ll be an expert mechanic. You just never know,” I said, hoping that possibility might sweeten the pot a bit.

  “Let’s hope you are, for your sake.” His wide smile disappeared as he turned to walk out the door. He led the way out to the barn, making it to the old tractor long before I did. “Let’s pick up the pace, minion!” he taunted as he grabbed a couple of wrenches from the toolbox on the ground by the massive front tire. He climbed up on a ladder to bend way over the front end of the ancient tractor. It swallowed up half his body.

  I stopped beside the ladder, balanced on my crutches as I awaited his instruction.

  �
�Can you pass me that socket wrench?” he asked, his voice muffled by the motor he was engrossed in fixing. Without a second thought, I bent over and scooped it up. When he emerged from under the hood and looked down at me, there was a slight look of surprise in his eyes.

  “Well, well, well…she knows her tools.”

  “Or at least this one,” I corrected.

  “Let’s just see about that.” He spent the next minute barking out the names of tools, and I snatched them up easily for him. He couldn't have looked more impressed if he’d tried. “So my little amnesiac is a gear head. How very interesting.”

  “Or a construction chick.”

  “Possible, but most of these tools are used on motors of one sort or another.”

  “Oh.”

  “So you recognize the tools but not their uses?”

  “I guess so.” My tone didn’t sound so certain.

  He looked at me curiously, then climbed down from the ladder.

  “You think you can stand on this thing?” he asked, indicating the metal ladder he’d just descended.

  “Maybe. But don’t leave me up there, if that’s what you’re thinking of doing.”

  “No,” he laughed. “Not that at all. I have a theory. I just want to test it out.” I couldn’t muster an argument, so I just sighed and tried to hop my way up the ladder with much assistance from the strong farm boy. Once I was perched precariously on the top, I leaned over to assess the situation—which I thought would be little more than me staring at a bunch of greasy metal.

  Much to my surprise, that wasn’t at all what happened.

  It wasn’t long before I was elbow deep in dirt and grime and oil, barking out orders at Gabe.

  “Jesus, you’ve made a mess of this thing,” I scolded, grabbing the socket wrench I’d handed him earlier.

  “Well I’ll be damned,” was his only reply. For the most part, he just stood below me on the ladder and held my upper leg steady while I worked feverishly. I had no idea how long it had taken, but by the time I declared her to be finished, my stomach was growling and the sun was high in the sky.

  “I think you owe me lunch.”

  “I think I owe you more than that,” he said, looking up at me with a mischievous grin.

  “Food first.”

  “As you wish, grease monkey.” He winked at me, then shimmied his way down the short ladder, keeping his hand on me. I gripped the rails and attempted to hop down rung by rung as best I could. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t an especially graceful maneuver. “Easy there,” he said, catching me when I almost fell off the final rung.

  “So close,” I said with a laugh. “So close to nailing the landing.”

  “No ten-point-oh for you.”

  “Food?” I gently reminded him, and he nodded.

  “You can get cleaned up while I cook.”

  “Deal.”

  We made our way back to the house in relative silence. I imagined that he was working as hard to make sense of my engine repair skills as I was. Though it was nothing like when I sat down at the piano, there was still a deep sense of familiarity when I fiddled with that engine. It made me wonder if I should just run around trying strange things to see if something else could jar a memory loose or remind me of my past.

  Then, remembering the previous night and the awful flashes of men all over me, I rethought that game plan.

  Maybe I needed to leave well enough alone.

  ***

  I came down the stairs, clean as could be, to the smell of eggs and something else I couldn’t place. Gabe’s mother was back in her chair, staring out the window. I hurried through that room to the living room and the kitchen. I found Gabe plating up the food when I rounded the corner.

  “The trick to canned meat is that you just cook it within an inch of its life and it tastes amazing.”

  “Canned meat? That’s a thing?”

  His light expression fell for a moment, embarrassment settling in.

  “I guess it isn’t for everyone.”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” I said, placing my hand on his arm. “I’ve just never heard of it. I’m sure my family is just weird or something.”

  “Or well off.”

  I didn’t know how to reply to that so I left it alone.

  “Eggs smell great,” I said, taking my plate from him and putting it on the counter. I grabbed a fork from the drawer and dug in. To be honest, I didn’t care about what I was eating because I was starving. “Taste great too.”

  “You’re a terrible liar,” he pointed out while he hovered near me.

  “Am not,” I argued with a mouth full of food. “You’re just being sensitive because I don’t know what canned meat is.” I shot him a playful glance through my eyelashes and he laughed.

  “I wonder if anyone ever beats you in an argument…”

  “I doubt it. But you can keep trying if you like. It’s cute.”

  “That’s my goal. To be cute.”

  “And you excel at it.”

  We stared at each other for a second, the tension between us thick once again. In that moment, I didn’t know what I wanted him to do. My feelings were so conflicted. Gabe was handsome and noble and sweet and everything a girl could have ever wanted. But was I the kind of girl he deserved?

  That remained to be seen.

  I looked away and cut off a big chunk of the fried canned meat and shoved it in my mouth, smiling wickedly as I chewed it in an exaggerated fashion.

  “Mmmmmm. It’s so gooooood.”

  Try though he did, he couldn’t keep his serious expression intact. He choked on his laughter when it finally broke through, coughing as he did.

  “Let’s go eat.” He took my plate and carried it into the living room, placing it down on the end table next to my favorite chair. We sat and joked and laughed our lunch break away, discussing everything from my mad mechanic skills to his ability to transform something otherwise inedible into something that really did taste pretty damn good. It was refreshing to have such a normal moment in what was a less-than-normal situation. I appreciated it more than Gabe could have ever understood.

  “I’m going to go fire up the old girl once we’re done. You care to do the honors?” he asked, coming over to take my empty plate away.

  “Hell yes!” I exclaimed. “But only if you let me drive it.”

  “Let’s not get carried away. I let you ride Jinx and that didn’t go so well. Let’s not see what kind of damage you can do with a runaway tractor.”

  I feigned a pout.

  “Fine. Party pooper.”

  He winked at me for the second time that day.

  “I’ll make it up to you. Promise.”

  I felt a rush of blood flood my cheeks and I looked away from him, finding it a convenient time to grab my crutches off the floor. Fumbling with them to buy myself a little time, I eventually propped myself up and made my way to the door with Gabe tight on my heels. I couldn’t help but feel like he was staring at my ass.

  Once we were at the tractor, he hoisted me up into the rusty old thing and handed me the keys.

  “Let’s see just how good you are,” he teased, stepping back away from the machine as though it might blow up upon ignition—providing it ignited at all. With a deep breath, I turned the key and prayed.

  The beast came roaring to life.

  “Ha!” I shot him a nasty sideways glance, then did a little victory wiggle on the cracked vinyl seat.

  “I might have to keep you around, Trouble. You sure do have skills.”

  “You know it!”

  I started to make my way down from the tractor, only to have two large hands wrap around my waist and lower me to the ground.

  “Much better than last time,” he said from behind me. His breath ruffled my hair slightly, tickling my ear. I shied away from the sensation, and his hands fell away from me.

  “I did need help with my dismount.” I turned to find his body close to mine, his large brown eyes hooded and full of somethi
ng I couldn’t quite place. “So…” I started, my nerves alighting, “what now?”

  “Now I get to work,” he told me, his voice low and husky. Reaching around me to grab the frame of the tractor, he hauled himself up into it and put it in gear. I grabbed my crutches that were leaning against it and scooted backward away from the machine to give him space to pull away. He drove toward the far side of the property where the creek was, leaving me behind.

  I’d have been lying if I’d said I wasn’t surprised by his actions.

  I exhaled heavily and started back toward the house, dreading the fact that I was going to have to hang out with his batshit crazy mother or hole up in another room in silence, alone with my lack of memory and theories on the few that had come back to me. Neither seemed like stellar options.

  Partway there, I felt the light pitter-pat of rain on my head and shoulders. I looked up to see a single light grey cloud crossing the sky above me. The gentle raindrops on my face made me laugh, and I reached my arms out wide, soaking in the sensation.

  For the first time since I’d arrived on the farm, the inclement weather wasn’t scaring me.

  I let my crutches fall out from under my arms, and I spun myself around in a circle with a limping motion. It was childlike and free, and I felt like both of those things in that moment. I adored the feeling.

  “You’re hard to walk away from,” Gabe called to me. I startled and dropped my arms to my sides, turning to stare down the driveway at him. The light sprinkle had picked up to a steady downpour, slowly soaking us both while we stood motionless, just looking at one another.

  “Technically you drove,” I pointed out, my voice a bit breathy. Maybe it had been from all the spinning.

  He shook his head and laughed.

  “You make me want to do foolhardy things, girl.” He stalked toward me while I stood rooted in place. “I could lose this place if I don't get my work done, but then I see you out here, twirling in the rain, looking like a bruised angel, and I can’t seem to get a damn thing done.”

  “I could go inside,” I offered awkwardly. I looked up at the porch as though he hadn’t followed what I had just said.

  “Or you could stay right here and dance with me.”