Holly's Heart Collection Two (42 page)

“Hot…pit,” I muttered, fanning my face with my limp hand. “Horrible.”

Waves of heat surrounded me. I sank into them.

“Holly-Heart.” A familiar voice spoke my name.

I was too weak to respond, but I felt a cool palm against my feverish brow. Lightly, gently, she pushed back wisps of my hair, and the touch of her hand made my eyes flutter open.

“Oh, Mom…it’s you.”

Nearly incoherent, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. The way her hand felt against my forehead—like the brush of an angel’s wing. And then the sudden stream of cool water on my tongue. It was heaven, all right. Heaven on earth.

“Andie, help me get her into the van,” I heard Mom say. She said it with the sweetness of one who could be trusted to take care of me. Mom was like that. I could count on her.

I strained to hear her voice. But it came and went like a poor phone connection.

“Holly, can…you hear…me?”

I tried to let her know I could, but my voice wasn’t working. Nothing was.

She was talking to me again, but she sounded frightfully distant. As hard as I tried, I knew in my foggy state her voice was fading fast.

And then…it was gone.

NO GUYS PACT

Chapter 7

I drifted in and out, slightly aware of a plastic straw being propped between my parched lips. “Here, try to take a sip, Holly.”

Straining to look up at the source of the voice, I was surprised to see Stan. Where had he come from? I sipped some cool water as I tried to get my bearings.

“Next time, why don’t you use your brain and come in when it gets too hot,” he scolded.

“Wha-at?” I mumbled drowsily, looking around.

Strange.

I found myself lying on the living room sofa. “Where’s Mom?” I asked, pushing stray strands of hair away from my face.

Stan squatted beside me. “She and Andie are out delivering cookies.”

I sighed. “What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “One-thirty. Why?”

“Guess I oughta eat something.”

“You’re right; you should.” He got up and hurried off to the kitchen like he was the big man in charge.

He shuffled around with utensils and things, and that’s when I decided he should make my lunch every single day for the rest of the summer. I wanted to punish him for the miserable way he’d abandoned Andie and me this morning.

While I waited for lunch, I thought about asking him why he hadn’t shown up earlier. But I decided it was the wrong time. I wouldn’t bring it up. Instead, I’d play the noble martyr and make him feel like the heel he was.

Stan himself brought up the subject when he returned, balancing a paper plate filled with chips and a tuna sandwich. “Uh, sorry about this morning,” he said rather feebly, handing me the lunch. “Got a little sidetracked.”

I avoided his gaze and picked at the chips, fuming inside.

“Hey, I said I was sorry…what do you want me to do, bleed?”

Then I blurted out what I hadn’t really wanted to say. “Well, if you’d helped us like you promised, instead of spacing out at the arcade, I wouldn’t be feeling so lousy right now.”

There, I said it.

Silence reigned for a moment. Then he got up and started to walk away. “Look, girl, from now on make your plans without me,” he sneered.

I nearly choked. “It was your idea to help make deliveries, remember?
Your
idea!”

His only response was silence. Some stepbrother he was. But I figured, par for the course. After all, he couldn’t help it; he was a guy!

Much later, when Mom and Andie returned, I was still peeved at the way the day had turned out. I wasn’t very good company. Not for Andie, not for anyone. And my sunburn felt hotter than ever.

When Mom cornered Stan in the kitchen, I heard every word between them. “I want you to get out there and finish up those deliveries for Holly,” she said sternly. “And when you get back from camp, you will be grounded for one week.”

“But, Mom,” he whined. He sounded just like Carrie and Stephie.

I snickered, scrunching down in the sofa next to Andie.

Mom continued, “You have an obligation to fulfill your promise to your sister and Andie.” She wasn’t budging on this, and I secretly applauded. “Now, I don’t want to hear anything more out of you, or I’ll add another day to your grounding.”

When the kitchen encounter was over, Stan turned things around and acted like some kind of hero. Probably for Andie’s benefit. Not for mine. I couldn’t care less about his sudden change of attitude except that it meant our baked goods were going to get to our customers as promised.

My veins pulsed with anger. The idea to raise money for Amy-Liz Thompson had been my idea. Now Stan was waving like a valiant soldier before he headed out the door to make the rest of our deliveries. His schizoid behavior was back, for sure!

“Who does he think he is?” Andie said as we watched from the living room window.

I scowled at Stan even though he couldn’t see me. “He’s so-o disgusting.”

“Worse,” Andie hissed.

I turned to look at her. “You two still together?”

“Barely.” She shrugged flippantly. “All he wants to do is play those mindless arcade games and brag about ‘the virtues of virtual reality.’ I really wonder whether it’s worth being tied down to such a shallow guy.”

“Especially since camp’s almost here.” I giggled, starting to feel much better just thinking about the possibility of the male options at Camp Ouray.

“Exactly,” Andie agreed.

Carrie and Stephie showed up just then. “How much money did you make?” Carrie asked, eyeing the leather money pouch Uncle Jack had loaned us for the occasion.

“Let’s count it,” Andie said with a sparkle in her smile.

“Hey,” I said to Andie, “sounds like you’re actually excited about this project after all.” After my words slipped out, I realized how insinuating they sounded.

“Don’t give me that,” she shot back. “Just because I didn’t nearly sacrifice my life and die on the blazing sidewalks of Dressel Hills doesn’t mean I didn’t do my part!”

“Okay, okay.” I dumped the dollars out on the coffee table. Then I handed the loose change to Carrie and Stephie, who spread the coins out on the living room carpet and took turns counting it.

Together, the four of us tallied up the proceeds. By the time we subtracted the money for all the ingredients and the boxes we had to buy at the uptown baker, there was enough money to send not only Amy-Liz to church camp, but one more!

That, of course, is when Carrie got the not-so-bright idea to pass herself off as a teenager. “I could go to youth camp, don’tcha think?” She pulled her hair up and strutted around the room.

“Don’t think so,” Andie sang. “Besides, you don’t want to go to camp—there’ll be boys there.”

Carrie sassed back, “Maybe that’s why I wanna go.”

“Well, you’ll just have to wait,” Andie replied quickly. “Pastor Rob wants kids to be thirteen before they join youth group.”

Carrie moaned.

“What’s your hurry?” I asked, remembering Mom’s typical response to me when it came to the subject of dating.

Carrie sat on the floor, letting her blond hair cascade down her back. “There’s a cute boy in the group.”

I gasped. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope,” she said with a straight face. “I’m ready to start dating. I nearly choked. “Better not say that around Mom.”

“And besides,” Andie piped up, “boys aren’t as cool as you think.” She looked at me with her all-knowing grin. “Right, Holly?”

After a zillion and one hints, Carrie and Stephie finally left the room so Andie and I could talk privately. Not only were we thinking identical thoughts where the guys were concerned, but her finger was doing its twirly thing with her curls, which meant one thing: The male church youth population was in very big trouble!

The following morning I boarded the city bus, the money pouch safely in hand. Andie and I had agreed to meet Pastor Rob at the church. He would see to it that the money we’d earned got to the church treasurer in plenty of time. Then he would notify Amy-Liz and her folks about the church scholarship, allowing us to remain anonymous. It was perfect.

Andie joined me several blocks down. The minute she boarded the bus, I could tell by her face that she had bad news.

“What’s up?” I asked.

She bounced into the seat. “More boy trouble,” she said. Then she proceeded to tell me the latest about Paula Miller’s hassles with her guy friend, Billy Hill. “She says he’s forgetting to show up when they have plans, and other stuff.”

“How rude!”

“I know,” she said. “But the worst thing is he’s paying more attention to her twin than to her.”

“Sounds perfectly awful,” I said.

“Wanna know my theory?” She frowned. “The guys around here are simply spoiled rotten. Spoiled brats—that’s what.”

“But Billy Hill…I thought—”

“Better think again. He’s turning out to be just like the others.” She lowered her voice. “And just for the record, I called it quits with Stan last night…for leaving us in the lurch yesterday. And for making you faint dead away from heat exhaustion.”

I stared at Andie, shocked. “I wondered why he was hoarding the phone too long last night.”

She shrugged, acting like she didn’t care. But her words told another story. “Did he say anything?” she said, almost too casually.

“What do you care?” I teased. “You’re the one who ended it, right?”

She sighed. “Sometimes it’s just nice to know the other person feels some of the pain, too.” She sat up straight and as tall as she could for being inches under five feet. One thing for sure, though, she looked fired up and determined to follow through with her decision.

I tried to encourage her. “It’s really much better this way. You need to be available—without a guy friend—when camp starts. You just never know who might show up.”

“Maybe…” She took a deep breath. The situation between her and Stan wasn’t quite as simple as she’d tried to make it sound.

“Sounds to me like the whole youth group’s falling apart,” I said, “at least in the boy-girl department.”

Andie nodded pensively, and I knew by her silence she wasn’t wild about discussing anything pertaining to guys.

When our church came into view, we got off the bus. I clutched the money pouch as we strolled up the sidewalk toward the administrative wing.

At the corner, waiting to cross the street, we spotted Kayla Miller. Instead of looking fabulous, as usual, she looked rather pathetic. And even though I’d once used “pathetic” to describe her sister, Paula, this time I meant the word in a completely different way. Something was very wrong with Kayla.

It didn’t take long for Andie to notice. “Hey,” she said, giving me a quick nod of her head when Kayla wasn’t looking. The gesture meant we should hang around and talk. Cheer her up.

“Hey, yourself,” Kayla said, forcing a smile. “Are you pleased with the outcome of your pastry sales?”

The Miller twins always talked like they were fresh out of another century. But Andie and I were used to it; it was no big deal anymore.

“Fabulous results,” I responded, more interested in finding out why she had wet mascara streaks down her usually perfectly made-up face. “Are you okay?”