Summer Girl (Summer Girl #1)

by S. Love

  No sooner does the thought come into my head and a coarse growl rumbles through Falcon’s chest, jets of ropey cum shooting over his fist and his tensed, chiseled stomach, dampening the waistband of his sweats. His starved assault on my breasts reduces to soft, feather-light kisses. Using my hair in his fist to angle my head back, his mouth claims mine and his tongue slips inside. I feel him slowly working himself again, his muscles flexed.

  With a groan, he jerks back from me, his growl this time laced with frustration, vibrating through my whole body.

  “I shouldn’t have done that.” He tucks himself back into his sweatpants. Wiping his hand over his thigh, he looks at me, and I don’t like what I see in his expression.

  “Then why did you?” Now my anger’s ebbed, overridden by manic lust, embarrassment and rejection rear their ugly, unwanted heads. Remembering I’m half hanging out, I tuck my boobs in.

  Falcon brushes my hair over my shoulder. He can’t even look at me. “Because the girl I want to fuck isn’t here.”

  I give that a minute to sink in.

  “You just used me.” It isn’t a question. I’m saying it as it is. Confirming the facts.

  “No.” He’s hard again, I can see it through his pants. My humiliation does it for him. “But I needed one little taste. It’s been driving me fucking crazy, watching you around the house and then keeping my hands to myself.”

  I climb off him, my legs week as I stand on my own. My blood runs through my veins like lava. I need a cold shower. “Get out,” I say, pinning down a level of calm that surprises even me. Inside, I’m whipped into a frenzy. “Just get out, Falcon.”

  I want him to touch me. Lie me down on my bed, rip off this body suit, and intoxicate me. Make me fucking scream until I’m purged of whatever the hell’s wrong with me. But he does none of those things. Silently getting off the bed and letting himself out of my room without a backward glance at the overworked state he’s left me in.

  Time passes in obscurity as I stand in the same position Falcon found me, reassessing and trying to make sense of what just happened, what didn’t almost happen, and what I wanted to happen. I’m only jolted from the deep immersion when raised voices from downstairs penetrate, and I look over at my door to see it’s half open, the sound of a scuffle urging me into action.

  I don’t think about what I’m wearing, or not wearing, when I yank the door open and rush out into the hall in my bare feet.

  From the stairs, I catch Falcon goading Ozzie, and then Ozzie plants a fist right in his face, decking Falcon with a right hook. The scene in the foyer slows before my eyes as Falcon drags the back of his hand under his nose. A crimson trail spreads across his knuckles, his hard, empty stare on Ozzie, who’s raging like a bull, too stupid to back down.

  Falcon spits blood. And then he pounces, tackling his brother to the marble floor with a thick arm around his waist.

  I scream, booking it down the stairs to put myself between them. I get caught up in the fight, and my hair gets trapped in one of their fists, dragging me further in. When a blow from God knows who almost sends my jaw spinning, the scuffle ceases, heavy, labored breathing from both of them as they pant from either side of me.

  I hold them apart with a hand flattened on each of their chests, Ozzie propped up on the floor on his forearm, nostrils flaring. They glare at each other, fire in their eyes wile I wedge them apart like the ring girl in a boxing match. Only, I’m more suitably dressed for a Jell-O match.

  My eyes drop to the semen stains on Falcon’s gray sweatpants, and when I glance up at Ozzie, he’s looking exactly where I was.

  With a mocking grunt of laughter, Falcon knocks my hand away, rising on the balls of his feet and then standing up to walk away.

  Chapter 22

  “Is Mariah here?” Ozzie walks into the kitchen and asks. I assumed he’d went to surf with his brothers, but the wind’s been raging for a while now. Hardly hang-ten conditions.

  Since Falcon used me to get himself off three nights ago, there’s been an unspoken partition erected, and I’ve been sectioned to the bad side. All three brothers have kept out of my way, and work’s felt like it should have done from the beginning: like work.

  “No. I haven’t seen her all day.” Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Cindy, either. And if Ray’s at work, that doesn’t leave many places left for his daughter. Cindy has spent time with Mariah on her own, but not without making a big, showy deal out of it, stripping away all authenticity regarding her motives for doing so. So the fact neither of them are here, and no one can recall last time they were here, doesn’t sit right.

  Ozzie’s glaring concern digs up my own unease, and I rewind the last twenty-four hours. “They were both here yesterday, I’m sure. But I went to bed early, so I can’t be sure after that.”

  His frustration only worsens, like he’s now pissed at me. He hasn’t had anything to do with me all weekend, licking his wounds because he made himself the accelerant to pushing me closer to Falcon. Very mature. Also, incredibly confusing.

  Abandoning the dry clothes I was folding into the laundry basket on the kitchen island, even though I finished all my work for the day half an hour ago, I ask, “Do you think they could be in trouble?”

  I don’t get an answer to that.

  “If my dad remembers where he lives and decides to come home, tell him I’m out looking for his fucking kid and his wife.” And then Ozzie’s gone, the front door startling me as it slams on its hinges.

  Adrenaline kicks me into high alert, and before I can process why, I’m dashing through the kitchen and into the foyer. Outside, black clouds overhead threaten worse than the gale-force winds that thrash my ponytail about my face.

  I duck against the breath-taking brutality and book it to Ozzie’s Jeep. The engine’s already running when I pull open the passenger side door and climb in.

  “What are you doing?” Ozzie eyes me from behind the wheel, a heavy frown indenting between his eyebrows.

  “I’m helping you find them.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “No one.”

  “Okay.” His frown lifts. “Then get out.”

  I look out the windshield. The wind howls around the car. “I can’t do that.”

  Anger dulls into weak reason. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.”

  “You’re obviously worried, and all you’re achieving is to waste more time. So, should we go now?”

  Ozzie sighs, and I fasten my seatbelt as he pulls out of the driveway and through the open gates.

  The ocean froths like a crazed beast, wind-beaten swells churning and lashing at the cliff face as we head away from the Atlantic coast. Ozzie and I don’t speak to each other until he speeds by the white sign at the side of the highway welcoming us to Cape Pearl.

  “You think she’s left town?” I turn my head to look at him. If we’d been referencing anyone else, a day trip outside of Cape Pearl would be completely normal. For Cindy, and a child I got the distinct impression she wants the least to do with possible when no one’s looking, it sounds far-fetched. Too much effort and work on Cindy’s part. And Ozzie’s low-key freaking out makes me think I’m not wrong in my assumptions.

  “To go home, yeah.”

  “Home?” We just left home.

  Ozzie gives me a side look, his frustration returning. Obviously, I’m the catalyst.

  “She grew up about three hours from here in White Lakes. It’s where her parents’ house is.”

  “Her parents still live there?”

  “No one lives there.”

  I’m growing increasingly confused with the breadcrumbs Ozzie’s sprinkling for me. “Then why would she take Mariah there? It’s a long way to travel if you aren’t visiting anyone.”

  Ozzie looks at the stretch of road ahead. “She goes there sometimes.”

  I know there’s more to his answer, and that he isn’t going to tell me. I have so many questions for him. So much about this family that doesn’t make sense
to me. There’s no transparency whatsoever. Every day with the Osbornes is a smoke and mirrors maze in the crazy house, and I’m dizzy from it. Tired and worn out.

  Apparently so tired, I don’t even realize I’ve fallen asleep until I’m waking up, my eyelids too heavy for my face.

  I look out the window to dreary darkness, sheeting rain rinsing away whatever there is to see on the other side. The car’s still and the engine’s been shut off. Probably what’s woken me up. Rain pounds the roof, and I sit up, peering at the distortion of green trees through the soaked glass.

  “Are we there?” I ask Ozzie. It’s impossible to tell what surrounds us without the Jeep’s headlights. It’s not dark yet, but the heavens are definitely in mourning.

  “Yeah. Wait here.” Ozzie unlatches his door. He’s only wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He’s going to get soaked.

  Before I can protest that I’m coming with him, he’s out of the Jeep and jogging around the front of it. I lean over the center console to where he’s left the keys in the ignition. With a slight turn, the engine purrs to life.

  The headlights and dashboard lights come on, and I let the driver’s side window down and stare out at the dense woods surrounding us.

  A cherry wood, three-story house with partial gray stone siding along the first level stands back from the sodden gravel road Ozzie’s parked on, a well-worn path trodden into the grass leading up to the house, and the porch that wraps around. No lights are on inside, and towering Spruce trees stand as silent, observant guards, long, bare trunks rising up the sloping mountains at the back of the house.

  I rub my eyes, chasing it with a sleepy yawn. The damp, earthy scent of rain and the dewy, wet woods invades the car, the sideways pelt of rain escaping in through the open window, soaking Ozzie’s seat and the interior door.

  Not seeing Ozzie anywhere around the house, I press the button for the window to slide up, then sit back in my seat and wait for him to return.

  My heartbeat falters as forks of lightning rip through the sky, freezing everything below in an unearthly suspended moment of time. A tremendous thundercrack follows. The long, low rumbles tailing the lightning claws feels eerie out here in the middle of nowhere, White Lakes.

  I check the time on the dash every few minutes. When I’ve been sitting here alone, in the bowels of a thunderstorm, the charcoal sky now completely black, I pull the keys from the ignition, brace for the onslaught of rain and blustering winds, and climb out of the Jeep.

  My T-shirt plasters to my chest, and the wind sucks the breath right out of me, leaving me struggling for air. Ducking my head into my shoulders, I sprint up to the house. My footsteps rattle on the porch steps and I reach for the doorknob, my arm jerking when the door doesn’t budge.

  “What the heck?” I try it again, but it’s locked tight. By now the wind’s raging, the thunder and lightning coming quicker. The trees groan all around me, and I follow the porch deck around to the rear of the house, Ozzie’s keys jingling from my fingers.

  The yard stretches into the wilderness. No way am I going any farther, even if Ozzie is sneaking around here somewhere. Who knows what types of animals call these woods home.

  I pace back to the front door, yelping in fright when I round the side of the house and smack into another person.

  I grip my thudding chest over my drenched T-shirt. Rain slips from my eyelashes into my eyes, and I feel like I’ve drank at least a gallon of it since braving this storm.

  “Jesus,” I say, constructing an accusatory look while my body floats back into its skin. “You scared me.”

  “No one’s here. Let’s go.” Ozzie stalks off, jogging down the porch steps to his Jeep. He throws me a look of annoyance when he realizes I took his keys, and I toss them over the hood, directly into his waiting palm.

  We speed back down the desolate, unlit road that must have brought us here, no highways or freeways at this end of the world, and as we slow to blue and white flashing lights, Ozzie leans forward in his seat, cursing as the wipers whoosh back and forth across the windshield, swiping away barrels of water.

  “Fuck’s sake,” he mutters, slowing the Jeep in the middle of the two-lane road.

  A police officer approaches with a flashlight. Bending down, he shines the bright light through Ozzie’s open window, temporarily blinding me. I cover my eyes with my hand, and then he lowers the obtrusive light. Rain cascades off his waterproof jacket. “Bridge is closed,” he says to Ozzie, in a no-nonsense tone. “Lake’s flooded. Water level’s too high to cross.”

  “It’s the only road out of here,” Ozzie protests.

  The officer shrugs. “Have to turn back to wherever you came from, least for tonight. Storm’s here for the weekend, though, and this water ain’t goin’ down anytime soon.”

  “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ozzie says under his breath. He looks ahead, at where the road’s been barricaded. Beyond the orange and yellow roadblocks and police cars, there’s a covered metal bridge.

  We’re the only car stuck here, and the officer tips his hat down and walks away. I hadn’t seen one house on the tree-lined, twenty-minute drive to where we are now, and it makes me wonder how deep into the outback we’ve journeyed.

  Steam rises from the asphalt, the beating rain forming clouds of ground mist.

  “There’s only one road in?” I turn to Ozzie and ask. Surely we can’t be stuck here.

  He won’t look at me, just spins the wheel with one hand and makes a sharp U-turn. “And out.”

  “Does that mean we’re turning back?” Stupid question, since he’s already barreling down the road, just on the other side this time.

  “You heard him, Lyla. Bridge is closed. I didn’t personally fucking close it.”

  I chew on my thumbnail the entire drive to Cindy’s parents’ house in the woods, staring out of the window like the rain will miraculously evaporate if I look and hope for long enough. Now the reality that I’m staying at least for tonight has been absorbed, I piece together the Cindy I’m familiar with, pampered in her multi-million dollar beach mansion, and this equally impressive but charming and rustic cabin house where the inhabitants may have possibly hunted their own meals.

  When we turn off the main road, down an even narrower one, Ozzie steers the car away from the gravel road and parks at the side of the porch, the Jeep hidden from view between the house and the trees.

  I follow him to the door. He pulls a silver key from a loose board in the deck, slotting it into the lock. So that’s how he got inside.

  “Who’s that key for?” I ask him, my eyes darting to every concealed shadowy corner of the foyer. A musky scent hangs in the air, and even if I didn’t already know, it’s obvious no one lives here.

  “Stay there,” Ozzie instructs, his tone as cold as this house.

  My eyes shoot to his retreating silhouette in alarm, his footsteps on the hardwood floor fading into another room.

  I stay close to the open door, despite the booming thunder crashing over the house. It’s too dark in here, and I hum a nonsense tune to comfort myself, glancing over my shoulder at the black gravel road and the sprawling mountains beyond it.

  Light floods the foyer, the harsh contrast from the smothering darkness hurting my eyes. I’d grown so used to the dark, it now feels too bright. Too severe.

  “Power was off,” Ozzie says. Wet shoeprints disturb the layer of dust on the floorboards, and Ozzie looks like a drowned rat, not that I think I look any better. I probably look worse.

  The foyer’s plunged into darkness.

  Instinctively, I tip my face up to the chandelier made out of antlers.

  “What the hell?” I hear Ozzie say.

  He leaves me a second time, and I’m thoroughly fed up when he returns and lets me know the power’s out.

  “Great,” I mutter. I’m shivering now, the chill from the rain and my sopping clothes sinking into my bones. This place is a far cry from the usually sunny Cape Pearl. “No electric in the middle of No Ma
n’s Land. Couldn’t think of a more perfect way to spend my night.”

  “I’m sure there are candles lying around somewhere.”

  I can’t decipher Ozzie’s expression through the dark, but no doubt he’s giving me dirty looks. He’d implied as much in his dry tone.

  This time, I don’t give him a chance to leave me behind. I tail him through the foyer and into what I think is the kitchen. There isn’t a whole lot of moonlight penetrating the tumultuous sky, and the shapes in the house are exactly that—black, outlined forms.

  I listen as Ozzie rummages through drawers, my clothes now itchy and uncomfortable against my skin. I feel ten pounds heavier in the drenched threads.

  The wheel strikes on a lighter, and the tiny, orange flame flares to life in Ozzie’s hand. He puts it to a pillar candle, illuminating the sink behind him as the wick catches and the flame crackles. Lining up two more half-burned candles on the farmhouse counter, he lights those too, and the toasty, flickering glow brings instant warmth to the room, even though the temperature in here hasn’t risen one degree. It’s all psychological.

  But I do get a good look at the room. In its heyday it must have been a beauty—a naturists dream. And it still is beautiful to look at, but the air of neglect has settled over everything it’s landed on. The dust and grime build-up on the appliances and the paned windows give the feel of abandonment. Nothing some soap and water can’t combat, but it doesn’t appear like a sponge or a cloth has been taken to this house in years, and that just seems like a shame, and a waste of an otherwise lovely house.

  “Where could they be?” I ask Ozzie, referring to Cindy and Mariah. We’ve opened up a new problem, but the old one still hasn’t been solved.

  He gives me one of the candles, the flame throwing unnatural, sinister shadow over his face. “No clue.” His answer’s abrupt, but the visible tension on his face proves he can’t rest until he finds out where his mom took Mariah.

  I walk behind him, across the foyer, and into a large, open living room.

  Wood was the main material used to build this house, and it’s in everything. The floors, the banisters, the stairs, the wainscoting. The fireplace that dominates one wall is made of wood, but the chimney breast is bare, gray stone. Again, nothing that reminds me of Cindy in here. None of it fits. There’s even a deer head mounted on the wall next to the fireplace.