Blackout (8 page)

His twin Beau steps in front of me too. “Now where do you think you’re going, sweet pea?”

I skirt around them and rush over to the counter.

The manager comes out. “I want you boys to leave now, or I’ll call the police.” He points at the door, and they take their sweet time to the door.

“We’ll be back to see y’all real soon.” Tommy shoves the door open, and they walk out.

I breathe a sigh of relief, pushing the new phone and cover to a different sales person. “Ring me up, please.” And hurry. I want to get home right quick.

He takes the phone and sets it up with my old number. “You have a foreign calling plan. Do you still want this on?”

“Yes.” I’ll call Daddy as soon as I get home and give him the good news about Miles. I have a new therapist that I like.

I stuff the phone into my shoulder bag along with the charger and box and rush out the door.

I’m halfway across the empty parking lot when Tommy grabs a handful of my hair from behind. I fumble for my phone in my purse to call the cops. Beau spins me around, and the phone falls out of my hand. Thank God for Gorilla glass, but now what do I do?

“Come with us,” Tommy says. Each one latches onto an arm. “We’d like to have a little talk with you. We never finished what we started at that party a couple years back.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you two.” Now that I look more closely at them, I see their pupils are dilated. They’re high, and only the devil knows what they’re on. “Let go of me right this minute.” I struggle against their tight grips. I stomp on one’s foot and wiggle myself free.

Run.

I don’t have a car, so I sprint to the road and scream, “Help!”

Tommy easily catches me and puts his hand over my mouth. His other arm wraps around me. His rank breath slithers into my nose. I smash him in the gut and scream again.

“We got us a wild one,” Beau says, clamping onto my free arm.

They’ll take me from here and then I’ll be screwed. My breathing quickens, and spots haze my vision. No. Don’t let this happen now. I can’t panic. They’ll hurt me.

No matter how hard I try to calm myself nothing works. My heart rate rockets off the charts, and my head spins. I won’t even be able to try and stop them if I black out.

The Collins’ boys lead me over to their truck. My legs are all wobbly. I need to scream again, but nothing escapes, my mind is shutting down.

“This is easier than I thought it would be,” Tommy says, shoving me toward his truck rusting to death.

Beau wrenches my broken arm, and I cry out. “Blackout Betty hasn’t changed. Still the easiest girl to show us a good time.”

We’re almost to the truck when the sound of gravel crunching beneath boots approaches.

Dizziness starts to consume me. “Help me,” I whimper.

“Let go of her,” an unmistakable voice demands in a deep-throated growl.

My vision is blackening. I’m going to pass out. Please don’t let me be a victim. I don’t want them touching me. I wrestle, but the haze of unconsciousness waits for me.

“Mind your own business, Dare,” Beau shoots back. “We got this little bitch handled. Besides, you and your eleven-year-old pecker already had this. Now she’s ripe for the filling. Pretty as a picture, like her mama.”

“I won’t ask twice.” Dare’s voice is a mixture of smoke and venom.

When I glance up at him, he’s beautiful to look at—strong, lean, yet tough and intimidating with the tattoos of mermaids and sea creatures rippling on his arms and neck. My gaze hangs on him, like it did Sam. He’s dangerous. They’re both trouble, but he has to save me, yet again.

“Let’s get out of here,” Beau says, letting his grip relax.

Tommy’s hold on me tightens. His hand gropes my butt before he shoves his brother. “Don’t be such a pussy. We can take him.”

Dare’s fist lands solidly into Beau’s gut. He stumbles backward. Tommy licks my face, and the darkness wins.

I come to in Dare’s arms, and he’s carrying me to his car. The Collins twins have vanished. Squeezing Dare’s shoulders to pull myself up, I crane my neck and scan the parking lot, but the twins are nowhere around. How did that happen?

The warmth of Dare’s body seeps into me. I smell unadulterated masculinity and sun-drenched skin tanned to perfection. He holds me close to him.

Dare can’t always be there for me. “Please put me down. I can walk.”

“That’s up for debate. It seems that I keep carrying you. It’s good that you don’t weigh much.”

“Thank you…for rescuing me again.” I gaze up at him, my bad arm still clinging to him until I release it and put it in my lap.

For the briefest moment, his lips part like he’ll swoop in for a kiss, and it surprises me. I don’t understand what’s going on with him. He has a pseudo girlfriend that he bought a bathing suit for.

He gently sets my feet down next to his car, opens the door, and points inside. “Teal, get in and let me drive you home before you get yourself into any more trouble…by looking the way you do.” His eyes skim my body up and down.

Using my arms, I cover myself, and he laughs.

Dare thinks I look good or was that even a compliment? Does he think I teased the Collins’ boys—that I led them on? That’s what Mama would’ve said. I was eight, and the sudden onslaught of memory surprises me.

His gaze peels off my layers, exposing me naked. My body lights on fire. I shouldn’t even be near him. The restraining order will take effect soon.

“You never have to worry about me,” he whispers into my ear, sending tingles all over my body. “So get in,” he orders.

I slip into the car. I should get out and run home, but Dare is less of a threat than the Collins’ boys. The one memory of him finding me in the swamp holds fast, and I feel safe in his arms because of it.

Being near him, my mind has calmed, and I don’t feel dizzy anymore. Or has my body betrayed me because I’m so obviously turned on by him? Sure he’s good looking, all the Tucker boys are. I’m also meeting Graham tomorrow night, and he’s obviously dating material.

“You shouldn’t be driving me home. Aren’t you worried about Tate?” I ask, the skin of my thighs sticking to the hot black vinyl. The driver’s seat has cloth covering it.

Once again, his gaze appraises me. I’m about to spontaneously combust. It’s embarrassing the way he looks at me. Maybe my dad has other reasons for the restraining order. Maybe he didn’t want the memory of that day to catch up to me.

“Yeah, but I love pissing him off, and he hasn’t got a restraining order…yet. I don’t know that I’ll go along with one this time—you chasing me and all.” He’s teasing me.

“I’m not chasing you, Dare.”

“Sure, Teal. This is no different than when we were kids. I couldn’t get rid of you if I tried.”

He’s right. I did follow him. Even if he wasn’t Sam, I liked hanging out with an older boy.

Dare cranks the engine, and it rumbles underneath me like a wild tiger. I try not to think about what it’s doing to me sexually. My mind creeps back to Mama’s book.

This is different though. This is Dare. This is the same boy who rescued wild animals, but my dad really believes he molested me when I was eight. I just wish I could remember the parts before I found him.

Dare flies out of the parking lot, spewing gravel behind him.

I stare outside, a light breeze playing on the tips of the tall grasses. “I wish we could be friends. I miss that.”

“That’s not going to happen, Teal. Why did you come back?” His tone is accusatory, angry.

“My grandmother is losing her eyesight, and someone needs to take care of her.” My response holds just as much vehemence. I don’t tell him that I want to figure out the missing pieces of that day.

He focuses on the road and driving the speed limit while the sun beats down on us. I crank the AC, so that it blasts cold air on us. I peel my skin away from the vinyl. Cloth is so much better.

Dare glances at me. “Everything was fine without you here, my job, I finally got my own place. It was better with you gone.”

That stings like a swarm of angry hornets. “I thought you were going to college to be a vet.” He’d told me this one time at dusk while we were gigging frogs. We’d caught a whole bunch. I can smell their plump legs sizzling in grease, coated with buttermilk and spicy batter.

“You’ve got to be kidding.” He pulls off the side of the road. “You destroyed my life. I practically flunked out of school. At the end of my senior year, I had to settle for a GED. I’ll never be able to get a real job. I’ll always have to work for my dad. You know I never wanted to do that.”

“What are you talking about? Just because you aren’t supposed to be around me, which you obviously don’t pay any mind to, shouldn’t be a huge deal.” There’s no more French accent wrapped around my southern tongue.

His mouth gapes open. “That day in the swamp where I tried to help you is the worst day of my life. Because of you, I had to register as a sex offender. I was the youngest in the state who has ever had to do so. I’m a menace to society because of you. At eleven-years-old, I was a convicted felon.”

I had no idea. I study him, the tension rippling off his shoulders in waves. “I told the judge you never touched me.” My dad thought that, not me. “What are you talking about?” I rehash what little I do recall and hope this isn’t another lost moment in time. I sat in the judge’s chamber with a court reporter, and for the most part I told him I didn’t remember. I told him Dare had helped me. That’s what I do remember.

His face colors to flames of red. His fists clutch on the steering wheel. “You don’t remember anything, do you? What’s wrong with you? I was convicted by an eight-year-old who blacks out…conveniently.”

“I swear to you I never said anything. The DA must’ve had evidence that I wasn’t aware of. I only spoke to the judge that one time.”

“I don’t see what anyone could’ve found. I didn’t do anything.” He’s yelling now.

He’s so angry I shrink in my seat. “You were eleven. Can’t you have that record expunged?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t have a rich daddy like you. It costs money to do that.”

“But you were a juvenile. Those records should be sealed.” I don’t really know. Would he have to register as an adult after he turned eighteen? That doesn’t make sense.

“It’s still on my record, and it can be looked up as far as I know. I don’t really understand it all.”

“Didn’t your lawyer tell you?”

“We ran out of money for that a long time ago.” He pulls back onto the road. “This was a waste of my time. I thought by now you would’ve remembered. Everyone’s saying the docs cured you, but I can see that’s not true. You’re still fucked up in the head.”

I hate that he’s right.

He swivels his chin toward me, hurt replacing his anger, and that stuns me. “How could you say that about me? We were friends, even if you were a pest.”

“I could look up the statutes and case file. You don’t need a lawyer for that.” I can’t let him suffer for something I don’t remember, and I need this more than him.

For the right fee, the court reporter can provide me with a transcript. Can I handle a job and pay for the cost? I have to figure something out. My original goal was to get a job, but who will hire me with a broken arm?

Silence builds between us on the way home. He occasionally looks at me, studying me like a bug under a magnifying glass.

“I’m hungry,” I say, my stomach growling. “Can’t we stop someplace to eat?” Maybe if I talk to him, it’ll all come back. The doctor says I have to face my fears, though I’m hardly afraid of Dare.

“If I pay for you, it would keep costing me, like it has for the past ten years.” The bitterness rolls off his tongue.

I hate this. Our friendship was obliterated that day. When I was young, he didn’t have to be nice to me, but he was, even when his older brothers teased him. “I wasn’t asking you to pay,” I snap.

His cold expression ices me. “It’s best if we aren’t seen together. I have appearances to uphold.”

“Like what? Dejected boy starved for attention.” My intentions weren’t to be rude, but he’s not the only one hurt by what happened in the swamp.

He glares at me. “Lots of women notice me. I caught you eyeing me like candy, which seems rather hypocritical since you’re the one who labeled me a pervert.”

“I did not. I’ve never said that. Why are you always staring at me? Why did you save me—twice?”

Dare pulls onto the sandy road to my house and into the driveway. He swivels in his seat to face me. “You are no longer the annoying little pest who followed me around who I could not get rid of if I tried.”

“Why didn’t you tell me to buzz off?” Tears swell in my eyes. I won’t cry.

He laughs, a sexy low rumble in his throat. “I have two mean, older brothers, and you looked up to me, even if you constantly begged Sam to talk to you. You did every stupid thing I told you. You were my little helper. Unlike my brothers, I could boss you around, and you took it.”

I was used? “Screw you, and that doesn’t explain why you keep staring.”

The memory of O and her lover in the taxi comes to my mind—unbidden. Despite her confusion, her submission and her obsession drive her to obey her lover, to go into the house without him. I’m not her. I’m stronger than her. I have to be.

Dare laughs again, leans across me so that we’re chest to chest, and opens the door to let me out. I all but faint from the heat of our bodies touching, our sweat mingling like lovers. My face torches. I should stop reading that book, but there’s something I can’t put my finger on—a faint memory. A slight chill forces me to shiver.

“What’s wrong?” Dare asks, concern mingling on those sensual lips.

I’ve never seen him like this. When we were kids, I worried about gigging a frog wrong and Sam teasing me. Dare never did. He was patient.

“It’s nothing.” I slip out of the car. “Well? Are you going to answer me? Why do you look at me…like that?”

He’s staring at me. His gaze rakes over me, spawning a renewed fever in my blood. “You are no longer a little pest tagging along after me. You’ve grown into one fucking hot woman. Every guy stops to look at you or haven’t you noticed?”

They could be staring at Kami. “You never used to talk that way, especially to me. I should wipe your mouth out with soap.” My fluster comes out as bitch, and I don’t like it.