"Ready?" The sound of his voice made me jump. I'd been lost in my memories.
I turned to peer up at him, shielding my eyes from the midday sun. "I should be asking you that question. Did you study?"
"Of course. I'll ace that test," he said, grinning. "I had a patient teacher."
I reached my hand toward him, and he pulled me to my feet. "Let's go get your driver's license."
"Maybe when we get back, we can go for a swim."
I looked back over my shoulder at the stagnant, murky waters. "I'm not swimming in that lake."
"Okay. Guess we'll have to find something we both want to do to celebrate, then."
I winked at him. "Oh, I've got a few ideas."
I couldn't remember the last time I'd been laid, and honestly, if Braden didn't make a move soon, I was going to figure out a way to seduce him. His face turned bright red. I loved his naïvety, and even more than that, I loved making him blush.
Braden dangled Jeb's truck keys in front of my face. "Consider this the last time you ever have to drive me anywhere."
Jeb waved at us from the shop. He'd given us some time off to enjoy the holiday. My dad had been strongly opposed to it, but Jeb insisted, and he'd had no choice but to go along with the plan.
Braden and I didn't have to be back on the clock until Monday the eighth, and we'd been talking about some of the things we would be able to do. First stop was the Driver Services Center.
Later, when he came out holding up his license, he flashed me a mile-wide grin. The pride on his face was ice melting. He was beautiful, and I never got tired of looking at him. He was the kindest, most gentle person I'd ever met, and he tried so hard to make me happy. He had his work cut out for him, but it was times like these that made my heart swell inside my chest.
I tossed him the truck keys and waited for him to unlock the doors. We got in, and he started the engine. It was comical to watch him check everything so many times. I giggled and he frowned. "What?"
"Nothing. You just make me laugh that's all."
"I don't know if that's a good thing." He eyed me warily.
"It is. Trust me." I scooted over beside him on the bench seat and leaned in to give him a quick peck on the cheek. I was rewarded with another blush.
He cleared his throat and shifted in the seat. "Where to, Clair de Lune?"
My eyes bugged and I gawked at him. "Please don't call me that," I whispered. I blinked and turned away from the puzzled look on his face.
He reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze. "I'm sorry, Claire. I didn't mean to upset you."
"I know." I sighed and shook my head, letting out a bitter laugh. "Olivia used to call me that when we were little. Only then, it was Claire the Loon."
"Do you want me to take you home?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"No. Home's the last place I want to be right now." I gripped his fingers with my own. "Let's have a picnic."
We stopped at the deli to pick up a few things. While we were there, of all the damn people in town to run into, Alistair Anderson walked in. I tensed when I spotted him watching me through narrowed eyes like a snake in the fucking grass. Hate wasn't a strong enough word for how I felt about him.
Braden picked up on my mood shift, his gaze drifting between Alistair and me. He didn't say anything but stepped between us, blocking Alistair's line of sight. He paid for our food and wrapped his free arm around my waist protectively. I relaxed against his side, and we hurried out to the truck.
"Who the hell was that guy?" Braden asked as he fastened his seat belt. "Fucker gave me the heebie jeebies."
"Nobody important." I didn't want to share that part of my life with Braden yet. How I used to fuck that psychopath for something to do, and how he repaid me by running me off the road in Olivia's car. He was the reason I still walked with a limp, and because of him, Olivia was without her car the day she disappeared. On the days I didn't blame myself for Olivia's murder, I blamed Alistair.
"Okay," he said quietly. I knew he didn't like my non-answer by the way the muscle in his jaw ticked. But he didn't press the issue, and for that, I was grateful. "Where are we going to have this picnic of ours?"
"My backyard." It was Wednesday. Dad would be at the church until late.
I watched his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed. "Are you sure?"
"Well, we could go to your trailer, but the one time I stepped foot in that place, it must've been four-hundred degrees in there. I don't know how you can stand to sleep at night."
"I put a fan in the window and sleep naked," he muttered.
My cheeks flushed, and I shook my head to clear that image out of my dirty little mind. I wanted him, and he was making it really hard to behave myself. My restraint wasn't going to last much longer.
Our backyard was shaded by several sprawling oak trees, and it was perfect for an early evening picnic. I ran upstairs and grabbed a blanket from the cedar chest. I took a quick peek in the bathroom mirror. I tucked a few strands of hair back into the braid and sprayed on some cherry vanilla body spray before slipping back outside.
We talked and ate, and talked some more. I never got tired of listening to his beautiful buttery voice weave stories about when he was a little boy. In spite of what I had thought, Braden's childhood was happy once upon a time.
The sun went down and the first stars were starting to twinkle through the trees. I leaned back on my elbows and stared up at the sky. He lay on his back and asked, "You believe in God?"
Sure, it was random. But it was something I'd thought about many times, especially recently with what had happened to Olivia. I rolled onto my side and propped my head on my hand, watching him.
"I have a few theories on that subject, actually," I admitted after a pause. I inched closer so that my bare thigh was against his jean covered one. I was acutely aware of the heat between us and thought his breathing sped up to keep time with my pounding heart.
"Oh yeah?"
"I believe there's something out there, I really do. But the things my dad teaches, about sin and forgiveness and all that, I don't know anymore. If God punishes us for our sins, why the hell am I still here and Olivia's gone?"
Braden was quiet for so long I thought he wasn't going to respond. It wasn't as if I'd asked him a question anyway. He looped his pinkie finger around mine and softly said, "Claire. I don't know that answer, but I sure wish I did so I could give it to you."
I looked over at him and his hooded blue eyes watched me intently. I stared right back, willing him to come closer. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me. The words echoed inside my head because I was too afraid to say them out loud. What the hell was I so scared of? It wasn't like he was the first guy I'd ever kissed.
Slowly, he lowered his face to within inches of mine and whispered, "Okay I'll kiss you." And he did.
My arms curled around his neck and I pulled him closer. I had waited weeks to taste those lips, and I didn't plan on letting him go anytime soon.
We were breathless, wrapped in each other's arms. I wanted to feel his bare skin against mine. I wanted to taste every fucking inch of that beautiful rock hard body of his.
"The fuck, is it raining?" he shouted, jumping to his feet.
I sat up and burst into a fit of laughter. "It must be eight o'clock."
"Shit, fuck, I don't know, what's that got to do with anything?"
"The sprinklers are set to come on every night at eight," I said through giggles. He glared down at me for an instant before his eyes softened and he started to snicker right along with me. "I've got an idea."
"Get a bar of soap?" he teased.
"Nope," I said as I peeled my sopping wet tank top over my head and flung it at him. Next my shorts came off, leaving me in just my panties. His mouth dropped open, but he didn't look away, despite of the bright red splotches dotting his face. "I've always wanted to dance naked in the rain. And right now, this is the next best thing!"
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Braden Sayer
She danced naked beneath the sprinklers, so completely uninhibited. I watched her from the dry part of the lawn. I knew she wanted me to lose my clothes and join her, but I couldn't. Not that I didn't want to, but it kept crossing my mind that if her daddy came home and caught me naked in the backyard with his daughter, it wouldn't bode well for either of us.
Seeing her smile for the first time in weeks made me happy. She'd been a shell of a girl ever since Olivia disappeared. I wanted to fix things for her, but didn't know how. This was supposed to be the time of her life. Out of high school, her whole future ahead of her ... summer was meant to be a time for cutting loose and having fun. So, I watched while she closed her eyes and danced. Letting her shut out the rest of the world, forgetting, if only for a few minutes, the pain of her loss.
I couldn't take my eyes off of her and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch her, feel her naked skin beneath my fingertips. It took every fucking ounce of restraint I could muster just to sit and watch her spin in slow, sexy circles on the wet grass. The way she held her arms above her as her hips swayed to the beat of some song only she could hear made my dick harder than it had ever been.
She spun in my direction opening her eyes wide as though she had just remembered I was sitting there admiring her for the first time. She covered her mouth and began to laugh--sweet, almost childlike giggles at first. Soon she was laughing so hard she collapsed to her knees in the soggy yard.
After a few minutes, her eyes heated into something resembling full-on lust. Not that I had a freaking clue what that looked like, but if I had to give it a name, it was the only thing I could think of in that moment. She began to crawl toward me on her hands and knees, and the look of seduction was replaced with something much more predatory.
I groaned and pulled my knees up, wrapping my arms around them. My dick was ready to wave the white flag in surrender, and the closer she got, the more it throbbed. She was like a feline stalking its prey.
She stopped in front of me, sat up on her knees, and put her hands on my shoulders. Her breasts were at eye level. I licked my lips and tried to look away, but she cupped my chin with determined fingers.
"Look at me," she said. When I did, her eyes were dark, her pupils completely dilated in the moonlight. "Dammit, Braden, why won't you fucking touch me? Don't you like me? Aren't you attracted to me? Do you think I'm ugly? What is it? What the fuck is wrong with me?"
The water streaming down her face had turned to tears. She balled her fists and slammed them against my chest again and again.
I clamped my hands around her wrists, staying her for a moment. "Claire, you are the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. You always have been. I want you so fucking much, you have no idea. But, I want it to be right. The right time. The right place." I stopped talking and motioned around the yard. "This is not the right place."
She collapsed against me, nearly naked and soaking wet, and we fell back into the grass. I wrapped my arms around her, painfully aware of her hip pressing against my erection. I groaned and she stilled against me. "Thank God. At least I turn you on. That's one good thing."
I chuckled and kissed her hair. "Thanks for noticing."
The thing about living on a gravel road was you could hear cars for miles on a still night. "Claire, I think somebody's coming."
"Oh shit. Dad."
We disentangled from one another, and she zipped around the yard gathering her clothes as she went. By the time the reverend pulled up the driveway, she disappeared inside the house leaving me alone in the gazebo listening to the sound of the crickets.
After a few minutes, she came back outside dressed in dry clothes and joined me.
"You think if I left right now, he'd think I was up to no good with his daughter?"
"Most likely," she said. She reached for my hand and stood, tugging me to my feet. "Come on. Let's go say hi. Then you can leave with a clean conscience."
Before I left, I made her promise to spend Thursday with me, starting with the parade. Our first real date. My palms were sweating already just thinking about it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Brogan Sayer
Aja was softly snoring beside me on the mattress. I couldn't sleep, so I turned on the TV to see if there was any more news in the disappearance of Olivia Copeland. She'd been dead for about a month, and last I heard they were pinning it on that homeless guy. There had been some talk about them dragging Devil's Fork Lake, but they evidently decided not to do that. They held her funeral even though there was no body.
Yeah, I'd fucked up and killed the wrong sister. It would be laughable if it didn't piss me off so much. I swung my legs off the bed and pulled on a pair of boxers. The air was so thick with humidity that as soon as I walked out the back door I was covered in a thin layer of sweat. It was going to be another sauna-like day. The farmers were all bitching about the crops needing rain and everybody was tired of the heat wave.
When I dumped that bitch's body in the water that day, I hadn't gone too far out. If we didn't get some friggin' rain soon, they wouldn't need to drag the lake to find her corpse. There wouldn't be much left of it after the bottom feeders got through with it, anyway.
I sat and tried to come up with a plan. The wrong girl was dead and I needed to fix that. They say once you get the taste of blood in your system, it becomes a hunger, like an addiction. The power I held over her as she struggled for her last breath was such a fucking headrush. My only regret about committing murder was the fact that I'd fucked up and took out Olivia Copeland instead of Claire.
Make no mistake, Claire was still going to have to die. Otherwise, I'd be letting my brother one-up me, yet again. Screw that. I just had to figure out how I was going to do it, and when. The last time had been a stroke of luck. The right place at the right time--for me, anyway. I had to do it right and not leave anything to chance.
Soon as I took care of that little problem, Aja and I could get the fuck out of this shithole neighborhood. She wanted to visit her brother in Mexico, and I was good with that. Anything had to be better than nowhere, Tennessee.
Aja was in the shower when I went back inside. I was antsy and needed to go somewhere. I hurried up and got dressed before taking her car keys off the hook in the kitchen. If I took her with me, I'd have to answer a hundred stupid questions I didn't feel like answering. She'd be pissed, but she'd get over it sooner or later.
I chuckled as I thought how the way to a man's heart was supposed to be through his stomach. Well, the way to Aja's heart was through her pussy. I jogged down the steps, got in the car, and took off in the direction of the marina.
Reverend Copeland didn't live too far up the road from Uncle Jeb. It was early morning on the Fourth of July and most people were gathered in downtown Hensteeth to watch the annual parade. Traffic to the lake was practically nonexistent.
My driving skills had improved, but I still had to be cautious. Wrecking Aja's car would not be good. She'd have me by the balls and there'd be cops involved. I liked my freedom way too much to ever let them lock me up again. Hell no.
The Copeland house sat back off the road, and I slowed down to a crawl as I crept by. There wasn't nothing to see from the road, and I couldn't risk driving up their lane. They'd spot this red car a mile away so I kept on going. A mile or two past their place was where Uncle Jeb lived. In the front, right out by the road, there was an old trailer. I coasted to a stop and watched for any signs of life. Before too long, the front door pushed open and my brother stepped out onto the wrought iron steps. I held my breath and hoped he didn't look in my direction. He pulled the door shut behind him and walked toward Uncle Jeb's house. As soon as he was out of sight, I let out the breath I'd been holding and drove back home.
Killing the one sister was supposed to be my way of getting even with my brother. That wasn't fucking good enough. Murdering Claire, and doing it in a way that pointed the finger at Braden, yeah, that would be the icing on the cake.
I grinned all the way back to Aja's, until I saw her sitting on the back step waiting for me with a look of death in her eyes. It would take some smooth talking on my part to get out of it with my gonads intact. Not much scared me, but bleeding to death by castration was not the way I wanted to go.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Claire Copeland
Dad and I spent most of our time avoiding each other, and it kept the peace. I was surprised he had actually been pleasant to Braden last night. After I walked him to his truck and said goodnight, I darted through the kitchen so I wouldn't get the third degree. I put up with a lot of crap from my dad, but if he started in on me about Braden not being good enough for me, I swear I would lose my patience.
I held on to my sanity like a life preserver, and Braden was the only reason I was still afloat. The guilt I felt over Olivia's death threatened to pull me under constantly and make me snap like a twig.
Dad never stepped foot in my bedroom, and neither of us had been inside Olivia's room since she'd disappeared. I saw him standing in the hallway with his head resting on her door once, but that's the closest thing to emotion I'd seen out of him.
Who the hell was he trying to stay strong for? He didn't even cry at her funeral. Boy, I did. I was a blubbering mess, and I didn't care what people thought. One of these days, Dad was going to crack from the pressure of keeping everything bottled up. I hoped to hell I wasn't around when it happened.
Braden would be picking me up any minute to go to the parade. I'd been up, showered and dressed for hours since I hadn't slept a whole lot the night before. Rather than stare up at the ceiling, I got up. I'd heard Dad leave about an hour ago. The church always sponsored a float in the parade. Being the control freak that he is, he had to get to town early to make sure everything was done to his satisfaction.
As soon as Dad left, I ran down and sat on the front steps to wait for Braden. At nine-thirty on the dot Jeb's pickup came bouncing up the lane, and a sense of calm washed over me. The driver's side window was rolled down and his arm was resting on the doorframe. He had a shit eating grin on his face as I climbed inside and scooted over beside him.
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