Broken Hollywood (Sparrow Sisters Book 1)

by Lora Richardson

  I couldn’t read his face. He held his expression stiffly, almost stonily, but not cold. No, it was warm. Hot even. Fierce. That was exactly it. Fierce. His dark eyes were always rather intense, but now they’d gone to a whole new level. They even seemed darker, though I didn’t know how that could be possible. He licked his lips slowly, holding my gaze. “Give me five minutes.”

  My breath came out in a rush. “Okay. Sure. Yeah.”

  He walked toward me, and I stepped back from the door so he could go inside. “You can come in to wait.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll wait out here. It’s a pretty morning.” In truth, I didn’t want to see Otto right now. He’d take one look at my face and know exactly what I was thinking. He’d either tease me or take me too seriously, and I didn’t want either right now. I’d text him so he knew where we were, and then I wouldn’t have to look at him. Jesse went inside, and I sat down in the empty swing to catch my breath.

  “This is what a cave map looks like?”

  We walked through the trees, heading toward the back entrance of the cave. “Yeah. You expected something different?”

  “It’s rather crude.”

  I barked out a laugh. Otto had drawn that map. He drew most of them. I, too, found his artistic skills lacking, but since I was no better, I left it to him. He’d joined the state speleological survey when he and Emily discovered their cave system. He’d spent many years learning how to survey. He was hoping to one day find a passage that would connect his cave system to a larger system to the west.

  “Otto makes the maps, you’ll have to register your complaint with him.”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing today. Mapping? Surveying?”

  “We are. I’ll make little sketches and write down the GPS coordinates, and he’ll go over them later and draw them how he wants. But mostly we’re going to be clearing today.”

  “Clearing?”

  I pointed to the map. “See where this passage stops?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s where we stopped last time. There’s an opening, but it’s blocked by rocks. I think we can lift them out of the way and make the opening big enough to fit through.”

  “Oh.”

  I looked at Jesse. He’d gone pale, and his eyes had glazed over. This was a classic claustrophobic response. I recognized all the signs. “You told me you’re not claustrophobic,” I accused.

  “I’m not.”

  “Jesse.”

  “I used to be. Last time I was here, when I was a kid, I didn’t spend a lot of time in the caves. I liked the big cavern out front, but anything beyond that...well, the woods seemed safer.”

  I folded the map, tucking it back in my bag. This expedition might be over before it started. “But now you’re not claustrophobic?”

  “I don’t mind elevators like I used to. I was in a drainage tunnel once, for a...well, I was in one, and that didn’t bother me.”

  “You were in a drainage tunnel?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. I watched the muscles of his arm twitch and flex as he did so. Calm yourself, Cat. Stop noticing his arms.

  “One end of it was closed off and I was fine. So I think I’m fine. I guess we’ll see when we get in there.”

  Jesse was still pale. He’d been quiet on the trek to the river, and now we stood outside the opening for the new passage, the caution tape criss-crossing in front of us. “Are you sure?” I asked, peering at him, trying to keep my headlamp from shining directly in his eyes. “I only know the first part of the passage. It’s fairly high, but at some points it’s quite narrow.”

  Jesse set his backpack on the ground and unzipped it. He took out a hoodie and pulled it on. I hadn’t brought a jacket. I loved the way the smooth, cool air felt on my bare arms, so my tank top suited me fine.

  “I’m fine,” he said, fixing his hair from the way his hoodie had mussed it. A small lock of hair rested on his forehead, out of place. My fingers itched to push it back for him, but I clenched them into fists and ducked under the caution tape.

  Inside the passage, Jesse close at my back, I paused. I tilted my head way back, shining my light up to the high ceiling. “See? It’s nice and high. Lots of air.”

  He laughed softly at my teasing, but tilted his head back and looked. “I see.”

  I took out the map again, and showed him where we were. I trailed my finger up the passage. “We’ll walk this way for about twenty minutes. It’s mostly flat, which is pretty amazing. Otto has high hopes for this passage. It does slope downward in some spots, so watch your step. I’ll try to warn you when it’s going to happen, but I don’t have it memorized yet.”

  “Twenty minutes. That’s...farther in than I expected.”

  I smiled and tapped the map. “Ready? If you need to turn back at any point, just say so.”

  “I’m not turning back, Cat.”

  His voice did that thing again—that thing where it pitched a little lower than usual, where it was a little bit quieter. I shook off the goosebumps and tucked the map under my arm, and walked ahead, trying not to be nervous.

  “So you have twin sisters. Tell me about the rest of your family.”

  We walked at a normal pace as I talked, telling him about Aunt Glory and Tyler. It wasn’t that much different than walking down a hallway at this point. “I have a small family, but we’re close-knit. Isn’t that a neat phrase? Close-knit. My mama knits, and she showed me once how she can make the stitches tight, and that’s how I picture my family, cinched together like that, not loose and gaping.” I laughed lightly, shaking my head. “And goodness knows my sisters and I are stitched so tight you could never pull a thread and unravel us. It’s both maddening and the best thing in my life. Anyway, it’s just my mama and dad, my sisters, my Aunt Glory and Tyler. And Otto of course.

  “My mama’s parents are still alive but out of the picture because they were not good parents at all. She has a brother, but she doesn’t see him, either. Dad’s parents died when he was only twelve, and he and Glory were raised by their aunt, who died a while ago.” I paused and looked at Jesse. “I’m sorry. That was too much to unload on a person all at once. I won’t expect you to remember any of it. How about you? Do you have a big family?”

  He was quiet a moment before he answered. “It’s only my mother and me, and Otto, of course.”

  He echoed my earlier words, and I smiled to myself. “Your dad doesn’t have much family, either?”

  “Um…”

  I could have slapped myself. Audrey had put it kindly once, when she told me I was free with my thoughts. Valerie put it right, when she said I had a big mouth and no filter. She said it lovingly, of course. “Don’t answer that,” I said, quickly. “I retract my question. I forgot for a second that he’s a dirtbag.”

  I could hear the smile in his voice when he said, “You’re very open, Cat.”

  A pit opened up in my stomach, and I hoped it would open even wider so I could swallow myself whole.

  “I like it—that you say what’s on your mind.”

  I turned to face him. “You do?”

  “It’s something I aspire to.”

  My mouth dropped open.

  “I mean it. I wish I were more like that.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “You probably shouldn’t wish that. My mouth has gotten me in some awkward situations.”

  “Well, this isn’t one of them. I don’t feel awkward at all. To answer your question, Dex has some family. I never met any of them. He made the motorcycle club his family and pushed his real family away. Plus, he wasn’t around a lot, and when he was, it wasn’t great. He and Mom fought a lot. Dex...hurt her. I don’t think it was always like that, but in the end, it was. When he left for good, and Mom came here to figure her life out, I was glad he was gone. And Grandpa was right the second time. She shouldn’t have taken him back. It didn’t last, but I wish she’d listened.”

  “I do, too,” I said. “Thank you for telling me that.”
/>
  He shrugged, looking almost shy.

  I showed him a few places where we’d moved rocks out of the way, giving him an indication of how much work would be involved at the blocked passage ahead.

  As we walked, the passageway gradually narrowed, and we had to move single file. I peeked behind me to check on him, and he raised his eyebrows. “I’m fine.”

  “Just being sure. It gets worse up ahead.”

  He bit down on his lower lip as he smiled at me. I turned around quickly, hiding the heat in my cheeks. He affected me too much. No one had ever had this sort of impact on me. He bit his lip and I turned to goo? How was that normal? How was that a reasonable response?

  I slowed my pace as we moved ahead, making sure he had the chance to let me know if the narrowing of the passage was bothering him. I was too aware of how close he walked to me. I could feel the warmth of his body on my back. I noticed his every breath, his every step. I told myself I was simply being observant, and keeping an eye on my caving companion, as I would for anyone who wasn’t familiar with caves.

  A few minutes longer, though, and I stopped trying to deny my feelings. I was attracted to Jesse. Seriously attracted to him. His mere presence made my insides tumble and twist, and I liked it. I liked it. He probably wouldn’t ever return my feelings, but I could still enjoy myself. I could secretly feel these things, and revel in them, and save them up to replay in my mind whenever I wanted.

  Ahead, the passage curved to the right. “We’re going to turn right in a little bit, and it slopes downward. It was dry last time I was here, but we had that rain last night, so beware.”

  It was I who needed to heed my own warning. As the passage bent, my right foot slid on the slick limestone. I put my hands out and caught myself on the wall, the rock digging into my palm. At the same moment, I registered the pressure of Jesse’s hands on my hips. I turned my head, and our eyes met, and he didn’t let go. Something clenched low in my stomach.

  Overwhelmed by the strength of these feelings, I broke eye contact and faced forward, continuing up the passage. He followed without a word. I don’t know what had happened between us back there, but something had shifted. Something was different now. It scared me and it excited me. I wanted it, and I wanted to run from it. But in that moment, I decided I wasn’t going to run.

  Chapter 12

  Jesse

  “There’s a passage here.”

  Cat turned back. I stood beside a narrow passage that she’d walked right past.

  “Otto says that one’s too small and steep.”

  “Yeah? And what do you say?”

  Cat grinned. She had the most beautiful smile. It was all white teeth and full, dusky pink lips, and it made her eyes sparkle in the light of my headlamp.

  A grin broke across my face, matching hers in width if not beauty.

  “It’s steep, but I could make it. It starts out fine, much like this passage, but then it becomes little more than a tunnel in the wall. I’ve wanted to come back and give it another try, just to see if there’s anything on the other side. I barely got in the tunnel last time before Otto called me back. He doesn’t like the parts where we have to crawl. I have plans to talk him into letting me give it another try. He’s not that hard to convince.”

  My smile grew. I didn’t know what had come over me, but I wanted to go in there with her, and explore something new. I wanted to find out how hard she was to convince. Being with Cat, being close to her, it made me feel good. And after feeling so bad, I wanted to chase the feeling. It was reckless, maybe, but I felt alive. “Let’s do it right now. You and me.”

  Cat smiled, but thought about it for a moment. “Otto wouldn’t be happy with us.”

  I tipped my head to make sure the beam of my headlamp wasn’t shining in her eyes, and regarded her thoughtfully. I crossed my arms over my chest. How to explain what I was thinking and feeling to her? “Do you know what kind of person I am?” I asked.

  “Of course I don’t. I barely know you at all.”

  A laugh erupted from me, loud and surprised, and it reverberated on the cave walls surrounding us. I scrubbed my hands down my face and went for broke. “I want to know you, and I think..I think I want you to know me.”

  She blinked, as though dazed, and her smile grew “I’d like that.”

  “Okay, so, as a kid, I never got in trouble at school. I never stayed out past curfew. I never got in fights. I kept my head down and did what I was supposed to do. I took care of my mom, and I took care of myself. I’m never late. I work hard. I’m responsible, is what I’m saying. For once in my life I want to do the thing I’m not supposed to do. I just want to follow an impulse. I want to do something without thinking too much first.”

  “You do?”

  “I do. I want to explore that passage right there. The one we shouldn’t go in.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me, and I waited for her judgment call.

  She lifted her chin and leaned against the wall. “I’m like you, Jesse. I never got in trouble because my sisters were always in enough of it. I was the one bailing them out. I did what I was told, but my parents rarely had to tell me to do anything because I had probably already done it. I never missed curfew because I never went out. Until I decided not to go to college last fall, I’d never disappointed them.”

  I wanted to ask her a thousand questions. Why hadn’t she ever gone out? Why did she feel like she had to be the good sister? Why hadn’t she gone to college? What did she want to do with her life? Why did it matter to her that she didn’t disappoint her parents? I especially wanted to know the answer to that last one, because maybe if she knew, it would help me figure it out why it mattered to me. I kept all my questions to myself, except one. “So that means we’re going in that passage, right?”

  “Yes. Today, in this one tiny way, Jesse Morgan, you and I will be rebels.”

  She turned and heaved herself into the tunnel. No hesitation, no second thoughts. I stood in the passage, watching her go, my thoughts snagged on what she’d called me. Jesse Morgan. Of course she thought that was my last name. It had been my last name, once upon a time. When Mom took Dad back, that time when I was eight and we left my grandfather’s house, and we went home to California, I’d still been Jesse Morgan.

  It had only taken a month for my father to start yelling at her again. Soon after the yelling resumed, the hitting followed. She didn’t escape to Grandpa’s this time, though I begged her to. This time she filed for divorce.

  When she got remarried two years later to a man named Thomas Relic, a man I adored, I legally took his name. My dad had to agree to it. Mom mailed him the form, and it came back in the mail six months later. That was the last time I heard from my father. Thomas Relic died from pancreatic cancer five years after Mom married him. I held onto his name for dear life.

  This was the moment. I should correct Cat. I should tell her my name and tell her who I was.

  ‘You okay back there? You’re awfully quiet. Having second thoughts?”

  If I told her, this would end. No more teasing, no more treating me like a regular person. She’d look at me differently, and the way she looked at me was the only thing getting me through. It wasn’t fair to her, but I didn’t want to tell her. Not yet. “No second thoughts, Cat. No turning back now.”

  Guilt gnawed at my gut, but I ignored it. She’d find out eventually. This would end some time, but I just wanted to prolong it a little bit.

  The passage was as she described, long and flat, but the walls were closing in. The passage became narrower and narrower, until I became concerned my shoulders would brush on each side. “Cat?”

  “Yeah?”

  “At any point am I going to have to turn sideways to fit through?”

  She giggled, and it gave me the lift I needed. “That’s the fun of surveying a cave, Jesse. You never know what you’ll find ahead.”

  “What happens if I get stuck?”

  Another giggle. God, I loved that sound. “I have
a radio. Cell phones don’t work down here, but I can reach Otto with the two-way radio.” Her voice pitched low, full with that teasing lilt, and she added, “Of course, he doesn’t always keep his radio on him.”

  I liked being teased by her, but real fear was crawling up my back, trying to wrap its hands around my throat. “Nobody knows we’re down here?”

  She turned to look at me. “Hey, it’s okay. My dad knows. And I sent Otto a text while you were getting dressed.”

  The tension in my neck eased. I smiled at her, and she smiled softly before turning back around. It wasn’t lost on me how stupid it was that I was pretending I wasn’t afraid down here. I hated closed-in spaces, and these caves had always terrified me. I was an idiot, wanting to impress her with...what? With my ability to follow her down a small tunnel? I breathed out a laugh, hoping she couldn’t hear.

  I was here in these terrible, coffin-like caves, where the earth could fall and crush us at any moment, because she was here. I was helpless to do anything but follow.

  We walked for about ten minutes, and I did have to turn sideways at some points. We moved some small rocks out of the path, and then we came upon the place Otto told her to stop. “This is it,” she said, leaning back so I could see around her.

  I did not like what I saw. It was a hole three feet off the ground, the bottom not even touching the floor. I could see it sloped upward, and the incline was terribly steep. We’d have to crawl on our knees, up a small tunnel blocked by rocks, to see if anything was at the end.

  Cat turned and grinned at me. Her enthusiasm was written all over her face. My horror must have been written on mine, because her smile dropped and she reached out and laid her hand on my upper arm. “I think Otto was right,” she said.

  All I could think about was the weight and warmth of her fingers on my arm, curling around the back of it, pressing lightly into my skin. No way was I giving up. I wanted to see that grin again, the one she got when she was proud of herself, pleased with her accomplishment. I tried for a smile. “No, you were right. It’s worth a try. Who knows what’s on the other side? If we can’t make it, then we’ll turn back. But we won’t know before we try.”