Dare to Love (Maxwell #3)

by S. B. Alexander

  A car sped past. The driver honked his horn and spewed cuss words at me. I threw him the finger as I darted out of the road, in between two cars, then up on the sidewalk. Small rocks embedded in my feet, and I welcomed the pain. Pain was a sign I was alive.

  One more block. One more chance. One more look before the one girl I loved walked away with my heart in her hands.

  The moving truck came into view on the tree-lined street. Large men swarmed the lawn. Some were hauling huge appliances. Two others were moving boxes around.

  I stopped across from Lizzie’s house, wiping the sweat from my face with my sweat-soaked T-shirt. I gulped in air as an elderly man walked past with his dog on a leash. The dachshund paused to lick my foot, the sensation a rather calming contrast to my racing pulse.

  “Harvey.” The old man scolded the dachshund as he tugged on the leash.

  I kept my eyes on the two-story stucco house. Would she come out? Was her father home? He’d forbidden her to see me. We’d had to sneak around for the last month. My mom even said it was best if I broke ties with Lizzie. How could she say that? Lizzie was my best friend. We did everything together. She’d loved to throw the baseball, play tackle football, and climb trees. She was beautiful. She had blue-gray eyes and a distinctive square gold speck in her left eye that I would always tease her about. I’d dubbed it the pot of gold.

  “You just want to kiss her,” my big brother Kade had said. “Girls are trouble, especially at your age.”

  I was a teenager. Okay, I was thirteen, and puberty was hitting me hard. Sure, I wanted to kiss Lizzie, but only because she had the prettiest lips I’d ever seen. The bottom one was slightly thicker than the top, and they always seemed to have a pinkish color to them.

  A horn blew, shattering my thoughts.

  Mrs. Reardon came out of the house, carrying a suitcase. “Elizabeth, get moving. Your father will be home any minute.” Then she disappeared behind the moving van.

  At the sound of Lizzie’s name, my heart beat even faster than when I was running over there. I scanned the neighborhood in both directions. The coast was clear. So I hurried across the street. As my feet touched the burnt grass on the front lawn, Mrs. Reardon spotted me.

  “Kelton, young man. You shouldn’t be here. If Mr. Reardon catches you, he’ll call your parents.”

  He could call the National Guard. I didn’t care. I wasn’t leaving until I said good-bye to Lizzie. I tilted my head slightly, trying to put on puppy-dog eyes. It always worked with my mom. “Two minutes.” Hell, I wanted more than two minutes. I wanted a lifetime to say the things I needed to say but didn’t know how.

  “You’re young, Kelton. It’s infatuation. You don’t know what love is,” she said as she pulled out a small cloth from the pocket of her shorts and patted it along her neck.

  Tell that to my heart. Lizzie’s voice always turned my insides to mush. I knew her tomboy personality made me love her more. I knew her touch gave me butterflies. Most of all, I knew when we were together the world around us didn’t exist. I knew without a doubt that the minute she drove away, the minute I didn’t get to talk to her, the minute I didn’t get to touch her, was the minute I would die inside.

  “Kelton.” Mrs. Reardon snapped her fingers in front of my face.

  I blinked away the hurt that was engulfing me.

  “One minute,” she said softly.

  I was about to dart around the house and slip in through the side door when Lizzie walked out of the front.

  I drew in a breath as our eyes met. She had on a tank top, battered jeans shorts with the insides of the front pockets hanging out at the bottom, and a bandana around her neck. Her brownish-black hair was pulled into a high ponytail, which gave me the opportunity to stare at her satiny skin.

  “Kelton, what are you doing here?” She searched the road. “My father will be home.”

  Screw her father. He could beat me until I was blue. He’d chased me one time when he caught us kissing.

  “I had to say good-bye. You’ve been ignoring me for a week.” It was summer break, so I didn’t get to see her every day like I did when school was in session. I shuffled closer to her, desperately wanting to touch her but afraid if I did I wouldn’t let go.

  Her mother went inside.

  Lizzie climbed down the steps, adjusting the pink bandana on her neck. “I’m sorry. I thought it would be best.” Tears clouded her eyes, but the pot of gold in her left eye shone through. She dropped her gaze to the ground.

  With my thumb, I caught a tear. “Please don’t cry.” I couldn’t see her cry. It broke my heart even more. “We’ll talk on the phone.”

  She lifted her watery eyes to mine. “It’ll be too expensive from England.”

  It was going to kill me not to hear her voice. I leaned down until a tiny space separated our lips. “Then we’ll email each other.”

  The sound of an engine drifted toward us, and as she moved to check out the oncoming car, her lips touched mine. I had to kiss her. I didn’t care who was around or if her father was the one in the noisy car. I had to taste the sweet bubblegum lip-gloss she wore. I had to inhale her jasmine scent and imbed the essence of Lizzie Reardon into my memory well enough to last a lifetime.

  She stiffened when I pushed my tongue through her lips.

  “Please, Lizard.”

  She melted into me as she always did when I called her Lizard. I took her in my arms as she trembled, and I tentatively kissed her. Her tongue slithered out until the roar of the engine slowed.

  She gently pushed away. “You better go,” she said, almost out of breath.

  Suddenly, a cold shiver gripped my body even though I was sweating like a pig. A car pulled to a stop in the driveway. Her father grimaced in our direction. But if he didn’t want me near his daughter, he would need to chase me with an ax before I moved. “Why does your father hate me?” I had to know why he didn’t want us to see each other. Every other time I’d asked her, she’d changed the subject.

  “He doesn’t. He’s just torn up over what happened. And every time he sees you or any of your brothers, he can’t handle it. He blames himself.”

  “It was an accident.” A pain shot through my heart at the still-too-vivid image of seeing Karen on a stretcher being wheeled out of the garage just over a month ago.

  “That may be, but we’re all mourning, especially Gracie. You know how close they were as friends. She’s so distraught that she’s barely talked since the accident. My dad feels that keeping our distance from your family is best.”

  Gracie and Karen had somehow gotten into my father’s gun cabinet in the garage. One thing led to another, and Gracie accidentally shot Karen.

  I tried to push out the pain. I tried to erase the images of my mom crying and the sounds of sobs and screams coming from her bedroom in the middle of the night.

  “Is that why you’re moving?” I asked.

  The car door slammed shut, sounding like a cannon going off and making us both flinch slightly.

  She nodded with sad eyes. “I’m sorry, Kel. Even if we stayed, I’m not sure I could be with you anymore without seeing the hurt in your eyes or you blaming me and my family.”

  The blood rushed out of me. As I stood in front of this girl, all I saw was her beauty and warm heart. I choked back tears. “I could never blame you.”

  “But what about Gracie?”

  I looked past her to Mr. Reardon. His short stature was unassuming, but his narrowed gaze was anything but. I didn’t know the answer to her question even though it was an accident. Maybe even my fault.

  “I got to run.” She started to leave.

  “Wait.” I dipped my hand into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out a chain with a half-heart charm. “I want you to have this.” I handed her the necklace I’d bought with my allowance.

  She glanced at it then up at me, tears streaming down her face. “Where’s the other half?”

  I grabbed her hand and flattened her palm against my own heart. “Rig
ht here.”

  She drew in a sharp breath, her bottom lip trembling.

  “I’ll find you one day, Lizard.”

  She smiled weakly.

  “You’ll always be the other half of my heart,” I said as she walked away.

  In the art class, a chair scraped along the floor. I blinked away the past to find the auburn-haired girl hurrying from the room while the rest of the students were still absorbed in their sketchpads.

  “You’re free to go,” Mr. Brewer said, standing in front of the platform. “You did well. You didn’t move a beat, although you made the new girl, Emma, a little squirmy by staring at her the whole time.”

  “Did I scare her that bad?” I asked jokingly as I covered myself with the towel and pushed to my feet.

  “She had to leave early. I’ll see you next week.” He ambled around the desks, checking the students’ artwork.

  I was about to tell him I would see him at the art gallery tonight then decided not to. I didn’t need the girls in this class knowing my schedule. I stalked behind the partition and made quick work of getting out of the towel and into my clothes. I had a math class I had to get to on the other side of campus.

  Once I was outside, the frigid February air hit me like a girl I’d once dumped had slapped me. It was a welcome relief at the moment from the heated room and the crazy trip down memory lane. I zipped up my leather jacket then pulled out my knit cap and covered my head. I made it a few steps before I spied Emma talking to a dude with shoulder-length hair next to an old, beat-up Camaro. He looked my way, causing Emma to do the same before she said something to him. The dude studied me.

  I shoved my hands in my pockets and strutted over to them. I wanted to at least apologize to her if I’d scared her.

  They scurried into the car like I was a criminal about to shake them down. He peeled out. I stopped in my tracks and winced at an oncoming SUV about to crash into them. At the last second, the SUV swerved, narrowly missing the Camaro. The driver in the SUV honked his horn as he slowed.

  I watched the Camaro fade into the distance, wondering what I did to scare them.

  2

  Lizzie

  I spun around in my seat and glanced behind me as Dillon dodged cars on the streets of Boston. My pulse was racing, and I couldn’t get it to slow down. What were the odds that I’d find Kelton Maxwell after all these years, and of all places, posing for an art class in nothing but a darn cowboy hat? His Greek godlike form made my mouth dry, but what had me doing everything I could to hold back tears was the lizard he had inked on his abs and his left arm. He used to call me Lizard. If it weren’t for the itchy red wig covering my dark hair and the green-colored contacts masking my blue-gray eyes, I swore he would’ve recognized me. Then again, I wasn’t sure he hadn’t.

  Get a grip, girl. You’re in Boston to find the man who stole your inheritance, not pine over Kelton. I almost laughed at my subconscious. I was sitting in the freaking front row, admiring the boy who’d graced my dreams every night for the last seven years. He still had those piercing blue eyes that contrasted so well with his black hair, and that scar on his chin brought back wonderful memories of playing with him in his tree house. The one difference now—Kelton was all man. An extremely handsome and well-toned man. I was certain he made all the girls drool or squeeze their lady parts. Yikes! I had to squeeze my legs. Not to mention, I had to swallow several times to quell the nerves, excitement, and fear that had coursed through me.

  Dillon’s deep baritone drilled through my brain. “You want to tell me what that was all about, and why you were in such a hurry to get away?”

  “You can slow down now.” I righted myself just in time to see we were hurtling toward the back end of a dump truck before Dillon cut the wheel hard to the right and into an alley, slamming on his brakes.

  I lurched forward slightly, thankful I’d managed to strap myself in. Otherwise, I would be sailing through the windshield right about now.

  He threw the car into park. “Who was the pretty boy?” He stabbed a thumb behind him as his thick eyebrows bunched together. “Is he your boyfriend? Tell me. I want to know who you’re messed up with.”

  “Fuck off. Who I know or who I’m with is none of your fucking business. I’m paying you to get me a gun and ammo. That’s it. One that can’t be traced.”

  His nostrils flared, shifting his skull nose ring. “Sweetheart, I need to know who my clients are. Just because you partied with my cousin twice removed doesn’t mean I trust you. That dude back there looks like the guy who dates Pitt’s princess.”

  I scrunched up my nose. “And that means what exactly?” I’d only been in town a week.

  “That means I’m not getting involved with the Russian mob. Start talking.” He mashed his lips into a thin line.

  I wasn’t about to tell Dillon that Kelton and I were childhood sweethearts. Or how I’d cried my eyes out, locked myself in my room, and didn’t eat for a week after we moved away. Or how I dreamed of him every night. No matter how scary a vibe Dillon gave me or what type of illegal business he was running, my business was my own. Sure, he could probably hurt me, even make me disappear, but I had to choose my battles at the moment, and sharing my childhood with him had no place in this conversation.

  Dillon reached over the console and grabbed my arm. “Do you know him?” he asked, his tone dripping venom. “If it’s Kelton Maxwell, I’m not selling you shit. Rumor is he’s about to marry the daughter of the head of the Russian mob. I value my miserable life. If the mob gets wind my crew is selling guns under their noses, I’m dead. As well as my crew. Plus, if that isn’t enough, his older brother is mixed up with a gal who’s the granddaughter of some Italian mobster out of LA. You get me?”

  My heartbeat dipped drastically at the thought of Kelton getting married. Actually, my stomach suddenly hurt as though I’d been sucker punched. I rolled my shoulders back. After I’d had a meltdown over moving away from Kelton, I’d put my life back together, sealing off a part of my heart that Kelton had stolen. I had to in order to help my sister, Gracie, overcome the tragic incident. Even more so when she committed suicide after two years of a life worse than hell. After her death, I focused on the positive things in life like she would’ve wanted me to.

  “Chill, all right? I get you.” And you don’t want to get on my bad side either. I shrugged out of his hold.

  I’d been on my own for two years. Protecting myself and handling thugs like him became second nature to me after I was attacked on the streets of Miami.

  “You sure are confident and cocky for a chick. Maybe you should be working on my crew.” His features softened. “The guys wouldn’t know what hit them with someone like you.”

  I laughed. “You want me to sell guns for you?”

  He sat back against his seat. “Your arms are well-toned, you seem like you can kick ass, and there’s an innocence about you. Yet I can tell you’re far from innocent. And I get the feeling you’re pissed off at the world. You have fire in your eyes, like you’re ready to kill someone. I like that. I could use that on my crew.”

  I was ready to kill someone—the trustee of my father’s estate, if I could find him. First, I had to get my life savings back. The law was of no help until I could prove the trustee stole my inheritance. But if working for Dillon meant I could have access to a gun, then maybe cutting a deal with him wouldn’t be so bad.

  We studied each other as if we were two lions about to do battle. Dillon hardened his strong, square jaw, flaring his nostrils.

  I sucked in my cheek. He was right. I was more than angry at the world and all the turmoil I’d been through. Regardless, I wasn’t about to feel sorry for myself. I’d been on that emotional rollercoaster. It was time to buck up and get back what was mine.

  “Who are you hiding from?” he asked, breaking the thick silence. “Don’t tell me no one. You’re wearing a wig. And you still haven’t told me why you wanted to run from that dude.”

  The Caribbean could freeze
before I’d tell you.

  “Look, Emma, if that’s even your name. Whether you work for me or not, you still want a gun. Which means I need to trust that you’re not going to rat me out to the cops. If it’s trust you’re worried about, let it go. I stand to lose more than you.”

  I could argue that point. I had a million dollars in my inheritance that I had to get back. “Are you going to sell me a gun? If not, I’ll find someone else.” I opened the door. With my luck, the landlord in Miami I owed back rent would find me and hold me hostage until I could pay him. Not to mention, I owed the University of Miami a semester of tuition that I’d thought had been paid.

  “My cousin tells me you lost your family.”

  “I’m out of here.” I was about to jump out of the car when he took hold of my arm once again.

  “Wait. I’m sorry. I hate when people pry into my past too.”

  I sat back. “Listen, sell me a gun, and you’ll never see me again.” I didn’t want to research another dealer or get caught up with someone who didn’t seem as nice as Dillon. Or with my luck I would find that one person who was connected to the mob. Given what Dillon had mentioned about the mob, I wanted to stay away from them.

  He kept his brown gaze glued to me as he seemed to be mulling over something. “I’ll text you a time and place to meet me tonight.” He shifted the Camaro into gear.

  I dove into my own thoughts as he drove through the busy streets of Boston. I contemplated whether to at least tell Dillon what I was hiding from. I could use a guy like him, a guy who knew the city, in the event I got myself into a pickle.

  “I’m not hiding. I’m disguising. I’m looking for someone who stole from me. Let’s just say what he stole was very valuable. And that man back at school, he was posing for the art class I’m taking. He was staring at me the whole time. He gives me the creeps, that’s all.” It wasn’t a total lie.