Buried Secrets (New Adult Dark Suspense Romance) (16 page)

“What was that?” she whispered, too stunned to move. Her gaze lingered on his lips as he licked them, still wet from their kiss.

“A promise.”

“No.” She shook her head, hearing voices. “It’s my brother.”

His eyes widened as she swung her legs over the side, finding the first board with her feet and beginning to descend. Shane started after her.

When Shane hopped to the ground, brushing his hands on his jeans, the voices were just coming to the end of the path. Dusty headed toward them, and Nick, towel slung casually over his shoulder, led the group toward the edge of the water.

“Hey, you guys!” Dusty called. Nick led half a dozen kids, including Tommy Richter, who saw her and smiled.

“Hey, Dusty,” Tommy called. His gaze shifted behind her and his smile faded when he saw Shane. Everyone was looking at her now.

“Shane.” Nick gave him a nod, looking between them, his smile wavering slightly.

Dusty was only a step ahead of Shane. When she stopped, his arm brushed hers, making her remember their kiss, and she flushed.

“Having a good time?” Tommy asked coolly, picking up Dusty's sandy cut-offs and shaking them. Dusty felt cold and exposed. She crossed her arms over her chest.

“What were you doing up there with my sister?” Nick asked, sounding casual, but she knew that look on his face. He was mad.

“Uh…” Shane blinked, glancing back at the tree and the platform, and she wondered if he was remembering it too, that first press of their lips, the feeling like you were flying, floating away, your body no longer connected to anything at all.

“You better not have been doing anything with her,” Nick warned, eyes narrowing as he glanced at his sister and then at Shane, the disapproval almost palpable.

Dusty opened her mouth to tell him—about the dog, about saving Shane, about running up to the platform because it was the only safe place—but she’d promised. She’d crossed her heart. Her chest burned like the X on it was visible, carved into her skin.

“She was just showing me around.” Shane shrugged, not looking at her. “Pretty cool up there. You guys going swimming?”

“Yeah.” Nick looked relieved, taking off his shirt and tossing it aside. “I’m roasting. Let’s go in.”

“I think these are yours.” Tommy tossed Dusty's shorts to her.

She couldn’t say anything as she bent to pick them up. Nick watched her, eyes still slightly narrowed. She knew his face as well as she knew her own, maybe better. He was angry and something else—disappointed. Glancing at Shane, she couldn’t forget the delicious tightening feeling in her stomach and the tingling farther down below when he kissed her. She saw him looking at her, saw the look of confusion and indecision cross his features.

Then Nick turned to his new friend. “Shane? Coming in?”

Dusty felt him pass her, felt Shane’s dismissal in the way he put an arm casually around Nick’s shoulders as they walked toward the pond. She stood looking after them, incredulous, opening her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

Nick had chosen Shane over her.

And Shane had chosen Nick.

She’d been abandoned. Shut out.

She let her shorts drop and began to run, hating them all, but hating herself more. She hadn’t said a word, and she could have, easily. Nick would have believed her, would have listened to the story about the dog and her rescuing Shane and laughed. But she had promised. She had crossed her heart. She had kissed him up in the tree and had felt something she’d never experienced before.

So instead of saving herself, she kept quiet, unable to get that tingling sensation Shane's kiss had given her out of her mind.

Later that night, Nick had come into her room and had left her shorts and shoes at the end of her bed. She had never worn them again.

“So.” Shane looked at her as the radio played, radiating its eerie glow in the dimness.

The Mustang idled, headlights throwing twin beams of light across the gravel driveway onto the garage door. Dusty searched the upstairs windows for a sign of a face but saw nothing.

“Friday night?” he asked as she opened her door, catching her hand. A sudden wind invaded the warmth of the car and she shivered, but it wasn’t from cold. His hand on hers, reminding her of her promise, then and now, reminding her how much she wanted him, had always wanted him, made her tremble with longing.

“You’ll be gone until then?”

“Just a few days.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. “We’ve waited this long.”

She didn’t want to wait another minute, wanted to climb into his back seat and climb him like a tree, but Shane wouldn’t let her impulsive nature lead them. He’d urged her into the car and brought her home and told her he would take her to the cabin later in the week so they could be alone.

Really alone.

“Friday?” She hesitated and looked back over her shoulder at him. “Oh not Friday. I told Sam I’d have dinner with him.”

“Sam?” Shane raised his eyebrows.

“Just friends.” She smiled. “He’s sweet—and he’s got a giant crush on me.”

“I don’t blame him.” He grinned. “Saturday then?”

She nodded and couldn’t help stretching back over the seat to kiss him, tasting the sweet promise of the future on his lips. Shane took a long, deep breath as they parted, eyes still closed. He looked surprised to see her when he opened them, still there, smiling at him in the moonlight.

“Go, before I change my mind,” he urged.

“In that case…” She grinned, sliding a hand over his thigh, making him groan and push her toward the door.

“Go!”

She was walking up the gravel path to the front porch—Julia had left the light on—when she heard it. It was a low growl in the darkness from somewhere to her right—by the garage, maybe, or something hidden in the bushes flanking the flower beds. The sound paralyzed her, instantly raising the hair on the back of her neck. For a moment, she flashed back to that bright sunny day when Mako came rushing out of the underbrush ready to tear out Shane’s throat—or hers. Why be picky?

Except it was the middle of the night, the moon was bright behind a grove of trees across the road, and there was no tree house to escape to. Her keys trembled in her hands as she glanced back at the Mustang, still idling in the driveway, lights on—he was waiting, sweetly, for her to be safely inside before he left. The sound came again, this time ending with a high-pitched, wavering whine, like the animal was licking its chops in anticipation.

Whatever it was, it sounded hungry—but more than that. It sounded mad. Not angry, but rather insane. She’d never heard a sound like it before in her life, and she’d heard plenty of animals growl—out of fear or protection, either being territorial or as a warning. This was none of those, and the part of her that instantly knew it urged her to
run, run, run
, just like she had that day at the pond.

Yet she stood frozen, staring into the darkness, telling herself she was being silly, she was imagining things. There was nothing visible, after all, in the moonlight. Just that low, mad growl ending in a strange, wailing sort of howl. And she’d only heard it twice. Okay, now three times. It was the last time that got her moving, finally listening to the adrenaline pumping through her system.

Dusty bolted up the stairs, tripping on the broken one in her panic and terror, her body memory failing her, sending her sprawling onto the front porch. She might have made it if she hadn’t been wearing those damned heels. She heard two things—that rising growl and Shane’s shout. She didn’t hear his words or register their meaning but she instinctively did what he told her to—laid low and covered her head.

Behind her, the animal was moving fast, bounding up the steps, looming over her, and she knew it was just a matter of moments before it was on her. She flashed on what it must have been like for her brother in the cemetery being attacked, just like this, had a split second to think of him and his last moments alive, but when she thought for sure she was going to die the one person she couldn’t get out of her head was Shane. She closed her eyes, covered her head, and saw his face, heard his voice, felt his arms around her, and it filled her with such longing and a sense of loss it overpowered everything else.

Dusty cried out—she thought she might have called Shane’s name—when she heard a sharp cracking sound and felt the weight of the animal hit her back, full force. She struggled, gasping, rolling to push the animal off her in the darkness, fighting for her life, but not just hers—she was fighting for Shane too. Just like the day she had turned around to save him at the pond, only this time, it was her in danger—of losing him.

And this time, it was Shane who saved her.

He pulled the animal off and grabbed her by the shoulders, rolling her gently over.

“Are you hurt?” His face looked pale in the moonlight, eyes wide.

“Am I dead?” she whispered, glancing over at the furry mass beside them on the porch. “What is it?”

“Wolf.” Shane pulled her into his arms, checking her over with his hands. “God, I thought I might shoot you too. But what else could I do?”

“A wolf?” Dusty struggled to sit, staring down at a dark stain spreading on the animal’s silver fur. “I thought you said a wolf wouldn’t attack…?”

“Has to be rabid.” Shane was still checking her over. “Did it bite you anywhere?”

“No.” She had felt its breath on the back of her neck, but it was the wolf’s dying breath. Shane had shot it to save her life. She couldn’t help reaching out to touch it. It was a magnificent animal with wide shoulders and, she saw, very sharp teeth. Its eyes were still open, but glazed. “A rabid wolf… maybe this is what killed Nick?”

Shane didn’t respond, pulling her close now that he had sufficiently and satisfactorily checked her over for wounds. She let him cradle her in his arms, kiss her forehead, her cheek, her jaw, finally finding her lips, and the feel of him, so strong and solid, might have made her forget everything—even his silence, which she somehow was sure was a denial. He didn’t think this wolf had killed her brother. She knew it, even as she knew his kiss was both an impulsive action and a distraction.

But she reveled in it anyway, heart still racing, adrenaline pounding through her body, making her hands shake as she put her arms around his neck, her lips trembling against his. He whispered her name again and again as he nuzzled her neck, both of them kneeling on the porch beside the dead animal in the moonlight, unaware of anything except how they felt about each other in the moment, glad to be together, glad to be alive.

The outside world didn’t fully register again until Dusty’s stepmother pulled open the door, spilling a triangle of bright kitchen light onto the porch.

“Do you know what time it is?” Julia snapped, but whatever else she was going to say disappeared in a gasp when she saw the dead animal on the porch. “Is that… a dog?”

“Wolf.” Shane stood, offering Dusty his hand, and she let him pull her to her feet. She leaned against him, finding she wasn’t very steady. “I think it was rabid. It went to attack Dusty.”

“Good gracious.” Julia looked between the three of them—Shane, Dusty, the wolf—like she wasn’t sure what to make of it. Then her eyes widened. “Rabid? Did it bite you?”

“I’m fine,” Dusty assured her.

“I should call the sheriff. Maybe this is what killed…” Julia’s voice trailed off, not saying Nick’s name, but they all knew who she meant.

“No.” Shane shook his head and Dusty felt his arms tighten around her. “It wasn’t.”

“How can you know that?” Julia scoffed.

Dusty glanced up at him, his jaw tight. He seemed so sure. Of course, if the trap he had been setting that day he found her in the cemetery was any indication, he was clearly thinking it was something far bigger. But how did he know?

“Because Nick had no trace of rabies in his system,” Shane reminded them.

“Oh.”Julia’s face fell. “Well come inside, Dusty.”

Of course they would have tested him. It seemed a perfectly logical explanation. So why didn’t she quite believe Shane when he said it?

“Just call the sheriff in the morning,” Shane advised. “He’ll call animal control over in Millsberg to come get it.”

She met his eyes. Dusty knew there would be plenty of questions in the morning—especially about Shane carrying around a concealed weapon. Buck Thompson would jump at the chance to pin something, anything, on Shane Curtis, even if what he had done had saved a life. The wolf had been shot, but Julia hadn’t seen anything. Maybe, Dusty thought, she could come up with a story that would keep Shane out of trouble.