Buried Secrets (New Adult Dark Suspense Romance) (15 page)

“Why?” She cocked her head, frowning at him in the dimness. His eyes glinted like wet silver in the moonlight. His grip tightened on her wrists.

“What are you doing here?”

“Wh…what?” She blinked at him in surprise, sitting back on the seat to face him.

He ran a hand through his hair, leaning his elbow on the steering wheel, forehead on his palm, whispering the words, “What in the hell are you doing here?”

“Shane…” She reached a hand out, touching his shoulder. He reacted like she’d burned him, jerking away, lifting his head to face her.

“I don’t get it.” He swallowed, the sound loud in the enclosed space. “Dusty, you know I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you. But I don’t want you like this. What
is
this?”

She was silent, head down, her long, dark hair a curtain.

“Are you still punishing yourself? Offering yourself up like some kind of sacrifice? Is that what we’re doing here?”

He was greeted by her silence.

“I see him.” Shane’s voice was low in the stillness. “Every time I look at you, I see him. Feels like rubbing salt in a wound.”

She closed her eyes, understanding his pain. It hit her like that too, seeing Shane, being with him. Like a pain you couldn’t help returning to. It hurt to touch it, but it felt good too, like the wound was the way in, the way through to something else.

“You are so beautiful.” Shane reached over to push her hair out of her face, hand brushing her cheek. “I want you more than I've ever wanted anything. I've wanted you since the day we met. Do you remember that day, Dusty?”

She didn’t reply, didn’t look at him, all too aware of his hand on her face, but she
did
remember. As much as she would have liked to do a shearing job on
that
memory with her mind-scissors, the stupid thing was made of steel.

“You saved me.” He ran a finger over her cheek, smiling softly, remembering. “You saved me and I lost you. I was so stupid. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t.” She could barely choke out the word, turning her face away from him.

“I’d take it back if I could.” He slipped a hand behind her neck, pressing his lips to her forehead, whispering his words. “Will you let me take it back?”

If there was one thing she’d learned—there were some things you just couldn’t take back. Her mother was gone. Nick was gone. Those were irreversible, tragedies so tremendous she could barely fit them in. In comparison, what had happened with Shane so long ago, what had seemed so horrible and humiliating and unforgivable at the time, was nothing at all. So why couldn’t she let it go?

“I never wanted to hurt you.” She heard tears in his voice. “Let me take it back. Let me spend the rest of my life showing you how much I want you, how much I’ve always wanted you. If you let me, I will.”

When she didn’t answer him, he lifted her chin, searching her eyes in the moonlight. “What are we doing here, Dusty?”

She shook her head, trying to escape his hold, giving him the denial her mind focused on. “Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s most definitely something,” he insisted, capturing her lips with his, making her gasp at the intensity of his kiss, the way he claimed her with his mouth alone. She cried out, trying to push him away, still trying to deny it, but her body wouldn’t let her. When he broke the kiss, she looked at him, breathless, heart pounding. “You can’t tell me you don’t feel that.”

“I feel it,” she whispered.

She couldn’t feel anything else.

“I want you, Dusty, but I want all of you. I want your heart. I want your mind. I want your soul.
All of you.
Do you hear me?” Shane grabbed her, hands circling her upper arms, crushing her to him in the darkness, his fingers digging into her flesh. She whimpered in protest, trying to get out of his grip, but he held her fast. “I don’t want anything less. I don’t want this unless you’re all in. Do you understand me?”

“Yes.” She nodded, feeling the quiver in her lip.

“Then tell me you want this,” he whispered hoarsely, lowering his forehead to hers, eyes closing. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I can’t,” she cried, twisting away from him, trying to hang onto a past that didn’t matter anymore—it was crumbling under her feet. She was walking on very shaky ground and she knew it. Her mind was screaming, chest closing up, and she tasted the saltiness of tears in her throat.

She pushed open the car door with a shove, stumbling toward the guard rail on the edge of the bluff. She couldn’t stop the memories or the tears. Her mind-scissors were dull from use, and she collapsed, hands gripping the steel railing.

“Dusty?” His voice, behind her.

“Go away!” she choked through tears. “Just go away!”

She opened her eyes and looked down, the city lights a dull blur.
I could jump
, she thought.
Nothingness would better than this
. Shane took her by the shoulders and helped her stand. She tried to push him away, but he was insistent, folding her into his arms just like he had that day at the funeral home, the day they buried her brother and his best friend. He pulled her against him, so tight. She sobbed, his face and hands buried in her hair, tears wetting his t-shirt, the cold stinging her face, until she was completely spent, her body tucked tight against his. They swayed together like they were dancing under the silver light of the moon, two lovers who had forgotten time and the world and everything but each other.

“I never hated you.” She whispered her confession, feeling his arms tighten around her waist. “You were all I ever wanted.”

She realized the truth as the words escaped her lips. It was like uncovering a buried treasure, something long forgotten. He didn’t say anything, just pressed his lips to the top of her head.

“Did you really…?” She lifted her face, searching his eyes, uncertain. Could she trust him? Should she? “Do you really… want me? This? Us?”

“More than anything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried, pushing at him, hands against his chest.

He groaned, not letting her get away, holding her closer. “I thought you hated me.”

“You hated me first,” Dusty laughed.

“No, princess,” he protested, chuckling. “You’ve been the light of my whole damned life, the only thing in the world that shines. My sun, my moon. Every time I looked at a compass, I saw you there—true north. I was moving toward you all along. Nick knew it. He saw how I look at you.”

“And how I look at you.” She was choking on tears again but not sad ones anymore.

She remembered what Nick said that night about Shane, about her, how he saw something between them. Something she had buried and hidden so long she’d forgotten it existed. Dusty missed him so much it made it hard to breathe. He was her brother and she loved him—but if he’d been in front of her right then, she just might have punched him in the face.

“Goddamnit, Nick,” she whispered, closing her eyes and pressing her cheek against Shane’s chest.

“He loved you so much,” Shane murmured. “He just wanted to… keep you. Safe. He didn’t want me to break your heart.”

She sniffed, lifting her face to look at him. “Will you?”

“Never.” He took her hand, pressing it to his chest. His t-shirt was wet with her tears. She felt the steady drumbeat of his heart. “Cross my heart.”

He pointed her finger to the middle of his chest, making an X, marking the spot.

“Me too.” She took his hand, putting in between her breasts. “Cross my heart.”

She marked that spot—a delicious, shivery X—with his finger.

And she remembered.

She remembered crossing her heart, hoping to die.

She remembered when they were… when they were…

✝
Chapter Thirtee
n
✝

FREE
!

Jean cut-offs worn over a black and white two-piece bathing suit, the sun warm on already tanned shoulders, Dusty walked the path, tennis shoes crackling twigs.

Summer, summer, summer.
A sing-song voice in her head.

Heading down t
o the pond—Nick was back at the house still changing—Dusty contemplated freedom. She would get bored eventually. It happened every year. The days got shorter, the light changed in the sky, and she would start wishing for the routine of the school year, new faces, crunching leaves, the smell of fresh pencil shavings.

But now that time was forever away.

Summer had finally come and it was delicious.

The pond, across Jarvis and through the woods, waited for summer too, like they did. It shimmered like glass in the heat, and Dusty paused at its edge.

They used the pond in winter too for hockey and ice skating. She liked the pond when their skates dug into its frigid surface, but it was more dangerous—as cold and dead and humorless as the season itself. After the long layover from spring, when it grew warm enough to swim again, the pond seemed ready to accept them with open arms.

The sandy shores were glassy in the sunshine. There was only one shady stretch of sand, sitting in the shadow of a big elm. A platform built in the tree, about ten or twelve feet up, was where they sat on hot days, days when even the water was too warm to swim in comfortably. Days when it was cooler up high in the shade of the elm's leaves.

Dusty stepped up to the water's edge, taking off her tennis shoes. She waded a little ways out, up to her shins. The water was deliciously cool under the hot sun. She hopped back to shore, pulling her shorts down over her hips and scanning the woods for signs of her brother. He would show up soon. There would be others, after everyone had gone home from school, changed, and either walked or caught rides out. Living right across from the pond had its advantages.

Dusty stepped lightly out of her shorts and tossed them aside.

That was when she heard the screams.

She whirled around but couldn’t see anything—just trees and underbrush, rustling gently in the breeze, too thick to see much through.

There it was again.

She heard the distinct cracking and breaking of twigs under feet.

And a growl.

She watched, wide-eyed, helpless, unable to see anything but the gentle sway of trees, the thick growth of underbrush, their leaves giving total cover.

“Help! Heeelp!” The words were distinguishable now and Dusty's gaze moved across the thick covering, searching for signs of life. It grew louder, louder, the strangled cry and the growling sound. Dusty picked up her shorts, ready to retreat.

Something broke out of the underbrush and flew through the air.

She was too paralyzed to react for a moment, and by then the boy slid through the sand next to her, face down, wearing Levis, a t-shirt and tennis shoes. The Doberman sprang next and Dusty watched it fly, streaking through the air, snarling. It landed in the space the boy just vacated.

Dusty managed to move then, the dog turning toward her. Acting instinctively, she shoved her shorts over its head, inside out. The boy, who had rolled to the left just in time, was panting on the ground, watching her with wide eyes.

Dusty ran.

“Come
on!”
she urged, calling over her shoulder.

But the kid was as frozen as she’d been a moment before, watching the Doberman shake its head from side to side, struggling with the cut-offs. She had managed to get its snout through one of the leg holes, so it was temporarily stuck, the material covering its eyes.

Dusty was almost to safety.

All she had to do was climb the boards nailed to the trunk of the elm and crawl onto the platform.

The Doberman snarled and howled but it was starting to win its battle with the cut-offs. The kid just sat there, dumbfounded, not hearing Dusty's hoarse plea to
run!

She hesitated, bare foot paused on the lowest board.

Then she ran back, past the dog, grabbing onto the kid's arm.

“Get up! Come on!” She pulled, yelling in his ear.

The kid, startled and dazed, stood up obediently. The dog, getting front paws over the tops of the shorts, wiggled his way out of them. He didn’t sound happy.

“Run!” Dusty screamed, pulling hard at the kid’s arm. He stumbled for a moment but Dusty didn’t let go, allowing him to regain his balance as he ran behind her.

The distance to the tree had grown to the length of a football field while their backs were turned. Dusty's bare feet sank into the sand, slowing her down, and the dog was now free.

She heard it behind her, far faster than they were on the sand.

Sand's not slippery
.
Why am I slipping?

The kid, panting in her ear, passed her.

“Up the tree,” she managed to say.

He flew up the elm, his feet hardly touching the boards. Behind her, the dog's jaws snapped. She felt its breath, hot and heavy, on her thigh. She kicked back blindly with one foot, reaching up for a handhold. Her foot made contact with the dog and it yelped. In that instant, her hands found one of the rough boards and she pulled up, scrambling the rest of the way up the tree until she lay panting, safely on the platform.

She lay there for a moment, eyes closed, sweat rolling off her back and down her sides, face pressed against the cool wood. The dog, cheated out of its fun, barked from below. Dusty rolled over onto her back with a sigh. The kid, sitting cross-legged, looked at her with a mixture of admiration and embarrassment.

“You okay?” she gasped, still out of breath.

He nodded. Below them, the dog whined. She sat up, looking the kid over. Dirt streaked his face and white t-shirt but otherwise, he looked okay.

“I'm Dusty,” she told him.

“Shane.” He brushed at the dirt on his shirt and pants.

Dusty's eyes widened and her breath caught. She had never met Shane Curtis but Nick had made friends with him during that first year at Millsberg Junior High—they were in the same shop class together, a class Dusty regretted not taking, because it was all Nick could talk about for the last half a year. Shop and Shane. Shane and shop.
Shane could fix anything. Shane knew how to build a fire with a bow-drill. Shane had tamed a raccoon as a pet.

Dusty already hated Shane Curtis, and that was before she heard the rumors. He was a legend of sorts at school.

His older brother, Buddy, had seriously injured a teacher at the junior high school by tossing an M-80 into the wastepaper basket by her desk. It was supposed to be just a little prank pulled on a teacher no one really liked—Mrs. Lowe had gotten Buddy suspended for a month for writing on the bathroom walls, proving it was him by taking pictures of the graffiti with her cell phone and comparing it with Buddy’s essays in her class—but it had turned bad.

Instead of exploding like it should have when the teacher was at the other side of the class at the blackboard, writing out the day’s lessons, it didn’t explode right away at all. Buddy had dropped the M-80 into the trash hidden in a paper bag and then headed for the door with the bathroom pass. Mrs. Lowe saw him and insisted he stop and take “his lunch” back out of the trash. When he refused, she went to retrieve it herself. Some kids said Buddy tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen.

The result was the M-80 went off as she was reaching into the trash can. She’d lost a finger and thirty-percent of her hearing in one ear.

Shane, last year, had gotten suspended for having a copy of Playboy in his desk, and although he’d never done anything really bad, like Buddy, who was now doing time in the reformatory and would probably be in institutions similar for the rest of his life, Shane was expected to be as bad.

“Is it gone?” Shane asked.

Dusty peeked over the side. It was quiet. The dog, either bored or distracted, had disappeared. It was, she knew, Casey Reardon's dog. He called it Mako and had made it mean. He kept it penned up because Mako was so mean. It had been teased mercilessly by school kids over the years passing by the fence, only making it worse.

She learned later the Doberman had caught his head under the chain-link fence, strangling himself with no Casey Reardon around, when Shane was passing the house. Unable to stand seeing the dog in pain, Shane opened the gate, letting the suffering dog free. Mako, not knowing the difference between rescuer and tormentor, had then given chase.

“Gone,” she reported. “You've still got dirt on your face.”

He smiled, his gaze dipping low. “You're dirty, too.”

She looked down and saw sand and dirt streaked across her suit and bare stomach. She blushed, aware of his eyes on her, suddenly conscious of how she looked—tall, long-legged, the bathing suit a little too tight on her growing body. She crossed her arms self-consciously over her breasts, small buds just beginning to show.

“We can get down now.” She kept her eyes averted.

“Are you Nick Chandler's sister?” He moved so he was sitting beside her, their feet dangling from the platform.

“Yeah.”

She glanced sideways at him. His blonde hair, a little too long, looked gold in the dappled light seeping through the leaves. The way he looked at her with those ocean blue eyes made her tingle. The feel of his jeans, chafing against her bare thigh as he swung his feet, sent strange but exciting tremors through her body.

“He's cool, your brother.” Shane eyed her. “You’re twins right?”

“Yes.” Dusty swung her feet too. Everyone thought Nick was cool. He had a million friends.

“You’re cuter.”

“Thanks.” Dusty looked askance at him and laughed at the way he grinned and waggled his eyebrows. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

Her words surprised them both.

“So uh… thanks for that.” He cleared his throat, looking over the edge of the platform again as if he was just making sure the Doberman was really gone. “If you hadn’t come along, I would have been dog food.”

“You’re welcome.”

The silence stretched between them. Dusty kept sneaking glances at him, thinking how cute he was. She’d seen cute boys before—Tom Richter was awfully cute. But this boy was different. She understood what Nick had been talking about now when he went on about Shane. She hadn’t wanted to like him—had been determined not to like him, in fact, given how taken Nick seemed to be—but she couldn’t help herself.

He cleared his throat. “Can I ask a favor?”

“Another one?” She raised her eyebrows at him and laughed at the surprised look on his face.

“Will you…” He swallowed. “Would you promise not to tell anyone?”

She blinked, staring at him. “About the dog?”

He nodded, gaze skipping away from hers.

“How come?”

Shane gave a little laugh, blushing. “Well it doesn’t make me sound very good, screaming like a baby and getting saved by a girl, does it?”

She grinned. “But it makes me sound pretty awesome.”

“You are pretty awesome.” He turned to face her and there was something in his eyes, a mix of admiration, pride and something else. She didn’t recognize it, not then, wouldn’t understand the emotion for years. Who knew anything about desire in adolescence?

She knew she felt it too—a vague sort of ache, a longing, yearning for something, but she didn’t know what.

“I won’t tell,” she murmured, feeling the press of his thigh against hers, the way his bare arm brushed her. It made her shiver.

“Promise?” he implored, leaning in close enough she could feel his breath, smell his bubble gum.

“It’s our secret,” she reassured him, using the most iron-clad method she knew. “Cross my heart.”

She traced an X between her just-budding breasts, seeing his gaze follow the path of her finger. Then he reached over, doing the same thing on her chest with his finger, making a slow, tingling X over her skin.

“Cross your heart.” He leaned in to whisper the words like they were sharing a secret—and of course they were.

Then they shared another.

It happened in one sweet, breathless moment.

Dusty turned her head toward him, lips barely brushing his cheek as he moved slowly back, feeling the warmth of his breath, seeing only the blurred outline of his face, his hair haloed by sunshine.

And then he kissed her. Or she kissed him.

It didn’t matter, because the moment their lips met, her body melted like ice cream on hot pavement. Shane didn’t touch her, didn’t move, didn’t do anything but press his mouth against hers, as if that one point of contact was the center of the universe and he’d just made that miraculous discovery.

When he went to break the kiss, she whimpered, eyelids fluttering open to see him looking at her, blue eyes alive and hungry and full of that thing, that amazing, dizzying feeling, the one filling her chest, making her feel like, if she put her arms out and jumped off the platform, she really could fly.