Her stomach lurched. “You’re the Bud Rankin from high school.”
He slid into the booth next to her, his aftershave overpowering. “That’s me. It’s good to see you.”
“Is it?” She couldn’t keep the acid out of her voice.
His jolly expression went from country farm boy sweet to equal antagonism in a heartbeat. “I’d think you could forgive a guy a little harmless fun. Besides, I was a wet-behind-the-ears teenager. Boys will be boys. I was on the football team. Things like that were expected.”
Anger rose inside her so fast she almost choked on it. She took a slow sip of merlot, more to keep from decking him on the spot than anything else.
“Is that what you call it?” she asked.
He folded his arms on the table and leaned forward. She twitched back a little, unable to control the reaction. He saw it and smiled. “Look, I’m not here to talk about the good old days.”
“Good. We’re done talking.”
He sat back, maybe surprised by her tone. She’d been a different person in high school. More malleable.
“You don’t have to be like that,” he said, his green eyes as cold now as they’d been in high school. “I heard you’ve been snooping around asking about the fictional hum.”
“Who told you that?”
He lowered his voice, not that anyone could hear him over the music. “A friend.”
“Well, your friend is right. I’m here to check out the hum, prove that it doesn’t exist and then get out of here.”
He smiled. “Good. I’m glad you think it doesn’t exist. But I’m here to tell you that I know it doesn’t exist. A stupid shit down by Benson Creek was the first one to mention it. Told it to the paper and they ran with it, then everybody came out of the woodwork saying they heard it.”
She hated to agree with him. “It’s probably fictional.”
His smile grew wider, and she could see how people…particular women, would find him charming if they didn’t know what she knew about the creep.
“Then you’re leaving town tomorrow, right?” he asked.
She sipped her wine again, using it to keep a straight, unaffected facade. “It’s none of your business when I’m leaving.”
“I think you should leave tomorrow.”
Puzzled, she asked, “Why?”
“Just take my word for it. Or I can’t guarantee your safety.”
Cassidy was having a hard time believing this conversation was even happening. “I’m in danger?”
“You don’t seem concerned.”
“That’s because I don’t think there’s any danger. Unless you’re threatening me?”
“Listen to what I have to say.”
She snorted. “And why would I do that? What you did to me all those years ago was reprehensible. You and your batshit crazy friends. You’re all lucky I didn’t go Carrie on your asses.”
He didn’t smile—if anything his face was granite. “Well, you always were the poor little ugly one weren’t you?”
If she’d been cornered by a stranger and called names, she could have ignored the name-calling. Yet this man had done more than enough damage with his blatant lies and had almost pushed her to the ultimate edge. Old resentment that she’d shoved aside for years rose to the surface. Old shame came along with it.
“Listen, Bud, I realize that you’re probably selling real estate…a bridge in Timbuktu or something like that, but I don’t need your opinion of me. And I don’t give a damn what you say or think.”
“You really should.”
“I can’t believe I’m asking this, but why?”
“Because I have a lot of pull in town. People here don’t like troublemakers. People who stir up worries and concerns and interfere with what we have going here.”
Unable to tamper down her anger, she asked, “What is this? An episode of Gunsmoke? Exactly what do you think I’m doing to interfere with Bristol Peak’s status quo?”
Bud sniffed. “Well, see, it’s like this. I heard how you treated the men at the power plant. Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong.”
She leaned closer to him, even when it made her blood turn to ice. “If there isn’t something weird going on at the power plant no one should care if I ask questions. Do you know something about the hum that you don’t want known?”
Right that moment, she saw Jeremy striding through the crowd, and her heart leapt with relief. Thank God. The cavalry was here.
“Get out of here,” she said.
“Why should I do that?”
“You’re in his seat.”
Bud snorted. “Remember what I said. I could tell Jeremy things that would make him look at you differently.”
Her heart thudded in her chest as a new anxiety she thought she’d left long ago rose up with a vengeance. “He’s an intelligent guy. He could see right through you.”
He didn’t reply, and soon Jeremy walked up to the table.
Jeremy’s frown was a mile wide as he looked at Bud. “Rankin. Are you hitting on my girl?”
Bud looked surprised at the question. In fact, he looked shocked for a few seconds. He recovered and the smile he gave Jeremy was the kind reserved for good buddies.
“Hey there, Tate. You having dinner with this young lady? We were talking about old times. We go way back. Practically to the Stone Age.”
“Fred Flintstone was just leaving,” she said.
Rankin put on an innocent face and slid out of the booth. “I was just saying hello. Seems like she’s gotten prickly over the years. Guess I like it better than the church mouse attitude she had when she was a kid.”
She strangled a reply and noticed Jeremy’s eyes sharpen with curiosity.
Jeremy ignored Rankin’s statement and said, “What’s up?”
“Just thought I’d say hello to an old high school friend. You on shift tonight?”
“No. I’m off for two days.”
“See you at work in two days, then.”
Her heartbeat slammed in her chest as the anxiety churned in her stomach.
After Rankin was out of earshot, she asked, “Work?”
Jeremy slid into the circular booth. “Yeah, he’s a deputy, too.”
Cassidy almost swallowed her tongue. “Damn.”
The waitress came up and Jeremy ordered a cola. After she left, he turned toward Cassidy.
“So you know Rankin from high school?” he asked.
“Yeah, I know him.” Cassidy hoped against hope he wouldn't ask another question.
“What happened between you?” His cop voice said confession was a better alternative than evasion.
Maybe she couldn't avoid telling him the truth, because she'd noticed he did a great job of ferreting out the facts. His steady attention stayed riveted on her.
“It's a long story,” she said.
He shrugged. “We've got the time.”
“Didn't we come here to dance?”
He glanced over at the heavily-populated dance floor. A country singer she couldn't identify crooned a love ballad.
“Did you date?” he asked. “You guys have a bad break up?”
She snorted. “Hardly. I mean, he wasn't my boyfriend. He was my tormentor.”
His eyes narrowed, and she saw the anger boiling up in his eyes. “What did he do?”
She drew in a deep breath, surprised at the difficulty she had even thinking about what had happened. It was a long time ago...but not.
His gaze rested on Cassidy with an intensity that unnerved her.
“What?” she asked.
Jeremy turned toward her, his closeness sending little sparklers of interest along all her nerve endings. Distracting him was an option, so she did the bold thing. The thing she wouldn't have considered doing fifteen minutes ago. She put her hand on his thigh. His muscles tensed, and he sucked in a sharp breath. She turned full toward him. Heat gathered under her palm as she took in the feeling of his thigh muscle under her fingers and palm. Full on sexual heat su
rged. Her nipples hardened and warmth dampened her between the thighs. What a rush. Her lips parted.
“Not going to work.” His deep voice went lower and huskier. “You can't distract me that way.”
“Wanna bet?” She smiled and looked down. His interest was clear in the enormous bulge pushing against his jeans. Her smile grew wider.
“Damn.” He gently encompassed her hand in his and removed it from his thigh. “I get it. And yeah, I want you.” He leaned in closer, the delicious and subtle musk of his aftershave a teasing her. “You don’t know how much I want it. He took her left hand in his and encompassed it with heat. “Right now, though, you're going to tell me what Rankin did to you. After that we can talk about your effect on me.”
His choice of words made her hotter. An incredible, pounding sensation that wanted and needed fulfillment. How many men expressed their desires like that? Few in her limited experience. They said sex because that's what it was to them. They didn't woo her with sweet words or make what they wanted sound like anything more than hot, primitive sweat between the sheets. Even if that’s all he probably wanted, she knew with an earth-shattering certainty she couldn’t leave this town without holding him close and showing him how special he’d been to her all those years ago. Still, he was demanding answers, and the fear drove sexual need to the side.
Her defense mechanisms weren’t going away. “He's a cop. I can't believe it. Look, I'm not going to say what I think of him because for all I know he's a friend of yours. Let's just drop it.”
“No, damn it.” His voice turned soft and serious. “Just because he’s a cop doesn’t mean he’s my friend.”
The waitress appeared at their table with his cola and asked if they wanted to order food. They decided on a small appetizer tray of fruit, veggies and a dip rather than a full meal. All the time, he kept her hand trapped in his big palm and the skin-to-skin contact drove her crazy. The young waitress smiled knowingly and left.
He ignored his drink in favor of turning his full attention back to her. He leaned forward until his breath stirred against her ear. “Okay, fess up. I'm not letting this go. I can keep up this interrogation all night.”
His tone suggested maybe the interrogation would include torture, and she shivered in delight. “Maybe you'll have to use your complete arsenal to get the truth out of me.”
“I swear to God, Cassidy, this is eating me alive.”
“Why?”
He drew back, but they were still whisper close and those gray eyes bored straight into her. “Because you're my friend.”
“Already?”
“I’ve always been your friend.”
He sighed but he didn't draw back. Maybe she wanted him to move away. Not because she didn't love the heat dancing between them. If he got too close to her feelings, to the recognition that he could mean more to her than a renewal of a quick acquaintance...hell, he could hurt her. Could she maintain nothing more than a fast three weeks in the sack? A little harmless fun? She didn't know if she even understood how to do that.
His fingers loosened around hers, but just enough caress her palm. A shiver of sensual delight arced through her body.
“Yeah. Already. I had a crush on you when we were kids.”
Surprise made her mouth pop open. “What?”
“That’s why I was happy when you said you had a crush on me. When I was a teenager I had these fantasies about you. I was hoping later maybe I could share some.”
Wow. Oh, wow. “Are you yanking my chain?”
“Nope. If there's one thing I can guarantee you, I'm never going to lie to you. I'm a straight up type of man. My father taught me that.”
She knew it was because the man had been such a pathological liar. “I appreciate that. I've just never been around a guy as blunt as you.”
He shook his head slowly. “I don't think telling the truth means you have to be an asshole. I can be gentle.”
Her body tingled at the thought, and she gave him a slow smile. “Hmm. That sounds interesting.”
“Come on, Cassidy. What did Rankin do to you? He's not a friend of mine. He’s just a co-worker. And I've never liked him.”
Relief flooded her. “Good.”
She worked up the courage, surprised at the emotions tangling and rising inside her. When his hand caressed hers again, she found courage.
“He was in my class. Tight end on the football team. All the girls thought he was hot, including me. Blond, beautiful, and built. You know how teenage girls are. We were pretty shallow and didn't understand everything we should. Our parents didn't do a great job of teaching us that men should treat us well.”
“So basically he was a jerk and got away with it.”
“Oh, yeah. Anyway, to make a long story very short, I was at this party with my friend Janice. Janice was this bubbly girl that guys loved. I was a skinny geek with glasses, pretty much like I am now. Only I had bad skin and low self-confidence. She had pretty skin, and even though she was very overweight all the guys loved her good sense of humor, and I hate to say this…because she was great in the sack I guess.”
His eyebrows went up. “She slept around a lot?”
“Basically. She made sure guys used condoms. She gave me a condom that night and told me it was about time I lost my virginity. I kept it in my purse, but I had no intention of losing my virginity.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen. It was my last year of high school and two months to graduation. I may have been dumb about boys in a way...dumb about Bud Rankin because I was dying for someone to like me. I'd never been on a date before. But I still had some common sense. Unfortunately, I didn't know that Janice had set something up between her and Rankin. She was one of those manipulative sociopathic personalities. She thought it was time I got laid, and she thought the whole thing was funny. She paid him to slip a drug into my diet cola.” As soon as Cassidy said the words, her throat went tight. She couldn't look at Jeremy.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” he said softly, the words sharp as razors.
As she stared into the crowd of dancers, she swallowed one sip of wine and then another until she realized the wine was mostly gone. Still staring into space, she continued. “I guess they knew the right amount to get me very high without killing me. I was lucky in that respect. He coaxed me and flirted with me all night until I went to the bedroom with him. I didn't know what I was doing.”
“Ah, shit, Cassidy.” His voice went rough with understanding and anger. “Did he rape you?”
She looked at him, but could barely see through a sudden shimmer of tears. She sucked back a breath and stifled the tears. No way would she blubber her way through this and make a scene by crying here and now. His fingers tightened around hers. He would understand, because of what his father had done. He would understand better than anyone, perhaps.
“I was under the influence of the drug, and even though I participated and didn't fight him, I didn't know what the hell was going on. As it turned out, he had a friend with a camera and the guy took photos. There was my skinny ass for all the world to see.” Anger dried up her tears, and time had healed some of the wound, so she continued the story on an even keel. “He left me lying in the bed, and Janice came in and got me dressed and home. I was starting to sober up a bit by then and snuck into my room because my parents were already asleep. The next day I was surprised I didn't have a hell of a hangover. But what I remembered about what happened was a bit sketchy. Let's just say I regretted it and hoped like hell Rankin didn't say anything.”
Jeremy closed his eyes a moment, and when he opened them, she saw nothing but understanding and compassion in his eyes. Relief made her weak. Maybe he thought she was foolish, but he wasn't letting go of her hand.
“I'm so sorry, Cassidy,” he said softly. “When I get my hands on that bastard I'm going to beat the--”
“No, Jeremy. You know you can't do that.”
He took a deep breath. “Shit. I know.”
She
smiled, sad and yet gratified. “Thank you for sentiment, though.”
His frown didn’t waver. “Is there more to this story?”
“A lot more. Rankin's friend uploaded the little porn movie on the internet shortly after that. This was way before any real social media, so that's a good thing. But it was on a porn site.”
“Christ. What happened?”
“Not what I thought would happen. This is a long story.” She shook her head and continued anyway. “I found out a week later that the photos were being passed around school because Janice and other people were whispering about me. To say that Janice wasn't my friend after that is an understatement. I told her to fuck off after that and never speak to me again. My last months in high school was a living hell. I managed to keep my parents from finding out. They still don't know to this day.”
“That's incredible.”
“I was lucky that none of their friends in town had kids who said anything, because it was all over school.”
“Nowadays they'd find out. The kid probably would have made a video.”
She nodded, but didn't speak. She sipped her wine and considered how this evening would end. It could be that revealing all this baggage to Jeremy would mean he wanted nothing to do with her anymore.
“So Rankin got away with rape,” Jeremy said.
“Yep.” The humiliation of it burned a fresh raw path. “He said that he'd tell you about it if I stopped investigating the hum.”
He snorted. “Today this sort of thing would be prosecuted.”
An ache started inside her. “Yes.”
His frown was genuine and filled with sincerity. “I'm sorry you had to go through that. That there was no one you could tell.”
“I could have told my parents, but at the time I was too embarrassed.”
“What's stopping you from telling them now?”
She thought about it and realized his simple question threw her off stride. “Nothing I suppose. Dad would want to come here and pound his face in, and knowing Dad that wouldn't be beyond possibility.”
He released her hand, and suddenly she was bereft and alone in a sea of people. He scrubbed his hand over his chin. “I'm glad you told me. You could have told me to leave it alone.”
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