“You sure about this?” he asked Hallie when they were in the den. “Still want me to take all of them?”
“Yep.” She rubbed her hands over the legs of her khaki shorts, which were, well, short, but a little grimy again—and glanced at Cole, who was leaning up against the wall with Cal and Luke, because there was no place to sit down. “Are you sure, Cole?” she asked him. “That you don’t want a hunting rifle, maybe?”
“How come you don’t want them?” Cole asked.
She looked at him for a moment and finally answered, her tone measured, “I didn’t like my father very much. I don’t like hunting, either, although saying that will probably get me kicked out of Idaho before my year is up. And, yes,” she said with a hint of a smile, “that’s hypocritical, because I do eat meat. Maybe I just don’t want to own something that my father used to kill a living creature. It feels too . . . destructive. I’d say it brings dark energy, but . . .”
“Yeah,” Cal said, “that’s a little bit Seattle. But I don’t think any of us is unfamiliar with dark energy, except that Cole may not have had the pleasure.”
“I’ll bet you kill insects, though,” Cole told Hallie, still sounding sullen but slightly more interested. “How is that less of a living creature than a deer?”
Jim said, “Cole,” but Hallie made a patting motion at him with her hand and said, “Good question. Level of sentience, maybe? Should that matter? How much pain does an ant feel? Did you know that followers of Jainism sweep little whisk brooms ahead of them wherever they go so they’ll never step on a bug?”
“Really?” Cole said. “Wicked.”
“Or not,” she said with her sweet smile. “But I know what you mean. I suppose it’s just a matter of finding your comfort level. I’m not comfortable with my father’s guns, so I’m getting rid of them. But if any of you wants one,” she said, taking in all the men with her glance, “please feel free.”
“No, thanks,” Luke said. “I’m not too big on the dark energy myself.”
Everybody else shook their heads as well, and Hallie said, “All right, then. I’ll just believe that the dark energy floats away with distance, and toss them out into the void,” and gave Cole another little smile. Not pushing it. Casual. She taught high school, Jim remembered. I know teenagers, she’d said. I even like them. He could tell it was true.
Now, Jim shoved with a booted foot at two dusty rolls of carpet and foam backing that lay against the long wall where the couch had been, under the picture window. “Am I guessing that this is why you’re all messed up again?” he asked Hallie. “That you decided to rip this out by yourself?”
Luke muttered, “Smooth, man,” Cole snorted, and Jim frowned absently at both of them.
“Yes,” Hallie said. “It wasn’t that hard. I just finished.” She looked down at herself. “I should’ve cleaned up, though. Whoops.” She tugged her blue V-necked T-shirt down, which didn’t exactly help much, as far as Jim was concerned; just showed him some more cleavage he wasn’t supposed to look at.
“You could’ve told me,” he persisted. “We’d have given you a hand.”
“Maybe,” Cal drawled. “Or Mountain Man here could’ve done it all by his lonesome, thrown it into his rig with a mighty heave, and taken all the credit. And what?” he asked at another frown from Jim. “I get that wrong?”
“Well,” Jim said, deciding that his safest bet was to ignore his cousins, “I will throw it in my rig and haul it to the dump tomorrow. On my way to Spokane with the guns,” he added hastily. “No problem. It’s on the way.” Oh. He’d already said that.
Cal said, “Could we get to the guns sometime this week, do you think? I’m supposed to take Zoe dancing. Got the folks babysitting overnight and everything. No offense, Hallie.”
“None taken,” she said. “I heard you had a baby.”
“Yep. Alice. Just turned one in August.” Right on cue, he pulled his phone out of his back pocket and started thumbing down it. “Here you go.”
“She’s so cute,” Hallie said.
Cal scrolled some more and said, “This is her on her Big Wheel. She’s already scooting around like crazy. Walked at nine months, and I swear, she was running about a week later, seemed like. She’s kind of a terror.”
Jim didn’t say anything, just grabbed the hand truck, set to work with Cole and Luke to get the safe up onto it, then said, “If you’re all done boring Hallie to death, Cal, you could give us a hand.”
“Hey,” he said, “I’m entertaining her.”
“Not so much,” Luke said. “I have a feeling she’s seen a baby before.”
“Not one this cute,” Cal said with certainty, and Jim smiled and rolled the cart out the door, and Cal finally put his phone away and helped out.
It took some effort even with the four of them to get nearly four hundred pounds’ worth of guns and fire safe hauled up onto the pad lining the bed of Jim’s rig, while Hallie hovered around and said, “Should I help?” and Jim said, “No,” and Luke shook his head.
They got it in there eventually, and then Jim ran a chain over and around the top of the safe and fastened it to the metal rings at the corners of the truck bed and locked it down. Not the best, because there was nothing to run the chain through on the safe, but as much as he could do. Finally, he spread a mover’s blanket over the whole thing.
He’d washed the truck before he’d come over here. He hoped that wasn’t too obvious. Or that it was. Whichever was better.
“I hope you’re admiring Jim’s muscles,” Luke told Hallie while Jim finished up. “I swear, I thought he was going to strain something vital there, trying to show you how he benches three hundred.”
“I’m admiring all of you,” she said, and Jim looked up fast from his chaining to see her smile trying to break out. “This is kind of the high school dream, isn’t it? The three of you out here at my house in your Levi’s and boots, carrying heavy things? Excuse me, Cole,” she added. “Indelicate.”
“Those two, maybe,” Jim said, snapping the heavy padlock closed with a satisfying snick. “I wasn’t anybody’s high school dream.”
She looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. Luke spoke up instead, because Luke always spoke up. “Nah. The bad boys always get the hottest girls. Isn’t that right, Hallie?”
She shot a look at Luke, then was looking away again with some color creeping up her chest and making its way into her cheeks. Cole opened his mouth to say something, then shut it again, and Jim realized that Hallie would think he’d talked about her. He said, “Shut up, Luke.”
Luke looked startled, but said, “Sure. We’ll go get that carpet. Give me a hand, guys.”
Jim watched them go, then said to Hallie, “I didn’t tell them.”
That was all they had time for, because Luke and Cal were back with the roll of dusty carpet and heaving it into the truck bed beside the safe, Cole following behind them with a smaller roll.
“You could keep these in here until you’re back from Spokane,” Cal suggested. “Make it look like you’re hauling a bunch of junk.”
“Thanks,” Jim said. “Already had that thought.”
“Ah, yeah,” Cal said. “I’m being bossy again.” He told Luke, “Come on, bro. I’ll drop you off at your place and go boss somebody who actually likes it.”
“She doesn’t like it,” Luke said.
“Well, she kind of likes it,” Cal said. “Depends.”
“And on that note,” Luke said, “we’re taking off. Come on, Cole. We’ll drop you off on the way. Good to see you again, Hallie. I guess I should say, ‘Welcome home.’”
“Thanks so much, guys,” she said. “Really. Thank you, too, Cole.”
“No problem,” Luke said, and he and Cal sauntered out, followed by Cole. They hopped up in Cal’s rig, and took off down the driveway.
“He was being tactful,” Hallie said. “Luke, I mean. Taking Cole, too.”
“He was,” Jim said. “And I didn’t tell anybody
. At the time, or now. I found out why it didn’t get out, too. Turns out the sheriff told the deputies that heads would roll if anybody talked about it. That came from your dad, of course, so you could say that’s one good thing he did for you, even if he really did it for himself. I always figured my mom and Anthea would know. Couldn’t figure out why they didn’t mention it. Now I know. But the will isn’t a secret, so sooner or later people are going to talk.”
“What about that deputy who . . . found us?” she asked. “Is he still working there?”
“No. He’s down in Union City now. I do see him from time to time, though. He said something early on, but not after that.” Not after Jim had told him he wasn’t a teenager anymore, and that he’d be happy to discuss Hallie with him. Outside.
“It’s OK,” she said. “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah. It does. It mattered then, and it matters now.” She seemed to have no expectation that anybody would defend her. That anybody would even stick up for her.
She nodded again, then said, “Thanks for bringing Cole. I guess the first time’s the hardest, huh?”
“Hope so.” He looked at her, and she looked back at him, then away, bit her lip, then cleared her throat.
“Cal and Luke Jackson,” she said at last. “It takes me back.”
They were still standing by the truck, and she was leaning up against the tailgate now. Still looking messy. Still looking just fine. Soft pink lips, big green eyes, clear pale skin, pretty curvy body. Just fine.
“I’m guessing you probably had a thing for one of them,” he said. “Or both of them. Cal, probably, though.” Luke had been in their year, Cal two years older. Captain of the football team, king of the school. Jim had hated both of them with a deep, shameful, burning passion, because he’d thought they had everything he didn’t. All those years he’d spent resenting them, and all the time, it had had everything to do with him, and nothing to do with them.
She said, “Cal? Too remote. On another plane.”
“Ah. Luke.” Another golden boy. Homecoming King, hometown royalty in every way, and now, the principal of that same high school.
“Too clean-cut, I guess,” she said. “He was right. It was the bad boy for me. Always.”
He was still working out how to answer that when she said, “I should invite you to have a beer out on the deck, to say thanks. But I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“It could just be a beer.”
Her gaze was level. Steady. “Could it?”
“No,” he admitted. “Probably not. Because I want to kiss you again.”
Her eyes hadn’t been this dark before, surely. She was leaning back a little more, looking at him, her lips parted, her breath coming too fast, and he muttered, “Aw, hell,” put his hands on her shoulders, leaned down, and brushed his lips over hers.
Just like that. Just like before. Warm, and soft, and right there for him. He had an arm around her, was hauling her up against him, his other hand was tangling in her curls, and he was kissing her harder. Kissing her better. She was backed against his truck, her sweet mouth opening under his, her body molding to his like it had been made for it, because, God help him, it had.
He kissed her, and then he kissed her some more. There would never be enough of his mouth moving over hers, swallowing her sighs, her little moans. Of feeling her hands coming up to hold his shoulders, like she couldn’t help hanging on any more than he could.
Finally, when he couldn’t stand not to do it, he licked into her. She tasted sweet and salty and hot, so he did that some more, too. And when his hand went down to grab the curve of her ass in those little shorts, only because he had to do that to haul her closer, and then stayed there, his fingers brushing bare skin and, best of all, that wonderful crease, she gave that little gasp again, and she wriggled. She was snuggling closer, and he was holding her tight and eating her up, and he had to keep doing it.
His other hand was still behind her head, so he could hold her where he needed her to be, but her own hand was between their bodies now, and he realized, after too long, that she was shoving him. Shoving him away. It took a second, but he dropped the hand that had been holding her up, stepped back, tried to wrestle himself into some kind of control again, and ran his hand over the back of his head. And, finally, managed to look at her again.
If her chest had been heaving some before—now, it was doing a whole lot more than that. She was wearing some kind of barely there bra, just like the first time. He could see those two hard little points, and it was killing him. His hand wanted to go there, to slide right inside and explore that. His hand had to go there. Except it couldn’t.
“Wait,” she said.
“Yeah. I’ll just . . .” He gestured toward the truck and wished he didn’t have a hard-on the size of a sledgehammer. There was no disguising it, so he didn’t even try. “I should get on back. Home, I mean. I should . . .”
He could see the movement of her throat when she swallowed. Her skin was so translucent, it was like he could see straight through it. Her emotions were right there underneath it. He could see them, too. Confusion—and something else. Desire, maybe. Hurt, for sure. Too much hurt, which was his fault. “Yeah,” she said. “Sorry. I should’ve . . .”
“No,” he said. “Not your fault. I did that.” He tore his gaze away from those big green eyes, which were surely darker than they had been earlier. Did her eyes change color with her emotions? It seemed like it, but that was impossible. “I’ll go,” he said. “I’ll, uh, call you tomorrow. Tell you what price he’s offering.”
“Oh,” she said after a second. “Yeah. Sure. The guns. Thanks.” It seemed like she didn’t realize that she was still pressed up against the back of his rig. He saw the moment when it sank in, because she jumped away and said, “No, really. Thanks for everything. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, then.”
He got in the truck and drove on out of there, told himself to call Danielle Delgado and knew he wouldn’t.
Because that wouldn’t be fair to Danielle, maybe. Or could be that wasn’t it at all. Danielle wouldn’t mind one bit. She wanted some uncomplicated, discreet fun, a part-time good time, and Jim could have been that. Once.
That wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was that he didn’t want Danielle. He wanted Hallie. And he couldn’t have her.
ON MY WAY
Hallie watched Jim’s brake lights blink on at the bottom of the driveway, his truck turning onto the road, carrying off her father’s weapons.
Well, that was stupid, she thought, even as her body continued to hum with arousal. Her mouth still felt swollen and tingly, and so did everything else that he’d been about to get his hands on. He’d have been shoving a hand inside her shirt in another minute, not to mention down her shorts, and she’d been doing nothing but wishing for it. He’d have done her on the truck again. She knew it. And the worst part was, she’d wanted it.
Their first time, she could have blamed him. If she hadn’t been honest with herself, that is. This time, there was no way. When he’d said, “I want to kiss you again,” all she’d thought was, “Come and get me, then.” She’d stopped herself, and him, at the last screaming minute before she would’ve been begging. Begging for his eyes and his hands and his mouth all over her. Not to mention everything in those tight Levi’s that had showed off exactly what he wanted to do to her. Which was exactly what she wanted him to do.
She hadn’t changed her clothes after the dirty, sweaty work of tearing out the carpeting, even though she’d known the guys would be coming over in half an hour. She’d told herself that there was no need to dress up for the Jackson brothers, much less for Jim Lawson, because she wasn’t in high school anymore, and she didn’t need to be attractive to any of them.
Who was she kidding?
She punched the button to close the garage, leaving Jim behind, then went into the den, and looked around. It already felt different. No guns, no carpet, no couch. Nothing but a
big-screen TV and the gleaming mahogany bar with the black leather stools she hadn’t been able to bear parting with, because they were already perfect. And because her dad had almost never sat in them. He’d always been on the couch, and the couch was gone.
She stood in the middle of the empty room, flung her arms out, and spun. Rotating past the windows, past the bar, past the TV. Henry was gone. This was hers, and so was the town. So was her life. Life didn’t often give you do-overs, but she was getting one now. That’s why she’d come back. To take charge of her life.
She was going to choose how she lived in this world, starting with how she lived in this house. Her past wasn’t her present, and it sure as hell wasn’t her future.
She’d paint in here. A soft blue-gray, maybe. Pale gray carpeting. And that pool table. When Jim sold the guns, she’d take a few thousand—she had to think how funny that sounded, so casual. A few thousand. She’d take it and fix this room up. She’d leave the master bedroom empty, would shut that door and leave it closed. But this room was going to be hers.
She still wondered if she’d done the right thing about the guns. She’d had dinner with her uncle and aunt on Wednesday, her first day back in town, and they’d asked about them.
She’d sat in their fussy dining room, now decorated in pale French provincial shabby-chic straight out of House Beautiful, and had eaten a salad consisting of a leaf of iceberg lettuce, a ring of pineapple, and a scoop of cottage cheese, followed by thick slabs of pepper steak, all made from the kind of recipe that should have been thrown out after the nineteen seventies.
“How are you getting on out there?” Dale had asked. “I heard you did some cleaning out. Kinda wished you’d asked me first, because there were a few little things I’d have liked. Mementos, you know.”
“Oh.” The familiar guilt had made Hallie’s stomach sink. “I never even considered. I’m sorry.”
“Never mind,” he’d said. “It doesn’t matter.”
“No, honey,” Faye had said. “You know it does.” She’d put a soft hand on top of her husband’s gnarled one and said, “You need to ask her about the guns. Henry meant them to come to you.”
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