Mom put on a thick Irish accent, sufficiently gravelly to imitate my gran’s croaky voice. “Good things in life come to those who take chances and don’t have their heads shoved up their arse.”
She delivered the line with such straight-laced sentiment that I couldn’t help but break down into raucous laughter. Mom’s mouth curved into a self-satisfied smirk.
“Now, my love, is there anything else I can sort out for you before I crawl off to bed? I’m exhausted.”
I felt bad for keeping her awake as long as I had and shook my head. “No, go get some sleep. I’m going to go out for a little ride.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little late?”
I winked. “Good things come to those who take chances.”
Mom rolled her eyes. “Be safe, or I’ll kick your ass.”
“I know you will.”
I waved Mom off to bed and grabbed my helmet from where it hung next to the front door.
My bruises made the ride a little painful at times, but it was worth it to get on my bike and drive out into the dark. There were few cars on the road, few competitors for asphalt as I cruised onto the highway and back toward Sitka Valley. I saw the whole world in the endless black of the night. A world of possibilities. A world of danger, too.
I pulled over almost halfway between Sitka Valley and home, leaving my bike in a ditch next to some ferns.
The walk was so familiar that I could have done it in complete darkness, but I wasn’t a total idiot. I used the flashlight on my keys to navigate over roots and around corners, only clicking it off once I’d reached the solitude of my meadow sanctuary.
It had always been a private place before I brought Dallas there. She was the first, and probably the last, who I’d share my haven with. It was made better for her having been there, and I wouldn’t want to tarnish that.
I stretched out in the grass with my arms above my head. The stars winked against a backdrop of obsidian, so bright that I could see the swirling Orion nebula and the faintest sprinkling of other galaxies, like scattered icing sugar.
I thought about what my mom said. What my grandmother would have said. And I thought about what I wanted.
I wanted Dallas with every fiber of my being, and if having her meant taking a chance not only on rejection but on finding myself unworthy, that was something I was just going to have to do.
Wes was a problem too, but not as big of one as he believed himself to be. I could take Wes. I could take his whole stupid crew if I had to, and would if it meant keeping them away from Dallas. I might not be worthy of Dallas in many ways, but Wes would be an outright poison to her. I had to protect her from him.
The wind whispered through the grass. The night was still.
I was going to ask Dallas to prom. If she rejected me, she rejected me. The kind of chance my grandmother took to give me a better life helped put things in perspective. When you looked at it like that, asking a girl out wasn’t that big of a deal—even if she was the most beautiful girl in the world.
Chapter 10
Dallas
“Dallas! Wake up!”
Someone shook me. My dad, I realized. I groaned and batted my hand toward the sound of his voice. “Five minutes.”
It felt early, way too early to be getting up for school. My dad had officially lost his marbles. I could practically hear them rolling around our house.
“No, Dallas. You have to get up now. We have to leave.”
Leave?
I cracked open an eye, momentarily blinded by my bedroom light. Dad was bent over me, his face tight with worry. What was his problem? Had I heard him correctly?
“Pack a bag and meet me at the front door in five minutes. Okay?”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “I don’t have time. I’ll explain everything later, I promise. For now, I need you to do as I say.”
I’d never seen him look so stressed. It verged on scared, which concerned me even more.
That was what ultimately compelled me out of bed in the end, adrenaline snaking through my veins and forcing my eyes open. Dad hurried out of my room, and I heard him banging things around, presumably finishing his packing. I tried not to dwell on the fear that threatened to choke me and started hurriedly filling my backpack.
What was going on? According to my phone, it was three in the morning. I had school tomorrow. Were we leaving the house for a few hours? A few days? Or longer?
I had too many questions to try to answer even one of them and chose to ignore them all instead. Dad told me he would tell me soon what the deal was. I just had to trust him.
Five minutes later, I was at the front door. Dad let us out without a word, passing me a helmet and shoving one on his head. I followed his lead and got on his bike behind him, glad that I’d chosen to double up my layers since there was a thin film of rain falling from the sky. Dad kick-started the bike, and we rumbled out of the driveway. He turned toward the highway.
I wished we were in a car so I could start questioning him now. I wished we didn’t have to leave at all, but he must have had a good reason, right? I hadn’t seen him all evening, not since he left around six to “take care of some things”. It was unusual for my dad to be out so late but unusual was the name of the game with him these days. I hadn’t thought much of it. Now a bevy of possibilities swarmed my head. Did his absence this evening have something to do with our sudden flight? It had to. So where had he been?
The bike picked up speed when we reached the highway. The road was desolate, stretching far into the distance and toward our uncertain destination. I’d never been more confused in my life.
Sirens started screaming from behind us, and the mirrors reflected back flashing red and blue lights. I didn’t think we were speeding. Did Dad have a taillight out or something?
I felt his shoulders stiffen at the sirens, but he started to pull over. When he killed the engine, I could hear him swearing under his breath.
“Relax,” I said, pulling off my helmet. “It’s probably just a misunderstanding.”
Dad pulled off his helmet too. “I don’t think so, pumpkin. I’m so sorry.”
I looked back and saw the cops getting out of their car. One of them turned on a flashlight and pointed it at us, and their feet crunched against the gravel as they approached.
It all fell into place. We were on the run from the police. What could Dad have possibly done that necessitated us going on the lam from the law? He would never hurt anybody, and I couldn’t see him stealing anything or committing a similar crime either.
“Good evening, Mr. Keane,” said the officer with the flashlight. He stood just in front of my dad, while the other hung back somewhere behind me. I got the feeling it was in case one of us decided to run.
“Is there a problem, officer?” Dad asked.
The officer, a pudgy middle-aged man with a greying mustache and a fat red nose, smiled. “I think you know that there is. You wouldn’t be trying to leave Sitka Valley, would you?”
Dad was quiet. I didn’t know why he wasn’t answering, so I piped up instead.
“We were just going out to get some food,” I replied. “Neither of us could sleep.”
He didn’t believe me, that much I could tell. He didn’t call me out on it either, though.
“I think it would be wise for you to turn back,” he said, addressing my father. “You don’t want Gromley to get the wrong idea. He’s not a man you want to mess with.”
Gromley? As in Preston Gromley? What did he have to do with this?
“I know,” my dad said, sounding more defeated than I’d ever heard him. “We’ll go home.”
“Jolly good. We’ll escort you.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I replied. “We know the way back just fine.”
“All the same.” The officer clicked off his flashlight, leaving me temporarily blinded as my eyes struggled to adjust to the low light. “It’s late, and we wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.
Gromley would be very disappointed if you disappeared.”
He started to walk back to his car, leaving no room for further complaint. I tried to catch my dad’s eye in the mirror, but he seemed determined not to look at me.
“Dad? What’s going on?”
“Let’s get going, Mr. Keane,” called the officer from his car. A second later I heard both doors slam shut and the engine came to life.
Dad shoved his helmet back on his head. I was going to have to wait a little longer for my answers. The confused thoughts rattling around my brain became more insistent, more angry. If those cops weren’t going to arrest us, why did we still have to do what they said? Since when did the police work for Gromley? Perhaps he held more sway in the community than I’d anticipated. It was a sobering thought.
Dad started the engine and turned back the way we came.
I remembered something Wes had said, about how my dad and I would be unwise to refuse a Gromley request, and I felt my skin turn cold. Did that have something to do with this? It must have. It killed me that I had to wait to learn how all these events were connected.
The police followed us the whole way home. They left their lights off, at least, but I still felt like we were being paraded through town in shame. Good thing it was so late. Then again, maybe if someone did see us, they would know how fucked up this all was.
They stopped outside our driveway, watching with the engine running as we parked the bike and retreated inside the house. I turned back to look at them before entering. The one we talked to had the audacity to smile and wave. I had to get inside before I flipped him the bird or something else unwise. The situation was bad enough as it was without me making it any worse.
I slammed the door. “What the hell is going on?” I demanded of my father, who was dragging his feet toward the living room.
He glanced back at me. “Come sit down.”
I followed, and we sat on opposite ends of the couch. I twisted around to watch him. Dad kept his head low, taking shaking breaths that I knew would soon turn into tears. My heart broke, even as my anxiety had driven me to anger at anyone and everything.
“Dad.” I tried to speak gently.
He flinched like I’d thrown a knife at him.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” he croaked. “I am so fucking sorry.”
“Dad, what is it? Why did those police officers stop us from leaving? Why were we leaving in the first place?”
He looked up finally, eyes rimmed with red. I couldn’t stand to see my dad cry. I hugged my knees up to my chest and rested the side of my head against the back cushions, trying not to break down into tears myself.
“After your mother died, the business took a hit,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do...I—I couldn’t stand to see the business go under. What would happen to you if it did?”
The business had only suffered because he turned into a shell of a person for several weeks. Even after he came out of it, he wasn’t the same. The business came back to life, sure, but my dad didn’t.
“The bank wouldn’t give me a loan, and then someone told me to ask Preston Gromley. So I did, and he helped me. He gave me the money I needed to get back on even footing.”
“Oh, dad,” I sighed. “You didn’t.”
“I needed to.” His eyes turned frantic. “I had nowhere else to turn.”
“So you turned to a loan shark? You know why they call them that, right?”
“I already feel guilty enough,” he snapped. “I don’t need you to lay it on any thicker.”
I sat back, surprised at his sudden coldness. His expression collapsed into distress, and the tears flowed freer, his shoulder shaking with sobs. I couldn’t take it anymore and dove across the couch, wrapping my arms around him and shushing him.
“It’s okay,” I cooed. “We can deal with this. I’ll get a job, and we’ll start chipping off at what you owe. How much did you borrow?”
Dad sniffed and met my eyes. He gave a short shake of his head that made my stomach drop.
“It’s not that simple. I didn’t want to be indebted to Gromley, and when he came to me with investment opportunities that, if they paid off, would get me out from under his duress almost immediately, I jumped for them. By all accounts, they should have paid off. That was what he said. I don’t know if he was dishonest or if I just have the worst luck, but I’m in deep now, Dallas. This month he raised my minimum payment, said the interest rate has changed. I couldn’t pay it.”
“So you tried to leave,” I filled in. “What happens if you don’t pay it?”
I didn’t want to know, but I had to. All manner of horrors filled my head, and my brain went into overdrive trying to figure out how we could get out of this. We needed money, first of all. And time. I wondered if I could talk to Wes somehow, get him on my side against his father.
Dad sniffed and hugged me tightly, pressing his face into my hair. “He didn’t give me a choice,” he said. “I swear he didn’t give me a choice.”
I pulled away from his embrace and caught his eye. “What does that mean?”
“He...Gromley told me he’d forgive this month’s payment, but he wanted something else instead.”
My blood turned to ice in my veins, jagged and cold. I struggled to suck in some air in a room that felt more like a vacuum than anything else.
“What did he ask for, Dad?”
“You.” He said it so quietly I hardly heard it, but the word vibrated through me like a gong. “You have to go to a party at Gromley’s house instead of prom. If you don’t...” He gritted his teeth, suppressing another sob. When he spoke, his voice cracked miserably. “If you don’t go, he’s going to kill you.”
My first thought was one word. A name.
Wes.
Wes had done this. He must’ve. He told his father that I turned him down, and now he wanted to play the ultimate power game with me. Fear and rage battled for dominance inside of me, making my hands shake but my teeth grit together resolutely. I wanted to throttle that piece of shit. But I couldn’t. Not if I wanted my dad unharmed. Hell, not if I wanted to stay safe myself. He had me exactly where he wanted me, and I was powerless to do anything about it.
My dad was crying, hugging me in a python’s grip and apologizing over and over again. It reminded me of when my mom died, except then there were no words. Was he mourning for me already? What did he expect was going to happen at this party? I figured it was safe to assume the worst but hope for the best, though in this case, I didn’t even know how bad the worst could be.
“It’s going to be okay.” I stroked his head the way I’d often seen Mom do to calm him down when the seriousness of her condition threatened to break him.
“We can get through this together.”
And then, because I couldn’t be strong for my dad when I was already breaking inside, I quietly pulled him off the couch and urged him off to bed. There was nothing left for us to do now, nothing left to say.
I made it under my covers before the tears came. They were bitter, frightened tears, ones that threatened to drag me somewhere dark and cold. I sobbed into the pillow and hoped that my dad wouldn’t hear me. I wanted to hate him for what he’d done, but he was all I had now. I could never hate him.
Sometime later I fell asleep, exhausted. I dreamed of Wes’s taunting face hovering over me, laughing. Always laughing.
Chapter 11
Shane
Back to school.
I was a new man, and nothing could stop me from achieving my goal. Keep me from my destiny. Destiny was probably putting it a bit dramatically, but something told me today was going to be important. Dallas wasn’t just some girl I wanted to see naked and fool around with. She was the kind of girl a man could spend his life with, and today was the first step in seeing if that could be the case for us.
I came in through the back door and found Jake standing by the art room. It was where he always waited for me in the mornings, even though half the time I showed up right before
the bell rang. He didn’t have many other friends so if I wasn’t around he just sat and listened to music by himself. I would have felt bad for him if he didn’t enjoy it so much. It was what he spent half of his free time doing anyway.
“And on the third day, he rose again,” Jake greeted, pulling his earbuds from his ears.
I rolled my eyes and clapped him on the back. “Good to see you too.”
“Good? Just good? You wound me.”
I laughed. “Gotta keep you on your toes, or you might leave me for another.”
“Fat chance.” Jake snorted. “You’re the only person in this whole school who’s tolerable to be around.”
“Not the only one. In fact, there’s a pretty little girl in particular that I’ve got some business with.”
We started walking toward the cafeteria, where most of the students gathered in the mornings to work on homework, chat, and fool around in general. Jake and I didn’t usually go there, but it was my best bet for finding Dallas.
“I assume you’re talking about that Dallas girl?” Jake asked as we stepped into the crowded cafeteria.
I started scanning the room for a flash of her auburn hair.
“You would assume correctly.”
“I think you’re going to have a problem conducting your business then.”
I understood his meaning when my eyes landed on the back of Dallas’s head a moment later. She was seated at a table in the middle of the room with half of the football team and a couple of her friends. She wasn’t looking in my direction, but Wes was. The expression on his face was pure malice, and he slung an arm territorially around the back of Dallas’s chair. I watched her stiffen and my hands tensed at my sides. The douchebag may as well have started pounding on his chest like the ape he was.
“Hold your horses, John Wayne,” Jake said. “Why don’t you just wait to talk to her in math class?”
Much as I didn’t want to admit defeat, Jake was right. The other guys had noticed by now that I was standing there, and they all glared. Rob looked particularly deadly, silver glinting on his bared teeth. He would use the wire to carve out my eyeballs if I gave him a chance.
Royal Engagement Page 133